Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

Tulley — stretching and groaning as he emerged from the livery stable where he’d spent the night in a stall — saw the stranger ride in. He’d never laid eyes on anything like this creature, and blinked at him like the man on horseback was a drunken dream or a hangover hallucination.

Pockets on the front of a shirt! Buttons all the way down the front?

To this bowlegged desert rat in his torn BVD shirt, ancient suspenders, and scroungy old canvas trousers, the dude looked like something out of Ned Buntline or maybe a Wild West show.

Tulley wasn’t the only one who noted the stranger’s arrival. Two of Gauge’s bunch, Riley and Jackson, were sitting on the porch in front of the sheriff’s office, minding the store.

No sight of Gauge himself or Deputy Rhomer, neither, Tulley noted. Musta been a late night for the sheriff. Scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel to leave them two in charge...

Riley was mustached, brawny, and mean, whereas Jackson was bearded, brawny, and meaner. The former stood near six foot, the latter several inches shy. Otherwise, Tulley saw little difference between the gunnies. Neither man had seen a barber in some time, and their dark blue threadbare army shirts and brown duck trousers showed considerable dirt and wear. The only thing either man seemed proud of was the pistol slung low on their respective hips — .45 Colt Army revolvers for either man.

When the stranger rode lazily by, Riley was sitting, leaned back, with his chair resting against the time- and bullet-scarred adobe wall of the sheriff’s office-jailhouse, his Carlsbad Stetson down over his eyes. When Jackson elbowed him, Riley damn near fell off his chair.

Tulley, who had sneaked up alongside the building, stifled a laugh.

“Riley, wake the hell up,” Jackson said in a rough whisper. “Feast your eyes on this!”

Riley righted his chair, frowned toward the street, saw the stranger going by at an easy pace, and gaped. “What the hell...?”

“That is one crazy dude,” Jackson said through snorting laughs. “ Look at him! Where’s the rest of the circus?”

Riley seemed considerably less amused than his pard. “Better check him out. Sheriff’s orders.”

“Come on, Riley boy. That tenderfoot ain’t Banion!”

“Why, you ever see the man?”

“Hell, that can’t be him.”

“Best check, just the same.”

They came down the steps and into the street, where Riley yelled, “Hold ’er up there, mister!”

The stranger brought the gelding to a halt and looked back blandly at the two hard cases coming his way.

Tulley, grinning to himself, sneaked up onto the porch and helped himself to Riley’s chair.

This might be good, he thought, then immediately felt a little guilty. Hell, seeing an innocent feller like that dude get cut down by prairie trash like Riley and Jackson would be a damn shame.

Still, a front-row seat on a shooting was always worth having...

Riley came around on the mounted dude’s right side and Jackson on his left, each man with the heel of a hand resting on the butt of a holstered Colt. The gelding was standing statue still. And the stranger was sitting that way, too.

“Help you, boys?” the dude said, his voice mid-range and mellow. He wasn’t looking at either man.

Riley, staring up at the rider, said, “Goin’ somewhere, mister?”

A slight smile traced the stranger’s wide, narrow lips as he turned his head slightly in Riley’s direction. “The nearest restaurant for some breakfast.”

Jackson said, “Why aren’t you wearin’ your hat?”

The stranger glanced over his shoulder the other way. “I like the sun.”

Jackson grinned up nastily at the newcomer. “Maybe you been out in it too long.”

“Well, the sun wasn’t up when I started out. I had it on then, took it off come dawn, since you seem interested in what I do with my hat.”

Riley said, “Keep a civil damn tongue in your head, dude. What’s your name?”

The stranger gave his attention to Riley again. “Well, I’m pretty sure that’s my business.”

“We’re making it ours.”

“Any special reason why?”

Jackson said, “We’re deputies.”

His eyes still on Riley, the stranger said, “I don’t see badges on your shirts.”

Riley said, “We work for the sheriff. Take our word.”

“Tell you what. I’ll be down at the restaurant... at the hotel there?” He nodded in that direction. “Why don’t you just send the sheriff around, when he comes in? Glad to talk to him.”

Riley started to draw his gun and the stranger kicked him in the throat, boot heel first. Riley tumbled to the dirt and his hands went to his neck as if strangling himself, rolling around gurgling, raising dust.

Tulley blinked and almost missed it, but now the desert rat’s eyes were wide and not about to blink and miss the next slice of action — the stranger kicking out with his left boot and catching Jackson, whose gun was halfway out of its holster, high and hard in the chest, sending him windmilling backward, landing him on his ass, 45 leaping from the fallen man’s grasp as if trying to escape its owner.

The dude dropped down from his saddle with an unhurried grace, the gelding keeping its place and making only the faintest movement, its rider coming around to where Riley was on his back like a wriggling bug trying to right itself. The stranger plucked the .45 from Riley’s holster and pitched it away like he was playing horseshoes.

Jackson was crawling after his .45 like a baby for his rattle, and the big man in black came over and kicked the gun well out of reach, then kicked Jackson in the belly with the square toe of a boot, hard enough to double the fallen man, who puked with a retching cry and then puked some more, till he was bawling like the baby he’d seemed.

The stranger stood over the man, as if deciding whether anything else needed to be done, then turned quickly to see Tulley at his side.

Grinning, Tulley nodded down at the steaming vomit soaking up the dust like an awful spilled pie and asked, “You still want breakfast, mister?”

The stranger gave up a nice, wide narrow-lipped grin. “Takes more than a welcoming committee to make me lose my appetite.”

A few townspeople on the nearby facing boardwalks had heard the commotion and had taken in at least some of the fuss, and were pointing at the fallen would-be deputies and magpie-chattering to each other. The stranger smiled at them and nodded. Waved a bit.

“Nice, friendly town you got here,” he said.

He got his hat from the saddle pommel, put it on, snapping the brim in place, and began to walk his horse down the street, heading to the nearby Hotel Trinidad. Tulley fell in at his side, having to work to keep up with the stranger’s easy but long-legged stride.

Tulley grinned, shaking his head. “That was somethin’ to see, mister. Somethin’ to see.”

“Was it?”

“Gen-you-wine pleasure to see them buzzards get more than they dished out for once. But doin’ that wasn’t the wisest move a man might make.”

“There a law against defending yourself in this town?”

“In this town? Hell, there’s a law against breathin’, if the sheriff and his mob don’t like the way you’re goin’ about it. And right now, you’re breakin’ that law mighty hard.”

“That so.”

“That’s so, all right. Good thing for you you’re a city dude.”

A small smile tickled the stranger’s lips. “Why’s that?”

“ ’Cause them two won’t likely admit to Sheriff Gauge that some pavement pounder knocked ’em around like that. So you should have no trouble with our sheriff. Of course, that in itself presents another problem entirely.”