Authors: Robert J. Randisi
Because he could not shoot himself Ed Collins considered himself a coward. With a sob he jerked the gun from his mouth, catching
a tooth on the raised sight and almost snapping it. The pain brought tears to his eyes, tears of pain and of humiliation.
On the one hand he enjoyed the visits of his friend Dude Miller. They had been friends for a very long time, and he now counted
Miller as perhaps his only friend.
He knew that since his wife’s death he had become a sour, bitter, unfriendly old man, and Dude Miller was the only one who
still came around. True, they were allied together against the onslaught of Lincoln Burkett, but beyond that was something
deeper and more important—friendship.
And yet every time his friend left, Collins would pick up his gun and lay it upon his tongue. Miller had also lost his wife,
but he’d had the courage to go on with his life, aided by his daughter. If only Ada had been able to give them a son or a
daughter, things might be different today.
Ed Collins wouldn’t feel so utterly alone.
He eased the hammer of the gun down and replaced it in his desk drawer. As always, after just a few minutes of trying to pull
the trigger, he felt exhausted.
As he dragged his worthless carcass to his bedroom he wondered what took more courage, to kill himself, or to go on living.
“Did you see Mr. Collins?” Serena asked at the dinner table.
“I did.”
“And?”
Miller chewed the food in his mouth, taking the time to choose his words carefully.
“He is a sad, sad man, Serena,” he finally said. “Every time I visit him I thank God for you, for without you I would probably
be as sad and pitiful as he is.”
He closed his eyes and spitefully bit his tongue. Even taking a few moments to form his words he had said the wrong thing.
For every argument he had ever given Serena for leaving and going out on her own, he had given a powerful one for her staying
with him.
Stupid old man, he chided himself.
“This meat loaf is like heaven,” he said, to cover the annoyance he felt with himself.
“Perhaps tomorrow I will take some to Mr. Collins,” Serena said. “Do you think he’d like that?”
“He’d like that, and a visit from you, very much, my girl,” Miller said, feeling a great pride in her.
“Well, if that’s the case,” she said, taking the meat loaf pan up from the center of the table, “don’t eat it all.”
“Hey,” he protested, “I’m not finished.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, walking to the stove. “You don’t want to get fat, do you?”
“What does it matter?”
She turned and stared at him with mock severity.
“Don’t think I don’t see you when you’re looking at the widow Jones, Papa.”
“Ah,” Miller said, “the widow Jones is an old woman.”
“She’s fifty-eight,” Serena said, “and five years younger than you.”
“If I ever took up with another woman,” he said, “it would be one much younger than the widow Jones.”
“Like who?”
“Oh…”
“Never mind,” Serena said, turning to face the oven again, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Is there coffee?”
“It’s coming.”
Whenever they even joked about Miller and women Serena ended up embarrassed by it—or maybe she was thinking about her own
social life.
Where the hell were those McCalls, Miller thought to himself, and in the next moment voiced his thought.
“They’ll come,” she said, her back still turned.
“How can you be so sure?” He asked the question, even though only hours before he had been explaining her logic to Ed Collins.
She carried a cup of coffee to the table. She placed it in front of him and leaned her elbow on his left shoulder.
“No child can ignore the death of a parent, let alone two parents, Pa,” she said. “It cannot be done. They will come, if only
to stand at the graves.”
“When they do come,” Miller said, “they’re not going to like what they find…not at all.”
“Well,” Serena said, her voice firm, “that’s as it should be.”
Lincoln Burkett looked up as his foreman, Chuck Conners, entered his office.
“Well?”
“Me and the boys got him bedded down, Mr. Burkett,” Conners said. “He was real upset when he couldn’t get into Louise’s and
went right to the saloon. He got real drunk and tried to pick a couple of fights, but the boys got him out of there.”
“Who was with him?”
“Earl Murray, Mike Gear, and Greg Tobin.”
“And they kept him out of a fight?”
“Yessir.”
“See to it that they each get a bonus.”
“I’ll take care of it, sir.”
Burkett sat back in his leather chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“Yes,” Burkett said, sitting forward again. “That storekeeper, Miller?”
“Dude Miller.”
“He’s starting to get on my nerves,” Burkett said. “Every time I pass his store he’s staring out that damned window.”
“Why is that annoying, sir?”
Burkett slammed his hand down on the desk. The noise it made was so loud it made Conners flinch.
“He’s watching for that damned Sam McCall.”
“Sir,” Conners said, “if McCall does show up, me and the boys can handle him.”
“I wouldn’t bet my life on that, Chuck,” Burkett said. “We all know McCall’s reputation—and if he does show up, he’s likely
to have his brothers with him. No, I think maybe we’d better import some talent.”
“Who?”
“I’ll let you know in the morning,” Burkett said. “Meanwhile, I don’t want that storekeeper looking out his window for a while.”
“What would you like—”
“Just handle it, Chuck,” Burkett said, clearly dismissing the man, “tonight.”
When the front door of his house slammed open Dude Miller was sitting in the living room reading a book. He turned his head
and saw the three men burst through the door, their faces masked. The nearest gun was in his desk in the den and he knew he’d
never get to it, but he rose anyway.
As he turned to face them the first man hit him flush in the face with a massive fist. Miller went down, smashing against
a coffee table.
“Pa!”
The three masked men looked up toward the voice and saw Serena Miller on the staircase. When she saw them she started to pull
the front of her housecoat tightly closed, but when she saw her father on the floor she forgot about that.
“Pa!”
As she hurried down the steps two of the men hauled Dude Miller to his feet and one of them stepped into Serena’s path.
“Let me by!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Just teachin’ the old gent a lesson,” one of the men said.
“Let me by!”
She tried to shoulder past him but he grabbed her by the upper arms, squeezing them hard. The smell of his sweat made her
wrinkle her nose in disgust.
“You wanna watch?” he asked. “Be my guest.”
He turned and walked to the door, pulling her with him.
When they stepped out onto the porch she saw what the other two men were doing to her father. One of them was holding him
with his arms pinned behind him, and the other man was hitting him, methodically, first a left, then a right, with no passion
whatsoever. It was then that she knew they were doing a job, and it wasn’t hard to figure out who for.
“That’s enough,” she shouted. “You’ll kill him.”
The man doing the hitting had been alternating his punches between the body and the head, and Dude Miller’s face was livid
with bruises and blood.
“She’s right,” the man holding her said. “We weren’t told to kill him.”
The man doing the hitting looked at the man on the porch, then gave Dude Miller one more punch in the face. The man who was
holding Miller released him, and he sprawled into the dirt face first, lying as still as death.
“What about her?” the other man asked.
“We weren’t told anything about her,” his friend said.
“Why, you wanna punch her?”
“Yeah,” the man said. “I wanna punch her with this.” He grabbed his crotch.
Suddenly the pit of Serena’s stomach went icy cold and she started to shiver in fear. As the man advanced on her she realized
that she had never felt terror like this before.
“No…” she said, and she was dismayed to hear that it came out as a whimper.
“Forget it,” the man holding her said. Abruptly he released her arms. “We wasn’t told to touch the girl. Let’s go. We’re finished
here.”
The man who had grabbed his crotch stared at Serena for a few moments and then said, “That’s too bad, Missy. You woulda liked
what I got for you. Maybe another time, huh?”
The other two men were walking away and now the third one turned and followed.
Serena stood there for a few moments, struck motionless by the fear she’d experienced, and then suddenly she leaped from the
porch to her father’s side, feeling ashamed.
Where the hell are you, Sam McCall?
she thought viciously.
The intensity of her anger was as foreign to her as had been the intensity of the fear she’d felt a moment ago.
Come and kill these bastards!
“Well, there it is,” Evan McCall said. “Vengeance Creek.”
They were on a steep hill from which they could look down at the town. Vengeance Creek had a wide radius because it had been
laid out in such a sprawling fashion. There were two main streets which contained the bank, the general store, the hotel,
the saloon, other shops, and the sheriff’s office, but the livery, the feed and grain, the undertaker’s, and the whorehouse
were all spread about with a decent amount of elbow room between them.
Sam, Evan, and Jubal McCall sat atop the hill, with black chaparral spread about them, and a single Joshua tree, taking their
first look at the town of their birth in a long time.
Sam McCall was riding a seven-year-old black coyote dun, a dun with a black stripe running down its back, and distinctive
markings on its legs.
True to the McCall predilection for individuality, Evan’s horse was a four-year-old claybank, a yellowish breed achieved by
breeding a sorrel and a dun.
Jubal, as if it were a symbol of his lifelong efforts to be like one or both of his brothers, was riding a sorrel.
“Yep,” Jubal said, “there it is.”
“Looks the same, don’t it?” Evan asked.
“When was the last time you were here?” Jubal asked his brothers.
“Jeez,” Evan said, “I don’t—probably seven, eight years, something like that. What about you?”
“Less,” Jubal said, “about five.”
“Did you ever write?” Evan asked.
“Some,” the younger brother answered.
Evan and Jubal looked over at Sam, who had remained silent throughout their exchange.
“Sam?” Evan said.
Sam McCall looked at them.
“I don’t like being here.”
“Why not?” Jubal asked.
“Didn’t I ever tell you?” Sam asked. “I hate this place.”
McCall kicked his horse’s ribs and sent him jogging down the hill.
“When was the last time he was here?” Jubal asked.
Evan looked at Jubal, said, “When did he leave?” and sent his horse down the hill after Sam. Jubal thought a moment, shrugged,
and followed.
Dude Miller was not standing at his shop window when the McCall brothers rode into town. He was lying in his bed, where he
had been confined by the doctor following the beating he’d received several days before. He had several cracked ribs, and
one eye had only recently reappeared from behind a huge swelling.
Serena entered her father’s bedroom with lunch on a tray.
“Papa?”
Miller stirred and opened his eyes.
“Serena…” He frowned at her and asked, “Is that breakfast?”
“No,” she said, smiling, “lunch.”
“Is it that late?” he demanded. “Why did you let me sleep so late, girl?”
“Because you need your rest.” She set the tray down on the night table next to the bed. “Let me help you sit up.”
“I can sit up!”
She stood back and watched as he struggled to do so, without success.
“Well, don’t just stand there, girl,” he said, impatiently, “help me sit up.”
She assisted him into a seated position, propped a couple of pillows behind him, and set the tray of food on his lap.
“Are they here?” Miller asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t been spending half my time at the window watching for them.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll come, but I’m not prepared to sit around and wait for them. They’ll come. Now eat your lunch.
I made you some soup.”
“How about something solid?”
“For dinner,” she said. “Oh, and the doctor will be by later. I’ll check back in about twenty minutes, and all that soup better
be gone.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, wryly.
The McCall brothers rode to the livery and dismounted.
“In the old days this place was run by old Charlie Runyon,” Evan said.
“It was Charlie who caught you when you fell from the hayloft,” Sam said.
“You fell from the hayloft?”
“I didn’t fall,” Evan said.
“I never pushed you,” Sam said.
“I never said you pushed me from the loft deliberately,” Evan said, “but we were horsing around, and you did push me. If it
wasn’t for old Charlie catching me, I would have broken a leg for sure.”
“Maybe you should have landed on your head.”
“Ha, ha.”
“When I left, the place was owned by Swede Hanson,” Jubal said. “It’s only five years, maybe he’s still here.”
As if on cue a tall, well-muscled blond man came out of the livery.
“Swede?” Jubal called.
The man stopped and narrowed his eyes, peering at the three men in front of him.
“Is dat you, Jubal McCall?”
“It’s me, Swede.”
Jubal moved closer and Swede Hanson said, “You’ve grown, boy.
Ja,
you have grown a great deal.”
“It’s good to see you, Swede.”
“What brings you—ah, I see,” Swede Hanson said, suddenly. “You have my sympathy for the death of your parents.”
“Thank you. Oh, Swede, I don’t think you ever met my brothers, Evan and Sam McCall.”
“Evan,” Swede said as Evan stepped forward to shake hands. “And Sam McCall? I know you by reputation, of course.”
“Of course,” Sam said, shaking the big man’s hand. Swede was about two inches taller than McCall’s six-four, and probably
outweighed him by twenty pounds, most of it shoulders and upper arms.
“You all have my sympathy.”
“Thank you,” Sam said. “Will you put our horses up for a few hours?”
“
Ja,
of course…but only for a few hours?”
“We want to talk to the sheriff here about our parents,” Evan said, “and then we’ll probably be riding out to their—our—ranch.”
“Well, your horses will be here,” Swede said. “That’s a coyote dun, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Sam said.
“And a claybank?”
“Yes,” Evan said.
“I’ll take good care of them, you can be sure,” Swede said, and then to Jubal he added, “Of course, that includes your sorrel.”
“Of course.”
“Who’s the sheriff here, Swede?” Sam asked.
“Fella named Tom Kelly.”
“Has he been sheriff long?”
“No, maybe three months.”
“What happened to Mel Champlin?” Jubal asked.
“Mel?” Sam said, surprised. “Was he still sheriff when you left?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” Evan said, “he was the law when I left.”
“And when I did,” Sam said.
“That was part of the problem,” Swede said, “the Town Council felt they needed a younger man.”
“What can you tell us about this Sheriff Kelly?” Jubal asked.
“Not much,” Swede said, “except that he has not impressed me yet.”
“Well,” Sam said, “I guess we’ll form our own opinions. We’ll be back in a few hours, Swede.”
“The horses will be ready,” Swede said, “
Ja,
you can count on it.”
“Thanks,” Jubal said, patting the big Swede on the shoulder.
The McCalls removed their rifles, war bags, and sugans—and, in Evan’s case, a carpetbag—from their saddles and allowed the
Swede to lead their animals inside.
“Let’s go,” Sam said, and they started toward the sheriff’s office, assuming correctly that it would be in the same place.
As they entered the sheriff’s office they found it empty. There was a coffeepot on a pot-bellied stove and Sam went over to
feel it.
“Still hot.” He opened it and sniffed it. “It’s fresh, and more than half full.”
“Good,” Evan said, “we might as well help ourselves while we wait.”
Evan McCall had more patience than his brother Sam. By nature they had different attitudes toward things like waiting.
“Come on,” Evan said, handing Sam a cup of coffee in a tin cup, “there’s nothing else we can do until we talk to the law.”
Evan looked around, found two more tin cups—swamped one out with his fingers—and then poured two more cups and handed one
to Jubal.
They laid their belongings down on a chair and settled in to wait. Only fifteen minutes or so had gone by’the wink of an eye
for Evan, a lifetime for Sam—before the door opened and a man entered. He was tall and dark-haired, in his thirties, with
a sheriff’s star on his chest. He stopped short when he saw that his office was full.
“What do you people want?”
“Sheriff Kelly?” Evan asked.
“That’s right.” Kelly walked across the room to the coffee pot. “Did you leave me any?”
“There’s plenty,” Sam said. He drained his cup and said, “Here.”
Kelly looked at Sam, then took the cup, cleaned it out with a rag, and poured some coffee. That done, he carried it to his
desk and sat down.
“What can I do for you gents?”
“We’re the sons of Joshua and Miriam McCall,” Evan said.
“The McCalls,” Kelly said, “Of course. A sad thing, that.”
The sheriff looked them over, then directed his attentionto Sam, looking him over, fastening his eyes for a moment on the
.44 on Sam’s hip.
“That would make you Sam McCall.”
“Yes, it would.”
They matched stares for a few moments, and then the lawman looked at the younger McCall.
“And you?”
“Jubal.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m new here and I didn’t know your parents all that well.”
“Tell us what happened,” Sam said.
Kelly hesitated a moment, then said,
“Well.
It was a fairly simple conclusion to come to. You see…I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but apparently your father
shot your mother, and then himself.”
There was a moment of stunned silence in the room. Kelly suddenly tensed and put his coffee cup down. He lowered his right
hand so that it hovered near his gun, but he knew that if Sam McCall wanted to kill him, there wouldn’t be much that he could
do to stop it.
“That’s crazy.”
“It can’t be,” Jubal said.
They both looked at Sam, who hadn’t said a word yet.
“Sam?” Evan said.
Sam’s eye flicked to Evan’s and held them.
“We’ll ask around,” Sam said, “talk to the doctor.” He looked at the sheriff and asked, “Who is the doctor hereabouts now?”
“Doc Leader,” Kelly said.
“Doc Leader?” Sam said, surprised. “He’s the sawbones who delivered us—all three of us. He must be close to eighty by now.”
“That may be,” Kelly said, “but he’s the only doctor we’ve got.”
“Then we’ll talk to him,” Sam said, picking up hisbelongings. “I assume he’s the one who looked at the bodies?”
“He is.”
“And signed the death certificates?”
“Like I said,” Kelly said, “he’s the only doctor we’ve got.”
“You could have brought another one in from somewhere else.”
“We didn’t.”
Sam looked at his brothers and said, “We’ll talk to Doc Leader.”
“But Sam,” Jubal said, “Pa wouldn’t—”
“Thanks for your help, Sheriff,” Sam said, cutting Jubal off. To his brothers he said, “Let’s go.”
He went to the door, opened it and walked out. Evan and Jubal exchanged a glance, then gathered their things and went outside.
Sam was standing on the boardwalk, waiting for them.
“What was that all about?” Jubal demanded.
“Take it easy.”
“Take it easy? You heard the things he was saying about Pa.”
“I heard them.”
“So?”
“There’s no point in arguing with the sheriff, Jubal,” Sam said. “He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“How do we know that?”
“I mean, he isn’t the one who came to the conclusion.”
“He’s a sheriff.”
“But,” Evan said, “the doctor is the one who would come to the conclusion about the manner of death—isn’t that what you’re
getting at, Sam?”
“That’s it.”
“Then let’s talk to Doc Leader,” Evan said.
“And after that,” Sam added, “Dude Miller. After all, it was Dude who sent the telegram.”
They walked to where they all remembered Doc Leader’s office as being, above the general store—and it was still there.
They stopped at the stairway that went up the side of the building and Sam said, “Same damned stairway.”
“How does he get up and down it every day, if he’s as old as you figured?” Evan wondered.
“Well, maybe I overstated it,” Sam said, “but he’s gotta be at least in his sixties.”
“Why are we standing down here guessing?” Jubal asked.
“Good point, little brother,” Sam said.
“Don’t call me that!” Jubal said. “I don’t like the sound of it.”
“Sure, Jube,” Sam said, “whatever you say.”
Sam felt his brother’s anger. Jubal was still fuming at having been cut off in the sheriff’s office.
They ascended the steps, not enjoying the creaking sound they made.
“When we go back down,” Evan said, “I suggest we go one at a time.”
When they reached the door Sam knocked and waited. When the door opened there was a short man in his sixties standing there,
squinting up at Sam and shading his eyes against the sun with hands stained from years of nicotine.
“Still smoking, huh, Doc?” Sam asked. “For a sawbones, that ain’t exactly smart.”
“Jesus,” Leader said, “I hate that word, sawbones. What the hell are you doing here, Sam McCall?”
“We’re all here, Doc,” Sam said.
Leader leaned out to spot Evan and Jubal and said, “So you are.”
“Can we come in? We’ve got some things to talk about, haven’t we?”
Leader scowled and said, “I suppose we have. Yeah, come in, all of you.”
They entered the office and the doctor closed the door behind them. The office looked the same to Sam, with furnishings as
ancient as the doctor himself.
“I suppose you’re here about Joshua and Miriam.”
“That’s right, Doc,” Sam said.
The doctor turned his head and looked directly at Jubal.
“Jubal, you’ve grown.”
Jubal said to the room at large, “Why is everyone saying that?”
“Well,” the doctor said, looking at them each in turn, “what do you want to know?”
“Doc,” Sam said, “we want to know how our Ma and Pa died.”
“I suspect you’ve already heard that from Sheriff Kelly.”
“We want to hear it from you.”
“All right,” Doc Leader said, “near as I can figure, Joshua shot Miriam, and then turned the gun on himself.”
“That’s a lie!” Jubal said.