Curly Bill and Ringo Read online

  “Say, Curly, do you know that tall fellow who rode in on that black horse?” the boy asked. “Looked like a gunfighter, didn’t he?”

  Curly wanted to tell him, in the most casual and offhand way, that it was Johnny Ringo. But Johnny Ringo wouldn’t like that, so Curly did the next best thing, and said in the most casual and offhand way, “Fellow calls hisself Easter.”

  Billy “the Kid” Bishop’s eyes and mouth popped wide open. Like everyone else, he had heard about the gunfight over in Silver City. “Easter! You sure, Curly?”

  Curly shrugged. “That’s the name he signed in the register.”

  There was a strange glow in the boy’s eyes. “Some folks think Easter is really Billy the Kid. The Kid was from Silver City. You think he could still be alive, Curly?”

  “Sure,” Curly said, grinning. “You’re Billy the Kid.”

  The boy grinned sheepishly. “I mean the real Billy the Kid. Bonney. Not Bishop.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s still alive, too.”

  “You don’t think Easter could be him, then?”

  “It ain’t likely, seeing as how Pat Garret blasted the Kid with his cannon two or three years back. Besides, Bonney was a sawed-off little runt with buckteeth.”

  The Bishop kid put his hand over his mouth. He had one tooth that suck out a little more than the others. “You never told me you knew the Kid, Curly.”

  “Forgot to mention it, I guess,” Curly said easily. “I rode with him for a while in ‘78, using another name.” In fact Curly had never even seen the Kid, but he had begun to believe the lies he told, although hardly anyone else did. “But I was only kidding you about Easter. I just gave him that name as a sort of joke, and it looks like he took a liking to it.” He grinned to himself and added, “Prob’ly just some dude who wears his gun for show.”

  The kid also grinned, though he looked a little disappointed. “You gonna get in trouble doing that, Curly. Mad Dog Shorty said he was gonna kill you for giving him that bad name.”

  “Mad Dog Shorty better bring plenty of help,” Curly said, as he stepped astride the eager Appaloosa. “And I don’t mean just Pike and them.”

  The Bishop kid came a little closer, looking up at him. “Say, Curly, when you gonna teach me how to shoot? You keep saying you will, but you never get around to it.”

  “Yeah, it looks like I’ve done waited too long,” Curly said, glancing down at the gun the boy always wore, even when he was cleaning out the stalls. “From what I hear, you’ve done gone and learned how all by yourself.”

  There was a kind of pride in the boy’s grin. “I’ve been practicing every chance I get. But I don’t guess I’ll ever be as good as you, Curly.”

  “You never know,” Curly said generously. “You keep at it long enough, you might come in a close second.”

  “What about Ringo?” the boy asked, for he had often heard Curly talk about Ringo’s magic with a Colt. “You think I’ll ever be as good as him?”

  “Nobody’s as good as Ringo,” Curly said. “They don’t make them like that anymore. Doc Holliday is supposed to be about the deadliest man with a gun in the West and when he was in Tombstone everyone was afraid of him except Ringo. Two or three times Ringo invited him to draw, but some of the Earp crowd always arrived in time to stop it and old Doc looked real pleased to see them.”

  He saw the dreamy look in the boy’s eyes and knew he was seeing himself as a famous gunfighter, the equal of Ringo and Earp and Holliday and Curly Bill. That boy knew old Curly was right up there with Ringo and them, and that modesty alone kept him from saying so.

  Curly raised his hand in a little salute and rode up the street. At the general store he swung down, tied the Appaloosa and went in.

  “You got that stuff ready?”

  “Sure thing, Curly.” Grady nodded at a half-filled flour sack on the counter. “Put it on your bill, like always.”

  Curly nodded and studied the storekeeper’s blank shriveled face, “Did Uncle Willy manage to sell you his half of the store?”

  Grady shook his head. “He looked like he had something on his mind, but he didn’t say what it was.”

  That was just like Uncle Willy, Curly thought. He had to think about a thing a good long while and change his mind several times before he made a final decision.

  “He say anything to you about it?” Grady asked.

  “Nothing much. Just that he might see if you were interested. I doubt if he really wants to sell.”

  Grady smiled. “I sort of doubt it myself.”

  At the hitchrail Curly tied the grub sack to the horn and then stepped into the saddle.

  “Hey, Curly!”

  He turned his head and saw the three Hatcher boys standing in front of the Bent Elbow. He walked the Appaloosa across the dust and reined in, watching them in stony silence, thinking what poor specimens they were compared to Ringo. He would have traded all three of them and a dozen more like them for one like Ringo.

  “That grub you got there, Curly?” Beanbelly asked, grinning. In the sunlight he looked even more sloppy and seedy. His clothes were baggy and dirty, his face darkened by a patchy stubble. He jerked his shaggy head toward the west. “The shack’s that way.”

  “I thought I’d take a bite of grub out to the ranch,” Curly said. “You boys would just let your old ma and pa starve, and think nothing of it.”

  “Hell, the old man could ride in to get some stuff,” Cash said, the other two merely shrugging their indifference.

  “You know he’s afraid to get near a saloon. The temptation might be too much for him.”

  But they weren’t listening. They had something else on their minds. Cash told him what it was. “This would be a good time to round up a bunch of cows, while Uncle Willy’s in town.”

  “Let’s give Uncle Willy’s cows a rest,” Curly said. “We’ve hazed them back and forth across the border so much there ain’t no meat left on them.”

  Beanbelly grinned and Comanche Joe laughed his short laugh, which sounded more like a grunt and was about the only sound he ever made. Cash seemed inclined to argue, but then he only shrugged and silently watched Curly ride up the street.

  At the edge of town Curly put the Appaloosa into a gallop and thundered along the winding road through the desert chaparral, leaning a little forward in the saddle, his white teeth bared in a reckless grin. Ah, it was good to be young, with the sun and wind on his face, a strong spirited horse between his legs, and the whole wild West for a bridle path.

  The desert raced by him unnoticed, for he had seen it too many times and now saw only himself tearing across it on that beautiful white horse with the streaming black mane and tail. In the distance ahead there were rough, rocky hills slashed and scarred by twisting canyons and arroyos, and beyond them barren mountains that looked like great heaps of ashes spilled on the desert. It was a hard wild land, crisscrossed by rattlesnakes, scalp-hungry Apaches, Mexican smugglers, white renegades, and other varmints, all doing their best to preserve the balance of nature at everyone else’s expense. But although there were times when he hated it, most of the time he loved it. He loved every rock and stunted shrub. He loved the clear clean air, the cloudless blue sky, the hot sun and the dry wind. He loved it all because he was a part of it, and knew this was where he belonged.

  Then he saw the dust ahead and remembered that it was a very dangerous country to travel alone. Apaches were what he thought of first. But Apaches didn’t raise clouds of dust and they didn’t travel the white man’s road, except when being marched from one reservation to another. He slowed the Appaloosa to a prancing trot and soon halted in the road facing six of the meanest white men in the West.

  There was wall-eyed Pike Lefferts and his brother Bear, both big, black-bearded men in their forties. The others, spread out in the road behind them,
were all younger men by several years, but every bit as ugly and hard-looking. There was Scar-face Harry, who had once fancied himself an explosives expert. The last bank job had literally blown up in his face, and he hadn’t heard much since except a funny ringing in his ears. Beside him was Rattlesnake Sam, who had a peculiar way of holding his small head like a rattler about to strike. Sticky-fingered Dave was a slight blond fellow with a sheepish grin and gleaming pale eyes that ranged over Curly’s new brown suit and paused on the wide cartridge belt and the walnut-butted .45’s in the tied-down holsters. Mad Dog Shorty was a small funny looking man in a baggy old suit and a derby, with the stub of a cigar clenched between his wide-spaced little teeth. His face twitched when Curly grinned at him, and he rode his horse up abreast of Pike and Bear and sat there bent forward in his saddle peering at Curly with wild hatred swimming in his half-crazed watery eyes.

  “Morning, boys,” Curly said cheerfully. “You’re just in time for the funeral.”

  Pike squinted at him with one small sharp eye, while the other one, wide open and alarmed, seemed to be looking past him down the road toward town. “What funeral?”

  “Yours,” Curly said, resisting the impulse to look back over his shoulder.

  Mad Dog Shorty trembled with anger and fondled the handle of a bowie at his belt. A few of the others let their hands drift toward their guns.

  “You tryin’ to make us laugh, Curly?” Pike asked, and one or two of the others did laugh, though it sounded a little forced. “There’s six of us and one of you.”

  “You don’t like them odds?” Curly asked. “Would you like for me to turn my back and let you boys get over there behind them rocks?”

  They didn’t like that and for a long tense moment they watched him out of cold narrow eyes, ready to grab their guns.

  “You boys are right on the edge of the volcano,” Curly said. “Better back off.”

  Scar-face Harry turned his head about, trying to listen first with one ear and then the other. Finally he leaned his head over toward Rattlesnake Sam and muttered, ‘’What’s he sayin’?”

  “He says we’re on the edge of hell,” Rattlesnake told him.

  “Son of a bitch,” Scar-face Harry said.

  Pike decided to heed Curly’s warning. He knew Curly couldn’t get them all, but he knew Curly could get him, and that was all he was concerned about. So he made himself relax and folded his hands on the saddlehorn in plain sight. “We got more important things on our minds right now than you, Curly,” he said. “Bear thinks he saw Johnny Ringo ride by the ranch goin’ toward town. You seen him, Curly?”

  Curly grinned. “You boys seeing ghosts? You bushwhacked Ringo, remember?”

  “Who says so?” Pike asked.

  “I do,” Curly said. “I heard you boys bragging about it out at the Lazy G one night. That’s why I quit when the Hatchers did.”

  “You was just drunk and thought you heard something you never.”

  Curly shook his head. “It was you boys who were drunk, not me.”

  “That wasn’t us done that to Ringo,” Pike said, rubbing his bearded mouth and watching Curly with his terrible eyes. “It was them Earps.”

  “Then you boys ain’t got a thing to worry about,’’ Curly said.

  “Yeah, but he may think it was us.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “You prob’ly told him!” Mad Dog Shorty said in a trembling voice.

  “Shut up,” Bear Lefferts muttered out of the side of his mouth.

  “If it was the Earps, you boys ain’t got a thing to worry about,” Curly said again. “Because if it was them, he’s dead. But if it was you boys, you most likely bungled the job and he may still be alive. But you better hope he’s dead, because if he ain’t, you soon will be.”

  There was naked fear in their eyes. Mad Dog Shorty’s face twitched and his watery eyes swam crazily. But this time it wasn’t from hate. In his almost superstitious dread of Ringo, he seemed for a moment to forget his hatred for Curly.

  Pike Lefferts never took his narrow eye off Curly, while the other eye, the big round one, seemed to be staring beyond him in stark terror, as if he expected at any moment to see Ringo coming with a gun in his hand and several death warrants in his heart.

  “Why’d he wait this long, if it is him? That was way back last year.”

  The heavy bones seemed to stand out in Curly’s dark strong face, making it even bigger and rougher. He watched them with open contempt in his bright gray eyes. “I reckon it would take even a man like Ringo a while to get over a thing like that,” he said. “Two or three of you prob’ly missed him, and maybe a couple more only nicked him, but at least one or two of you should of scored a good hit, if only by accident. Not good enough, though.”

  “Then it is him,” Pike breathed, and the others muttered like doomed men. “Listen, Curly, the next time you see Ringo, you tell him we never had nothin’ to do with that. It was them Earps.”

  “You seem to forget, Pike. The Earps had all left Arizona before that happened.”

  “One of them could of snuck back. Prob’ly old Wyatt. He never went to California with them other Earps like some folks think. He’s been in Colorado all the time. He could of snuck back without anyone knowin’ about it. A lot of folks think it was him.”

  “If it was Wyatt, what’s Ringo doing here?”

  “Like I say, he prob’ly thinks it was us. But you better convince him it wasn’t, and tell him not to come lookin’ for us, if he knows what’s good for him. We’ll kill him if we have to, and this time we won’t miss.”

  Curly barked a short laugh, baring his teeth in savage scorn. “Pike,” he said, “if they ever get you in court, you’ll hang yourself. But I don’t think that’s what Ringo’s got in mind. He wants to save you the trouble.”

  “Better tell him to forget it,” Pike said. “We don’t plan to just wait around while he picks us off one at a time.”

  “I don’t think you should wait around, Pike. I think you boys should clear out just as fast as you can, and go so far Ringo won’t find you.”

  Pike bared his yellow teeth in a wolfish grin. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Curly? If we cleared out, you and them Hatchers could steal all of Uncle Willy’s cows. Well, it won’t work. Me and the boys has got a good thing here and ain’t nobody gonna spoil it for us. Not you or Ringo or anybody else.”

  “I’ve got a feeling Uncle Willy’s about ready to spoil it for you, Pike.”

  “That reminds me of something,” Pike said. “Right after Ringo or whoever that was rode by the ranch, Uncle Willy saddled his horse and headed for town without a word to anyone. We thought that was kind of odd. You think Uncle Willy sent for him, Curly?”

  “What difference does it make? Your goose is cooked anyway.”

  Pike’s grin reappeared, nastier than before. “Maybe not, Curly. Uncle Willy thinks it’s you and them Hatchers that’s stealin’ his cows. If he thought it was us, he would of fired us before now.”

  “Uncle Willy ain’t as dumb as you think he is, Pike.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a hell of a joke, though?” Pike said. “Maybe Ringo ain’t here after us at all. Uncle Willy might of sent for him to put a stop to you and them Hatchers. He was workin’ with them Earps before, when you thought he was your best friend. He only joined up with you and the Clantons so he could tell the Earps what you boys was up to. And he must of tipped them off about that stage holdup me and the boys was plannin’. If it wasn’t him, I sure don’t know who else it could of been.”

  “Is that why you boys bushwhacked him? You thought he told the Earps you were planning to rob a stage?”

  “That wasn’t us, Curly. You’re just guessin’. And that’s all Ringo’s doin’, if he thinks it was us.”

  “You boys sure played
hell that time,” Curly said. “The Earps didn’t know you were alive. They had bigger fish to fry. Ringo didn’t either, till you bushwhacked him.”

  “Like I say, Curly, Ringo may not even be here after us. He may of come after you and them Hatchers. He never was your friend, Curly. He just fooled you like he fooled everybody else. Except me. He never had me fooled any of the time.” Pike grinned. “You and them Hatchers is the ones who better make tracks, Curly, while you can. Me and the boys ain’t got a thing to worry about. Ain’t no way Ringo could know who bushwhacked him. And it won’t do no good for you to tell him it was us. He won’t believe you. He knows what a big liar you are, and he’ll soon realize how convenient it would be for you if we was out of the way. Ringo ain’t no fool, I’ll give him that much.”

  “He sure ain’t,” Curly agreed.

  Pike was enjoying himself. “Hell, Curly, he’d come nigher thinkin’ it was us if you told him it wasn’t.”

  Mad Dog Shorty laughed like a hysterical woman, his twitching lips pulled back from his funny little teeth that still clenched his dead cigar. “Shut up,” Bear Lefferts grunted. But Pike didn’t seem to mind the shrill laughter, from the way he kept grinning.

  Curly shrugged. “Suit yourself. I tried to give you boys some good advice. If you don’t want to take it, that’s your hard luck. Just remember what I said when you’re looking down the muzzle of Ringo’s gun. It will be the last thing you’ll ever see this side of hell.”

  He lifted the reins and was about to ride right through them, when Pike thought of something else. “By the way, Curly,” he said with his malicious grin. “Me and the boys seen Injun sign back up the road a piece. Bear said he could even smell them. But they didn’t bother us. So it must be the one you call Big Nose and four or five others come back after that horse you stole from him. Nobody in their right mind steals horses from the Apaches, Curly. I figgered even you had more sense than that.”