Finally, the sun came up enough for him to see the target and he removed a revolver?Earl saw it to be a Smith N-frame, with a four-inch barrel well engraved by an artist, and a highly carved, palm-filling ivory stock?opened the cylinder, and slid in six fat cartridges.
Setting the gun down on the bench, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cotton.
'Say, friend, don't know if you mean to shoot yourself or just watch, but I'm going to protect what little hearing I've got left with this here cotton. Would you care to help yourself?'
'Sir, my ears already ring like hell and I hear about ten percent of what is said.'
'That's the damage the guns will do. You should have protected your ears when you were young.'
'Yes, sir,' said Earl.
'Still, I'd use some if I were you.'
Earl agreed, and went over to take a wad from the little man who, approached, was more eyebrow than hat as it turned out. That is, he was about fifty-five years old, with a face that looked like a walnut's meat if it has dried in the sun over a long period, but what was remarkable were the feathers or whatever the hell they were over his eyes. They were like caterpillars possibly, extravagant things on a face so dour and grim.
Earl stuffed in the cotton as he returned, and then watched.
The old man shot. Six times. Each time the revolver jumped off the bench rest he'd set it on, and the report was loud enough that its pain penetrated unpleasantly through Earl's cotton earplugs. The old man took no notice. He simply recorded remarks in his notebook with a great deal of patience and detail. He opened the cylinder and used the hand ejector to pump out the six spent shells, which he examined with a great deal of care, again taking notes.
It went on for two hours, with time off for the old man to remove one set of targets, measure them carefully and note them duly in his notebook and hang another.
Finally, at around 9:00, he was done, and it seemed that he had returned to planet earth. He took his hat off and rubbed his hand through his hair, revealing also that the upper third of his forehead was stark white, as if it had been hidden behind the giant Stetson for years and years, his whole life perhaps. He then cleaned his guns methodically.
Then, at last, he turned.
'You are a patient fellow,' he said to Earl.
'Yes, sir, Mr. Kaye, I am.'
'So I see you know my name.'
'I do, sir. I have heard great things about you. Not merely have I been reading your articles over the years, but a friend of mine, now passed, knew you well in the old days. Is that your.44 Special load you are running?'
'Yes, it is. I've got one of my own design Kaye 200 grain semi wad cutters atop varying amounts of Unique. She steps out.'
'I could see the recoil.' 'Oh, that,' said Mr. Kaye. 'I don't pay much attention to that.
Recoil's for sissies to worry about. Are you a sissy, son?'
'Don't really know, sir.'
'Well, I am seeing how much she'll take before the pressure signs start showing: you know, bulged primers, tight casing, that sort of thing.
I'll probably blow up three or four guns before I get this one finished and get where I want to be. Now, you mentioned a friend, son. A friend of mine?' 'Yes,' said Earl. 'His name was D. A. Parker.'
'D. A.! He is a good man! He is the best! He faced many an armed man in his time, and put most of them facedown in the dust. Say, how'd you know D. A.?'
'It was my privilege to serve with him in some dirty work in Hot Springs. It was a messy fracas. Cost that fine man his life.'
Elmer Kaye's face knit up in some concern as he factored in this information.
Finally he said, 'So you are a lawman? So you saw some of the kind of action D. A. saw. You have faced shots fired in anger.'
'There, sir, and in the war before. And before that, in the Marine Corps. A bit in Nicaragua and some in China, against the Japs even before Pearl Harbor.'
'Hmmm,' grumped the old man. 'You are a formidable fellow, then.'
'I am one lucky fellow, truth is.'
'But I'm betting your arrival here was no accident, not if you knew my name and heard D. A. Parker chat about me.'
'That is true, Mr. Kaye.'
'Well, what would it be, son? Daylight's wasting, and I've got work to do. Have three pieces due at American Rifleman by the end of the month.'
'Well, sir, it's about a little trip. A hunting trip.'
'I don't guide no more.'
'I'd be the guide.' 'Hmmm,' said Elmer Kaye. 'I have Africa penciled in for the fall, and Alaska in December. I'm in South America for a bit, but I don't think that's until February of fifty-two. I might have some time in January, if it tempts me.'
'Sir, actually it'd be in three weeks, dark of the moon.'
'Three weeks! Impossible.'
'You might make an exception for the game I've got in mind.'
'And that would be?'
'Two-legged. Heavily armed. Mean as a skunk. Shoot first, ask questions later. 'Bout fifty of ', some with machine guns.'
Elmer leaned forward, his heavy eyebrows narrowed up in what looked like the beginning of formidable anger.
'Say, I don't think I like where this is going, friend. I'm not some gunman for hire. I am a friend of law enforcement, and have never committed a crime in my life, nor even thought for a second about doing so. You must have me figured for some other kind of fellow, and I don't care to hear more of it.'
'I know how upstanding you are. That's why I thought you'd be interested. And I thought to get you to listen to me from here on in, I'd show you something they gave me after the war.'
He reached into his pocket, removed the Medal of Honor and pushed it across to the old man.
'Where?'
'Iwo. Close-in work. Killed a mess of Japs in very short order.
Wasn't happy about it, but they's killing people in my platoon.'
'You are formidable. Then why on earth??'
'These boys I'm gunning for need gunning, believe you me, Mr. Kaye.
They live on death and pain. They hurt for fun. They run roughshod over all other forms of life, and laugh about it. They are as pure killers as any who walked the earth. And they think nobody can touch them. They are beyond the reach of the law, so isolated they will see all corners a-coming days in advance, and be ready for them. I want to touch them hard in three weeks. I want you and a few others like you to come a-hunting with me. I've got a fellow who'll even pay expenses.
And although I can't guarantee what happens in the fight, I can guarantee that it's easy in and then easy out, and no law will ever track you down and hold you accountable. You'll get no credit and no profit from it, but you'll have a night of gunplay like no other on earth. If this sort of thing matters to you, you'll never have another chance like this one. Chances like this one are leaving the world as it gets more and more modern. I'm giving you a night in Dodge City, where I bet in your heart of hearts you've always wished to be. And you can see what that super.44 you're working up can do. Now what do you say?'
The old man fixed him square with his intense eyes.
'Okay, son. You've piqued my interest. Now tell me all about it.'
An hour later, Elmer Kaye said yes. How could he say anything else?
You don't get but one offer like Earl's in a lifetime.
He had a professorial when, with rimless glasses, a fedora, a tweed sports coat, the tie tied perfect and tight. He was about fifty himself, with the worn face of a man who's been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. Earl watched as he assumed the classic kneeling position and fired.
