Not What it Seems
This short story was actually the second book I printed, although it was intended mainly to be posted on my old website so that visitors could read a sample of my writing.
A limited number of copies were printed, but here's the story. Enjoy!
My name’s Laney Benton, and I come from the high-up hills of Kentucky. It’s been a few years since I’ve been back to see ma and my brothers and sister, but I reckon the time will come when it happens. Pa, he left home some years before me, when he come out to these western lands seeking his fortune. I was only a youngster when he left, and ma, she doesn’t say much about it, but I figure he was either chasing a pot of gold at the end of the elusive rainbow or guiding some folks somewhere. Either way, I know he done what he did so’s when he returned he’d have something to make life easier for ma and us. Only he never come back, and I done a sight of my growin’ up after he left.
I’d gone off to fight in the war, fighting for Lincoln’s army, and I was right proud of it. But when I returned, I’d stayed only a short while when I got to itching to be out and seeing new places. I taken off after less’n a year, sayin’ my goodbyes to ma and the others. I crossed the mountains on foot, grabbing up a horse when the first chance offered, and headed down Texas way before reaching the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado. Seemed those mountains back to home were dwarfed by the heights of the Rockies, and for a spell I lost myself, wandering about the high-up peaks. If you’ve never seen the beauty of those high-up mountains that’s few on folks and long on wildlife, you’re surely missing something. Man, those are mountains!
But the time came when I tired of being up there on my lonesome, and I headed back for the lower places, where there was more folks. ‘Sides, I could only eat what I shot for so long before I got to longin’ for fresh, home-cooked vittles.
That was when I got to missing ma and them. I had me three brothers, Ben, Bob and Hiram. Bob and Hiram were the youngest and the same age, bein’ twins and all, and I also had me an older sister named Beth. She was older’n me by two years, and I suffered for it when I was younger-but not for long. When I stopped growing I nearly didn’t stop, not till I was three inches above six feet. At the time I left home I was twenty pounds shy of two hundred, but the intervening years had added more than forty pounds to my frame, most of it in my chest and shoulders.
When I stepped inside this saloon in some new sprout of a town near Cheyenne there was a man sitting at a table who looked up and given me a long look. I been around long enough to know that look, and there was something in his manner I didn’t like, like maybe he’d been looking for me. I knew what he was lookin’ at, and it was a bunch of raw power beneath a buckskin hunting jacket. He also seen brown curly hair extending out from beneath a beaten up, old flat-brimmed and flat-crowned black hat. I hadn’t shaved in nearly a week, and I must have looked a sight, but if he seen anything of particular interest I weren’t sure just what it was.
The man scowled at me from a distance of twenty feet, not liking something, and I did my best to ignore him. I started for the bar, all the while keeping an eye on that man. He was scowling at me and casting a strange glance in my direction, which got me to wondering. I hadn’t never been in this saloon before, nor even this new town, and my stops in Cheyenne had been few enough, so why he might be interested in me puzzled me.
True, there were a good many men drifting about the country since the end of the war-I was one of them-and I might have crossed paths with this man in any number of places before the both of us ended up here.
Still, try as I might I just couldn’t place him. He had a look such as any number of men could. There was nothing unmistakable about his face. His teeth were slightly yellowed, his skin suntanned but not burned, and he only sported a couple days growth of beard. His black hair was trimmed, his jeans and shirt worn but not tattered, and his boots were scuffed but not yet in need of replacement. His brown, broad-brimmed hat had a high crown and a slight gathering of dust where sweat had collected it, but there was nothing about the man that would either stick out in a crowd or cause me to remember him any more than anyone else.
That was what disturbed me. He could have been anyone, and yet he was nobody, not from where I was concerned. I mean, I just couldn’t catalog the man, couldn’t place him from anywhere, and yet he was acting as if he knew me.
But he was disturbed also. I could see that much. He had stood up from the table where he had been sitting with three other men and taken a step in my direction before stopping, unsure of himself and what to do. The look on his face wasn’t friendly, and for a long moment his hand hovered near his gun, like maybe he was thinking about pulling it out, though I couldn’t imagine why.
I walked on up to the bar and ordered as the bartender cast me a sidelong, wary glance. As the bartender poured, the man sat back down, still scowling.
Something here was not to my liking, and my mind was racing ahead. I could think of no reason why that man should be looking for me, and yet he had given every impression he was. Aside from the six of us-myself, the man, his three companions and the bartender-there were fewer than a dozen people in the saloon, so keeping an eye on that one man was not a problem.
During my time since I’d left home I’d gotten used to the rough ways of a harsh and unsettled land. I’d used a Colt more times than I cared to remember, finally coming to prefer the use of it rather than my Winchester. I’d grown up using a rifle, and although I’d been introduced to the pistol during the war, I had still preferred the longer range and better accuracy for a long time following the war. In such a place as this a rifle would be too cumbersome, and I was suddenly glad I’d become handy with the Colt. The man was obviously edge, but there was no reason to believe there’d be any shooting.
Or was there?
The man at the table was fidgeting, still looking in my direction as I taken the last swallow of my drink. I think he was maybe trying to make up his mind about something, or maybe he wasn’t quite sure about me. Maybe he had me confused with someone else. Seemed I was near as confused as he was. Even the bartender seemed to notice wasn’t just right, but if he was like most bartenders he’d leave well enough alone until it seemed like his business was about to become riddled with holes left by flying lead. Something was certainly bothering that gent at the table, and me, I hadn’t no idea what that could be. He half started to rise, and I made a hasty decision.
I hadn’t no desire to pull iron on a man I’d never seen for a reason I might never know, so when he started to rise I turned my back on him and took three long steps to and through the door. When I reached the boardwalk I turned to my right, so’s I’d not have to step in front of the windows where that man was waiting.
I ducked into an alley and quickly walked its length, making another right turn. I passed by the back of the saloon, then followed along and past another building before coming out on another street.
I lounged against the corner of a building there for several minutes, chewing on a blade of grass I picked from a clump growing at my feet. I watched the people as they passed by in front of me, admiring a fancy rig with a pair of white horses as it moved in front of me. The driver had himself a long, thin whip, like I alwayst imagined they’d used back in England and other places such as that. The driver looked the gentlemanly type too, sporting a full white beard and wearing a black, stove-pipe hat. He looked like an Englishman, too, although that might have just been ‘cause I was thinkin’ of him thataway.
After five minutes of waiting I hadn’t seen any of those four men I’d seen back to the saloon, and I grinned despite myself. I was being a lily-livered scaredy-cat, working myself up over someone who probably just had me confused me with someone else. Except for being a mite taller than average, I looked much like anybody else, though the clothes I was wearing made me stick out, to a degree at least. With a clean shave and fresh clothes, the only thing about me that would call to attention would be my height, and even from a distance that would be nothing to distinguish me.
I stepped out into the street, discarding the blade of grass I’d been chewing on while I was waiting. I turned right, along the street which the saloon fronted, and in that direction, but not because I wanted to prove to myself I’d been guessing wrong.
My horse was hobbled there, and I wanted to find a place for him for the night. I hadn’t no real plans, no place to go, and nobody to return to. I just had it in mind to hang about for a few days and enjoy being around folks. Me, I’m one of those who like to be around folks, but only to listen to their stories and be around the activity. I wasn’t much for talking, liking the company, yet not wishful of being the center of attention. I’d left my horse, a flea-bitten buckskin gelding with an attitude, across the street from the saloon and fifty feet further down, in front of a dry goods store, where I was fixing to take on supplies after wettin’ my whistle. I was still a hundred feet from the gelding when I heard the voice behind me.
“Turn around, Benton!” the man behind me said in a ringing voice. Moments before there’d been a number of folks out on the street, but when they heard that voice they scattered to the winds, and you never seen a street clear itself of folks as fast as what happened right then. I couldn’t place the voice, but instinctively I knew it belonged to the man I’d seen back in the saloon. My right hand was down by my side, hanging straight down and right near my gun, and as I turned around I loosened the thong that was holding the gun in place.
Right about then I got to thinking about the look that bartender had given me in the saloon, and it wasn’t until that moment that I saw the warning that had been in his glance. A warning, and a bit of wistfulness, and I knew now that he had been glad to see me go.
The man from the saloon was standing in the street, about thirty yards away, but if there had been any friendliness in him earlier in the saloon there surely wasn’t any now.
“Thought I told you never to show your ugly face in this town!” he called out as I stood there, and it taken me aback. I couldn’t rightly recall having ever been in this town to begin with. For another thing, I hadn’t never seen that man before in my life, so’s I had no idea why it were he was making that statement. He surely had my name right, though, I’ll give him that much.
What bothered me even more were his partners, those other three gents who’d been a’sittin’ with him. I hadn’t really seen their faces, just their type-and it weren’t the type I’d likely be seein’ in church come Sunday.
Problem was, if they was the type I thought they was, I’d not be seein’ anyone in church come Sunday on account of where I was. That place was likely to be boot hill, and I don’t reckon the view from boot hill included the inside of a house of worship.
Right off I saw one of those three men, leaning up against a post in front of the barber shop, which was to my right and only barely in front of me.
Likely there’d be one on the other side of the street, but I couldn’t see him from where I stood facing the man in the street. He’d be behind me, then, but where?
Assumin’ I’d guessed right, that left one man unaccounted for, and that man bothered me more than the others. It just didn’t look good, not good a’tall.
“You got my name right, sure enough,” I said, a bit hesitantly, but loud enough so’s he could hear me without any problem, “but I haven’t been this way for a spell, and...”
“You callin’ me a liar!” the man blustered without even letting me finish my sentence, and I knew I was in trouble. Accusin’ a man of something was bad enough itself, but calling him a liar was beyond the acceptable limits of courtesy.
Problem was, that man facing me in the street weren’t courteous in no sense of the word, and he seemed only too anxious to open the ball. I’d shot it out with two men before, coming away with several scratches and a hole through my shoulder, but facing three men would be suicide.
Thing was, there weren’t just three men but four, and I hadn’t no idea where the other two were...not for sure. I knew I was gettin’ ready to cash in my chips.
“Well,” I said slowly, trying to find some way, any way, to buy myself some time. I hadn’t thoughts of running, but I surely weren’t ready to be pushing up daisies no time soon. Sweat broke out on my forehead and time seemed to stand still as I made my reply, but then I heard a new voice speaking from my right and behind me.
“If he don’t call you a liar, Butch, I surely will.” There was only a hint of familiarity in the sound of that voice, but there was something there. I knew that voice. “It was me you told to stay out of town on account of your girl, Butch. Not Laney.”
Butch, the man facing me in the street, seemed even more confused now than he had been earlier, and he kept looking at the two of us and shaking his head. I hadn’t no ideas of turning my head, for there weren’t no way I were taking my eyes of that man Butch for even a moment. When the shooting started, it would be from him.
“Don’t worry, Laney,” the man behind me said quietly so’s only I could hear and not that man in front of me whose name must’ve been Butch. “I’ll take Butch and the man on your left. There’s another one on your right, and a fourth one in the hayloft door of the livery, ahead and on your right.” Right then I didn’t know who the man behind me was, nor did I care, but I reckoned he must be an angel or some such person.
“Butch,” the man behind me said in a louder voice, “you wanted me...here I am!”
I was watching Butch, knowing he’d be the first one to try a shot, but I located the man in the livery and then fixed myself on the man on my right. I located the man in the loft none too soon.
Butch dragged out his gun, and almost instantly there was answering fire behind me and on my right. I drew my gun without thinking, taking a quick shot at the man on the right, stepping to my left and back as I turned and faced the man on the right, taking me further out of the line of fire of my unknown partner.
I could hear a roar of gunfire, and the street was becoming cloudy with black smoke from the burnt powder, and my gun was firing, again at the man on the street and then at the man in the hayloft door of the livery. The man on the street was sagging to his knees, and my third and fourth shots knocked the other man out of the hayloft.
By the time he fell to the ground in front of the livery the street was quiet, and I marveled that I was still alive, surprised at the sudden turn of events. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
When I turned, for a moment I thought I was looking into a short mirror. Except that he was two inches shorter than me, the man I was staring at was nearly my spitting image.
“Buy you a drink, Ben,” I said, clasping his hand.
“Any time, big brother. Any time.”
Copyright 2014 Cade Russell. All rights reserved.