Showdown at Dead End Canyon

Chapter 1

SECONDS EARLIER THE LUCKY DOG SALOON HAD been peaceful. A card game was in progress in one part of the room, the teases, touches, and flirtatious laughter of the bar girls were in play in another. Mason Hawke, who had only been in Buffalo Creek, Colorado, for six weeks, was at the piano, his music adding to the gaiety and celebratory atmosphere of the evening.

But all that changed in an instant when Ebenezer Priest shouted out, “By God, you’ll play what I tell you to play, or I’ll kill you where you sit!”

The music, conversation, and laughter stopped, the loudest sound in the saloon the ticking of the Regulator clock that stood by the door that led out to the privy. There were twelve people in the saloon, ten men and two women, and all eyes were directed toward the piano where Priest stood just behind Mason Hawke. Priest had his gun out and was aiming it at the back of Hawke’s head.

Ebenezer Priest was a small, gnarled-looking man. In a world without guns, he would barely draw a second look, let alone command fear and begrudging respect. But this was a world with guns, and Priest had to be taken seriously because he had proven his skill with the pistol, and had a known propensity, almost an eagerness, to use it. He enjoyed watching bigger, stronger men quake in their boots when he addressed them. No one had ever defied him and lived.

Those thoughts were on everyone’s mind now as they watched and wondered how this drama, so rapidly unfolding before them, would play itself out.

“Did you hear what I said, piano player?” Priest asked. His voice was a low, evil hiss. “I told you to play ‘Marching Through Georgia.’”

“I don’t know that song,” Hawke replied calmly.

“You know it, you Rebel son of a bitch. All you Rebel bastards know it. I was in the Union Army, and we sang it as we marched through Georgia. Now, play it. Play it, or I’m going to splatter your blood and brains all over the front of that piano.”

“Leave ’im be, Priest,” the bartender called. “He ain’t nothin’ but a piano player. What do you want to go shucking a piano player for?”

With his left hand, Priest pointed a finger at the bartender, all the while keeping his gun pointed at Hawke’s head.

“You just stay the hell out of this, Kirby. This ain’t none of your concern.” He turned his attention back to Hawke. “Now, start playing,” he ordered.

Hawke began to play. It took but a few bars of music before Priest realized that he wasn’t playing “Marching Through Georgia.” He was playing “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” the Confederate marching song.

The saloon patrons laughed at the joke. With a yell of rage, Priest pulled the trigger on his pistol. The laughter stopped and everyone gasped, expecting to see the back of Hawke’s head blown away. What they saw instead was the destruction of a mug of beer sitting on top of the piano. The glass shattered and beer splattered. Even as people’s ears were still ringing from the noise of the gunshot, they could hear the hum of the soundboard as the piano strings vibrated in resonance.

Hawke quit playing and sat quietly on the bench.

“Now, Mr. Piano Player, I’m through playing with you,” Priest said in a low, menacing voice. “You had better play ‘Marching Through Georgia,’ or by God the next bullet is going to go through your head.”

Hawke sighed. “I told you I don’t know it.”

Priest cocked his gun, the action making a double click as the sear engaged the cylinder and rotated a new bullet under the hammer. “You had better learn it real quick, music man.”

“As I said, I don’t know it, but I do have the music in my bench. I’ll have to get it out.”

“All right, do it. And be quick about it.”

Hawke stood up, then turning around so that he was facing Priest, opened the top of the bench. As the bench lid came up, it shielded Hawke’s hands from Priest’s view.

“You know, it seems to me like you could have picked a better reason to get yourself killed than this,” Hawke said. “‘Marching Through Georgia’ isn’t even that good of a tune.”

“What do you mean, get myself killed?” Priest asked, confused. “You’re the one that’s going to get yourself killed. If you don’t find that music in the next five seconds, I’m going to shoot you where you stand.”

“I don’t think so,” Hawke said.

Priest wasn’t used to anyone taking his threats so casually. And he especially didn’t expect such a calm reaction from a piano player.

“One…” he said, beginning his count.

“Are you really this anxious to die?” Hawke asked.

“What the hell are you talking about? Two…” Priest said, continuing his count.

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Hawke said.

“Three…”

Suddenly, there was a loud bang. A hole appeared in the upraised lid of the piano bench, and a curl of smoke rose from behind it. When Hawke lifted his right hand from behind the bench, his fingers were curled around a Colt .44.

Priest looked down in surprise at the hole the bullet had just punched in the middle of his chest.

“Unh!” he grunted, taking a step back. Dropping his gun, he put his hand over the wound, but the blood was flowing freely and it spilled between his fingers. “You…you killed me,” he gasped.

“Yeah, I did,” Hawke said easily.

Priest collapsed. One of the men nearest him hurried over, then knelt beside him and put his hand on the fallen man’s neck. He looked up at the others.

“He’s dead,” he said.

“I’ll be damned! Who would’ve thought someone like Ebenezer Priest would ever get hisself kilt by a piano player?”

“I’m glad the son of a bitch is dead,” one of the others said. “He’s been ridin’ roughshod over this town for nigh on to two years now.”

Hawke put his gun back in the piano bench, then walked over to the bar and ordered a whiskey.

“It’s on the house, Mr. Hawke,” Kirby said as he poured the drink and set it in front of Hawke.

A deputy sheriff came running in then, drawn by the sound of the two gunshots. His own gun was drawn, and after a quick glance around the room, he saw Priest lying on the floor.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, putting his pistol away. “When I heard the gunshots, I knew damn well Priest would be in the middle of it, but I figured I’d find him standin’. I never expected to see him be the one that’s spread out on the floor. How bad is it?”

“He’s dead,” one of the patrons replied.

The deputy walked over to Priest’s body and stared down at it for a moment. He kicked the body lightly, then a little bit harder. Priest did not respond. Then he kicked him so hard that it moved Priest’s body slightly.

“You’re right,” the deputy said. “The son of a bitch is dead.” There was a spattering of nervous laughter.

The deputy looked around the saloon, returning everyone’s curious gaze with his own. “Who did it?” he asked.

“I did,” Hawke said.

The deputy looked at the piano player and laughed. “No, I’m serious. Who killed the son of a bitch?”

“He’s tellin’ you the truth, Deputy,” Kirby said. “He did it.”

“Yeah,” another saloon patron said. “Priest braced the piano player and the piano player shot ’im.”

The deputy looked over at Hawke. At six feet, Hawke was a little taller than average. He was slender of build, with gunmetal-gray eyes, and his hair was light brown, almost blond. Unlike most of the other patrons, Hawke was clean-shaven, and wore a white ruffled shirt poked down into fawn-colored trousers. A blue jacket and crimson cravat completed his ensemble.

“Why, you aren’t even wearing a gun,” the deputy said.

Hawke nodded toward the piano. “It’s over there, in the piano bench.”

“And you’re telling that Priest braced you, then waited for you to get your gun out of the bench?”

“Something like that,” Hawke said.

The deputy walked over to the piano and looked down at the bench. He saw the bullet hole in the bench lid.

“I’ll be damn,” he said.

Judge Andrew Norton held the inquest two days later. The prosecuting attorney, pointing out that Hawke was an itinerant who posed a flight risk, had asked the judge to confine him to jail until the inquest. But the judge denied the motion, and Hawke upheld the judge’s trust by showing up on the day of the inquest.

It was an open inquiry, with not only the witnesses to the event present, but many of the town’s citizens in attendance as well.

One by one the witnesses were interviewed. The last witness was the bartender, Dwayne Kirby, and his testimony was typical.

“Ebenezer Priest was holding a cocked gun at Mr. Hawke’s head,” Kirby said when asked to give his version of what happened. “He shot it once, and I closed my eyes, thinkin’ that when I opened ’em I’d see the piano player dead.”

“But you didn’t see him dead, did you?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“You didn’t see him dead, because all Priest did was shoot the beer glass.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what he done.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, sir, Priest started in a’countin’, and he told Hawke that when he got to five he was goin’ to kill him.”

“Hadn’t he previously said that he would kill Mr. Hawke if he did not play ‘Marching Through Georgia’?”

“Yes, sir, that’s what he said.”

“And did Mr. Hawke play ‘Marching Through Georgia’?”

“No, sir, he did not. He played ‘The Bonnie Blue Flag,’” Kirby said, laughing.

“I see. So, what you are telling me is, even though Priest told Hawke he would kill him if he didn’t play ‘Marching Through Georgia,’ he didn’t do it. He shot the beer glass instead.”

“That’s right.”

“What happened next?”

“It’s just like all the others have told you.” Kirby pointed toward Hawke. “Hawke turned around like as if he was goin’ to get some music, and Priest commenced to countin’.”

“Did Hawke say anything? Give him any warning?”

“I suppose you could say that. What Hawke said was, ‘It seems to me like you could have picked a better reason to get yourself killed than this.’”

“So, in other words, Hawke threatened to kill Priest?”

“Well, I reckon they threatened each other.”

“Yes, but Priest had already shown, by his earlier action, that he had no intention of killing Hawke, hadn’t he?”

Kirby shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t see it like that. I think Priest was plannin’ on killin’ him soon as he got to five. I mean, hell, he’d already killed a bunch of folks.”

“We aren’t talking about the people he did kill, we are talking about one that he didn’t kill. We are talking about his confrontation with Mason Hawke. You said he started to count to five, but he didn’t finish his count, did he?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t he finish his count?”

“’Cause Hawke shot him before he got there.”

“And, I believe it has been testified to that Hawke shot him from behind the cover of a piano bench lid. Is that right?”

“Well, yeah, but it don’t seem to me like as if he had any other—”

“Thank you, Mr. Kirby. That will be all.”

“I’ll tell you this—if there was ever anyone that needed killin’,” Kirby said, though he’d been dismissed by the lawyer, “it was Ebenezer Priest. He was one of the sorriest bastards to ever draw a breath. He killed lots of good men for no reason at all, and he got away with it ’cause he goaded ’em into drawin’ on him. Well, it didn’t work with Hawke.”

The gallery applauded and there were several utterances of, “Hear! Hear!”

“Thank you, Mr. Kirby,” the prosecutor said again, more forcibly this time. “That will be all.”

As Kirby was the final witness, the judge turned to Hawke.

“Mr. Hawke, this is an inquest, not a trial. Nevertheless, the provisions of the Fifth Amendment are just as applicable. Therefore, you cannot be forced to testify if you don’t want to. On the other hand, if you wish to take the stand, now is the time to do so.”

“I’ll take the stand,” Hawke said.

“Very well. Bailiff, would you administer the oath, please?”

The prosecutor waited until Hawke was sworn in, then stepped up to the witness chair and, hooking his thumbs in his suspenders, stared through narrowed eyes at Hawke. It was his most intimidating stare, but Hawke held the prosecutor’s eyes with an unblinking stare of his own.

It was the prosecutor who broke eye contact first. Looking away, he cleared his throat before beginning his questioning.

“You understand, do you not, Mr. Hawke, that this is sworn testimony?” he asked. “If you lie during this testimony, it’s the same as lying during an actual court trial. You will be subject to a charge of perjury.”

Hawke, who continued his unblinking stare at the prosecutor, said nothing.

“Uh, yes,” the prosecutor said, clearing his throat again. “For the record, is Mason Hawke your real name?”

“Yes.”

“And, you are a piano player?”

“No.”

The prosecutor was actually just getting some house-cleaning questions out of the way, and he looked up in sharp surprise when Hawke denied being a piano player.

“Wait a minute. Were you, or were you not, hired to play the piano in the Lucky Dog saloon?”

“I was.”

“Well then, what would you call yourself, if not a piano player?”

“I call myself a pianist.”

Several in the gallery laughed.

“Please don’t play games with me, Mr. Hawke,” he said. “What’s the difference between a piano player and a pianist?”

“What’s the difference between ‘Turkey in the Straw’ and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” the prosecutor said.

“Then you are an idiot, Mr. Prosecutor,” the judge said, interrupting the dialogue. “Get on with your questioning.”

Again the gallery laughed.

“Yes, Your Honor.” Turning his attention back to Hawke, the prosecutor continued, “Mr. Hawke, you have heard the testimony of all the witnesses here today. Do you wish to dispute anything any of them said?”

“No.”

“Just so the record is straight, did you kill Ebenezer Priest?”

“Yes.”

“And how did you kill him? Was it a fair fight? Did you test your skill and courage against him in what one might reasonably call an affair of honor?”

“No. I just killed him.”

“I see. And were you elated? Relieved? Did you feel a personal sense of power over having just taken a man’s life?”

“No.”

“Well, then, were you remorseful?”

“No.”

“You felt none of those emotions?”

“No.”

“Then what did you feel?”

“Killing Ebenezer Priest was like stepping on a cockroach. I felt nothing at all.”

The prosecutor shook his head, then made a big show of walking away from Hawke. Standing several feet from the witness chair and looking out toward the audience, the prosecutor asked his next question in loud, well-articulated tones.

“By your own admission, your altercation with Priest was not a test of skill and courage. It was simply a killing. How can you be so cavalier about that, Mr. Hawke?”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Hawke replied.

The prosecutor turned back. “I’m not on trial here, sir, you are,” he said loudly.

“I thought this was an inquest, rather than a trial.”

“All right, an inquest.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” Hawke asked again. “I’m just curious.”

“All right, I’ll answer your question. No, sir, I am proud to say that I have never killed anyone.”

“Do you think gunfighters like Ebenezer Priest, Clay Allison, Bill Hickock, Temple Houston, and Ethan Dancer are successful killers because of their skill and courage? The answer is no. Killing is not a matter of skill and courage, it is merely a willingness to do it. The average man, the man with a soul, does not have that willingness. Even if he is faster and more skilled with a gun, he will hesitate, just for a moment, before killing someone. But men like those I just named have no soul. That’s what gives them the edge.”

“Like stepping on a cockroach, Mr. Hawke?” the prosecutor asked triumphantly.

“Yes,” Hawke said without flinching.

“I see.”

“Were you in the war, Mr. Prosecutor?”

“No, I was not.”

“I was,” Hawke said. “I killed many men during the war. No doubt some of them were evil, but the majority of them were decent, morally upstanding men. Each one was somebody’s husband, father, son, or brother who just happened to be wearing the uniform of the other side. Do you think that if I killed good men like that, I would hesitate for one second before killing someone like Ebenezer Priest?”

“I thought you said that those who could kill without hesitation had no soul.”

“Yes,” Hawke said. “That is exactly what I said.”

“So you are…”

“A man without a soul,” Hawke answered.

After hearing all the evidence, the judge retired to his chambers for a short while, then returned to deliver his finding.

“On September tenth, last year, Ebenezer Priest killed William Grant. Mr. Grant was a man who, by mistake, took a drink from Priest’s beer mug. Although Mr. Grant apologized, many times, Priest finally goaded him into drawing his gun, thus making it, officially, an act of self-defense. One of the ways he did this was by shooting the beer glass.

“In May of this year he goaded James Herrington into drawing his gun, by shooting his hat off his head. When Mr. Herrington went for his gun, Priest killed him. Both cases were officially ruled as justifiable homicide.

“Well, this time it did not work for him. If Mr. Hawke believed that Ebenezer Priest actually planned to kill him, then he was entirely justified in acting to save his own life. And, given Mr. Priest’s history, I have no doubt that was the state of Mason Hawke’s mind.

“Accordingly, I find this to be a case of justifiable homicide, and will allow no charges to be filed.” Judge Norton struck the desk with his hammer. “This case is dismissed.”

With the judge’s ruling, those in the gallery applauded, then hurried forward to congratulate Hawke. Even the prosecutor congratulated him. “I was just doing my job,” he said.

Dwayne Kirby, who was not only the bartender at the Lucky Dog, but half owner, saw this as a tremendous opportunity. He painted a sign and put it up behind the bar:

COME, MEET

MASON HAWKE.

THE MAN WHO SHOT

EBENEZER PRIEST.

He had just finished posting it when he turned around and saw Mason Hawke carrying his saddlebags over his shoulder.

“Are you going somewhere?” Kirby asked.

Hawke nodded. “It’s time for me to move on.”

“But why would you do that? The judge said there wouldn’t be any charges against you. And think of how much money you will make in tips over the next several weeks because of this. Everybody is going to want to meet the man who shot Ebenezer Priest.”

“Yes, that’s exactly why I’m leaving,” Hawke said. “I’ve no wish to meet anyone who wants to meet the man who killed Ebenezer Priest.”

“But…” Kirby said, clearly distressed by this news. “Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll cut you in for a percentage of everything we take in for the next two months.”

“Thank you,” Hawke said. “That’s a generous offer. But I think I’d better be moving on.”

Kirby nodded, then sighed, and looked up toward his sign. “All right,” he said. “I can’t keep you here. But you sure are passing up the opportunity to make a lot of money.” He took the sign down.

Hawke stuck his hand across the bar. “You’ve been a fine man to work for, Mr. Kirby,” he said. “I wish you the best.”

“Same to you, Mr. Hawke,” Kirby said as he morosely tore up the sign. He bent down to put the torn pieces in the trash can, and when he straightened up again, he saw Hawke stepping through the bat-wing doors.