A Prairie Song by Charles D. Phillips

SBF is happy to welcome Charles D. Phillips to our stables. As you can see in his bio, he is no newcomer to the genre and has been published many times. It is our honor to have him at our campfire.

(1879)

The day took its bad turn when Jake saw a lone Southern Comanche, or maybe Kiowa, brave on a low ridge to his left. One Indian alone on a ridge didn’t seem like a problem, but Jake’s years on the prairie had taught him better. On the high plains of North Texas, there was no such thing as only one Indian, and you never saw an Indian unless he wanted you to see him. Finally, all Indians on these plains hated buffalo hunters like Jake Pardue, especially braves who’d slipped away from their barren reservations to the east back into what had once been their band’s hunting grounds.

“Paco,” said Jake, “looks like this day mighta just headed off in the wrong direction.”

Up to then, the day had been something approaching glorious. With a two-day ride left to Buffalo Gap, last night Jake found a pleasant camp site where a wet creek pooled, creating a good stand of mesquite and cottonwoods. Just that morning he’d given Paco, his buckskin gelding, a thorough brushing that knocked a week’s trail grit from his coat. Breakfast was the last of Jake’s bacon, a pan of biscuits, and boiled coffee. A good, slow breakfast in soft shade, while Paco grazed on bottom grass, was a rare luxury for the pair. The canteens he filled the night before and the remaining biscuits and bacon would, Jake knew, last until he and Paco reached their destination.

The rest of the crew was already at The Gap. Their wagons had been piled high with the buffalo hides they’d taken farther up on The Staked Plains, so Jake knew he had good money waiting at Buffalo Gap. The crew was probably still trying to drink all the whiskey there and take all the cardsharps’ money. He just hoped enough whiskey was left to wash the caliche dust out of his mouth.

Last week Paco came up lame, and Jake had been forced to stay behind when the crew broke camp. Paco’s left foreleg had swollen and heated up right above the fetlock, just where Waco Jackson’s crazy-assed mule had kicked Paco out of sheer meanness. Jackson claimed that because Paco had bitten his mule’s hindquarters he’d brought it on himself. But Jake knew that only a mule as stupid as Waco’s would have gotten between Paco and that fresh grain.

Some men favored mules on the trail. Jake saw it as the choice of contrarians like Waco who somehow took pride in riding an ugly plug. Jake was no contrarian. Paco’s coal-black legs, tail, and mane stood out sharply against the remainder of his light tan coat. Paco’s combination of beauty, speed, and endurance power made Jake the envy of almost every cowboy he met. All those cowboys agreed that no buff hunter needed a horse that good. But no matter how drunk or broke, Jake refused to sell Paco or make a bet that included his saddle horse. If money was short, Paco was always fed first.

After a few days rest, Jake and Paco started their long trek down off the Staked Plains. Their pace was slow and leisurely. It exercised but never taxed Paco’s swollen foreleg. After their luxurious morning spent in the cool shade, they’d been braving the day’s heat to make a decent dent in the distance to The Gap.

All that morning’s pleasure and plans for The Gap disappeared like smoke in strong wind when Jake had seen that young brave. Jake decided it had to be a raiding party. The peaceful Comanche and Kiowa were on their reservations quietly dying in considerable numbers from cholera, typhoid, or starvation, while the U.S Cavalry and good Christian missionaries looked on.

Jake knew he had few choices. Continuing down the shallow valley he had entered on his way to higher ground was clearly a bad idea. Hard-earned experience in The War taught him, just like it taught all those dying boys who faced his unit at Gettysburg, that holding low ground meant holding the killing ground for all eternity.

Jake needed higher ground. A healthy Paco would’ve outrun Indian ponies in the valley or along the ridgelines, but Paco wasn’t healthy. Jake could’ve turned Paco away from the brave toward the low ridge to the right. Unfortunately, that lone brave was probably trying to herd them into the rest of his raiding party waiting just on the backside of that ridge.

No matter what he did, he vehemently cussed himself for acting like a honyoker, a greenhorn. He realized he might lose his hair because he had chosen to take the easy trail down off the Staked Plains. Had he made another choice, he’d have faced harder trails and more dry camps, but he’d also have had less of chance of running into renegades fresh off the rez, looking for trouble.

On top of that, he’ been caught taking a short-cut thru a shallow valley set-off by two low ridges. Jake shook his head, tugged lightly on the reins and brought Paco to a halt, took up one of his canteens, washed out his mouth, spit to one side, and then took a good swallow. He took off the battered campaign hat that he had worn for going on longer than he could remember. He wiped his forehead. The sweat glistened on the palm of his hand, and he sighed deeply.

“Well, Paco,” he said, “I guess I pretty much dropped us into a hole. Just don’t know yet how damned deep it is, do we, boy.”

In this land a man never knew when he was making a life or death decision, so he needed to act like every decision was life or death. Jake hadn’t done that, and now it was time to put a price tag on his failure in judgment. He re-settled his hat and put his canteen away.

“Compadre,” said Jake, “guess it’s time to find out what acting like a honyoker is gonna cost us. Why don’t we just head on up that ridge and see what our new ridin’ buddy has in mind.”

Jake turned Paco to the left. They’d crowd their shadow and see what happened. It was the quickest way to see just how bad the situation truly was. Like many other hunters, Jake carried two .50 caliber Sharps breech-loading buffalo guns. He’d carried a .52 caliber Sharps in The War, and he liked the Sharps double triggers. They reduced the inaccuracy caused by the longer pull on a single-trigger, an important thing for a professional killer. His rifles rested in scabbards on either side of his saddle. Pulling one Sharps, Jake set its butt on his thigh and cocked it. Paco and Jake then began a slow ascent on a path designed to intercept the brave’s progress.

When they began moving toward him, the brave kicked his pony and rode directly at Jake, screaming a war cry and waving his lance. This meant the brave’s job was to drive Jake toward the opposite ridge into the remainder of the raiding party. Jake could’ve let the young brave with his scalp-less bridle and short, undecorated lance pass, but this was going to be a battle. Young, inexperienced braves killed you, too.

Sliding off Paco on the side away from his attacker, Jake ordered Paco still and laid the Sharps across the saddle seat. He pulled the first trigger and just touched the second very lightly. The oncoming brave flew backwards off his pony like someone had just roped him from behind with a rope tied-off to a big river oak. The rider-less pony dashed madly past him, and Jake then heard war cries from the opposite ridge. The braves he now knew were Southern Comanche rode down the opposite ridge toward him at breakneck speed. There were more than twenty of them.

Jake slid the empty rifle into its scabbard, moved to the opposite side of Paco, and drew his unfired rifle. Another brave died, absorbing the shock of a bullet that could’ve stopped a charging buffalo. His third shot struck home as well, and the attack began to falter. They’d expected to fly up on him as he fumbled to reload like some frantic farmer with ten thumbs and a bad case of the tremors. But Jake reloaded his Sharps with quick, efficient movements practiced all day long at deadly places like Chancellorsville.

The Comanche turned and galloped back toward the opposite ridge. Some raced their ponies erratically from side to side. Hugging on their ponies’ necks or hanging off on the side opposite him, others cut angles away from him. A few braves fired their rifles over their shoulders or from below their ponies’ necks as they rode for cover. Before they all disappeared, Jake managed one more shot that took down another brave as his horse topped the opposite ridge.

As he moved Paco to the backside of his ridge, Jake said, “Guess that only leaves us a mite under 20 young bucks who want my hair, and who aren’t gonna come screaming straight at us like hellions next time they decide they wanna fight. I lived all the way thru The War with Reb artillery shells and minie balls flying through the air at me all over Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Now, I get stuck up on a dry ridge in Texas with a bunch of red Indians lookin’ to take my hair. On top of that, I got you in this mess, too.”

He turned and looked at Paco, “ ‘course, there is the matter of you bitin’ that damned mule, but to be honest I never cared much for that splay-footed, knock-kneed piece of mule skin myself.”

It didn’t seem fair. Unfortunately, fair and unfair didn’t come into it. On those forlorn plains at the southern tip of The Great American Desert, a man fought and killed and lived or died because of his own or someone else’s bad or good judgment or good or bad luck. At times, life or death depended on something as simple as a good breakfast and a belly full of sweet bottom grass. Jake knew there was no running to be done. With Paco’s foreleg all swollen, he was pretty much afoot.

As he watched the opposite ridge, he said, “Guess we just wait and see what happens. If the Comanch come back after the hidin’ I just gave’em, then they aint’ gonna be turning tail any time soon and headin’ back to the rez. They’ll be stayin’ on ‘til they’ve settled our hash.”

As he looked toward the far ridge, braves began slipping over it and moving from one bit of cover to another. They’d dismounted. A horse was too big a target for the marksman Jake had shown them he was. Those braves not moving fired at his position to protect other braves while they moved. A few braves with single-shot buffalo guns, probably taken from the kit of men like Jake, remained on the far ridge. They fired relatively steadily and, gratefully, inaccurately. All this was truly bad news. Jake had seen these tactics too often in The War when he was wearing the green uniform of one of Colonel’s Berdan’s sharpshooters.

“Oh, damn it to Hell, Paco,” said Jake, “it looks like we got us a band of renegades led by some veterano.”

The young braves’ movements had shown Jake that they were led by an experienced brave who’d learned far too much from the mounted infantry fighting on the frontier. At the moment, their fire from near the far ridge was relatively ineffective. Unfortunately, it would improve as the braves deployed as skirmishers closed, and the renegades on the ridge worked out the range.

Jake knew he was more of a rifleman than any of the braves, but he also knew they could generate a volume of fire he couldn’t match. Their fire would soon force him to take cover, allowing different portions of the band to move up under strong covering fire. They could be made to pay dearly, but in the end, his battle was already lost. In the few hours before dusk, they’d have his life, his guns, and his horse.

From behind cover, Jake killed man after man in The War. Now, as he crouched just at the backside of that barren ridge, he surprised himself. With his sharpshooter skills, he’d killed men at a distance. At point-blank range, Jake killed dozens of Rebs when they charged up the left salient of Cemetery Ridge trying to reach the Union artillery making such a bloody mess of them. He’d even killed a man with a Bowie knife in an argument over a card game.

What surprised Jake now was his absolute certainty he had no stomach for another fight like those battles back East. He had no desire to use his rifles to cut through men like a scythe through a cornfield. If doing that would save Paco and him, then he would have done it without batting an eye. But, eight, maybe ten, well-aimed rounds a minute was all he could muster, and that just wasn’t enough. Jake killed men to stay alive, and he killed buff to put food on the table and money in his pockets. Long ago Jake decided he wouldn’t kill other men just because he could. That decision gave him little choice.

“Paco, old pardner, we got no way out.” He grabbed the buckskin’s muzzle and continued, “I’m as good as dead. You’re busted up. But, I’m not lettin’ some Comanch ride you into the ground on your bad leg and then cook you up for supper. I’m damned sorry I got us into this mess.”

Rising, he grabbed Paco’s reins and pulled him to the top of the ridge. Yanking his Bowie knife from the scabbard hanging around his neck, he swiped its finely-honed blade across Paco’s throat and used the reins as well as his own body weight to pull Paco down onto his side. Then he laid both rifles across Paco’s twitching withers and touched Paco’s muzzle for a moment. Jake’s bad judgment made him kill Paco, and it was going to kill him as well. His anger and sadness exploded. Those braves wouldn’t die at his hand, but he would be damned if he’d leave them any trophies to carry back to their tribe.

He dipped his fingers in the blood flowing from Paco’s neck, and then he drew wet fingers down both his cheeks and stood up behind Paco’s body. He held up his dripping fingers for the Comanche to see.

“This,” he called down, “is the blood of Paco, a war pony better than any you’ll ever see. He is wounded, and I killed him rather than let him be taken by a bunch of women like you. His heart is so powerful and his medicine so strong that his meat will poison you.”

Jake grabbed one of the two hair braids that fell to the middle of his back. “But you Comanch like scalps, doncha? How about a fine, yellow-haired scalp for your bridle or maybe your lodge pole? Well, here you have it.” Hacking at his long braids with the knife still wet with Paco’s blood, he threw the chopped up braids down the ridge.

Pulling his blouse over his head and holding it up high, he said, “Look at this buckskin. That’s fine Lakota beadwork on skin as soft as butter. I traded for this blouse when I was huntin’ the northern herd with Cody, Hickok, and Mooar. It’s a beauty, and here’s how you get it,”

Jake cut it to pieces and pitched the shreds down the slope after his chopped-up braids. He did the same to the saddlebags he’d brought west with him.

Finally, taking off his black hat, he called, “I took this hat, a Hardee Hat, off the ground at Gettysburg where those Wisconsin boys in the Iron Brigade spilled damn near all their blood for Union. It comes from my tribe’s holy ground. None of you deserves to wear it.”

He finished with the hat and threw the pieces up in the air. By that time, though he was still breathing as if he had run all the way to that ridge from The Staked Plains, Jake’s anger at himself, at his fate, at Paco’s death, and at the Comanche was spent. As he had stood, ranting, tearing at himself and his possessions, firing from the Comanche had fallen away to nothing.

Jake leaned forward and dipped his fingers in the pool of Paco’s drying blood. Across his bare chest, he drew four horizontal crimson streaks that stood out starkly against the pale skin of his chest, which contrasted so strongly with his browned face and hands. Picking up both Sharps, he nestled the rifle butts into his hips and stood with one boot on Paco’s flank as his breathing came back under control.

Then, in a rich, strong baritone trained in his Daddy’s church choir a lifetime ago, Jake Pardue began to sing the way he’d sung as a young man before The War took him and before he became a professional killer of two-legged and four-legged prey.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, now am found, was.…”

As they remained behind cover, the braves reloaded, chanted softly to themselves, touched their medicine pouches, and prepared for the final rush at this warrior with his quick guns and strong medicine. As the braves made ready, they listened patiently. Their attack came only after they allowed the white warrior to finish his strange, haunting death song.


END

Charles D. Phillips is a native Texan and a public health professional living and teaching in College Station, Texas. His short fiction has appeared in Flashshot, flashquake, HeavyGlow, Long Story Short, The Angler, Static Movement, Toasted Cheese, and The Vestal Review. His Old West short stories have appeared in The Copperfield Review and Rope and Wire. Smoke Box will publish his short story, Bourbon and the Blues in fall, 2009 and one of his essays in winter, 2010. Clockwise Cat will publish two of his essays in fall, 2009. His essays have also appeared in Bent Magazine, Events Weekly, and Touchstone Magazine. KEOS 89.1FM Community Radio for the Brazos Valley regularly airs his radio commentaries on politics and current social issues. His short fiction has been nominated for StorySouth’s 2009 Million Writer Award, the Pushcart Prize, 2009 and for inclusion in the Best of the Web, 2009.

Bodie Ghost Town

Bodie Ghost Town has been designated as California's 'Official' ghost town. I'm not really sure what that means, but don't let it stop you from visiting this historic piece of western history. Located just outside Mammoth, California, this town is being kept in an 'arrested state of decay', meaning the town is not being restored, but is being kept from deteriorating further. It is well worth the drive. Here are a few images from my recent trip.





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Call for Stories!

That's right, I'm looking for writers who are brave enough to take on the western! You may have noticed the lack of activity here on SBF. Well, we are having a hard time finding writers who can spin a good yarn. So fire up the computer and tell some tall tales already! Keep the faith, gentle readers, more westerns are on the way.

Bill's Ranch!

Are you ever at work when that feeling comes over you? You know the one...all you want to do is put on the cowboy gear, strap on the holsters and head out to the ranch? Well here is a good way to get that fix while you are supposed to be working...just don't let the boss catch you!

Bill's Ranch is an entertaining, virtual way to play cowboy when going out and actually doing it is not an option. Take a look, play for a while and I'll bet you'll get hooked! Just go to www.billsranch.com and tell 'em I sent ya!


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REDEMPTION by Bill WIlbur

I love the theme of friends on opposite sides of a fight. They know each other too well, they may even respect each other, but that doesn't change what has to be done. This story was a test of that theme, which will be a big part of my new book.

The sky, orange as the flames in a wood stove, backlit the man in the doorway. The figure was not overly tall, but his broad shoulders nearly filled the frame. Sheriff Jim Stein’s eyes took a moment to adjust, when they did he saw the twin barrels of a shotgun pointed in his general direction.

“Hello, Jim.” The husky, dry voice floated out from the face of shadows as the shotgun swung to a more definite angle. “Now you jest take’er easy.” The gunman looked around as he entered and sat across from the sheriff.

Stein leaned back in his chair. “Cooper Logan. I been hopin’ you was dead.” He took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. “But I knew better. I knew you’d show up in my town sooner or later. You’ve made quite a name for yourself.” Striking a match, he lit the tobacco and took a long, deep pull before looking up. “I’ve got markers on you that stretch as far back as Montana. Some don’t look much like you, but they all got your scar.” Shaking out the flame, he flicked the match at the gunman. “Hell, I could paper the floor with your wanted posters. Would have too if I’d known you was comin’. I shoulda killed you when we was kids.” He nodded toward the door. “This here’s a peaceful town, it don’t deserve the likes of you smellin’ up the place.”

“Then it’d be to your benefit to hear me out so’s I can move along and let you get back to your citified ways.” When the sheriff said nothing, Logan continued. “I need a favor, and I figure you owe me one.”

Stein remained silent for a time and then burst out laughing. “A favor! By God if that don’t beat all!” He leaned forward over the desk. “Cooper, if you weren’t holdin’ that scattergun they’d be pickin’ your body up off the street by now.”
Logan’s voice was calm.

“Good thing I brought ‘er then, ain’t it?” He rested the barrel on the edge of the desk. “You remember when we was kids? You remember Clement’s Peak? I hadn’t been there, you’d a gone over the edge. I hadn’t grabbed your wrist, they’d a picked you up with a shovel. You remember?”

“I was there, wasn’t I? Hell, I gave you that scar on your cheek that day,” the sheriff blurted, gazing out into the street. The sun was near to full set. His movements slow and deliberate, Stein struck a match on the wall and lit the lantern on his desk. “Course I remember.”

“You owe me a life is what I’m sayin’.”

“You ain’t worth saving, Cooper.” Stein blew smoke at the gunman, and crushed his cigarette out on the corner of his desk. “The things you done, those women over in Colorado, that family...Hell, even if I wanted to excuse all that...”

“I ain’t asking for absolution. Besides, it ain’t my life needs saving.” Logan pushed back into the shadows away from the lantern’s glow. He set the stock of the shotgun on the wooden floor and stared hard at his tattered boots. “Most of us Logans, we don’t deserve the breath God gave us. We been bad from the start. I didn’t do all them things I been credited with.” He looked up. “But I done most of ‘em.” His steady eyes sought understanding, but not forgiveness. “There’s one don’t deserve the name’a Logan, leastways she ain’t never done nothin’ to be branded with it.”

“Kate.” Much of his childhood lay distant and hazy in his mind, but Stein remembered everything about Kate Logan. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her crooked smile and the way the sunlight glinted off her blonde hair. He remembered the soft, sweet smell of her skin, courtesy of the lilac water she sometimes bathed in. But sharpest of all in his memory was the way she could look at you just right. That look made your world brighter. You’d sell your soul to have her look at you that way twice.

“She’s in trouble, Jim. She’s with child and mixed up with the wrong man. He lays hands on her. Damn near killed her a time or two. She wrote me this here letter. It took a long time to find me, but when it did I came straight here.” He pulled a wrinkled paper from his shirt pocket and held it out. “I ain’t got nobody I can ask ‘cept you.”

Stein rose from behind his desk and snatched the letter. Slowly, he rolled another cigarette and lit it. Drawing the smoke into his lungs, he held it there a moment and then exhaled while he read the note. He gripped the parchment so tight he was afraid it would crumble in his fingers. Kate was in trouble, and here was Cooper Logan asking for help from the one man who might give a damn. Stein’s mind flashed a hundred different memories of long ago. Kate playing the Indian princess, her laughter like music on a summer morning, the games they’d played, the solitary kiss they’d shared. He and Cooper had always fought. As kids they wound up on opposite sides of damn near everything. It was Kate who held them together.

He dropped the letter into Cooper’s lap. “Just so we’re clear,” Stein said. “I could give a coon’s ass about you. I’d as soon string you up as look at you. But if Kate needs help, I’ll ride with you.”

* * *

The cabin lay far back in the Gila wilderness just south of Apache Creek. During their four-day journey, Logan explained that Kate had come west looking for him and found instead a miner by the name of Nubbins Cane. She was smitten instantly. Cane flashed a lot of gold dust around and they lived on high for a time. But when the creek ran dry, so did the good times. Nubbins took work guarding other miner’s claims, and started beating Kate to make himself feel better. She was pregnant by then, and she’d opened a laundry in their home that serviced the mining camps. The business boomed and the money she made soon amounted to more than Cane had ever taken out of the ground, so he quit working and invited his two brothers to live with them – both hardened criminals. Kate didn’t like it but was too afraid to speak up for fear of losing her child.

Instead she’d sent for Cooper, and Cooper had come for Stein. The plan was simple. They’d wait until the moon was high in the night sky. When the cabin was quiet, and they were sure the men were asleep, they’d raid the house and Cooper would sneak Kate out while the sheriff stood watch. If someone heard them and stirred the pot, they’d shoot their way out.

The summer heat hovered stubbornly in the air as they lay on their bellies beneath a thick grove of Pine trees and watched the cabin. Candle light flickered in the windows as dusk settled in the valley. Deep, raucous laughter drifted to their ears when the front door opened and Kate stepped onto the porch to empty a bucket of water. She stared up into the twilight until someone inside shouted at her to ‘Shut the damn door.’

Cooper slid to his left and rolled into a sitting position at the base of an old cottonwood. “I tried to go straight a coupl’a times.” He picked at a stalk of wheatgrass. “I went to Colorado, took on a new name, started punchin cows.” Cooper looked up, “But once a man is used to riding in the whirlwind...well...people ain’t always willin to let you stop. His expression turned hard and he nodded toward the cabin. “Things go bad in there,” he said. “You get Kate out.” He nodded when Stein looked up at him. “You do it, Jim. Don’t even turn around to look for me, you just get her safe. I’ll be right behind you if I can, and if I can’t, well, either way it don’t matter long as you get her out.”

Stein nodded and slowly got to his feet. He leaned back against a tree trunk and stared down at the cabin. He needed a cigarette.

“I ain’t done many things right in my life.” Cooper tipped his hat back. “But this...this is one time I won’t screw up.”

The moon rose leisurely overhead as they waited. They remained silent long after the last candle in the cabin was snuffed out. In the distance they heard coyotes at play, while nearby a woodpecker hammered feverishly for grubs. Logan stood and silently pulled off his boots. “You ready?” he whispered.

“Let’s get her.” Jim removed his ropers and adjusted his gun belt. He started toward the cabin when the barrel of Cooper’s shotgun stopped him.

“Take this. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll come at us all bunched up.”

“Maybe they won’t come at us at all.” Jim said. But they both knew different.
They approached the cabin in silence fifty feet apart and from different angles, ascending the porch steps one at a time, and reached the door without incident. The slat-levered handle moved freely and Jim eased the door open an inch. When nothing happened, he pushed the door inward, bracing himself for gunfire. The room was dark and quiet. Jim motioned with his head and Cooper nodded. In a low crouch, he entered first with the sheriff at his heels. Inside they fanned left and right, taking up positions on opposite sides of the door.

Kate lay sleeping on a cot in the common room and Cooper went to her. Kneeling down he placed a hand softly over her mouth. She came awake instantly, her eyes flashing fear. But just as quickly, recognition dawned and she wrapped her arms around her brother’s neck.

Stein watched the bedroom doors, but could not resist glancing at Kate every other second. The moonlight cast an angelic glow as it shone off her hair. “We need to move,” he whispered to Logan.

Cooper helped Kate to her feet, one hand gently guiding her swollen belly, and together they crossed to the door with the sheriff leading the way. After a few steps across the porch, they descended the stairs carefully, moving as quickly as Kate’s advanced condition allowed. Her belly had swelled considerably, and her steps were slow and deliberate. They’d made the bottom step when a voice boomed in the darkness.

“Where you goin’, Big Brother?” From around the side of the house came a mountain of a man. His dark eyes were lifeless in the moonlight. His face was shaped like a rattler, wide at the temples and ending in a pointed chin sporting a few strands of kinked, wire-thin hair. “That there’s my woman.”

Cooper lowered Kate to the step and stood just to the left and behind Stein. Without a word, he reached around, snatched the shotgun from the sheriff and grabbed the back of Stein’s gun belt, pulling him close. “Hello, Cane.”

Nubbins Cane stepped into the yard. “What the hell’re you up to, Logan?”
Cooper gripped Jim’s gun belt tighter from behind and forced the sheriff down the steps into the dirt toward Cane. “I come to take my sister.”

Nubbins chuckled. It was a sound completely absent of mirth. “And I say she ain’t going nowhere.”

“I brung you a trade.” Cooper held the shotgun under Stein’s chin, pressing the barrel hard against his old friend’s throat. “This here’s the man killed Billy.”
Cane sneered, and suddenly Jim remembered. It had been nearly six years since young Billy Cane, Nubbins’ baby brother, a two-bit horse thief and rustler, had graduated to murder, killing a farmer and his family. Stein had known them, they were good people, and so he’d tracked Billy down and killed him where he found him.

Cane the elder came closer, locking his gaze with the sheriff. “Well now, that would make for some interesting horse tradin.” He smiled again, showing rotted teeth. “I been hoping to repay that. Billy was only twenty-two. Too young”

“He was old enough to murder them folks. Old enough to pay for what he done.” Jim matched Cane’s stare, unblinking. Anger welled up inside him. He could feel the cold metal of the shotgun press harder against his throat. He’d trusted Cooper Logan one last time, and it was one time too many. “I shoulda killed you, Cooper,” he said over his shoulder. “Should have slit your throat back when we was kids.”

"Cooper.” Kate touched her brother’s arm. “Not like this.” She said. “Jim’s our friend. You can’t.”

Cane brayed laughter, but Cooper ignored him. “Kate, saddle a horse from the corral, let the others loose and then ride away from here. You remember where I broke my arm that time when we was kids? You remember that old tree? Go there and wait for me. Wait two days. If I don’t come, then leave, just get away, but don’t ever come back here.”

Her face held a look of sadness. “You can’t do this, Cooper.” She looked at Nubbins Cane, resting a protective arm across her belly. “I’ll stay here. I’ll do the cooking and the cleaning. I’ll lay with you like before, just let them go and I’ll stay with you.” To Cooper she said, “Not like this. I’d rather stay with him than leave like this.” A haunted smile crossed her lips. “He came with you – he came for me when I needed help. He is our friend, Cooper.”

“No Kate, he was your friend, a long time ago. You got to go, Kate. Right now. You asked me for help and this is all I know how to do. NOW GO!” He screamed.
She flinched but stood her ground a moment, as if to say something more, and then her eyes softened and she kissed Jim on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her eyes held his for a moment, and then she simply turned away.

“Got it all figured out do ya?” Cane asked. He took a step forward.

With one arm snaked around the sheriff’s neck, Cooper leveled the shotgun at Nubbins. “When she’s out of sight, you can have the sheriff.” Cooper said.

“Oh, I’m keeping the sheriff. But what about you, Big Brother?”

Cooper shook his head. “I’m riding away from this one, and you better hope I forget that you ever hit my sister cause the next time I see you I won’t talk so much.”

From the corral came the sudden thunder of hooves as Kate rode away, leading a pack of horses into the night. The moon cast a soft glow on the backs of the animals as they topped a small rise and disappeared down the other side. An instant later, Cane’s brothers, each holding a rifle, appeared in the doorway behind Cooper. “Everything okay, Nubbins?”

“’Bout time you boys woke up,” Cane bellowed. “We got some visitors.”
Cooper slowly released his grip on Jim’s gun belt and grabbed a handful of the sheriff’s hair, jerking his head back. “You ready?”

At the base of his spine, where Cooper had held his trousers, Jim felt the hard, cold shape of a pistol stuffed into his waist band. Suddenly he understood. “Go to hell,’ he spat. “Do it if you’re gonna do it.”

Cooper shoved him forward and to the side as he spun the shotgun toward the cabin. His first shot went wide and stuck the doorframe, but the second peppered both men, driving them back. They returned fire as they fell back through the doorway. Cooper was already moving. He dropped the street howitzer in the dirt, pulled his pistols and lunged up the steps, throwing himself through the entryway.
Stein gripped the pistol at his back and drew it from his waistband even as the first shotgun blast lit the night. Cocking the gun, he dove to the ground, and fired three shots into Nubbins Cane, two in the chest and one in the shoulder. Cane’s shirt turned crimson and the big man sputtered incoherent, guttural noises, spat blood from the corners of his mouth and keeled over.

Jim kept moving as gunfire erupted inside the house behind him. In a few running steps, he plowed through the door and rolled across the dirt floor. Both Cane brothers lay dead in a heap and Cooper Logan leaned heavily on the wall, his head bowed. Blood from a wound in his side darkened his shirt and pant leg. His pistol hung heavy in his hand.

Without looking up Logan asked. “Nubbins?”

“Dead.” Stein shook his head.

“Thanks, Jim,” Logan said. When he looked up, his eyes were dazed.

“I didn’t do it for you.”

Logan nodded. “So what now?”

Jim replaced the spent shells in his gun and holstered it. “Ain’t nothing changed, I still shoulda killed you when we was kids.” He looked at the bodies again and then at Cooper Logan. “You’re gutshot and you may be dyin’, but I seen men live through worse, so I’ll make you a deal. You get to your horse and ride away from here. If you die then I say good riddance, one less Logan in the world. Either way, I don’t expect to see you again. We’re square. The debt’s been paid.”

“Fair enough.” Cooper stuck out his hand and they shook on it.

They worked their way back to where the horses were tied. Twice Cooper stumbled and both times Jim helped him to his feet. When they reached the trees, they pulled on their boots and swung into their saddles.

“Mexico’s that way. Two days ride.” The sheriff pointed south. “But the closest doctor is over them hills yonder in Apache Wells.”

Cooper grimaced as he pressed a bandana into the hole in his side. With a nod, he swung his horse south toward Mexico. “Take care of her, Jim”

Jim watched him go and then turned his own horse around. He knew where Kate was going. He too, remembered where Cooper had broken his arm when they were kids. A smile crossed his lips as he raked his spurs across the Bay’s haunches. In fact, he’d been the one to push Logan out of that old tree.


END

Advice From an Old Cowboy

An Old Cowboy's Advice
* Keep your fences horse-high, pig-tight & bull-strong.
* Keep skunks & bankers & lawyers at a distance.
* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
* Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.
* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
* Don't corner something that would normally run from you.
* It doesn't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.
* Every path has a few puddles.
* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.
* Most of the stuff people worry about is never gonna happen anyway.
* Don't judge folks by their relatives.

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.
* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

* Sometimes you get, & sometimes you get got.
* Don't fix it if it ain't broke.
* Always drink upstream from the herd.

* Good judgment comes from experience, & a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

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