each other since then. He’s a sore loser.”
“Can we trust him?”
“Oh, yeah. We don’t cotton to one another, but you can trust him.”
“Want to take a ride to the springs?”
“What do you think?”
Pagosa Springs, which translated means Indian healing waters, lies at the bottom of the state, not far from the New Mexico line, in what would someday become the San Juan National Forest. Several hundred miles, as the crow flies, from Brown’s Hole, through some of the roughest and most beautiful country in the state. It was late summer when the two men reached the hot springs. Preacher had groused and hitched the entire way.
“Gawddamned farmers! I never seen so many pilgrims in all my life.”
They had seen half a dozen farms in a month.
For Preacher, it was his first encounter with barbed wire. He had cut his hand, ripped his shirt, and finally fell down before getting loose from the sharp tangle.
Kirby had sat his saddle and laughed at Preacher’s antics, which only made matters worse and the profanity more intense.
Just east of the Uncompaghre Plateau, an irritated farmer’s wife had threatened both of them with a double- barreled shotgun before Kirby could convince her they meant no harm to her, her pigs, or her kids.
“Woman!” Preacher had railed at her. “You put down that cannon. Why … I opened up this country. I —”
She waved the shotgun at him. “Get away from me, you dirty old man.”
“Dirty old man! Why you lard-butt heifer, I —”
She stuck the Greener under his beard. “Git!” she commanded.
Preacher was fuming as they rode away. “Damned ole biddy,” he cursed. “No respect for my kind. None a- tall.”
Kirby grinned. “Civilization is upon us, Preacher.”
Preacher violently and heatedly put together a long string of words which profanely contradicted his nickname.
They had stopped at mid-morning just west of the Needle Mountains to replenish their supplies at a wild, roaring mining camp that would soon be named Rico. It was an outlaw hangout in the early 1870s and would continue to be rough and rowdy until almost the turn of the century.
The population of the as yet unnamed settlement had rapidly diminished due to recent Indian raids, but there were still about a hundred men and half a dozen prostitutes in the camp when Kirby and Preacher dismounted in front of the trading post/saloon. As was his custom, Kirby slipped the thongs from the hammers of his Colts at dismounting.
They bought their supplies and turned to leave when the hum of conversation suddenly died. Two rough- dressed and unshaven men, both wearing guns, blocked the door.
“Who owns that horse out there?” one demanded, a snarl to his voice, trouble in his manner. “The one with an SJ brand?”
Kirby laid his purchases on the counter. “I do,” he said quietly.
“Which way’d you ride in from?”
Preacher had slipped to the right, his left hand covering the hammer of his Henry, concealing the click as he thumbed it back.
Kirby faced the men, his right hand hanging loose by his side. His left hand was just inches from his left hand gun. “Who wants to know — and why?”
No one in the dusty building moved or spoke.
“Pike’s my name,” the bigger and uglier of the pair said. “And I say you came through my diggin’s yesterday and stole my dust.”
“And I say you’re a liar,” Kirby told him.
Pike grinned nastily, his right hand hovering near the butt of his pistol. “Why … you little pup. I think I’ll shoot your ears off.”
“Why don’t you try? I’m sure tired of hearing you shoot your mouth off.”
Pike looked puzzled for a few seconds; bewilderment crossed his features. No one had ever talked to him in this manner. Pike was big, strong, and a bully. “I think I’ll just kill you for that.”
Pike and his partner reached for their guns.
Four shots boomed in the low-ceilinged room. Four shots so closely spaced they seemed as one thunderous roar. Dust and bird’s nest droppings fell from the ceiling. Pike and his friend were slammed out the open doorway. One fell off the rough porch, dying in the dirt street. Pike, with two holes in his chest, died with his back to a support pole, his eyes still open, unbelieving. Neither had managed to pull a pistol more than halfway out of leather.
All eyes in the black powder-filled and dusty, smoky room moved to the young man standing by the bar, a Colt in each hand. “Good God!” a man whispered in awe. “I never even seen the draw.”
Preacher had moved the muzzle of his Henry to cover the men at the tables. The bartender put his hands slowly on the bar, indicating he wanted no trouble.
“We’ll be leaving now,” Kirby said, bolstering his Colts and picking up his purchases from the counter. He walked out the open door.
Kirby stepped over the sprawled, dead legs of Pike and walked past his dead friend.
