Showdown at Gun Hill

“You're a brazen bastard. I'll give you that, Burrack,” Stone said, the gun level and steady in spite of the whiskey goading his thoughts, his rationality.

Sam offered no reply. He stopped and gazed at the sheriff, letting his hands lower a little.

“The judge said you kept Dexter Benson from killing him midtrial, over in Merit,” Sam said, wanting to cool the tension.

Stone stared at him. Sam saw the sheriff appear to replay the scene in his whiskey-pinched mind.

“Long time ago,” Stone said finally. Sam noted the Colt never lowered an inch. Drunk or sober, this lawman was no easy call. “I did shoot ol' Dexter the Snake. Somebody had slipped him a gun. He jumped up with it from his chair and flipped a table over—I put three rounds through the table before he could get a shot off.”

“Judge said your shots fit in a circle no bigger around than a tin top,” Sam said to Stone.

“My shots always did,” Stone said, still with the stare, the leveled Colt.

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Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2015

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ISBN 978-0-698-17191-6

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Mary Lynn, of course . . .

Big Silver, the Arizona Badlands

At first light, Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack followed a series of pistol shots the last mile into town. The shots came spaced apart, as if offered by some wild-eyed orator who used a gun to drive home the points of his raging soliloquy. Sensing no great urgency in the shots, Sam had circled wide of the town limits and ridden in from the south, keeping his copper black-point dun at an easy gallop. At his side he led a spare horse on a short rope.

Being familiar with the position of the town, he knew if he'd followed the main trail into Big Silver at this time of morning he would have ridden face-first into the rising sunlight—not a wise move under the circumstances. Never a wise move, he reminded himself, given his line of work.

His line of work . . .

A Winchester repeating rifle stood in its saddle boot; his bone-handled Colt stood holstered on his hip,
hidden by his duster but close to his right hand. Necessary tools for
his line of work . . .

A block ahead of him another pistol shot rang out in the still air—the
fourth
, he noted to himself. Along the street townsfolk who had scrambled for cover a few minutes earlier when the shooting began now looked out at the Ranger from behind shipping crates, firewood and anything else sufficient to stop a bullet.

“He's in his office, Ranger!” a nervous townsman's voice called out from a recessed doorway.

“Thank God you're here!” a woman's voice put in. “Please don't hurt him.”

“Hurt him,
ha
!” another voice shouted. “Shoot that drunken son of a—” His words stopped short under the roar of a fifth gunshot.

“Everybody keep back out of sight,” the Ranger called out.

He veered his dun into the mouth of an alleyway for safety's sake and stepped down from his saddle. The big dun grumbled and pawed its hoof at the dirt, yet Sam noted that the animal showed no signs of being spooked or otherwise thrown off by the sound of gunfire.

“Good boy,” he said to the dun, rubbing its muzzle. The spare horse sidled close to the dun. As Sam spun the dun's reins and the spare's lead rope around a post, a townsman dressed in a clerk's apron hurried into the alley and collapsed back against the wall of a building.

“Man, are we glad to see you, Ranger!” he said. “Didn't expect anybody to show up so soon.”

“Glad I can help,” was all Sam replied. He didn't
bother explaining that he'd been headed to Big Silver to begin with, or that he'd ridden all night from Dunston, another hillside mining town some thirty miles back along the Mexican border. As soon as the telegram arrived, Sam had gathered his dun and the spare horse and headed out. He'd made sure both horses were well grained and watered. He'd eaten his dinner in the saddle, from a small canvas bag made up at Dunston's only restaurant. “Good eten,” he could still hear the old Dutch cook say, handing him the bag.

He drew the Winchester from its boot and checked it. Hopefully he wouldn't need it.
But you never know
, he told himself.

“Say, Ranger,” said the man in the clerk's apron, eyeing the Winchester, “you're not going in there alone, are you?”

“Yep,” Sam said. He started to take a step out onto the empty street.

“Because I can get half the men in this town to arm up and go with you,” the man said.

Sam just looked at him; the man looked embarrassed.

“All right,” he said, red-faced, “why didn't we do that to begin with? is what you're wondering. The fact is, we didn't know what to do, a situation like this.” He gestured a nervous hand in the direction of the gunfire. “He claimed he's a wolf! Threatened to rip somebody's heart out if we didn't all do like he told us!”

“A wolf . . . ,” the Ranger said flatly, looking off along the street. He took a breath.

“That's right, a
wolf
,” the man said even though Sam
hadn't posed his words as a question. “Can you beat that?”

“It wasn't their hearts he said he'd rip out,” another townsman said, cowering back into the alley. “It was their
throats
!” He gripped a hand beneath his bearded chin and stared at Sam wide-eyed with fear.

“It was their
heart
, Oscar,” the man in the clerk's apron said. “I ought to know what I heard.”

“Throat,”
the old man insisted in a lowered voice as he cowered farther back.

Sam looked all around. The alley had started to fill with people pouring into it from behind the row of buildings along the main street. Another shot rang out; people ducked instinctively.

Number six,
Sam told himself.

“All of you stay back,” he said calmly.

As he stepped out and walked along the street, he knew that he only had a few seconds during reload to make whatever gains he could for himself. He pictured the loading gate of a smoking revolver opening, an empty shell falling from its smoking chamber to the floor. Another shell dropped, and another. . . .

As he walked forward he gauged his pace, keeping it deliberately slow, steady, trying to time everything just right. Now he saw the fresh rounds appear, being thumbed into the gun one at a time by a hand that was anxious, unsteady, in a boiling rage. Then, with the scene playing itself out in his mind, as if signaled by some unseen clock ingrained in his instincts, Sam stopped in the middle of the street—it was time—and faced a faded
wooden sign that read in bold letters above a closed door: S
HERIFF'S
O
FFICE &
T
OWN
J
AIL
.

Here goes. . . .

“Sheriff Sheppard Stone,” he called out loud enough to be heard through the closed door, above an angry rant of curses and threats toward the world at large. “It's Ranger Sam Burrack. Lay your gun down, come out here and talk to me.” Looking around, he saw empty whiskey bottles littering the ground and boardwalk out in front of the building. Broken bottle necks lay strewn where bullets had blasted their fragile bodies into shards.

“
Well, well, well,” a whiskey-slurred voice called out through a half-open front window, “
Saint
Samuel Burrack. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

Saint
Samuel Burrack . . . ?
He hadn't heard that one before. Just whiskey talking, he decided.

“Territory judge Albert Long sent me, Sheriff,” he said. “He wants to see you in Yuma.” He wasn't going to mention that the judge had heard outrageous complaints about Stone's drunkenness and had sent Sam to persuade the sheriff to step down from office. A year earlier,
drunk
, Stone had accidentally shot two of his toes off.

“Oh . . . what about?” Stone asked in a wary tone. “Is he wanting my badge?” He paused, but only for a moment. “If he is, tell him to come take it himself. Don't send some
upstart
do-gooder
to take on the job.”

Upstart do-gooder?
A couple more names Sam hadn't heard himself called before—although he'd heard himself called worse.

He took a breath. All right, this wasn't going to be easy, he told himself, but at least there were no bullets flying through the air. Not yet anyway.

So far so good.

“The judge said you and he were old friends,” he replied, ignoring the drunken threat, the name-calling. “Said you once saved his life. Now he wants you to come visit him . . . spend some time on his ranch outside Yuma, I understand.”

“Ha!”
Stone said in more of a jeer than a laugh. “Spend some time on the judge's ranch. . . .” His words trailed into inaudible cursing and slurred mumbling. Then he called out, “Let me ask you something, Ranger. Does anybody ever fall for these yarns you pull out of your hat?”

Sam let it go. But he couldn't stand out here much longer. He had to get the gun out of the sheriff's hand. Whiskey was too unpredictable to reason with.

“I'm coming in, Sheriff Stone,” he said. “Don't shoot.”

“You ain't coming in! Take one step, you're dead!” Stone shouted, the whiskey suddenly boiling up again.

“I've got to. It's too hot out here,” Sam called out, calmly, taking a step forward. He ignored a gunshot when it erupted through the half-open window and kicked up dirt only inches from the toe of his boot.

“The next one won't be aimed at the dirt!” the drunken sheriff shouted.

“I'm coming in,” Sam said in a steady tone. He knew a warning shot when he saw one. Whiskey or no whiskey, he had to gain all the space he could, get in closer.
It was a dangerous gamble, but he took it. Another bullet erupted. More dirt kicked up at his feet. Realizing Stone had not made good on his threat, Sam took another step, then another.

“Hold it, damn it!” Stone shouted. “Come on in, then, but first lay that rifle on the ground! Don't test me on this.”

All right . . .
Sam let out a tense breath, calming himself.

“Sheriff, look,” he said, “I'm laying it down right here.” He stooped, laid the Winchester on the dirt, then straightened and walked forward, his hands chest high.

When he stepped through crunching broken glass onto the boardwalk, the door swung open before he reached for the handle. In the shade of the office, Sheriff Stone stepped back five feet, a big Colt cocked in his hand. He weaved drunkenly. His eyes were red-rimmed and staring through a veil of rage. Sam glanced past him through a cloud of burnt gunpowder and saw two frightened eyes staring at him from the jail's only cell.

“You're a brazen bastard. I'll give you that, Burrack,” Stone said, the gun level and steady in spite of the whiskey goading his thoughts, his rationality.

Sam offered no reply. He stopped and gazed at the sheriff, letting his hands lower a little.

“The judge said you kept Dexter Benson from killing him midtrial, over in Merit,” Sam said, wanting to cool the tension.

Stone stared at him. Sam saw the sheriff appear to replay the scene in his whiskey-pinched mind.

“Long time ago,” Stone said finally. Sam noted the Colt never lowered an inch. Drunk or sober, this lawman was no easy call. “I did shoot ol' Dexter the Snake. Somebody had slipped him a gun. He jumped up with it from his chair and flipped a table over—I put three rounds through the table before he could get a shot off.”

He was talking, which was good, Sam noted to himself. Inside the cell behind the sheriff, the two frightened eyes had moved sidelong to the farthest corner and sunk back into the striped shadows.

“Judge said your shots fit in a circle no bigger around than a tin top,” Sam said to Stone.

“My shots always did,” Stone said, still with the stare, the leveled Colt.

Always
did
 . . . not always
do
, Sam noted, trying to get an idea of what was going on in the man's mind.

“What happened here?” Sam asked bluntly, gesturing a nod toward the bottle-littered street.

“I've been drunk longer than I've ever been sober,” Stone said in a defiant tone. “That's what
happened here.
Think the judge will want me to
visit
him, the shape I'm in?” He emphasized the word
visit
with a wry twist.

“If he doesn't, he can send you home,” Sam replied. “He said to bring you, so that's what I'm doing.” He lowered his hands a little more. Watching for any change in the way the drunken sheriff kept his Colt level and steady, he took another step closer.

“Huh-uh, Ranger,” said Stone, “not so fast. You're not taking me anywhere.”

Sam stopped. He needed an edge, something to tip the scales in his favor, but so far he saw no sign of one.

“Lift that Colt off your hip easy-like and pitch it away,” Stone ordered. “I've heard too many stories of how you trick a man and get the drop on him. It ain't going to happen here.” As he spoke he swayed on his feet, dangerously close to falling. He batted his eyes to keep them open; still the sheriff's Colt stayed leveled and steady in his hand.

Sam just stared at him for a second. Finally he eased his right hand toward the butt of his holster Colt.

“You're the law here,” he said humbly. “You're the one holding the gun.”

“You're well told I am,” said Stone, swaying even more on his feet.

Sam reached down and lifted his Colt calmly from its holster and raised it slowly, his hand around the butt.

Stone noted that instead of using two fingers to raise the Colt, Sam used his whole hand. But before he could say anything about it, Stone saw the Colt level and cocked in the Ranger's hand. The sheriff had just witnessed his best advantage turn into an equal standoff.

“Damn you, Burrack,” he growled, realizing his was no longer the only cocked gun in play. “I told you, you're not pulling that trick on me.”