Welcome To The Bullpen
Lessons of a Lifetime
By Peter R. Quigley
A hot breeze blew through the window and Abe wiped the sweat from his brow. The dusty heat of these towns never used to bother him. Oh to be young and quick again. He looked up at the fresh face staring at him and shook his head.
“What?” the kid asked and Abe snorted.
“You kids are all alike, full of vinegar.”
The face darkened slightly. “I’m twenty years old. Quit calling me a kid.”
Another snort. “Twenty? My boots are older than that.” He sighed. “What do you want, kid?”
The kid frowned, but answered. “I want to learn all of the tricks. I’ve heard you’ve been telling them.” He paused and then added, “now that you see the end of the line.”
Abe stood, walked over to the window and leaned on the sill. He answered while looking down at the horses tied to the rail in front of the saloon. They seemed oblivious to all of the dust swirling around them. Maybe they weren’t yet old enough to be annoyed.
“The end of the line, huh,” he said, but with a wry smile. “I guess you could say that.” He turned and sat against the sill with his arms folded across his chest. “Do you know how many have come to see me to pick my brain?”
“No.” He could care less as long as he got what he wanted. The old guy must be lonely to be carrying on like this.
“A lot kid. I never knew I was so popular. I should write a book instead of just telling people like I do.”
Abe shook his head and pushed away from the window. His mind never used to wonder like this when he was younger. He can outgun everybody but Father Time.
“So you think you’re quick with the draw?”
The kid smirked and opened his mouth to answer, but Abe waved him off.
“Of course you do or you wouldn’t be here. Kid, it takes a lot more than a quick draw; an awful lot more.”
The smirk was replaced by confusion as he thought that he had made it clear that he was here to learn that. Why was the old guy carrying on?
“Hold your hands out in front of you.” When he hesitated, Abe crossed the room and grabbed his hands. “Hold them straight out, elbows locked,” he said and pulled them. When he let go, the kid didn’t move.
“Good. You’ve got steady hands. I’ve had kids come in here with hands shaking enough to beat an egg. They may be shaking because of nerves, or because that’s just the way they are. Some guys are born jittery. Either way, I tell them to find another line of work. You can’t shoot if your hands shake.”
Abe sat at the table and put his feet up. The kid looked at his boots and realized he may have been telling the truth about those.
“So, why do you want to be a gunfighter?”
The brows furrowed.
“What do you mean?” he asked and Abe snorted again.
“What I mean is, why do you want to be a gunfighter? There are easier ways to make a living.”
“I hear the money’s good,” the kid said and twisted his neck to get rid of a kink. “A lot of banks pay top dollar for protection if you’re the best gun in town.”
“Why not buy a piece of land? Pick up some cows and pigs and make a run of it. No one bothers you and you live by your own rules. Maybe get a wife while you’re at it and have a couple of kids. They can help out at the farm.”
The kid’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He watched Abe to see if a smile came over his face. When no smile came, the kid cleared his throat.
“I’m not the farming type.”
“I didn’t think I was when I was your age either,” Abe said. “But now I wish I had.”
The hot wind blew the curtains in, but neither man noticed.
“You’re a legend,” the kid said, incredulous at what he was hearing. “You were the quickest gun anybody had ever seen. Guys would avoid a town if there was just a rumor that you were there.”
Abe nodded and looked over as the curtains settled back down. That seemed like such a long time ago.
“Yeah, I know, but what does it mean? Now I’m telling everyone how it’s done, but no one wants to hear why he shouldn’t. It ain’t a glamorous life, kid.”
The old guy really has lost it, the kid thought. He is the envy of every man alive.
“I’m not looking for glamour.”
Abe sighed and nodded slowly. All of them said they weren’t looking for glamour, but that’s just what they were doing. From the outside, a hired gun seemed to lead a perfect life. As long as you had the skills. You never had to buy a drink or a steak dinner. Women flocked to you and men admired you as they cowered in your presence. Of course, if you didn’t have the skills, it wasn’t a perfect life. It was a quick life.
“The tricks of being a hired gun,” Abe began with a rub of his whiskers. Now that the stubble was coming in mostly gray and white, he tried to shave more often. Maybe looking younger was one of the tricks.
The kid shrugged and settled into his chair. The old guy was taking forever, but at least he was heading in the right direction.
“The first trick to learn is there are no tricks.” Abe saw the predictable confused frown and surged on. “You have to have all of the skills; speed, nerves of steel, perfect eyesight and be arrogant as hell. So far I see you have the last one.”
The kid started to stand to protest, but Abe waved him back down.
“I just paid you a compliment, kid. You have something on the list. I’ll have to take your word on the eyesight and the speed, but you won’t know about the nerves until you’re staring down the street at a guy who wants nothing more than to put a couple of holes in you.”
“I’ve shot guys before.”
The wind picked up again and brought with it the sweet, tangy smell of manure and Abe remembered some of the reasons he never became a farmer.
“Of course you’ve shot people before or you wouldn’t be here. What I’m saying is you’ll be lined up with someone that you have never heard of, someone who has done nothing to you or your girl or even your dog. He hasn’t pissed you off in any way. All he has done is come into town and call you out. You might not be feeling well, or you just ate a big meal and feel bloated and sleepy. It doesn’t matter. You’ve been called out and now you have to shoot someone that you don’t know from a hole in the wall, because if you don’t, whoever has hired you will drop you so fast it will make your head spin. They’ll hire the new gun and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“If I was ever that stupid, I’d come back and show that new gun who’s faster,” the kid said lazily, as if he’d thought this through for hours.
Abe walked over to a pitcher on the table and poured himself a glass of water. He didn’t offer the kid any. The kid shrugged and looked around the room. What a dump. Why would a guy like this being staying here? The curtains were ragged, the bed had a couple of springs sticking our and the sofa was almost worn through. The table under the water was scarred from knife carvings and tobacco burns. When he glanced toward the bureau, he stopped at the rocker next to it. Hanging from the back was the old man’s gun belt. A black, steel butt poked out of the end of the holster. Nothing fancy. It looked like just another gun if you didn’t know the history behind it. Some guys got full of themselves and bought a pearl-handled revolver or a nickel-plated piece. This guy danced with the girl that got him here. The kid wanted to go over and touch it, but knew that wasn’t right.
Abe finished his water and ambled back over to the window sill. The movement broke the kid’s trance on the gun and he followed Abe across the room with his eyes. He noticed the trail dust that had settled on the windowsill.
“So you’d just shoot the new guy and take your job back?”
The brows furrowed momentarily as the kid tried to remember. “Yeah, I would,” he said when he did and the cockiness was still there.
“That’s great, but the bank won’t have you.”
The brows furrowed again, but this time they stayed.
“Why not?”
“Because you didn’t feel like fighting once. They’d be afraid it would happen again, only this time with someone looking for loot not you. Believe me, kid, word would get out that a bank has a gun that doesn’t always fight. The money a bank holds would make many a man willing to take a chance that he’d hit the bank on one of your down days. The idea isn’t to shoot three guys a day to prove how good you are, it’s to be good enough not to have them come at all. No matter how good you are, if enough guys come, you’ll meet someone better. Or maybe someone almost as good will hit you on a bad day. That’s lesson number one.”
The smirk and the slouch were gone. The kid looked like a schoolboy on his first day of class where the teacher hits the slackers. If Abe noticed this, he ignored it. He was willing to talk. At this point, he didn’t much care if anyone listened or not.
“There are two types of lessons you need to learn. The most obvious is how to have all of the advantages that you can when you end up in a battle. You have to learn that there are only some things that you can control, but you must be certain that you control them. It will give you an edge as well as confidence. If you think you can win, then you probably will. Even if you don’t, you’ll die cocky and quick.”
The kid flinched ever so slightly at the casual way Abe said the last sentence. Getting shot was just another on the job hazard, no different than getting kicked by a plough horse.
“The other type of lesson is a lifestyle lesson. Everything you do, and I mean everything, must be done with your chosen profession in mind. That’s why I told you to be a farmer. If the cows ain’t milking today, a farmer can go get drunk and have a good time for a night. He might feel lousy in the morning, but it will wear off. He can do light duty, like mend a fence. If he has a cold or a touch of the fever, he can have the kids stay home from school and tend the animals. Or at worst, stagger out and do just what needs to be done. If he does a lousy job, fix it tomorrow.”
“I understand the drunk part, but how can I not get sick. I have no control over that.” It was the first question that didn’t have an edge to it.
“You stay away from sick people. You eat right and get a good night’s sleep--every night of the week, even Saturday. You make sure your food is fresh and cooked proper. You stay away from women you don’t know. Kid, you have to will yourself not to get sick. Have a positive mind. I ain’t had nary a cold in twenty-five years.”
The kid exhaled loudly and shook his head. The amount of commitment this was going to take seemed to finally take hold.
“Look kid, this is a twenty-four hour job. I’ve been called out at first light and at sunset. And some fools think a moonless night is perfect for robbing a bank. The fact that all of the money’s locked up and no one is there to open the vault for them doesn’t mean I don’t have to shoot them.” When the kid’s shoulder’s slumped, Abe continued. “I would like to tell you that you have to call it an early night on Saturday when playing poker with your buddies, but that ain’t happening. First, you’d be tempted to drink if you’re playing in a saloon. Second, you’d stay for one more hand, and before you know it, it’s after midnight. Third, the smoke in the saloon and reading cards by candlelight will kill your eyes. And lastly, you won’t have any buddies to play with anyway. You’ve got no time for friends and all the men are scared of you.”
As he had listed the reasons, Abe had ticked them off on his fingers. The kid looked up from Abe’s hand and Abe nodded at the look he was receiving.
“That’s right, kid. Your whole life will revolve around your gun and your right hand. They come before anything else or there won’t be anything else for them, you’ll be six-feet under.”
As Abe poured himself another glass of water, the kid noticed every movement was done for a reason. There wasn’t a single wasted effort. Abe swallowed and turned back.
“That leads me to my next point. How good is your left hand?”
The kid cocked his head. “I’ve never shot with it,” he said.
“I don’t doubt that. What I’m asking you is how good are you with a comb, a razor, shaking hands, that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know,” the kid stammered. “I’ve never done any of those things with my left hand.”
“Then start doing it. The more you do with your right hand, the better the odds of hurting it. If your right hand gets hurt, you end up dead in the street. And don’t think word of an injury won’t get out. You get hurt, people are calling you out the next day. Try to keep your hand in your pocket as much as possible. If it’s in there, there’s less of a chance of it getting caught or crushed.”
Looking down, the kid saw Abe’s right hand stuck in his pant’s pocket. When he thought back, he realized the water was poured and the drunk with the left hand. This was going to be tough.
“That’s about it for life lessons. Eat right, live clean and remember what you are every waking minute of every day.” Abe stopped and snorted. “Make that every minute of every day. You should be dreaming about this too. There no shortcuts to this, kid. Why you see so many crash and burn is because they got soft. They forgot what they were and somewhere along the line became a celebrity. Once that happens, you might as well put the gun to your own head. It’ll save everyone some time.”
There was a loud rolling noise followed by whinny as presumably a stage coach pulled up in front of the hotel. This town may be dusty, but the gold found ten miles to the south kept the travelers coming. It also loaded the bank vault, which made it one of highest paying jobs around. Abe had more money than he could count. He just had no way to spend it. The cost of the room was about the only money he spent.
“What about on the day?”
Abe looked at the kid and slowly nodded.
“Yep, there’s many ways to get that day in your favor, but it takes time, too. The most important thing is to know everything you can about where you’re going to be. This is a big advantage to the hired gun because he usually has lived in the town a while and knows the layout of the land. He knows where all the divots in the road are, which way the wind blows so as to be sure the dirt is blowing in the other guys eyes, which way the sun is at any particular time of day so he can be sure to have it behind him, and where all the shadows will be. You have to know every inch of the street. Now this doesn’t mean a newcomer can’t get some of these facts himself. Someone smart would spend time in the town before just appearing, ready to fight. You go in blind like that, the cards are stacked against you. I spent over a month in this town before I made my move. It’s tougher if you’ve already started to develop a reputation. People may know you by sight. I shaved my beard, with my left hand of course, and cut my hair before coming in. After I studied everything and felt I knew this town as well as anyone, I made my move. Even then it was tough. He put a bullet past my ear before I put him down.”
When Abe leaned back against the windowsill, the kid knew the lesson was over for the day. He stood and touched the brim of his hat toward Abe. A smile came over Abe’s face.
“Quick learner. Most try to shake my hand and use their gun hand. Good luck, kid.”
A simple nod and he left. Abe watched as the door closed and went over to get his gun. When he had it strapped on, he went back to the window and looked down on the street. He saw the kid come out below him and turn toward the building.
“Abe Carson!” The kid yelled for all to hear. “I’m calling you out!”
Abe shook his head and smiled. He wasn’t sure why he told these punks what he did when he knew most of them were going to do just what the kid did. A few were scared away by the stories, but most followed through with what they came for. He supposed a small part of him wanted it to be over and he was moving the odds in that favor, but most of him simply wanted more of a challenge. There was a long period of time where no one came. His reputation kept people away and he started to feel rusty. He needed the competition to stay fresh and he put word out that he was willing to talk. They didn’t flock at first, but they warily came.
He glanced at the clock and saw it was noon straight up. This kid was pretty smart. He picked a time when the sun would be neutral. Abe had also seen him off and on around town for the past week, so the kid had a decent understanding of the area. He stepped out of the room and wondered if this would be the day, more out of curiosity than fear. He was always surprised at the sense of relief that almost came when he thought that. He then thought about the weathervane on top of the church. The kid probably never saw it and certainly didn’t know it cast a wicked glare this time of the day. Abe almost felt guilty as he walked down, knowing the kid would choose the end of the street opposite the church because the road sloped slightly downhill from there and it was always easier to shoot down. That is, of course, unless there is a bright glare in your eyes just as you turn to shoot. Maybe he wanted to live after all.
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