Authors: Robert J. Randisi
Dude Miller was excited.
He believed that the attempt on Sam McCall’s life had set in motion a series of events that would result in the end of Lincoln
Burkett. There was no way Burkett was going to come out on top of the McCall brothers—not all three of them. Sam McCall was,
of course, the most dangerous of the three, as evidenced by the fact that seven men had been sent by somebody to kill him.
The fact that his brothers had saved him just proved how tough the three of them would be to beat.
He didn’t know how long it would take, but Dude Miller was sure the McCalls would defeat Lincoln Burkett, andthen Vengeance
Creek could get back to the task of growing on its own.
Ed Collins sat with the gun in his lap and stared down at it. Tonight he had not laid the barrel on his tongue. He had taken
it out and held it, and now he was ready to put it away.
He wasn’t about to kill himself before he saw the outcome of the McCall-Burkett fight.
Nothing happened for several days.
The McCalls, with Serena, continued to ask questions and keep their ears open around town. At the end of each day they had
dinner at Dude Miller’s house and compared notes. They were all getting used to Serena Miller’s fine cooking.
Jubal started teasing Evan about Serena whenever he got the chance. It was obvious, he said, that Serena was sweet on Evan.
It was obvious to Evan that although he and Serena got along quite well, it was Sam who interested her the most. What he couldn’t
figure out was whether or not her interest was romantic. He rarely saw her speak to Sam, unless they were all together. She
also looked at Sam with a degree of interest, and awe. Sometimes, Evan wished she would look at him that way.
Over the course of the next several days Dude Miller improved to the point where he was no longer confined to bed. He took
all his meals in the kitchen and spent most of his day in the living room.
In the evening Evan had taken to playing poker in the saloon. If he was going to hear anything worth hearing, it would be
in there.
They decided that during the poker games Jubal and Sam would take turns standing at the bar, watching Evan’s back. Whichever
one was at the bar, the other would be with Serena and Dude Miller at the house.
Evan and Jubal left the house to go to the saloon, which left Sam to help Serena clean up after dinner.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, as he cleared the table and carried the plates and utensils to the sink.
“It’s all right,” Sam said. “I have nothin’ better to do.”
“Why don’t you go out into the living room with Pa and have a drink?”
He stopped and looked at her. He was so big that standing, he dwarfed the kitchen. When he was there with her she felt crowded—and
he always wore his gun. Evan and Jubal, when they were there with her, kept their guns close, but they didn’t always wear
them. Sam never took his off.
“Is there some reason you don’t want me in the kitchen with you?”
She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. She was drying her hands on a towel. Her hair was caught back above
her nape, but some strands had come loose and were flying around her head. He thought he’d never seen anything prettier.
“You make me nervous.”
“I do?” he asked, surprised.
“Maybe I should say you…intimidate me.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer, but her eyes went to the gun on his hip.
“Oh.”
“Do you ever take it off?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “when I sleep.”
“Sometimes?”
“It’s not always wise to take it off, even when I’m asleep.”
“Must you…” she started, then shook her head and stopped.
“Go ahead,” he said. “If you want to ask me something, ask me.”
“Could you sit down? You’re…very big.”
“I’ll sit if you’ll—give me a cup of coffee.”
“All right.”
“And have one with me.”
“A-all right.”
She poured two cups of coffee, came to the table with them, and sat down.
“Must you always be afraid that someone will…will try to kill you?”
“I guess I must.”
“That must be a horrible way to live,” she said. “How do you stand it?”
“The way I live is of my own choosing.”
“Really?”
“Well,” he said, “it’s a result of the way I chose to live my life when I was younger.”
“Is that when you made most of your…reputation?”
He scratched his jaw.
“That’s hard to say,” he said. “Let’s say it’s when I set the tone for the rest of my life.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand…”
“What do you know about me?”
“Only what I’ve read, and heard.”
“How much of that do you believe?”
“I…I guess I believed most of it, until…”
“Until what?”
“Until I met you…again.”
“And now?”
“Now, I guess I’m confused.”
“I had a wild youth.”
“Unfortunately,” he said. “Some of the things I did caused me to gain a reputation.”
“And you have to pay for that for the rest of your life?”
He shrugged and said, “Yes.”
“And you accept that?”
“I have no choice.”
“You could take your gun off.”
“What would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my gun on a few days ago, when those men tried to ambush me?”
“I—I suppose you would have been killed.”
“That fate doesn’t appeal to me, Serena.”
“What if you stayed here, lived here?”
“Here, in your house?”
She blushed and said, “I mean, what if you took up residence somewhere and took off your gun. Wouldn’t your reputation…uh, go away after a while?”
“That kind of a reputation never goes away, Serena,” he said. “At some time someone would recognize me and decide to try me.
It’s happened before.”
She looked interested.
“You tried to do this before?”
“Once,” he said, “in Mexico. I thought I could settle down there and not be bothered.”
“Settle?” she asked. “Uh, did you have a woman?”
“I had a wife.”
“A wife?”
“Yes,” he said. “A beautiful Mexican girl.”
“What happened?”
“I was recognized by a man who wanted me to face him with my gun.”
“And what happened?”
“I refused.”
“And?”
“And he and his three friends raped and killed my wife when I was away from my house.”
“Oh my God,” she said, going pale. “W-what did you do?”
“I killed them.”
She swallowed and asked, “All of them?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“T-thereby adding to your reputation.”
He nodded and said, “Through no fault of my own, right?”
“Of course.”
“Wrong,” he said. “What happened was a result of the way I chose to live my life when I was younger. You see, I can’t escape
it, Serena. I’ve tried.”
She stared at him for a few moments, her eyes moist, and then she said, “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Don’t be,” Sam said. “It was a long time ago. Would you like me to help you wash these cups?”
“No,” she said, “no…”
He stood up and said, “Do I still make you nervous?”
She looked up at him and said, “Yes.”
He smiled and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll pass.”
Sam left the kitchen and went into the living room with Dude Miller.
Evan McCall looked down at his cards. It was the best hand he’d had all night, and he wanted to be careful not to tip it.
They were playing seven-card stud, and he had all but one card. He already had a flush, with two of the flush cards in the
hole and three on the table. He still had a shot at a straight flush to the queen, if his seventh card was a jack of spades.
He looked up at Jubal, who was standing at the bar with a beer in his hand. Jubal raised his mug a half inch, just to tell
his brother everything looked all right.
At that moment the batwing doors opened and four men entered. They were all Burkett’s men and, in fact, one of them was John
Burkett, Lincoln Burkett’s son.
Evan and Jubal didn’t know that, because they had never seen him before.
The Burkett men walked to the bar, and it was plain that they had already been doing some drinking elsewhere. “What’ll it
be John?” Jubal heard the bartender ask.
“A bottle for me and my friends,” John Burkett said. He resembled his father slightly, but since Jubal had still not seen
Lincoln Burkett, he didn’t notice that. All he saw was a man about his own age, slighter than he was, pale, with a poor growth
of beard. It was clear to Jubal that the others were with him, and he was in charge.
He leaned over to the bartender and asked, “Who is that fella?”
“Why, that’s Lincoln Burkett’s son, John,” the barkeep said.
“Thanks,” Jubal said, and proceeded to listen very carefully…
“When is this geologist supposed to be getting in, John?” one of the other men asked.
“He was supposed to have been here already,” John Burkett said.
“We just gonna wait for him?”
“For as long as it takes,” John Burkett said.
“I can’t think of a better place to wait,” one of the others said.
“You can’t?” Burkett asked. “I can.”
“Where?”
“Louise’s.”
“Johnny, you know you been gettin’ kicked out of there.”
“Yeah, but now I know why.”
“Why?”
“My old man,” John Burkett said, “he bought the place.”
“And he wants to keep you out?”
“Yeah,” John Burkett said, “he’s trying to save me from myself.”
“So what’re we gonna do?”
“Tonight, we’re going in there and we’re gonna get us Louise’s best girls—for free.”
“All right,” one of the other men said, and they all laughed.
“Except for you, Truck.”
“Why?” the man called Truck asked.
“You gotta stay outside and wait for the geologist.”
“That ain’t fair!”
“I never said it was. Come on, drink up’the girls are waiting.”
The men drank up and followed John Burkett out of the saloon.
At the poker table Evan raked in his chips. He had filled in for the straight flush, which was fortunate because one of the
other men had had a higher flush than his.
“You got to be the luckiest man alive,” the disgruntled loser said.
“It isn’t luck,” Evan said.
“What do you call it, then?”
“You wait for the right hand,” Evan said, “and you play it right. That’s all for me, gentlemen.”
“Whataya mean?” the loser asked. “You ain’t gonna give me a chance to win my money back?”
“I’ll be here tomorrow night.”
“Well, I won’t,” the man said. “I’m leavin’ in the mornin’, and you ain’t leavin’ this table with my money.”
The table went quiet and everyone around it sensedthe tension. Jubal straightened up at the bar and picked up his rifle. It
was one of the ones he’d gotten from the gunsmith shop the day of the ambush on Sam. Ed Collins had insisted that they keep
the rifles.
“I say I am, friend,” Evan said. “If you can’t make it back in this game, you can make it back somewhere down the road.”
“I wanna make it back tonight, friend,” the man said. “The only way you’re leavin’ this table is dead.”
Evan eyed the man coldly and said, “Then the next play is all yours.”
One of the other players leaned over and said, “Don’t you know who that is?”
The loser’s eyes flickered and he said, “I don’t care who he is. He ain’t leavin’ the table with my money.”
“His name is McCall,” the other man said urgently. “He’s Sam McCall’s brother.”
“Sam McCall?” the loser said.
The helpful player said out of the side of his mouth, “And Sam McCall is in town.”
The loser’s eyes flickered again and his shoulders slumped as he relaxed.
“Come on,” Evan said. “Am I leaving or not?”
“Sure, friend,” the loser said, “sure. You won, you can leave if you want to. I don’t want no trouble.”
Evan picked up his money and walked over to the bar, to stand next to Jubal.
“Everything all right?” Jubal asked.
“Sure,” Evan said. “I’m Sam McCall’s brother, ain’t I?
Why wouldn’t everything be all right?”
“You need a drink.”
“Yeah.”
“Beer?”
“Whiskey.”
Jubal called the bartender over and asked for a whiskey.
“Guess who I just saw,” Jubal asked when Evan had his drink.
“Who?”
“Burkett.”
“Lincoln Burkett was here?” Evan asked, looking at his brother.
“No, not Lincoln,” Jubal said, “John, his son.”
“Oh, so?”
“He and some of his friend went over to the whorehouse. It seems Lincoln Burkett owns it and has been keeping his kid out.”
“I wonder what else Lincoln Burkett owns that nobody knows about.”
“Maybe we should find out.”
“How?”
“Well,” Jubal said, “we could ask his son.”
“Bracing Burkett’s son is looking for trouble.”
“Ain’t that why we’re here?”
Evan finished his drink and put his glass on the bar. He was still seething over what had happened at the table. He wasn’t
angry that he’d been braced so much as by how it had been resolved. He’d always solved his own problems and had never before
depended on being Sam McCall’s brother.
“Evan?”
“Are you interested in a whore tonight, Jube?”
“What?”
“Share a girl with a fella, buy him a few drinks, and he might talk to you.”
“Share a girl…”
“Well,” Evan said, “maybe you won’t have to go that far.”
Jubal still wasn’t quite sure what his brother was talking about, but when Evan said, “Come on,” he followed him out of the
saloon.
Although Evan and Jubal had not been to Louise’s before they knew where it was from passing it on the street. It was a building
the size of the hotel, but there was no sign over the door proclaiming it a whorehouse. Still, everyone in town knew what
it was.
The front door was locked, so they had to knock to gain entry. The man who opened the door was almost as big as Sam, and uglier.
“Whataya want?” he asked.
“What do you think we want?” Evan asked. “You serve food here?”
“Hell, no,” the man said. “Just whiskey and women.”
“We’ll settle for that,” Evan said.
“Come on in,” the man said, stepping back.
When they entered they were almost blinded by the crystal in the chandeliers. In a room filled with overstuffed sofas and
brocade curtains, men and women sat around, relaxed, drinking, the women in various stages of undress. The men were comfortable,
but they still had their pants on.
Someone was playing a piano in one corner, and some men and women were standing by the piano, dancing.
“Would you look at this place?” Jubal asked. “What’s a place like this doing in Vengeance Creek?”
“I don’t know,” Evan said, still looking around in wonderment.
“Well, well, new blood,” a woman said, approaching them. She was in her thirties, heavily made up, with lips as red as blood
and hair as black as night. She was wearing a black nightgown that left little to a man’s imagination.