Black Falcon 1, Marshal for two days

 

1. Marshal for two days

 

It was raining when he rode into town for provisions; the sort of unrelenting rain that made its way inside clothes, down collars, into boots, and anywhere else rain has no business to go, even bypassing the long black leather duster, and black Stetson.

The livery stable saw to the discomfort of his horse. He nodded to the hand who saw to the horses and tossed him a silver dollar.

“Give him a good currying, please,” he said. His voice was unexpectedly soft.

The stablehand noted, however, that his Smith and Wesson Schofield revolvers were tied down, a sure sign of a gunslinger. It was well-known that anyone who toted two guns was either a show-off blowhard, or a very dangerous fellow indeed.

The stablehand assessed the newcomer as a very dangerous fellow indeed.

Luke Sokolov, for such was his real name, nodded, and toted his saddlebags and his Winchester 73 with him. 

Many gunslingers used the Colt opentop revolver with the older version of the Winchester built in 1866, as both used the same ammunition, useful for someone on the road a lot. Luke, however, took his ability as a sharpshooter seriously, and his Winchester sported the latest in telescopic sights. Luke could do things with that Winchester that most sharpshooters only dreamed of.  And since he needed separate cartridges to the heavy centrefire cartridges of the 73 Winchester, he picked his revolvers for their speed in reloading, and the heavy 0.44 calibre.

 

Next was the saloon, and he took his saddle and saddlebags with him, shouldering aside the batwings to go in.

“A cup of tea,” said Luke.

“Tea?” the barkeep queried.

“Tea.  By the pint. I’ll switch to whisky when I’ve warmed up,” said Luke. “Make it strong and sweet.”

“Only if you buy a bottle to go with it,” said the barkeep.

Luke shrugged.

“Make it a Dewar’s; I’m not touching any home-brewed rot-gut.”

“You think a lot of yourself.”

“Yes. And if you can’t get me Dewar’s, or Jameson’s Irish at a pinch, I’ll stick to tea,” said Luke.

Grumbling, the barkeep fetched up a dusty bottle of Dewar’s Scotch Whisky. Luke examined the seal, and nodded, to pronounce himself satisfied.

“Mister, I ain’t about to give counterfeit whisky to a man who wears two holsters tied,” said the Barkeep. “What do they call you?”

Luke considered.

“Most people call me ‘the Black Falcon,’” he said. “It does as well as any name.”

“Part Injun?”

“Not that I’d noticed,” said Luke. He was tanned with hawk-like features, but his eyes were blue green, and as warm as ice. His hair was dark, untidy, and collar length where it curled, as did the tips of his moustaches when he failed to cut them close. His long sooty lashes were the envy of many a woman, and his delicate features would be called effeminate on a man less confident of his manhood. 

A throat was delicately cleared at Luke’s elbow, and he turned to fix his seagreen eyes on a plump little man whom Luke labelled in his own mind as a tinhorn. His head was bald, pink, and shiny.

“Mister Falcon,” said the man, “I heard of you; you’ve collected bounties on some owlhoots, I hear.”

“It’s a job,” said Luke. “And I don’t aim to leave town without warming up and getting me some provisions.”

“Oh, absolutely, absolutely... but you see, we need a marshal real bad... the Bar TZ ranch has Texan hands, and they’ve been running beeves to the railhead... and they’re due back in town any day now, and they like to hit the saloon and make whoopee... and our marshal has fled, account of how they said they’d beat him so bad next time he tried to stop them that he’d never walk again.”

“And what do you want me for?” asked Luke. “Run down your errant marshal, and bring him back?”

“No, we want you to be our marshal,” said the little man.  “I’m Erasmus Bobbin, the banker here... and the amount of damage they do... I’ve the backing of the shopkeepers.”

He pushed a star at Luke.

Luke raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to stop these rowdy Texans from making a nuisance of themselves,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bobbin.

Luke regarded the six-pointed tin badge with the word ‘Sheriff’ hammered onto it, rather crudely.

“What’s the pay?” he asked.

“We pay thirty dollars the month, a dollar a day,” said Bobbin, nervously.

“You’re keeping me from earning bounties,” said Luke. “You pay me five dollars a day while I’m here, and ten dollars for the day these proddy waddies come by.”

“That’s outrageous!” gasped Bobbin,

“That’s my offer,” said Luke. “And consider how much repairing damage would cost.”

Bobbin mopped his shiny brow, considered, swallowed hard, making his string tie bob, and nodded.

“Very well,” he said.

“I’ll be eating now,” said Luke. “You can bring me the keys to the marshal’s office while I’m eating; I might as well stay there as anywhere.”

It would not be the first time he had slept in a jailhouse bunk; some law officers disliked bounty hunters to the point of pinning a technical crime on them. It amused Luke to pin on the badge, and to prepare to sleep in what was, for the next few days at least, his own jail.

Once he had eaten an indifferent beef stew with floury bullets alleged to be dumplings, he toted his bags and rifle over to the jailhouse, noted that there was paperwork left undone, and sorted that out before turning in.

 

oOoOo

 

Luke’s first day as marshal was fairly quiet. He spent some time patrolling his new patch with as much easy grace walking as he had in the saddle, stalking like some wild beast. The townsfolk watched him with a mix of approval that their new marshal looked dangerous, and trepidation, that their new marshal looked dangerous.  Luke discovered that, as he had expected,  Bobbinsville was a small, no-account place with one each of the usual appurtenances of civilised life; one saloon, which had rooms upstairs, one bank, one store, one livery stable, one church, one graveyard, one carpenter who also made coffins, one school, or at least a shack and half a school,  a proper schoolhouse being built to replace the shack currently in use; and one doctor, whose office was opposite the marshal’s office. There were board sidewalks between the buildings, to keep the skirts of ladies out of the dust or mud – the mud from the previous day’s rain, however, quickly dried out into dust – and give some appearance of civilisation. The store sold everything, and Luke, not anticipating being long in town, left a list there, and an order to pack it in saddlebags.

He left the whisky in a saddlebag too; a lawman should be stone cold sober at all times, at least in Luke’s book.

Consequently, he continued drinking tea in the saloon as he observed its habitués.

Only one man took it into his head to make an issue of the boy marshal drinking tea.

“Am I making you drink tea?” asked Luke.

“A real man drinks whisky,” growled the half drunken local.

“A real marshal stays stone cold sober when he’s on duty,” said Luke. “You want a marshal? You get me unlikkered up.”

The drinker swung for Luke of course,

He went down, as Luke blocked effortlessly, and let fly with one of his own fists.

Luke picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants, walked out through the batwings, and dropped him on the sidewalk.

“If the trash isn’t cleared up by the time I finish my tea, he’ll be in jail,” he said.

There was no pugnacious drunken bum to be found when he emerged.

There was very little more trouble for Luke.

 

 

He toted a sleeping drunk off the street to sober up in the other cell, and gave a small boy a few sharp whacks where it would do most good for letting off a firecracker when folks were already on edge.

“My ma’ll be by to see you,” yammered the youth.

“She’ll be out of luck. I don’t spank females,” said Luke.

He did not receive a visit from the boy’s starchy mother, a widow who taught school.  It was all she could do to live down the suggestion that she would go to complain to the new marshal in order to get a spanking from the extremely handsome young man.

If looks could have killed, however, Luke would have been a smoking pile of ashes.  However, many of the townsfolk nodded to him happily; the schoolmarm’s son was a small demon of mischief which his mother could not be brought to realise.

 

oOoOo

 

The sounds of the hoofs could be felt before they were heard the next day; and then the sound was like thunder with the added screams ‘Yee haw!’ and whooping as the eight cow pokes rode into the town, firing into the air.

Luke strolled out.

Such high spirits were acceptable. He was there to see it went no further.

The hard-looking men dismounted, slinging reins over the hitching post outside the saloon, and one of their number caught sight of Mr. Bobbin, an elderly lady on his arm.

“Hey, Bobbin, have you learned to dance yet?” one of the men fired in the ground near Bobbin’s feet, and he jumped nervously.

“You can stop that,” said Luke, in his low, but carrying voice. “What’s more, I think I’ll have all your gun belts until you’re ready to leave town if you can’t behave better than a bunch of first grade farm boys with a stolen bird gun.”

“And who’s going to make us?” said the leader, derisively.

“I am,” said Luke. “Quick or dead; makes no difference to me.”

The man must be the ramrod; the others murmured, and looked to him.

“I ain’t handin’ over my gun to some consarned  schoolboy like you, whatever tin badge you tote,” said the ramrod. “And I ain’t over making Bobbin dance.”

“Fire again, and I fire back,” warned Luke.

The Ramrod laughed, and fanned his revolver in fire about Bobbin’s feet. The fat little man stumbled back; the elderly lady fell, and screamed as a ricochet hit her face.

Nobody later could say they even saw the movement in which Luke’s Smith & Wesson cleared his holster; but the ramrod went down.

“Get out of town,” said Luke to the other seven.

They drew on him.

This was a fatal error.

The gun in Luke’s right hand spoke four more times; the one in his left spoke three.

The cowpokes would be proddy no more.

Luke reloaded, and went over to the old lady.

She was sobbing in pain and terror, and Luke picked her up, ignoring the fact that she had lost control of her bladder, and carried her into the doctor’s office.

“I don’t think she’s hurt mortally badly,” he said, in the correct English he had learned at his mother’s knee, quaint to many in the west. “But I think she may have broken her leg as well as having taken a bullet. And see here, doc,” he added, “It was a ricochet, so you clean it well with whisky, make sure no lockjaw gets in.”

“I know my job... Marshal,” said the doctor.

“Good,” said Luke.

He went back into the street.

Men were clearing up the bodies.

Bobbin shook his head gloomily.

“You shouldn’t have killed them all, marshal,” he said.

“I didn’t touch them until actual bodily harm was committed on the lady you were with,” said Luke, frowning.

“My mother; she’s not too steady on her pins,” said Bobbin.

“And if she broke her hip she won’t ever walk again, and might die of it,” said Luke. “I told them to stop, I warned them. And the ramrod shot, and caused your mother harm. So I shot him. I told the others to get out of town. They chose to commit suicide instead.”

“We’ll have trouble from the Bar TZ now!” panicked Bobbin.

“You want me to deal with any of them who make trouble?” said Luke.

“No; I want you out of town,” said Bobbin. “Please hand in your badge.”

“My fifteen dollars?” said Luke.

“I... you did not fulfil the contract properly,” said Bobbin.

“I can unfulfil it even more by making more mess than they could,” said Luke. “I did what you told me. Pay up.”

Trembling, the banker got out his wallet, and handed the bills to Luke, who pocketed them. Then he took off his badge.

“Have a six-pointed enema,” he said.

“Wh... what?” said Bobbin.

“I said, ram it up your arse,” said Luke.

 

It had been interesting while it had lasted.