The Third Western Megapack. Johnston McCulley

had always warned me about bad men like that. How the world is full of them and how they be all over the West, infecting it with their wildness, drinking, cussing and gunplay. I remember Mama telling me there weren’t no men in Heaven at all as far as she was concerned – that they’re all bad and mean and just brought trouble to all women. I guessed I would be included in that grouping some day, once I growed up and became a man myself, but that just didn’t seem fair to me at all. Especially since at that time just being a 12 year old boy, manhood seemed a real long way off to me.

      Ma had her reasons for the way she felt though. She’d been alone for a long time, bitter, consumed with hate and anger. It just burned her up. Pa had pulled out on us years back when I was born, gone out prospecting for gold. Or so he’d told Ma. He never came back. We never heard hide nor hair of him since. Ma worked herself to death trying to provide for me and my older sister. When sis died of the whooping cough, it broke what was left of Ma’s heart, and she blame Pa and all men for her terrible plight and our sunken fortunes in the world. Ma passed away and I hardly remembered her now. I was looked after by Sheriff Wilson, but I lived pretty much by myself these days.

      Now we had this fancy shootist, and by the looks of him he was a dangerous man who’d not be entering into Heaven when he died either – but I was sure he’d sent his share of men to Hell just the same. I wondered who he was, and why he had come to our little town.

      I ran to the jail up the street and asked the Sheriff if I could look through the old wanted posters again. Here was as mean-looking a group of cut-throats and rogues, bank robbers and gunfighters as you’d ever want to see. They was a sure scary lot. None of them, however, looked like the man just off the stage, but they all sure had something in common by the way they looked. Especially in the eyes. They all had that same cold stare that seemed to be looking far off at something just outta range. The man off the stage had it in spades, a wary sharpness, a piercing alert gaze that looked like it could melt ice in winter – and every one of them desperadoes what had a wanted poster looked the same way. It was a dangerous look, the look that dangerous men gave off. And now one of them was in our town.

      I went back to the stage depot and it wasn’t long before I saw Sheriff Wilson and Bob Gritz his deputy come down the street. Keeping in step with their purposeful strides on the other side of the street was Timmy Wirth, the blacksmith’s son, a double-barreled shotgun cradled in his arms. His face stone cold with a flush of nervous fear, though he tried his best to hide it.

      The shootist waited for them. Calm. Assured. He hadn’t moved from his spot in the street since he got out of the stage. He noted Timmy Wirth across the street with the shotgun, moving up on him, saw the sheriff and his deputy approach with hands near their six-guns as well.

      “Don’t try nothing now,” Sheriff Wilson ordered careful, a twinge of the nerves creeping into his heavy voice. “I just want to talk to you, Jack. Peaceful-like. So let’s not have any trouble we’ll all be regretting.”

      “That’s fine by me, Sheriff. I’ve been waiting for you. Figured you’d some around once you got wind of me being in town.”

      “That’s real fine of you to wait here for me, Jack.”

      The shootist smiled. Like ice. Chilling.

      Sheriff Wilson smiled back hesitantly, said, “But damn, Jack, you’re the last person I ever expected to set foot back in this town.”

      I saw Jack the shootist smile at that. He said, “Hell, Warren, it’s been a long time.”

      “You look good, Jack, the years have been kind to you.”

      The shootist allowed a grim look, dark and full of foreboding, as though he saw his entire life flash before him. Remembering. Terrible memories. “The years have been anything but kind, Warren.”

      “Alright, Jack, but don’t you go fixin’ to go mean on me or make any trouble here.”

      “No, Warren, I’m through with all that. I mean you no harm. Nor anyone else. After a time a man forgets all the pettiness that seems so important when he’s young and stupid. I’ve done my share of killing and worse. What’s done is done. I just hope I won’t have to be doing no more.”

      “That’s right fair of you to feel that way, Jack. I’m glad to hear it.”

      “It’s true, Warren. I don’t hold no grudges anymore. Life’s too short for that.”

      By this time a crowd had gathered but Wilson’s deputy had most of the loungers and curious move off so they’d be out of earshot. Nevertheless, the place was a buzz with rumor and whispered talk about the stranger and the fact there might be gun-play before his talk with Sheriff Wilson was done.

      “So what brings you here, Jack?” the Sheriff said getting down to business.

      “A legacy, Warren, a promise to a friend.”

      Sheriff Wilson looked skeptical. “Now, Jack, I thought you was…”

      “Don’t worry, Warren, it’s not anything like that. Not revenge. Why don’t we go to your office and have a talk about it. You still keep a bottle of Tequila in the top drawer of your desk?”

      * * * *

      At the time I didn’t know what it was all about. I was surprised an hour later when Timmy Wirth, still wearing a bright shiny deputy badge, came looking for me.

      “Joey, Sheriff Wilson wants to see you.”

      “He wants to see me?” I didn’t now what to make of that, figuring I might have done something wrong, but unable to figure what it could have been.

      “Come on, its alright. He just wants to talk to you.”

      I said, “Is the stranger there with him?”

      Timmy Wirth looked at me carefully, said, “Yeah, sure is, Joey, and I think that’s what it’s all about.”

      I gulped nervously, then walked back with Timmy Wirth to the other edge of town.

      When we got near the jail we could see there was some kind of commotion brewing outside in the street. Timmy and I walked closer and by the time we got to the jail there was a sudden chorus of screams and running people. The crowd cleared in a mad rush, the people who had blocked our view now running to safety. Suddenly I saw before me Kyle and Jonas Reed drawing on Sheriff Wilson and the stranger.

      Shots were fired.

      Timmy Wirth cocked his shotgun by Kyle Reed quickly took him out with a bullet to the gut. Timmy fell back, hit the ground, his shotgun flying into the street. The shootist quickly put one bullet in Kyle Reed’s arm, another in his shoulder, causing him to fly around like an out-of-control spinning top. Klye’s brother, Jonas, the faster of the two, very business-like, put two bullets into the stranger. Kyle Reed, not wounded in his shooting arm, got off a couple of shots at Sheriff Wilson, one of them hitting him in the head. With a loud wooof, like he’d been knocked with a sledge hammer, I saw the sheriff fall back into the open doorway of the jail. He lay there unmoving. I saw blood and it sent shivers all through me and a rage I’d never known since Ma had passed.

      The scene grew quiet now, almost desolate, all the bystanders having long since fled. Timmy Wirth and Sheriff Wilson were out of the action, the sheriff’s other deputy, Bob Gritz, nowhere to be seen. Kyle Reed though wounded was still in play, his gun trained on the wounded unarmed stranger, his brother Jonas motioning with his weapon for the man to stand off and not make a play for his gun.

      “We got no quarrel with you, Jack Slade. It’s the gold we’re here for and the gold we aim to take. Give it to us and you’ll come to no harm.”

      The stranger, who by all accounts now seemed to be the deadly Black Jack Slade, just laughed at that as he made a teasing attempt to move closer to his gun. The Reed Brothers quickly dissuaded him with their own firearms – a couple of well-placed shots in the dirt at his feet in warning. The stranger nodded, calmly stepped back and waited.

      It occurred to me that the