“How is it, punk? Oh, well, it’s a real grand time, punk. You can’t sit with your back to no empty space, always to a wall. Lots of backshooters out there. You don’t never make your fire, cook, and then sleep in the same spot. You always move before you bed down, ’cause somebody is always lookin’ to gun you down…for a reputation.
“You ain’t never gonna marry, punk. ’Cause if you do, it won’t last. You got to stay on the move, all the time. ’Cause you’re the man who kilt Luke Nations, punk. And there’s gonna be a thousand punks just like you lookin’ for you.
“You drift, boy. You drift all the time, and you might near always ride alone, lessen you can find a pard that you know you can trust not to shoot you when you’re in your blankets.
“And a lot of towns won’t want you, punk. The marshal and the townspeople will meet you with rifles and shotguns and point you the way out. ’Cause they don’t want no gunfighter in their town.
“And after a time, if you live, you’ll do damn near anything so’s people won’t know who you are. But they always seem to find out. Then you’ll change your name agin. And agin. Just lookin’ for a little peace and quiet.
“But you ain’t never gonna find it.
“You might git good enough to live for a long time, punk. I hope you do. I hope you ride ten thousand lonely miles, you backshootin’ bastard. Ten thousand miles of lookin’ over your back. Ten thousand towns that you’ll ride in and out of in the dead of night. Eatin’ your meals just at closin’ time…you can find a eatin’ place that’ll serve you.
“A million hours that you’ll wish you could somehow change your life…but you cain’t, punk. You cain’t change, ’cause
“Only job you’ll be able to find is one with the gun, punk. ’Cause you’re the man who kilt Luke Nations. You got your rep, punk. You wanted it so damned bad, you got ’er.” He glanced at Johnny North.
Johnny said, “I had me a good woman one time. We married and I hung up my guns, sonny-boy. Some goddamned bounty-hunters shot into my cabin one night. Killed my wife. I’d never broke no law until then. But I tracked them so-called lawmen down and hung ’em, one by one. I was on the hoot-owl trail for years after that. I had both the law and the reputation-hunters after me. Sounds like a real fine life, don’t it, punk? I hope you enjoy it.”
Smoke kicked Lester Sundance Morgan to his boots. “Get your horse and ride, punk! ’Fore one of us here takes a notion to brace the man who killed Luke Nations.”
Crying, Lester stumbled from the street and found his horse, back of the building that once housed a gun shop.
“It ain’t like that!” the gunfighters, the gambler, the ranchers, and the minister heard Lester holler as he rode off. “It ain’t none at all like what you say it was. I’ll have wimmin a-throwin’ themselves at me. I’ll have money and I’ll have…”
His horse’s hooves drummed out the rest of what Lester Sundance Morgan thought his reputation would bring him.
“Poor, sad, silly son of a bitch,” Ralph Morrow said.
Charlie Starr looked at the minister. “I couldn’t have said ’er no better myself, preacher.”
The bodies of the gunfighters and Tilden Franklin were dragged to a lone building just at the edge of what was left of the boom town named Fontana. The building was doused with kerosene and torched just as a very gentle rain began falling.
“Lots of folks comin’, Smoke,” Charlie said, pointing toward the road leading to the high lonesome.
It was Sally and Belle and Bountiful and nearly all of those the men had left behind.
Sally embraced and kissed her man, getting blood all over her blouse as she did so. “How’d you folks know it was done with?” Smoke asked her.
“Hook Nose’s people set up relay points with runners,” she said. “They were watching from the hills over there.” She pointed.
“What a story this will make,” Haywood Arden said, his eyes wide as he looked at the bullet-pocked buildings and empty shell-casings on the ground.
“Yeah,” Smoke said wearily. “You be sure and write it, Haywood. And be sure you spell one name right.”
“Who is that?” the newspaperman asked.
“Lester Morgan, known as Sundance.”
“What’d he do?” Haywood was writing on a tablet as fast as he could write.
Smoke described Lester, ending with, “And he ain’t got but one ear. That’ll make him easy to spot.”
“But what did this Lester Sundance Morgan
“Why…he’s the gunfighter who killed Luke Nations.”
17
Ed Jackson and his wife went back East… anywhere east of the Mississippi River. They did not say goodbye to anybody, just loaded their wagon and pulled out early one morning.
Louis Longmont, Mike, and Andre left the town of Big Rock. Louis thought he’d retire for a time. But Smoke knew he would not…not for long. The raw and woolly West had not seen the last of Louis Longmont.
Word drifted back that Lester Sundance Morgan had been braced by a couple of young duded-up dandies looking for a reputation down in New Mexico Territory. Sundance had managed to drop them both and was now riding low, keeping out of sight. The report that Smoke received said that Lester was not a very happy young man.
Monte Carson recovered from his wounds and became the sheriff of Big Rock, Colorado. He married himself a grass widow and settled down.
The aging gunfighters pulled out of the area, riding out in small groups of twos and threes…or alone. Alone. As
