The Last Shootist (6 page)

Now that the hammers of both pistols rested upon empty chambers, the safe way to practice in case he dropped a gun, he could practice firing without worrying about shooting himself in the foot. So practice Gillom did—fast draws, right hand, left hand, both hands, twirling the nickel-plated revolvers on his index fingers within their steel trigger guards, one revolution, two spins round, backward, forward, to make his reholstering look fancy. Again and again—quick pull, trying to make his hammer cock and the aim off his hips merely a reflex of hand and eye, without squinting, flinching, without even breathing.

Dropped the pistol!
Damn! Be careful!
Wiping sweaty palms on his Levis, he sucked breath and tried again. Right, left, both, again, until he had his fast draw fairly smooth with either hand.

Gillom stopped for a gulp of water. Since his first shots hadn't drawn any unwelcome attention, he tried a trick he'd only heard about, never seen attempted. Pulling both revolvers suddenly, he cocked and fired his right Remington, then spun its pearl handle backward and flipped it into the air. While the first revolver somersaulted in the air, he quick transferred the black-handled grip from his weak left hand to his strong right, while attempting to catch the first pistol in his left palm as the gun spun round in the air. And
missed
!

He brushed dirt off its silver nickel plating, reholstered, and tried once more. This time he flipped the pearl-handled revolver higher, giving himself more time for the catch after the transfer, and achieved it. To celebrate he cocked and fired the black-handled pistol without carefully sighting and was rewarded by splinters flying from the cottonwood's girth, seventy-five feet away. The border shift was tricky but essential to learn, for it allowed a gunfighter with an empty pistol to exchange it for a loaded weapon rapidly while under fire.

He dropped a pistol again, then made another successful transfer. Gillom began to complicate his draws, rotating each revolver once right out of the holster pocket as he spun them on each index finger and extended his right and left forearms, earring hammers back and firing at the end of each reach. Another drop. A blister formed on his right finger.

“Damn this is hard!” Gillom said aloud. Over and over, Gillom's quick reflexes and sharp vision helped him whang chunks out of the distant tree almost every time.
Maybe I've got the goddamned gift of gunfighting,
he thought.
What did that journalist call it—a bullet's blessing?

He was reloading from a box of cartridges in his coat pocket when a bush snapped. While jamming cartridges in the revolver's chambers, Gillom saw the crown of a wide hat above the breaking brush, a man on horseback. Now brush was crackling behind him, too! Spinning, he kept his left hand on his gun butt, his right revolver cocked and pointed at a black sombrero moving toward him.

Damn! That looks like one of those … Mexicans … been followin' me! How in the bejesus did they find me out here?

The vaqueros had him sandwiched as they halted their scrawny horses in the brush either side of the clearing's edge. Each wore a pistol on his hip, but both young men kept their hands on their reins as they sat cheap-looking saddles.

“You boys been
followin'
me!”

The Mexicans held their tongues. His next question was a little more plaintive.

“Whatdya want?”

“Señor Gillom?”

“Yeah?”

The taller guy, who looked tougher, more aggressive than his younger partner, smiled. Maybe it was his black sombrero that intimidated.

“Ahhh, Señor Gillom. Did you invite Señor Serrano to his shooting?”

Gillom Rogers hesitated. “I guess.”

“An' Señor Books kill him?”

Gillom slowly nodded.

Black sombrero waggled a finger. “
Sí
. It was you. Senor Serrano is his
tio
.” He pointed at the younger Mexican across the clearing. A flash of a gold tooth in a mouthful of pearlies. “Married to his sees-ter.”

“His uncle?”

“
Sí
.
Tio
. Un-cle. Now he must kill you.
Caballerismo
. Hon-or his
familia
.”

“What?”

The older young man nodded. “
Sí
. You help thees assassin, Señor Books.”

Gillom was astounded by this primitive logic. “
No!
I was just Mister Books's messenger.”

“But you invite his un-cle to his murder. Mess-age of
muerte,
death. An' then you shoot Señor Books, no?
Journalista
say. So Cesar must kill you
. Justica. Por
his
familia
.”

Their logic might have been crazy, but they didn't appear to be fooling. Gillom pulled his second pistol and cocked it, training his left hand on the younger
hombre
to the south. The older vaquero grinned. “You prac-tice,
pendejo
. But no more bul-lets!”

They're testing me,
Gillom figured.
Gotta show 'em.

Crouching to provide a smaller target even though he was standing all by his lonesome in the middle of a bare clearing, Gillom extended his right arm and squeezed the trigger of Books's big revolver. The .44-.40 slug clipped a branch of brush next to the mean Mexican, causing his horse to snort and shy sideways.

“Hokay,
pendejo! Mi
mis-take!” The twenty or so year old got his frightened horse under control, while his cousin across the clearing ducked, put his hands on his pistol's butt, readying to draw. “No shoot you today,
gavacho,
but
watch out
! Serranos
owe
you!”

Touching a finger to his forehead goodbye, the black-hatted tracker began backing his skittish animal out of the thicket. His younger relative on the other side of the clearing began retreating, too. Gillom noted how underfed and unkempt their horses appeared.

My God! I can't have these backshooters following me around El Paso, trying to kill me any goddamned time they please!
That dark thought propelled him into an equally scary plan.

“You boys want a fair fight, meet me tonight!”

The older vaquero turned in his saddle. “Where?”

Gillom had to think a moment. “The bandstand in San Jacinto Plaza. Midnight!”

The Mexican pondered.
“Hokay!”
His gold front tooth flashed like a character flaw.
“Mucha suerte
,
gringo!”
He clucked to his horse and after fearsome moments of brush cracking, the vengeful young men were gone.

Gillom Rogers uncocked his Remingtons and reholstered. Bending, he put both hands on his knees, took another long, deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
Godalmighty. What have I done now?

 

Nine

 

“How about working as a bellhop at the Grand Central? Finest hotel in all the southwest, three whole stories, and you'd meet important guests. Maybe lead to something better if you were polite and gave good service. Plus the gratuities, my goodness.” Gillom's mother had a long index finger to her temple, helping her think.

“I'm not toting anybody's bags, Ma, just cause they're rich.”

“Well.… I read about the four C's of growth in our region—copper, cattle, citrus, and climate. They never mention the fifth C, consumption. El Paso is paradise for the pulmonary invalid. We've got more consumptives and asthmatics in our sanatoriums than anyone can count, with more coming out every day to where sunshine spends the winter. They need strong, young aides to move those patients around. That could be a good starting job for you, health care.”

“Ma, I ain't wheelin' any lungers around. You want me to catch somethin' bad, get sick, too?” Gillom threw his linen napkin down on their long dinner table, vacant now except for the two of them, his beefsteak half-eaten. “I'll find a job, eventually. Maybe work in a gun shop, for a gunsmith. Learn that trade.”

“Guns.” Bond Rogers blew frustrated air through her lips, like a tired horse.

“Just give me some time to get my life straightened out after all this trouble.”

“You seek trouble like a moth does the flame.”

With a backhanded dismissal, Gillom headed back to his room. There, by the light of a coal oil lamp in the sanctuary of his clothes closet, behind the curtains, he cleaned Books's revolvers. With a wooden pencil he poked an oiled rag down the Remingtons' barrels to clean out old powder from an afternoon of tree blasting. He oiled the cylinders and replaced the .44-.40 cartridges and spun them shut. He didn't leave one empty as a safety under the hammer, for he knew, barring a miracle, he'd be using these guns tonight. Hope to God I don't need all twelve cartridges. What was it Books said about shoot-outs?

“It isn't being fast, it's whether or not you're willing. The difference is, when it comes down to it, most men are not willing. I found that out early. They will blink an eye, or take a breath before they pull the trigger. I won't.”

That's how he'd done it all those years, Gillom thought. Survived. Gunmen of all stripes, fast and slow, young and old, white or whatever race, trying to shoot him, blast him dead. But his steel nerves, quick reflexes, and steady aim always saved his ass. J. B. Books—the shootist.
Well, a cool countenance and a calm hand will save mine, too.

Gillom got to his knees. Just in case, he put more cartridges into both pockets of his wool coat, for quick reloading. He buried the double holster under some dirty clothing on the wooden floor and was backing from the closet when his mother walked into the bedroom.

“What are you doing in there?”

Startled, Gillom turned, then deliberately calmed his emotions, practicing control.

“Cleaning my boots.” He graced his mother with his most conciliatory expression. “Ma, I'm sorry for our arguments. We've both been greatly aggravated by all this … bloodshed. Mister Books shook this house up but good. But he's gone now, I doubt to a better place, so we can try a fresh start. I'll look for a good job tomorrow. And find one. I promise.”

Her smile finally bloomed. “Oh, Gillom. You can do it, I know you can, dear. Learn some decent, respectable profession. And finish your high schooling. Go back to Central School next year, after this awful business dies down.”

Now Gillom smiled. “Maybe.” He was careful in the hug he gave her, so she didn't feel any cartridges rolling around in his coat pockets.

Gillom heard his mother lightly snoring upstairs through his thin ceiling, so he had no trouble slipping out his bedroom window later that night. He chanced wearing his double rig under his wool coat. It was Sunday and long after dark, when even the six hundred gamblers in the forty licensed gambling halls and the hundreds of whores in the bagnios and cribs and dance halls lining Utah Street all the way down to the Rio Grande had to catch their breaths after another weekend's lucrative work. The local saying was, “When anybody has a dollar in his pocket, he heads hell-bent to El Paso to get rid of it.”

Gillom had been to San Jacinto Plaza many times with his mother. Peering through the darkness as he walked up to it, he noted the two highest structures in the block-long plaza—the bandstand and the fountain in the middle, constructed of rocks and mortar from which a large plume of water shot up in the air during the daytime, when it was turned on. A stone catch basin around it was filled with water five feet deep. Grass grew around this fountain in a ring between the water pool and a chain-link metal fence anchored by iron poles that encircled the whole layout, at least thirty yards wide.

The metal fence had been constructed to keep little boys out and the alligators in. Local kids had a penchant for poking the alligators with sticks and throwing stones at them while they dozed in the grass beside their waterhole, seeing if they could be provoked. According to local legend, six baby alligators had been shipped by train from the swamps of Louisiana by a friend of one A. Muhsenberger, a mining man, as a joke. Having no way to care for them, Mr. Muhsenberger had prevailed upon the city council to add the gators to the plaza menagerie. A few had survived attacks by eagles, owls, coyotes, and little boys to thrive on a diet of horse and cow carcasses, stray dogs, and the occasional child. Several of these pet gators had grown to be a good ten to twelve feet long.

The most famous incident happened after a convention of dentists, drinking too late in an El Paso saloon, got into a loud argument over how many teeth an alligator actually had? A number of these dentists, armed with more booze and torches and ropes, set off into the dark midnight to actually find out, but were stopped by deputies before they could conduct any alligator dental examinations.

Gillom had no interest in arousing the ancient beasts as he walked delicately across the long plank bridging the stone basin to several rock steps leading up to the top of the rock fountain in the middle of the gators' pond. Looking down into the murky water, he could see several pairs of orbs as red as fireholes glowing in the cairn beneath the fountain he was about to climb. Stone masons had thoughtfully hollowed out an underwater grotto underneath the fountain where the gators could rest in peace out of the hot sunshine and away from rock-throwing kids.

The raised fountain gave the crouching gunman good vantage of the whole plaza in every direction, and by moving around its uneven, eight-foot-high stone sides, he could have cover. Still, it was unnerving, perched atop rough rocks in the dark, watching an occasional ripple cross the pond to lap upon the gravel rim at the edge, or to hear an exhalation from the grotto beneath, a shivery breath from a prehistory entirely foreign to this high school dropout. Gillom Rogers was very aware of what lurked below.