“I seen now why he’s called Buttermilk.”
“Why?”
“That’s probably all he can eat. He don’t have any teeth!”
18
“
“That’s him,” Smoke said. “Preacher told me about him. And I’ll make you a bet right now that that old man can walk all day and all night, stop for a handful of berries and take a sip of water, and go another twenty-four hours.”
“I ain’t dis-pootin’ your word, Boss,” Pearlie said. “But I’m gonna have to see it to believe it.”
Smiling, Smoke bent down and picked up a small chunk of wood. “Apache!” he called.
The old, buckskin-clad man turned and looked at Smoke.
“A silver dollar says you can’t knock it out of the air.”
“Toss ’er, boy!”
Smoke tossed the chunk high into the air. With fifty-odd years of gunhandling in his past, Apache’s draw was as smooth and practiced as water over a fall. He fired six times. Six times the hardwood chunk was hit, before falling in slivers to the ground.
“Jesus!” Pearlie breathed.
“That’s six silver dollars you owe me,” Apache said.
Smoke laughed and nodded his head. The Apache Kid turned to talk with Charlie.
“That Jensen?” Apache asked, as the other old gunfighters listened.
“That’s him.”
“He as good as they say?” Bowie asked.
“I wouldn’t want to brace him,” Charlie said, paying Smoke the highest compliment one gunhand could pay to another.
“That good, hey?” Luke Nations asked.
“He’s the best.”
“I heared he was that,” Dan Greentree said. “Rat nice of him to in-vite us on this little hoo-raw.”
Smoke and Sally had gone into the cabin, leaving the others to talk.
Pearlie shyly wandered over to the growing knot of men. He was expecting to get the needle put to him, and he got just that.
“Your ma know you slipped away from the house, boy?” a huge, grizzled old man asked.
Pearlie smiled and braced himself. “You be Pistol Le Roux?”
“I was when I left camp this mornin’.”
“I run arcost a pal of yourn ’bout three years ago—up on the Utah-Wyoming line. South of Fort Supply. Called hisself Pawnee.”
“Do tell? How was ol’ Pawnee?”
“Not too good. He died. I buried him at the base of Kings Mountain, north side. Thought you’d wanna know.”
“I do and I ’preciate your plantin’ him. Say a word over him, did you?”
“Some.”
“This is Pearlie, Pistol.”
“Pleased. Join us, Pearlie.”
Pearlie stood silent and listened to the men talk. Charlie said, “This ain’t gonna be no Sunday social, boys. And I’ll come right up front and tell you that some of you is likely to be planted in these here mountains.”
The sounds of horses coming hard paused Charlie. He waited until the last of the old gunslicks had dismounted and shook and howdied.
Charlie counted heads. Twenty of the hardest, most talked-about, and most legendary men of the West stood in the front yard of the sturdy little cabin. Only God and God alone knew how many men these randy old boys had put down into that eternal rest.
The Apache Kid was every bit of seventy. But could still draw and shoot with the best.
Buttermilk didn’t have a tooth in his head, but those Colts belted around his lean waist could bite and snarl and roar.
Jay Church was a youngster, ’bout Charlie’s age. But a feared gunhawk.
Dad Weaver was in his mid-sixties. He’d opened him a little cafe when he’d hung up his guns, but the rowdies and the punks hadn’t left him alone. They’d come lookin’ and he’d given the undertaker more business. He’d finally said to hell with it and taken off for the mountains.
Silver Jim still looked the dandy. Wearin’ one of them long white coats that road agents had taken to wearing. His boots was old and patched, but they shined. And his dark short coat was kinda frayed at the cuffs, but it was
