Ralph Compton - Bullet for a Bad Man

Boone’s ivory-handled Colt was already up and out. His slug blew apart the bartender’s left eye and burst out the rear of his cranium in a shower of grisly bits and pieces. A bottle behind the bartender shattered and a hole appeared in the mirror.

In the stunned silence that followed, a man exclaimed in horror, ‘‘The boy is a natural born killer!’’

Shock had piled on shock so that now a few people were drifting toward the batwings. Once they moved, others joined them, so that within seconds a mass exodus was under way. An orderly exodus, until some started to shove, and the people they shoved went and shoved back. Soon everyone was pushing and yelling and cursing.

The saloon emptied.

Boone stood all alone in the quiet and listened to the tick of the clock. He surveyed the bodies and then noticed a gray-haired faro dealer who had not left. The man had his hands in the air but appeared otherwise unconcerned. ‘‘You were supposed to go.’’

‘‘I must stay at this table until quitting time. It is my job.’’

‘‘Is it worth your life?’’

‘‘You won’t blow out my wick.’’

‘‘What makes you so sure?’’

‘‘I am unarmed. So far you have only shot those who were out to shoot you. Well, except for the idiot who insulted her. But he should not have talked the way he did.’’

‘‘I regret him,’’ Boone admitted.

‘‘I knew Lucy,’’ the faro dealer went on. ‘‘If her folks hadn’t died, she would be living a nice life in a nice house somewhere, maybe with them, or maybe with a husband and kids.’’ He sadly shook his head. ‘‘That poor girl did not deserve the hand life dealt her.’’

‘‘She did not deserve to die either.’’

‘‘That is how things are. Life beats on you and beats on you. You can only take so much and then you turn hard and wonder where is the sense to it all. Whoever made this world has a heart of darkness.’’

Boone smiled. ‘‘Yesterday I would have thought you were loco.’’ The smile died and Boone turned and went down the hall to the first door. He opened it, found the room empty and went to the next. A naked woman and a half-dressed man were on the bed and drew back against the wall in stark fear.

‘‘Don’t shoot us, mister!’’ the woman bleated.

‘‘We heard what was going on,’’ the man said. ‘‘I don’t know no Lucy and I am kind to females.’’

The next room was filled with pungent smoke. A woman, fully clothed, lay on her back on the bed, gazing dreamily at the ceiling. She looked at him and smiled a peculiar smile. ‘‘How do you do? I am right tickled to meet you.’’ She giggled and raised a long-stemmed pipe.

The next door was to the room Boone had left his brother in. He pushed it open. Three of the four men at the table playing cards glanced over in alarm. His brother merely nodded and crooked a finger.

‘‘Come on in.’’

Boone entered but kept his back to the wall and sidled to where he could see the other men clearly. ‘‘Condit,’’ he said.

Charley Condit was peppered with drops of sweat and had a handkerchief in his left hand. He was holding it so that it bulged in the middle. ‘‘What do you want, boy?’’

‘‘Why did Sam Jarrott try to kill me?’’

‘‘You would have to ask him.’’

‘‘I can’t. He’s dead, but you already know that. So are two of his friends and one of your gunnies and a bartender.’’

‘‘Hell, boy,’’ Condit said. ‘‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good bartender? Mixing drinks is a science.’’

‘‘Stand up.’’

Epp sighed and put down his cards. ‘‘Enough of this.’’ He pushed out his chair. ‘‘What has gotten into you, little brother?’’

‘‘You did not come to see if I was all right,’’ Boone said. ‘‘You had to hear, yet you did not come.’’

‘‘All I heard was shouting and shooting,’’ Epp said. ‘‘I did not know it was you. Now you say you have shot five men? God in heaven, how will Ma and Pa take it? They didn’t raise a son of theirs to be a lead slinger.’’

Charley Condit’s handkerchief started to rise, and just like that Boone drew and shot him in the face. The slug smashed Condit’s nose and made a ruin of the rest; he oozed onto the table and from there thudded to the floor. The derringer under the handkerchief slid from his lifeless fingers.

The two other men jumped and gaped in fright at Boone and his smoking Colt.

Epp merely nudged Condit with a toe and said, ‘‘Six, now. This will break Ma’s heart. It surely will.’’

Boone walked over and gazed down at his gory handiwork with newborn dismay. ‘‘What do I do, Epp?’’

‘‘Why are you asking me?’’

‘‘You are my brother. You care for Ma and Pa as much as I do.’’ Boone swallowed, hard. ‘‘This will break her heart, won’t it? Pa’s too, I reckon.’’ He gripped his brother’s arm. ‘‘Please. You have to tell me. What do I do?’’

‘‘There is only one thing you can do,’’ Epp Scott said.

The Living Dead

The Circle V continued to prosper, but a shroud of sorrow clung to the owner and his wife.

Ned Scott went through the motions of ranching, but his heart was not in it. Lillian Scott went through no motions at all. During the day she sat in a rocking chair on the porch and gazed longingly and forlornly out over the valley. At night she sat in her rocking chair in the parlor, rocking. She never spoke unless spoken to and she answered in as few words as it took to say what she had to say.

The servants whispered among themselves and avoided her as much as they could. Maria, the cook, took to crossing herself every time Lillian walked past.

Before the Ranson shooting affray, the Circle V was a plum ranch to work at. The pay was better than most, the food stuck to the stomach and the boss knew cattle and did not look down his nose at those under him.

After the Ranson affair, the mood changed. Ned Scott was somber and surly. He never visited the bunkhouse, as he did in the old days, never talked to the punchers except to give orders, never joked and laughed with them as he used to do. He let his foreman, old Dan Morgan, pretty much run things. Morgan respected the men and had their respect in return, but he was troubled, deeply troubled, and grew more so as time went on.

Epp Scott, to the considerable surprise of many, was the cheeriest person on the spread. He smiled more than he used to. He laughed more. He was in such good spirits that two months after he came back from Ranson alone, Dan Morgan approached him one evening over near the stable and cleared his throat. With Dan the throat clearing was always a sign he had something to say.

‘‘What is on your mind?’’ Epp asked.

‘‘You.’’

‘‘Me?’’

‘‘It might not be my place to say, but you have been acting damned peculiar.’’ Dan Morgan had hair that was almost white, a square jaw and hands as calloused as hands could be from decades of honest work.

Epp had been about to light his pipe, but he lowered it and studied the old man. ‘‘You will have to explain. I do not own one of those crystal balls.’’

‘‘Your brother has become a killer and disappeared. Your ma is close to losing her mind. And your pa is not half the man he used to be.’’

‘‘Thank you for reminding me of all that. What do you do on parade day? Pray for rain?’’

Dan snorted. ‘‘That there was a perfect example.’’

‘‘Of what?’’

‘‘Of you joking and acting as if you do not have a care in the world when your world is falling apart around you.’’

‘‘I see,’’ Epp said, nodding. ‘‘You want me to fall apart like my ma or to lose all interest in life like my pa. Would that make you feel better?’’