Rudolph Wurlitzer - The Drop Edge of Yonder

"Well, you should have."

Father and son stared at each other, unable or unwilling to measure the distance between them.

"What the hell business is it of yours, tryin' to save this worthless town of egg-suckin' sodbusters?" Elijah asked. "That ain't what Shooks do. We bring a town to its knees, not stand it up.

"I'm on the run, Pa."

"I ain't surprised. That's what you get for slopin' down from the mountains. 'Course, I could say the same."

Elijah shut his eyes, coughing and spitting out a stream of blood. "Hard times, son. Pelts a plew a plug. Powder's worse. Gold fever is what done it. A damn curse all the way around. Lost a mother lode bigger than Midas. Got shot up. Rode off to the mountains and tried again, ridin' down on the spring flood with two mules loaded with prime pelts. But they watered my likker, son, cheated me worse than bad. Just to top off the foam, that sawbones over there jerked the wrong tooth"

He nodded towards the other side of the room, where a short bald-headed man stood on top of a billiard table, wearing a bloodstained white smock. His hands and legs were bound tight with belts: one end of a rope was tied around his neck, the other around Elijah's waist.

"Your teeth were rotten," the doc yelled, "every last one. I'm tellin' you, let me go and I'll give you new choppers."

Elijah jerked the rope, sending the doc howling to his knees.

"Don't mind the little jaw-cracker," he said. "He's skeered he's about to be dead meat."

"Ma's gone under," Zebulon said.

"Gone under?" Elijah sat up, shaking his head.

"Got herself shot when me and Hatchet went back home to help with the winter haul. You'd taken off, so we rode to Broken Elbow All hell broke loose when some pencil-pusher tried to pull a fast one and she demanded her fair price"

"She never was one for business."

He groaned, biting down on his lower lip. "Hatchet tried to tell me, but before he could get to it I chased him off for cheatin' me on a horse. He had the nerve to come back, but I was on a bad run, one cold deck after another… then I land me a full house, and some wolf-eyed half-dick savage deals one off the bottom for a straight flush to my full house. I called him out and next thing I know, I'm belly up in a stinkin' ditch."

When Elijah's head sagged to his chest, Zebulon thought he was dead.

"Your Ma and me had our times," Elijah finally whispered. "Truth is, she couldn't wait to see me off… and me bein' the righteous stand-up man that I am, I obliged her."

He looked up. "Did she get to plug any of them store-bought vermin on her way out?"

"She took down seven or eight," he lied. "Maybe more."

"She always could shoot better'n you or me."

Zebulon handed Elijah the bottle and pouch of tobacco, which he was glad to have, swallowing and chewing all at once.

"I always figured to go back home one last time," Elijah said. "Make it up to her with a big sack of gold dust. Enough to buy some female fineries. God bless her. I'll be seem' her soon enough."

A voice spoke up from the other side of the room. "Well, well. If it ain't Zebulon Shook. Last I saw, you was takin' a jump off that devil ship, and I was floatin' my stick to San Francisco."

Plug sat slumped against the bar, holding a snake-bit ankle with both hands. A rattler was curled a foot away, its crazed head swaying back and forth.

Plug pointed at a mural of several scenes running above the length of the bar. "How do you favor the artwork, Zeb?"

The mural showed a series of images: Zebulon plowing his horse down a snow-peaked mountain, then riding across a high plateau, a posse galloping him. At the end of the mural, a fullrigged schooner sailed through heavy seas. Other scenes showed San Francisco destroyed by fire, a wanted poster for Zebulon Shook in large bold letters, and finally, Zebulon jumping into a river of flames from the deck of a sinking prison ship.

"They paid me good money for this art," Plug said. "Soon as I'm shut of this place, I'll paint your story from Hangtown to Mariposa, and who knows, maybe back East."

Elijah loaded up the Sharps and pulled back the hammer, aiming it at Plug.

"Hold on," Plug yelled. "I still got to paint the scene with the two of you. Then they'll come from all over. This town won't never be the same. Guaranteed."

He screamed as the snake buried its fangs into his foot.

Elijah pointed the Sharps at the snake, then at the doc. Unable to make up his mind, he dropped the Sharps on the floor.

Zebulon picked it up. "I ain't exactly partial to the Sharps. Stock's too heave Chamber overheats."

"It's you that's overheated," Elijah said. "Ever since you was a little pecker-head."

Zebulon fired, blowing the head off a snake sliding across the floor towards them. Another bullet took care of the snake coiled next to Plug; not that it mattered as far as Plug was concerned, his face having turned blue as his breath left him.

Before Zebulon could shoot again, he was interrupted by a yell from outside:

"Hallooo the saloon!" the Sheriff called out. "Anyone alive in there?"

Zebulon crawled to the window.

"We're shootin' snakes," he yelled. "Hold your fire. I'm comin' out."

He turned to Elijah. "I'll make a deal."

"Too late for deals, son," Elijah said. "I'm past comin' and goin'. But if those pilgrims are dumb enough to put a rush on me, I'm happy to shoot out their lights."

Zebulon walked out the door.

The Sheriff and most of the population of Greasy Springs were gathered behind the overturned wagons, drinking whiskey and eating what was left of the barbecue.

"I need you to hold your fire for the rest of the night," Zebulon said to the Sheriff. "Otherwise he'll take out the doc and the artist and most likely some of us, me included."

"Take it easy," the Sheriff said. "As long as you take him."

"One more thing," Zebulon added. "If I bring him out alive, he goes back to the mountains."

"Done," the Sheriff said.

Zebulon nodded, his eyes on the prison photographer from Sacramento. He was standing behind a wagon loading a glass plate into his box camera.

He looked up as Zebulon walked over. "I won't say nothing to nobody about who you are," he said. "As long as you don't interfere with me taking your picture."

"How long do I have?" Zebulon asked.

"Two days. No more. Not with the Warden and half the state lookin' for you."

"It has to be until I get out of town," Zebulon said.

"All right." The photographer swiveled the camera towards Zebulon. After he arranged the bellows, he held up his hand, then ducked underneath the black cloth.

"Wait," the Sheriff called out. "You forgot the most important thing."

The Sheriff and the town's citizens arranged themselves around Zebulon, all of them staring straight at the camera. Behind them, inside the saloon, Elijah was singing his death song:

By the time Zebulon lowered himself back over the windowsill, Elijah's song had ended and the last rays of evening sun were sliding across the saloon's floorboards, highlighting the dead snakes, the mural, and Elijah, still leaning against the overturned table, spitting up clots of blood.

"Did you make a deal?" Elijah asked.

Zebulon shook his head.

"Tell me, son. Are you still foolish on shootin' billiards?"

"Of and on," Zebulon replied. "Enough to keep my stroke oiled."

Elijah sighed. "You recall that little spit of a town, Repose, I think it was, and that stiff-backed Swede that run the table on you? He cleaned you out with no more than a broom handle. Took your belt buckle, shotgun, boots. Lucky he didn't take your topknot. He plumbed your bones, that Swede. Your Ma was there. And Hatchet."