Joe Lansdale - The Magic Wagon

"You need you some practice sitting in them chairs, don't you, you old souse?" Blue Hat said.

The drunk didn't say anything.

"You'd best answer when I talk to you," Blue Hat said, and he kicked the drunk in the belly.

The drunk made a gurgling sound and threw up some of what made him a drunk.

"Now you answer me," Blue Hat said in that sour, whining voice of his, hitching up his pants at the same time. "You don't sit in chairs so good, do you?"

"No," the drunk managed.

"What's that?" Blue Hat snapped.

"No sir," the drunk said, and more vomit bubbled out of his mouth.

"Filthy, old fool," Blue Hat said. "You puke on me and I'll kill you." He looked over at Derby to see if he was doing his meanness right. He must have been. Derby was grinning some tobacco-stained teeth at him.

Blue Hat's head bobbed in my direction. "What you looking at? You need something?"

"Not a thing," I said and turned back to the bar. I put my hand around the glass of beer just to have something to do. The beer in the glass wobbled from side to side.

Riley suddenly took an urge to wipe the bar, He grabbed the nasty rag out from beneath it and worked on down to the far end, quicklike. I watched Derby and Blue Hat in the mirror, trying to look like I was just staring into space.

"You keep it that way," Blue Hat said.

Derby smiled at me, and there was something in that smile that chilled me to the bone. If Blue Hat had been carrying a gun I'd probably have felt the same way about him.

They laughed and went out.

When I was sure they were gone, I went over and helped the drunk back into his chair. By the time his head touched the table again, he was out, I used a snot rag I had to wipe his mouth and nose, and left it on the table in case he wanted it when he woke up. The two lovers opened their eyes to peep at me, then closed up again. I went back to the bar and took my seat. My hands were still shaking so I put them around the beer glass. I felt sort of weak,

"Who were those knee slappers?" I said to Riley, trying to sound a lot braver than I felt. "Father and son?"

"Dog and flea," Riley said softly, and he glanced toward the door when he said it. "That there fella in the derby hat," he added picking up one of my posters and pointing to the part about Billy Bob and his expert pistol shooting, "he'd most likely make your man look like a blind nigger with a slingshot."

"Billy Bob is the best shot I've ever seen," I said. And that was the truth. I didn't like him any, but he could shoot. I'd seen him challenged many times, and no one came close. He could toss nickles in the air and hit them dead Center. He could hold a mirror in one hand, lay his pistol over his shoulder, and shoot a playing card in half edgewise. Even on his bad nights he was better than anyone else.

"Well, you ain't seen that fella bang at it," Riley said. "Ain't no slouch on the fast draw neither. Maybe you've heard of him? That there was Texas Jack Wentworth."

Texas Jack. I'd heard of him all right. Even read about him in some of Billy Bob's dime novels. He wasn't as well known as Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill, and some others, but he did have a rep as a crackerjack of sorts.

Of course, now that I'd seen him, I was a mite disappointed. The dime novels had painted him out to be a tall Greek god, Hell, he wasn't even tall. And that face of his wasn't recent. That was a mug he'd carried with him all his life, and those smallpox lumps weren't new either. Worse than that, he wasn't nothing but a bully and had a pet bully he took around with him. It was downright disappointing. At least Billy Bob looked like the characters in the books, even if there wasn't one written about him.

But it was pretty much on record that Jack had once out-shot Doc Carver, and at one time Carver was the finest shot in the world. With a Winchester 73, Carver broke five-and-a-half thousand out of six thousand glass balls tossed in the air, and he did it in a seven and a half hour stretch. I heard too that he let some of his opponents use shotguns, and he used that Winchester, and still showed them up. So if Jack beat them like the stories went, even if Doc Carver was at the end of his career, he did some good shooting. That into consideration and there being a story that he'd once backed down Wild Bill Hickok, it was fair to say that Riley was right when he said the man wasn't no slouch.

"That Jack is a corker," Riley went on, suddenly talking as if the man were his brother. "I know all about him and I've heard tell more. He grew up around here before he went off and got famous, became an Injun fighter and buddy to John Wesley Hardin. Not that he wasn't known around here when he was your age. But it wasn't nothing special like later, he just shot a couple of nigger farm hands over some peach wine. Seems like maybe he shot his uncle too, but it's been a while since I heard that, and it could have been a cousin or something.

"Anyway, he went off and was wrote about in them dime novels. Then, about five years ago, a winter colder than the far side of a widow's bed, I was in here polishing the fly tracks off the glasses, when in walks this sombreroed greaser, big as you please. Strolled up to the bar like he was a white man, sitted himself on a stool, about where you're sitting I think, and called to me for a whisky.

"Well, you can bet I didn't hop to it, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I don't cotton to niggers and greasers and I sure don't cotton to them in my place trying to order me around like common help. I told him we didn't serve niggers, even if they was Mexican niggers.

"He got uppity on me and argued, then he jumped off the stool and pulled a pistol out from under his coat. And I'll tell you, for a Mex he was fast. I was standing here tonguing my teeth, waiting to hit hell's hot water, when a loud voice from the rear of the place yelled, 'Hey, Peppergut!'

"That Mex turned, bringing his gun around, and there was Jack, though we didn't know it was him at the time. He'd come in and nobody had recognized him. It was winter, you see, and he was bundled up coats and shirts and had on this derby. And it had been some years.

"Well, I was thinking that this fella-Jack, but I didn't know it then-was going to get his big mouth shot off, and to be honest, that was all right by me, cause that meant I wasn't going to get bucked off my ride, you see. But before I could hit the floor and crawl off, Jack drew.

"Let me tell you, sonny, that was the prettiest draw I've ever seen, especially with it coming out from under all them coats. Ever seen a rattler strike, boy? It's something if you're not on the biting end of it. A rattler can coil, come off the ground and throw its head back, pop them fangs and hit you faster than you can blink. Well, this was even faster, I swear."

"Before that Mex could level his pistol. Jack fired. His shot hit the Mex solid between the eyes, and that peppergut folded up like a pair of fresh-washed long Johns and hit the floor. Wasn't nothing left for him but to be hauled off to the trash ditch on the other side of town. I kept the Mex's pistol."

Riley reached under the bar and came up with it. It was a big, old, heavy, 44.

"Ever since that night, Jack's had free drinks on me and run of the place. And that kid in the blue hat is Noel Reasoner. He was working for me at the time, sweeping up in the back there. He saw the whole thing. He was always reading them dime novels, you know, and had just read one with Jack in it. And lo and behold, the top dog his ownself shows up and blows a spick's brains out right in front of him. Kid loved it. He's been following Jack around ever since, learning to shoot from him, and I hear he ain't even half bad."

"That's why Jack can tote a gun in here? He saved your life?"

"Jack could tote an elephant in here if he wanted," Riley said. "I ain't no fool. I just let him be. Homer, that's the sheriff, he don't bother him none neither, and we don't fault Homer none for it. He was something in his time, best sheriff in these parts. He tracked down and arrested Wild Bill Longley single-handed once. But now he's seventy and he and Jack get along good. And the town, they don't care that Jack totes a gun when they can't. He's sort of a living legend. He's in them dime novels and all. I reckon he's deserving of some special privileges."