Savagery of The Mountain Man

Chapter Seventeen

La Vita, Colorado

The two young men stopped in front of the Ace High Saloon, dismounted, and looped the reins around the hitching rail. Both were wearing long trail dusters, and they brushed their hands against them, raising a cloud of dust.

“Whoa, hold it there, Jerry,” one of the two said, coughing. “You’re near’bout smotherin’ me with all the trail dust you’re a-raisin’ there.”

Jerry laughed. “Yeah, like you just stepped out of a washtub, I s’pose? Come on, Ken, let’s get somethin’ to wet down our gullets. Then we’ll get us a bath, a bottle, and find us someplace to have a real good dinner.”

“And a couple of women,” Ken replied. “Let’s don’t forget to get us a couple of women.”

“You wantin’ to spend all that money we stole in one night, are you?” Jerry asked.

Ken chuckled. “Why not? As easy as that money was to get, we can always get some more. Did you see how that old fart shook when we told him we was robbin’ him?”

“Come on, let’s get us a couple of beers.”

The two men stepped into the saloon, then stopped for a moment to have a look around. The saloon was busy, but not crowded. There were several empty tables, and several empty spots along the bar. One of the men standing at the bar was Cole Mathers, and he paid little attention to the two men as they came in.

“Want to stand at the bar or sit at a table?” Ken asked.

“Let’s sit at a table,” Jerry suggested, and the two men found one near the stove. Because it was summer, the stove was cold, and had been for several weeks now. But even though there was no fire in the stove at the present, the remnants of past fires were still present in the unmistakable aroma of old smoke and burnt wood.

“Oh, that ain’t good,” the bartender said when the two young men sat down.

“What ain’t good?” Cole asked.

“That’s Mr. Cates’ table them two boys took. And Mr. Cates, he don’t like nobody else sittin’ at it.”

Cole turned to look toward the two young men.

Shortly after they sat down, both Ken and Jerry noticed that the hum of normal conversation had ended and it grew quiet in the saloon. And the sudden quiet did not seem to be a mere coincidence, as it soon became evident that everyone in the house was looking directly at their table.

“Hey, you,” Ken called toward Cole. “What is it you are a-lookin’ at?”

“How do you know he’s even a-lookin’ at us?” Jerry asked with a mocking laugh. “Hell, one of his eyes looks one way and the other looks another. I’ll bet he don’t even know his ownself what he’s lookin’ at.”

Cole turned away from the two.

“Oh, now,” Ken said. “You done gone an’ hurt his feelin’s.”

Jerry laughed, then looked around the saloon and saw that nearly everyone in the room was looking at them.

“What the hell are all you people a-lookin’ at?” Jerry asked.

“Maybe they heard of us,” Ken replied. “This here wasn’t the first job we’ve pulled. Could be we’re gettin’ to be famous.”

Jerry laughed. “Yeah, that’s prob’ly it.” He held up his hand as a signal to the bartender.

“Barkeep,” he called to the bartender. “How about a couple of beers over here?”

“And I’ll have the same,” Ken added, laughing at the joke.

The bartender ignored the request.

“Hey, what the hell? Don’t you want our business?” Trey asked.

“Not until you two galoots change tables, I don’t,” the bartender replied.

“Change tables? What do you mean, change tables? This here is the table we want.”

“It ain’t goin’ to be the table you want when he comes in,” the bartender said.

“When who comes in?”

“When he comes in,” the bartender replied without specifics.

“Don’t be a fool, mister,” Jerry said. “If you know’d who it was you was talkin’ to, you wouldn’t be talkin’ like that. Me and my friend here have kilt men for less than that. Now, if you don’t want to make us mad, and believe me, barkeep, that ain’t somethin’ you want to do, you’ll bring us them beers like we asked.”

Before the bartender could respond, another patron pushed his way through the batwing doors of the saloon. He wasn’t a very big man—in fact, he was quite small, no taller than five feet two inches, and weighing no more than 130 pounds. He was dressed in black, except for a tooled-leather pistol belt that bristled with filled cartridge loops. His eyes were small and dark, so dark that there was no delineation between the iris and pupils. He also wore a neatly trimmed mustache. He took a couple of steps toward the table, then stopped when he saw that it was occupied. He looked toward the bartender.

“It ain’t my fault. I told ’em I wasn’t goin’ to serve ’em as long as they was sittin’ at your table,” the bartender said.

The small man’s tongue darted out a couple of times before he spoke. “I would invite you gentlemen to find another table,” the small man said. His voice was a quiet hiss.

“What’s that you say? Damn, mister, are you so little you ain’t got voice enough to speak up?” Ken held his hand to his ear. “You sound like a mouse pissing on a ball of cotton. How the hell is anyone s’posed to hear you?”

Ken laughed at his joke.

Jerry looked over at Ken. “Do you know what I think this little pissant just said? I think he invited us to find another table.”

“Is that a fact? Well, we was here first, mister,” Ken said. “So we invite you to find another table. Unless you want us to mop up the floor with your skinny little ass.”

The small man smiled. “So, are you telling me you are willing to fight for that table?”

Jerry and Ken looked at each other, then broke out laughing. “You want to throw this litter feller out, or shall I?” Jerry asked.

“Oh, I don’t believe in physical violence,” the little man said. “That never settles anything.”

“Ha! He don’t believe in physical violence,” Ken said. He looked back at the little man. “This ball has started. So either we finish this now, or you can just go get yourself another table and mind your own business.”

“Oh, we are going to finish it,” the little man said.

“We are, are we?” Ken chuckled and shook his head. “I tell you what, mister, since you are hell-bent on doing this, you can choose whichever one of us you want to fight.”

“I intend to fight both of you.”

“Both of us?”

“At the same time. Only, let’s make it permanent.”

“What do you mean by, ‘let’s make it permanent’?”

“What I mean is, leave that table right now, or stay where you are and draw your guns.”

“Draw our guns? Mister, there are two of us and only one of you. And I don’t mind tellin’ you that we ain’t exactly strangers when it comes to usin’ guns. Either one of us can kill you where you stand, but you say you want to fight both of us at the same time. Now, are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“I’m sure.”

Both Ken and Jerry stood; then they stepped away from each other. “Before we do this, I want ever’one in this here saloon to understand what is goin’ on,” Ken said. “Me an’ my partner wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but sittin’ real peaceful at this table, when this little pissant come in here challengin’ us to a gunfight. Do you all understand that? When the sheriff comes in after we kill this fella, I want to make sure ever’one knows we didn’t start it.”

“All right, mister, we’ll all be willin’ to testify that Mr. Cates challenged you to a fight when you refused to move from his table,” the bartender said.

“Mr. Cates?” Ken said, a look of confusion crossing his face. “What do you mean, Cates?” He turned back toward the little man, dressed in black. “Is your name Cates?”

“It is.”

“Snake Cates?”

Cates’s tongue darted out a couple of times before he responded. “I don’t like that name,” he said. “I prefer to be called Mr. Cates.”

“Ken, what have you got us into?” Jerry asked.

“Look, Mr. Cates,” Ken said, holding his left hand out in front of him, as if by that action he could hold Cates away. “We didn’t mean nothin’ by all this. If you want this table, you can have it. We was just—that is—well, we didn’t have no idea that it was your table.”

“It’s too late for negotiations now,” Cates said. “Like you said, you brought me to the ball, now I expect a dance.”

“But I didn’t know—”

“Ain’t no use it tryin’ to talk us out of it now, Ken,” Jerry said. “This little feller is bound to go through with this. We don’t have no choice in the matter. We are either goin’ to have to kill him, or he is goin’ to kill us.”

For the next several seconds, there was a macabre tableau, a picture that would be frozen in time throughout the rest of the lives of all who were there to witness it. The witnesses fixed the scene in their mind, to be able to recall for future stories the picture of Snake Cates, poised and relaxed, standing in the middle of the saloon floor, facing two men, known then only as Jerry and Ken, who were standing about twenty feet away. The patrons of the saloon had moved to get out of harm’s way, and they stood to one side, holding their beers, watching the scene unfold before them, building the memories that would be passed on to grandchildren and great-grandchildren of having once seen the great Snake Cates in action.

One would think that time itself had been suspended, except for the steady tick-tock of the large Regulator clock that sat against the wall just beside the piano, sending each measured tick into eternity.

A few even took particular notice of the time, the better for storytelling later on. It was exactly thirty seven minutes past six o’clock in the evening.

“Now!” Ken shouted, reaching quickly for his pistol. Jerry reacted at the same time.

Amazingly, Cates made no initial move toward his pistol. For just an instant, Ken and Jerry might have had the impression that they were going to beat him to the draw. What they didn’t realize was that Cates was analyzing their draw to see which one of the two he should shoot first. Because Ken had his pistol all the way out of his holster before Jerry had cleared leather, Cates chose Ken as his first target.

Cates drew and fired twice, the two shots coming so close upon each other that to some of the witnesses the sounds ran together, making it appear as if he had shot only once. That mistaken impression was dispelled, however, when both Ken and Jerry went down, each one with a bullet in his heart.

Cates stood there for a moment longer, holding the smoking pistol in his hand, while a cloud of acrid gun smoke began drifting up, to gather just under the ceiling of the saloon. Not until he was absolutely certain that both men were dead did he return his pistol to his holster. Then, without any further regard for the two men he had just killed, he stepped over their bodies and walked over to his table.

For a long moment after the shooting, everyone in the saloon was quiet. A cloud of gun smoke drifted toward the ceiling and the smell of it burned the nostrils and irritated the eyes.

The bartender drew a mug of beer.

“Julio,” he called.

“Sí, Señor?” Julio called. Julio had been sweeping the floor until the confrontation took place. Then he, like everyone else, had stopped all activity to watch.

“Take this beer over to Mr. Cates, then go get the sheriff and the undertaker.”

“Sí, Señor Greer,” Julio replied. Julio carried the beer over to Cates’s table. Cates took the beer without any acknowledgment or thanks. It was, Cole noticed, as if Cates believed that being served a beer right after killing a couple of people was his just reward.

“Hey, Greer, how many does that make now?” one of the other patrons asked.

“Four,” Greer said. Greer held up four fingers to illustrate his answer.

“Four? No, that can’t be right. I know he’s kilt a lot more than four,” the patron replied. “Hell, they say he kilt at least ten down in New Mexico.”

“I mean he has killed four men in this saloon,” Greer said. Inexplicably, a broad smile spread across his face. “I’m going to have a sign made and hang it up outside.” Greer waved his hand, as if exposing the sign. “It will read, ‘The famous gunfighter Bogardus Cates kilt four men in this place.’ Can you imagine how much business that will get for me?”

“You know what would get you a lot more business?” the patron asked.

“What?”

“Iffen you could put up a sign that says, ‘The famous gunfighter Snake Cates was kilt here.’”

The patrons who were close enough to hear gasped, and several of them, including Cole, looked over toward Cates to see how he would react to it. Apparently, Cates was paying no attention whatever, because he was occupying himself with a game of solitaire.

“You want to put that sign up do you, Arnie?” Greer asked.

“Uh, no,” Arnie replied quickly. He tossed the rest of his drink down, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all the while looking toward the small but deadly gunman. “I have to go,” he said, leaving quickly.

“Ole Arnie better watch that mouth of his, else one day he’s goin’ to say somethin’ he shouldn’t,” Greer said to no one in particular.

“He shouldn’t of said that,” one of the saloon patrons said. “He’s just lucky that Cates didn’t hear him.”

“I heard him,” Cates said. He played another card without even bothering to look up from the game. “He just ain’t worth my time.”

Because the mortuary was just next door, the undertaker and his assistant were the first to arrive.

“Hello, Gene,” Greer said.

“Who’s going to pay for them?” the undertaker asked.

“I will, if you’ll get me pictures of the bodies so I can put ’em up on the wall,” Greer answered.

Gene nodded; then he grabbed the legs of one of the two bodies, and his assistant grabbed the legs of the other. They began dragging the two bodies out just as the sheriff was arriving.

“Hold on, Gene,” the sheriff said to the undertaker. He looked down at the two bodies. “Only one bullet hole in each of them?”

“Yes,” the undertaker replied.

The sheriff looked over at Cates, who was still playing solitaire. “With shooting like that, I don’t suppose I have to ask who did it, do I?”

No one responded.

“Anyone know these two boys?”

“I never saw either one of them before today,” Greer said. “Do you know them?”

“No, I don’t,” the sheriff replied.

“Can we take them now, Sheriff?” Gene asked.

The sheriff nodded. “Yeah, go ahead.” He looked out over the saloon. “Anybody see what happened?”

Nobody responded.

“Come on, there are what—ten of you here? Ten of you in a room no bigger than this, but not one of you saw anything?”

“I saw it,” Cole said, speaking up.

Cole glanced over toward Cates, and saw that the gunman had interrupted his game of solitaire and was now staring at him with his small, dark, obsidian eyes.

“Well, finally I get someone who isn’t blind,” the sheriff said. “All right, mister, tell me. What did you see?”

“It looked to me like the two men Mr. Cates killed had something they wanted to prove,” Cole said.

“Something to prove? What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to prove that they weren’t scared of Mr. Cates or something. I mean, I can’t think of any other reason why they would have wanted to goad him into a gunfight.”

“Wait a minute,” the sheriff said. “Are you telling me that these two men goaded Cates?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“How did they do that?”

“Well, first, they sat at his table, and when they were asked, real friendly like by the bartender here, to change tables, they didn’t do it.”

“That’s right, Sheriff, I asked them, real nice, if they would please change tables,” Greer said.

“Go on,” the sheriff said to Cole.

“And then, when Mr. Cates asked them if they would mind changin’ tables, and he asked them just as friendly as the bartender did, well, they challenged him to a fight.”

“The two men challenged Cates?”

“That’s right. I reckon they thought that, bein’ as there was two of ’em, they could beat him,” Cole said.

“Anyone in here see it any different than that?” the sheriff asked.

“No, Sheriff, if you ask me, I’d say that’s just the way it happened,” Greer said.

“Looked that way to me, too,” one of the other patrons said.

The sheriff shook his head. “If that’s so, how come none of you spoke up when I asked you?”

“I was just fixin’ to speak up when this feller did,” the saloon patron said.

“Yeah, me, too,” Greer added. “I was fixin’ to tell you the same thing that this here fella said.”

The sheriff looked at Cates. “Mr. Cates, I don’t know how much longer you’re planning on staying in La Vita, but I’ll be one happy fella when you leave.”

Cates took a drink of his beer and stared at the sheriff, but he said nothing.

The sheriff left then, and the moment he left, the others in the saloon started talking, nearly every one of them at once, replaying the exciting event they had witnessed.

“Boom, boom,” one of the patrons said, making a pistol with his hand as he demonstrated. “They were that fast that I thought he’d only shot one time.”

“And he hit both of them, right square in the heart,” one of the others said.

“I wonder what them two boys was doin’, challengin’ Cates like they done?”

Cole did not join in any of the conversations, but waited for a few minutes before he walked over to Cates’s table. He stood there for a moment, expecting Cates to look up, but Cates didn’t look up.

“If you’re thinkin’ I owe you somethin’ for what you said to the sheriff, you are wrong,” Cates said. “I don’t owe you nothin’.” Cates continued to study the cards.

“Red eight on the black nine,” Cole suggested.

Cates made the move. “I don’t owe you nothin’ for that either,” he said.

Cole put a one-hundred-dollar bill on the table in front of him.

Cates picked the bill up, examined it for a moment, then, for the first time since Cole approached the table, looked up at him.

“What is this for?” he asked.

“To get your attention,” Cole replied.

Cates took a swallow of his beer, then wiped the foam from his moustache.

“All right,” he replied. “You got my attention. What do you want?”

“The man I work for would like to hire you,” Cole replied.

“For one hundred dollars? I don’t do much for one hundred dollars.”

“No, sir. Like I said, the one hundred dollars is just to get your attention. Mr. Quentin guarantees that the two of you will come to an agreement that you will find satisfactory.”

“How satisfactory?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m only telllin’ you what Mr. Quentin told me to tell you.”

“Is Quentin rich? Because I don’t come cheap.”

“Mr. Quentin is very rich.”

With his leg under the table, Cates pushed one of the chairs out. “Have a seat,” he said. “Tell me about this man Quentin.”