Dead Shot - The Fort Smith Series classic western novel chapter excerpts

CHAPTER

"Well, ain't you cleaver, you deep thinking son of a bitch."

"I have been accused of many things in this life, Custer, but I can assure you, deep thinking has not been one of them."

Custer held up his wrists and lifted his boots off the dark ground to present the knotted rope around his ankles.

"You think if I'm bound up like a Barbary pirate, I can't get away from you in the dark."

"I think if you go running off in the dark, you're liable to end up off one of these cliffs out here."

"I don't have to run far, Marshal, just farther than you."

"I'm not a Marshal," said Sample.

"No, not anymore," Custer agreed. "It must have been tough on you, turning in that star."

"I'll not speak on it."

"No? Then perhaps we'll speak of me?"

"Perhaps we should not speak at all."

"You would know nothing of the man you are condemning to a life in prison?"

"From what I hear you deserve it."

Custer fidgeted on the ground, searching for a way to get more comfortable on the forest floor. He watched Eldridge feed small sticks no bigger than his forearm into the flames, controlling the size of the burn in the hole he had scraped out in the ground.

It was a common tactic in Indian Territory, hiding the flame so as to not attract unwanted eyes.

"I have also seen a log block used," he said.

Eldridge glanced up at him, the flames reflected in his eyes making them look like they were on fire.

"Of course, it is a man's prerogative what type of fire he wishes to build when in the wilderness. I suppose you have a lot of experience in these woods? Or mayhap you couldn’t seeing as you were a Marshal in the east before your last post at Ft Smith?"

Eldridge raised an eyebrow but did not speak.

"Are you surprised I know that? Your accounts at the behest of Judge Parker were reported in papers across the entire country, I suppose. They reached us even out here. And so I say again, have you much experience in these woods?"

Sample looked around at the canopy of trees and shook his head.

"I know the woods."

"These woods Marshal? The types of hostiles we can encounter out here, the savages who may even know be watching us?"

"I dealt with Indians enough."

"Not these Indians? These savages are different from the pacified whelps you dealt with in the Oklahoma Territory."

Eldridge sniffed.

"I've been around a little bit," he said. "Everyone thinks their Indians are the most savage, the roughest and toughest to tame. I ain't seen many savages who can hold a candle to the cruelty and depravity of white men."

Custer shifted seeking comfort.

"That's right, you were in the War. I wonder, did we fight in the same battles?"

Eldridge shook his head.

"Pretty boy like you gave orders from too far behind the line to rub elbows with the likes of me."

"i saw battle, Sir."

"Did you? Or did your Daddy secure you a nice commission working supply trains?"

"My glory on the field are duly recorded by the same papers that wrote your praises as a Marshal."

"Then we must have been in different fights then," said Sample. "Cause where I was, there wasn't nothing glorious about it."

CHAPTER

"Note where my pistol is aimed, you cocksucker."

"Noted," Sample stared in stony silence at the dusty barrel of the Colt Revolver aimed at his heart.

The man standing in front of him was no dead shot, that was for sure, but at the distance he was from the Marshal, he didn't need to be.

The six feet between them was too far for Eldridge to startle the man, and rush him. There was enough time to pull the trigger, even if the barrel shifted off center.

He might chance a shoulder wound, but the lead ball could just as well carve a hole in his head, and that would do him no good.

"You might be wondering the purpose to my holding you at pistol point," Dan licked his chapped lips.

Eldridge could see the brown stumps of rotten teeth, worn by time, neglect and chewing tobacco in his mouth. He was glad of the distance then, far enough to keep the foul carrion stench of his breath from his nose.

"I figure you plan on killing me," Eldridge said.

"I plan on doing just that," Dan nodded in triumph.

"It's a good plan," said Eldridge as he shifted his weight to his left side. "As far as plans go, I mean."

"I'm going to gut shoot you, you son of a bitch," Dan growled. "I'm gonna watch you suffer like you did to my brother."

"Did I kill your brother Dan?" Eldridge asked. "In all honesty it has become difficult to recall all of the men I have killed."

"I bet it is, you cock sucking son of a bitch.. Only this time, you're going to remember my name."

"I suspect not," the Marshal shook his head.

"Yes you will!" Dan's hand shook in rage, brown spittle darkening the tan dust between the two men.

"Again in all honesty Dan, I suspect I won't recall your name or many names once you commence to pulling that trigger. If you do shoot me in the gut, then my last moments on this earth will dwell on the pain and your name will escape me. Once I enter into heaven, by God's grace I won't even think about the cur who sent me there."

This thought seemed to pause Dan, as he mulled it over. Sample could see the emotions filter across the man's dirt grimed face, from rage to confusion and back again.

The tip of the pistol wavered with each settlement of emotion, moving in an ever widening arc. Eldridge waited until it was pointed just to his left, in a direction where a shot was more likely to hit him in the arm, than some portion of his torso and coiled his legs beneath him to spring at the man.

He took a deep breath to shout, another tactic to startle the man, and perhaps to make his aim go astray.

The gun went off, and Sample heard the bullet zing past his ear and embed itself into a wooden wall with a dull thud.

Dan looked at him, eyes wide in surprise.

Sample leaped, but Dan collapsed to the ground, blood gushing from his half open mouth to mingle with his spittle, both the same mud color in the dust.

Rufus leaned around the corner of a building, leading with his pistol.

He studied the road to be sure the dead man was alone, and seeing he was, holstered his smoking weapon.

"Damn it Rufus, I had him where I wanted him."

"I could see that Marshal."

"One more second and I could have disarmed him."

"Don't see that you had one more second, Eldridge. Looked to me like he was about to open up parts of you that weren't supposed to be open."

Eldridge leaned over and scooped up the grimy Colt.

He cracked open the cylinder and peered through the empty cartridge chambers at Rufus.

The black man shrugged.

"I could tell something was off about this piece."

"What kind of fool don't bring bullets to a gunfight?"

"The drunk kind," said Sample.

Rufus glanced up at a small crowd forming on the raised porch of the saloon.

"We got plenty of those to spare."

Eldridge followed his glance.

"Seems drunk fools multiply faster than rabbits in these parts."

"Don't taste as good," said Rufus.

"I hope that you are kidding."

Rufus meandered toward the jail without answering and left Eldridge to wait for the undertaker, slow to attend his duty as he limped up the road past the saloon.