TWIN GUNS
by Wick Evans
Arcadia House 1960
It's building up, Kirby thought.
The smell of trouble, big trouble, hung thick in the air of the Gold Nugget. Kirby's thoughts went racing. Maybe not tonight, or tomorrow night. But it will come just as sure as winter snows will soon cover the range; maybe by spring. Winter is no time for fighting… except for the yearly battle of cattlemen against the elements. In winter men thought first of their animals, then of themselves.
Kirby finished his beer and signaled to Joe, the barkeep, for another. He, too, could feel the tension building up. Joe got a fresh glass and drew another beer, his usual wide smile hidden by the furrows of a worried frown. He wanted to say something, Kirby realized, but he didn't dare bring it out in the open. Should I tell him not to worry? Kirby decided against it. Never know what will happen, he mused. Maybe tonight's the night. He took the fresh beer and, glass in hand, walked across the floor to a table against the wall.
It's just like him to be late, thought Kirby. He was always late for everything except trouble. Not that he ever cared a hoot. He cared nothing whatsoever for any inconvenience, any worry, any real misery that he caused. And all his life he had been bringing grief to someone.
Kirby took off his brush jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. There had been a chill in the air when he left Wagon Spoke, a chill that foretold the nearness of winter's real cold. The jacket had felt good on the long ride in to town. But now the air in the Gold Nugget felt oppressive and heavy.
He kneed a chair from the table and let his long length drop into a comfortable position. He pulled his hat down over his eyes against the glare of the big kerosene lamp directly overhead. Idly twisting his glass, he watched the door.
Kirby Street was a tall man, but not skinny. When he was seated, his broad, thick shoulders seemed to belong to a man much heavier than he was. The shoulders gave no hint of the surprisingly slender waist, the long legs that seemed almost too slight to carry his weight. His face was thin but not stretched too taut over really fine bone structure. His was the face of a man trained fine, a man who worked in the open. His mouth was generous without being pouting; the deep brown eyes showed wrinkles at their edges, wrinkles that came from squinting into sunlit distances. They were eyes in which red sparks flickered in times of anger or mirth. Black wavy hair showed from beneath the wide brim of his weather-softened Stetson.
He was dressed about like every other man in the saloon… except that he was cleaner than most. Tight- fitting levis showed the white smudges of wear and washing. A bright red flannel shirt, the only evidence of masculine vanity, stretched tight across his chest. It didn't show from a sitting position, but about his waist was belted a sturdy, well-worn holster from which protruded the polished walnut grip of a Colt .45… the weapon and belt little different from those worn by almost every other man present. His feet, crossed beneath the table, were shod in bench-made Justins.
All in all, Kirby Street was a man who would always attract attention, even in a crowd; prosperous-looking, pleasant-looking. And just now he was a man so obviously wrestling with a problem that even a stranger who could not know the depth of his harassment would have hesitated to break into his thoughts.
He stopped Joe, returning to the bar after taking the order of four stud poker players at a table behind him. 'Another beer, Joe,' he said. 'I've let this one get flat.' Joe nodded and moved away. A few minutes later he placed a full glass at his elbow and wordlessly went on with his tray to serve the poker players.
He's afraid that trouble will bust up his business, he thought. If Joe would look around he'd see that he never had it so good; there are folks here from clean up at the end of nowhere. A sigh escaped his lips as his mind played with the fact that not a man here tonight had tried to engage him in conversation, although everyone had gone out of his way to greet him when he entered the Nugget. Where will it all end, and when? He didn't have the answer.
And then the man whose message had created the evening's taut uncertainty chose that moment to bang open the batwings and march to the bar. He was followed by two men, both armed. One of them wore his guns in low-cut holsters thonged down just above the knees.
The newcomer waved a hand in greeting to the room. 'Howdy, gents,' he said in a strong, pleasant voice. His eyes swept the room, missing nothing, and finally came to rest on Kirby.
'Evening, Kirby,' he drawled, his voice changing so subtly that only the most observant caught the change. 'Have one on me?' His eyes held Kirby's, who rose slowly and joined his twin brother at the bar.
'Evening, Bill; howdy, fellows.' He nodded to the two men at his brother's elbow. 'Reckon I can hold another beer.'
There was an audible sound of men taking a deep breath. This was it! This was the source of the electric tension that had been building. This was the meeting of brother face to face with brother; the first in more than a year. It was a meeting that would have surprised no one had it started in gunplay, and would surprise none if it ended in burning powder and spilled blood.
The whole range knew the story… or at least all of it that had occurred up to that moment. They knew that Kirby Street and his identical twin had been bitter enemies since the death of their mother and, more recently, the death of their father. Old 'Muddy' Street had been the patriarch of the country, the oldest settler, and founder of the vast Wagon Spoke brand.
The range knew that Kirby held his brother personally responsible for the death of their mother, whom he had worshipped.
In his usual harum-scarum, devil-may-care way, Bill had started to town in the buckboard, driving a team of half-broken mustangs. Both Kirby and the old man had asked him not to trust Ma Street's safety to the spooky team. Ma had laughingly insisted that she wasn't too old to enjoy a ride behind such a spirited team. Bill would take care of her, she said. But he hadn't! With no thought for her safety, he had let the team run, confident that his strength and the spade bits would bring them down when he got tired of the wild ride. An hour later Ma Street was dead, the half-wild team plunging into town, dragging wreckage and broken harness. Characteristically, Bill came out of the accident without a mark on him. But he paid for it.
Kirby whipped him in a brutal fight that ended forever the farce of brother love. The fight brought out the truth: that the brothers, identical in appearance but a world apart in every other way, had always despised each other.
Muddy Street never recovered from the blow of Ma's death. The iron will that had sustained him for half a century had seemed to melt away. There was no fight left in him. He quietly set about the business of dividing Wagon into two equal parts. It was like splitting his heart into two pieces when he surrendered the divided ranch. Only his tired old eyes showed his hurt and despair when Bill took his share, without a word of thanks, and moved across the Clear to set up his own headquarters. His allotted cows were rebranded with his own brand, the Lazy B. He never again visited Wagon, and was barely civil when he met Muddy on the street.
As if unable to bear this split of his own flesh and blood, the thought of Wagon Spoke divided, his sons being bitter enemies, Muddy turned a gun upon himself. 'Accident,' said a friendly coroner. 'Suicide,' said the range. Until tonight Kirby and Bill had not spoken, not even at their father's funeral.
There had been no outward sign of trouble since his death. But the country knew war was in the making.
For one thing, there had been a remarkable change in Bill. From an unthinking, careless boy, with no obligations, no worries, he had undergone a remarkable metamorphosis. He had become a hard, grasping, ruthless man, caring for but one thing, the power that came with cows and land to graze them.
Kirby had watched the change come about, puzzled. His men had brought him word of things he had found hard to believe. The range, remembering old Muddy Street, how he had fought his battles, was prone to say: 'He's just like his old man.' Kirby knew better.
