They still talk today in a certain Western town of the day of the gun and of its being over. The phrase “the day of the gun” is normally used in a figurative sense to describe some past era when violent anarchy prevailed. These particular townsfolk mean it in that sense––but they also mean it in a very literal sense…the day of a very specific gun is over. A specific day, a specific gun. It happened like this…
John S. Queenan turned away from the window. The monotony of the flat mid-Western landscape streaking by was having an unwelcome soporific effect on him. He looked up and down the thirty feet of coach. Most of the seats were occupied. How many would disembark at Wodensburg? he thought. Not many. In its unrelenting push westward through Omaha and Cheyenne, The Union Pacific Railroad was now nearing Salt Lake City. Most of the car’s passengers would off-load near the railhead to stake their claim in a new life in the wilderness.
But that was not his purpose.
He readjusted his tall frame in the seat and watched the heads of the other passengers moving in rhythm with the swaying of the car. Occasionally one or two would rise and walk to the rear platform to stretch their legs or to get a breath of fresh air.
Lines began to streak across the window as it started to rain. Then he saw a young man rise and make his way down the aisle. In his three-piece suit he didn’t have the look of a pioneer. The man reciprocated Queenan’s nod as he passed. Queenan thought for a while. The man could be useful.
Queenan pulled himself to his feet and immediately felt the benefit of moving cramped muscles. Then he too lurched down the aisle.
The young man was leaning on the rail with the wind catching his hair as Queenan joined him. ‘Rain’s good for some folks, I suppose,’ the tall man said, taking out a pack of cheroots.
‘Farmers have been waiting for it.’
Queenan offered him a cheroot. ‘You local, then?’
The man took one. ‘Thanks.Yeah. Been visiting kin in Kansas City.’
They took it in turns in the corner of the doorway to light up their smokes.
‘When you say you’re local, you mean Wodensburg?’ Queenan pressed for precision.
‘Yeah. You?’
Just what Queenan had hoped. ‘No. I’m a city man. Got business––financial business in Wodensburg.’ With his dark suit and gun-less hips he had the appearance of a businessman. The grey hair and good cut of cloth indicated a high level, too––bank manager maybe. Indeed, every aspect reflected this image, down to the manicured fingernails. He extended his hand. ‘The name’s Queenan’.
The other took it. ‘Glad to meet you. Ray Ward.’
Queenan had made a contact and learned a name––that was all he wanted for now. They chewed over inconsequential topics until their smokes were finished and then they returned inside.
Queenan took up his seat again. He could use Ward––but he’d let it simmer for a while. He didn’t want to seem pushy.
Half an hour later the track took on a gentle curve, rare for the terrain. But enough curvature for Queenan to catch sight of a settlement in the distance before the bell stacker up front straightened out again. It had to be Wodensburg.
He took out the letter––the last one he had received––which finished: ‘Ask the reception clerk at The Star and Garter hotel for a message from me. It will enclose the next payment––Jeremy Blackwell.’ He folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. He gripped the back of the seat in front of him and pulled himself up again. He turned to face the side of the car and heaved his case down from the rack.
Within minutes he heard the brakemen clambering along the catwalk above him as they attempted to brake the cars in synchronization. The whistle blasted to inform the town’s occupants the only westward through-train of the day was approaching and the machine came to a standstill with bell clanging. He looked out of the window. A sign proclaiming WODENSBURG in large simple letters hung from the edge of the station roof. The booking clerk in Omaha had said something about the town having undergone a change of name. That would have explained the newness of the sign. But he had given it no mind. Nothing was as ephemeral as a name this far west of the Appalachians.
He moved quickly down the aisle ensuring that he stepped down from the car immediately after the guy called Ward. The conductor took their tickets and they walked together from the depot to the Main Street.
He looked like a businessman. He could pass as one because he always wore good clothes and he didn’t wear his guns––ordinarily. No one in this neck of the woods would recognize him as of the most notorious contract gunnies in the State. He could afford good clothes because his fees were the highest. And they were the highest because he was good. And he was good because it had taken him thirty years to perfect his skills. This year he’d upped his fee to a basic thousand dollars a contract. Now he was comfortable and could afford to pick
In January he’d dropped some guy called Tyree who had been trying to form a labor union against the wishes of a very rich mine owner. Normally Queenan did not let emotions get in the way of his job––but his heart was in that one. After all, unionism was a death-watch beetle to the structure of capitalism. He didn’t know Tyree, didn’t know if he had wife and kids. That was immaterial; all he knew was that he was being paid to eradicate somebody, and that that somebody was guilty––through his damned unionism––of trying to import foreign doctrines such as the evil communism and socialism–– to the US of A, the bastion of freedom. The price he was being paid he would have done it anyway. To remove a social evil––a trade union man–– was a bonus.
Next, two months ago, he’d sent Snake-Eyes Minelli, the hold-up man, up that trail that led to the pearly gates. Wells Fargo footed that bill. Then he’d received a letter from this Jeremy Blackwell in Wodensburg. Wanted to place a contract on some trouble-maker. Money seemed no object––which was the important thing. Two hundred dollars had been enclosed. Another two hundred would be paid on his arrival. And a thousand dollars was promised when the contract was completed.
During the train journey he had mused over the thought of his assets. Totaling over twelve grand with this job. He wasn’t getting any younger. He was in the autumn of his life. But even if he lived well beyond the Biblical three-score and ten he could still live like a king. Yes, he had thought, he may well make this the last contract––and then it would be pipe and slippers.
‘Say, Ray,’ Queenan said, full of bonhomie, as they neared the hotel ‘Do me a favor, sport.’
The young man looked at him. ‘What is it?’
‘See if there’s a message for me at the desk in The Star and Garter. I’m in a bit of a hurry and I wanna check into the hotel down the street.’
‘Sure thing, Mr. Queenan. And put that dollar away.’
The man called Ward bounded up onto the raised boardwalk while the elder man pushed on down the street.
Minutes later Queenan booked a room in The Golden Spur Hotel. The Star and Garter was more convenient for the railroad stop but he had a rule about making his own arrangements during a job. He sat in an easy chair in the hotel lounge waiting for Ward. He lit another cheroot but, after the first draw, his eyes closed and it lay smoldering between the fingers of his resting hand. Eventually the young man came in. He pushed an envelope into the seated man’s hand.
‘There was a message for you.’ He touched his forehead with his finger as he was thanked. ‘Don’t mention it. Glad to be of service, Mr. Queenan. Enjoy your stay in our little town.’ And with a smile he was gone.
Queenan congratulated himself as he ripped open the letter. By getting Ward to collect it, he had avoided exposing himself on his first day in town. Two ‘C’ bills fell out. He looked up to check no one was watching him as he tucked the notes into his pocket. Then he read the notes. ‘Two hundred dollars as promised. Further instructions will be forthcoming. But in the meantime, take heed that the deal between us is subject to one condition: that you do not go near Room 14.’
He recognized the signature of Jeremy Blackwell at the bottom. ‘Further instructions, eh ?’ he thought. He didn’t like that. His style was to get in and out quick. Still the money was good for merely sitting on your ass. He thought nothing of the odd condition at the time. He was curious only about who he had to kill to get his final thousand bucks. Moreover, he had no interest in any hotel room other than his own––never mind the mysterious No. 14––and there he retired for the time being to sleep off the train journey from Kansas.
He awoke refreshed. After a wash-up he sat on the bed and opened his case. He took out the tools of his trade. First the belt and holster, plain but custom-built and expensive. Years of experience were in the instructions he’d given the leatherworker making the rig. Holsters precision-cut at the rear providing maximum accessibility to the triggers for a master’s fingers. The belt exactly notched to give the right lay on the hips. He pulled the rig around him, buckled the belt and tied down the holsters.
Then the guns. He’d started his professional life with a single .40 Paterson Colt. Primitive by today’s standards, he reminisced, but over the years he’d changed his weapons as models improved until now he carried two Schofields. In his experience the 1875 model, single-action revolver made by Smith and Wesson was the best in the world. The one and only drawback was the .45 ammunition was not interchangeable with that of the Colt. That meant refills could be hard to come by so he always carried half-a-dozen full cardboard boxes.
He hinged open the black weapons in turn and emptied out the six shots from each. He snapped them shut and zipped them into leather. For ten minutes he practiced his draw. Numerous though the permutations were, they were the standard ones he repeated every day in the same, polished sequence. Turning to the right, dropping onto alternate knees––but always fast.
Hours had passed. Queenan parted the curtains and looked down at the Main Street. It was getting dark. His curiosity regarding the identity of Blackwell was beginning to deepen. The best place to ask casual questions at night is a saloon. He peered up and down the street––it appeared Wodensburg had two.
So that evening, with the Schofields safely back in their case, Queenan joined the imbibers of the town. He would sit at a table and, after buying superficial camaraderie with a few drinks he would ask his question.
By the way, he would start, as though it was of relative unimportance. ‘Any of you guys heard of a poke called Blackwell ?’ Duly his drinking companions would put on thinking faces but come up with negative answers before resuming their conversations.
It took half the evening to work his way in an apparently-undesigned fashion around the drinking parlor. As wise as at the start and a little the worse for drink he strolled down to the second saloon and repeated the exercise. But no one had heard of this Blackwell.
Around eleven he stood on the boardwalk. The small town was bathed in moonlight
He could see the railroad stop, the saloons, the false fronts of stores along the street, the shacks sprawling around the periphery that constituted the town’s suburbs. Someone here knew of Blackwell, he was sure.
The bordello––the focal point of town night life––maybe someone there had the answer. Its girls should be familiar with most of the male population––the long, the short and the tall. He returned to the last saloon he’d been in. He pushed his way through the throng at the bar and beckoned with his head at the barkeep. His height and authority of bearing demanded attention. As the barkeep came up to him and leaned over the counter, Queenan breathed alcohol laden fumes into his ear.
‘Where can a guy get a woman at this time of night?’
The barkeep touched his nose with his finger and winked knowingly. ‘You’ll find what you want at Maisy’s, I’ll be thinking, sir.’ He gave instructions how to get to the establishment as Queenan pushed a silver dollar across the counter.
He lay on his back in an alcoholic stupor. The madam had given him the choice of three and he’d picked out Babette. Her name was French––a tradition of her profession––but her accent was pure Mid-West. She’d led him upstairs and, an expert at the task, she’d helped him take off his clothes. Now she was undressing herself at the end of the bed.
Within seconds her naked body was straddling him. She smiled downwards as she bounced her round, soft breasts over his face. His head rose instinctively as he pressed his nose between them sensing the cologne that pervaded her body and feeling the warmth of the fleshy orbs against his cheeks. She rolled them over, compressing them against his chest. He closed his eyes as her hair fell over his face. Like pliable water melons they pushed against his stomach and manhood.
Despite the alcohol he was finally aroused. His hands moved down to grip the flesh behind her thighs and force her upwards so his rising solidness could find the temporary home he was paying for. His body arched as he reacted to her gentle but increasing rhythm. She spread-eagled on top of him as he reached his climax.
She lay by his side as he recovered his breath. Then her mouth sought to arouse him again but he pulled her away. ‘Maybe it’s the drink––or my age––but I couldn’t manage another,’ he whispered. ‘Not yet.’
She turned her head still resting on his stomach and looked at him. ‘You’re not old.’
‘I’m fifty seven, my young miss.’.
‘That’s not old,’ she said knowingly. ‘No, it’s not your age, pardner. I get guys in here on repeat performances twice your age.’
He smiled at the thought of a decrepit panhandler going through his paces. ‘Not twice as old,’ he admonished. ‘No, another night perhaps.’ He didn’t mean it. He’d come in here for one purpose and one purpose only. He felt her head nod silently. Then she crossed the room and began dressing. Clumsily he followed suit. He was a little annoyed with himself. He didn’t usually partake of alcohol when there was an unfinished job at hand. He had paid the Madame the standard fee of one dollar fifty downstairs but he dropped two dollars noisily on the dressing table.
‘How long have you been in town, Babette?’ he asked as he made a final adjustment to his clothing.
‘A year. Maybe more.’
‘Ever hear of a guy called Blackwell?’
‘Get a lotta guys in here,’ she reflected. ‘But can’t recall one with that label.’
He opened the door for her. ‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Never mind,’ he added as he accompanied her down the ornate staircase. He’d enjoyed the experience, there was no denying that, but––while he was on a contract––business came before pleasure. So he felt as though he’d wasted his money,
Fifteen minutes later back in his own room, he placed one of the Schofields under his pillow––between two sheets of newspaper so its oil would not mark the linen––and he was asleep.
After breakfast he went across to The Star and Garter.
‘Any message for me today?’ he asked the reception clerk, who was allocating letters to pigeon-holes. The young man thumbed through the envelopes remaining in his hand. ‘I’m afraid not, Mr. Queenan.’
Queenan snorted with impatience. What a pig’s ass this was turning out to be. He walked outside and stood on the sidewalk watching the townsfolk going about their business. This was definitely going to be his last job. Why, he could buy out half these tame sod-busters as it was!
He strolled along the street till he came to the mayor’s office. He had already located it from his hotel window. He pushed through the door. A young girl was pounding away at a typewriter. As his eyes took in her tightly corseted form he momentarily remembered Babette and the night before.
‘Yes?’ she asked, breaking his reverie.
‘Mornin’, ma’am. You have a copy of the electoral roll I could look through?’ In a democratic society everyone had a right to see the list without question.
‘Why, yes, sir.’ Her bell tinged as she finished a line of typing and she fetched a sheet of paper from a drawer.
He took the proffered document. ‘Is this all?’ he asked. There were little more than sixty names listed.
‘Yes, sir. It’s right up-to-date.’ There was no Blackwell, he could see that right away. There was a Tyree but he had no reason to notice it. He handed the paper back to the girl. There was a sudden apprehension in her eyes and she was biting her lip but he didn’t comment.
He touched his hat brim. ‘Thanks, ma’am,’ he said and he left. Casually, he walked the length and breadth of the town. At each end the signs proclaiming WODENSBURG were newly painted but that was nothing out of the ordinary. He may have wondered why equally new paint had been used on the town’s name board at the railroad stop––or why the same paint had been used to block out the proprietor’s name on The Star and Garter board over the hotel. But he didn’t.
Instead, he walked the town like a prowling panther––whose senses had been blunted by age––growing frustration in his eyes.
Who and where was Jeremy Brackwell? Who did he want rubbing out ? And what lay behind the door of Number 14 in The Star and Garter? When his head hit the pillow for his second night in the town, he was no wiser.
The next morning he crossed to The Star and Garter with a new determination in his eyes.
‘Anything for me today?’
The clerk shifted awkwardly on his feet. Mr. Blackwell says the deals off, he replied nervously without raising his eyes from his paperwork.
‘Off?’ grunted Queenan. ‘Off ?’ For a moment his lips set tight end his eyes opened wider. Then he lunged across the counter and grabbed the clerk by the lapels. ‘Nobody welshes on John Queenan. Who is this Blackwell? Where is he?’
‘Dunno, sir,’ the clerk gasped, afraid to make any effort to free himself. ‘Look, I’m just the go-between, the message-carrier.’
‘When did he come in ? I been watching from my hotel room across the street.’
‘First thing this morning.’
‘What’s he look like?’
‘It’s hard to say, sir. Just kinda ordinary.’
Queenan growled and pushed the man away roughly. He looked up the stairs. Even from this distance he could see the painted numbers 14 on the door at the top. He was not going to be monkeyed around any further. He was cutting his losses and getting out of this god-forsaken hole for the first-and-last time. But before he did get out of town he was going to lay bare the secret of Room 14.
He returned to his own room and strapped on his gun rig. He tested his guns and slipped them into place.
With the forcefulness of the locomotive that had brought him into town two long days ago he stormed down the stairs, across the street and back into the lobby of The Star and Garter.
Up the stairs and onto the landing. He stood staring at the polished wooden surface of the door. Who or what was behind it? Jeremy Blackwell? The man he was to be paid to kill? Or maybe something else that explained the pig’s ass of a mystery that he’d walked into?
In the circumstances he was not just going to knock and walk right in. He flattened himself against the wall. His gun was in his right hand and he tried the knob with his other––so that when the door opened the only part of his body visible would be his hand.
Damn the knob wouldn’t turn. Unusual, he thought. Even when doors are locked their knobs turn. He tried more strength––to no avail.
He changed his gun to his left hand. Being right-handed, his right had more power. Good, the knob was beginning to move slightly. But leaning over from the cover of the doorway he couldn’t get enough leverage. He put his ear to the woodwork. Not a sound. There was no one in there to cause him any trouble, he concluded. Throwing caution to the wind, he sheathed his gun, stood squarely before the obstinate door and gripped the knob slowly. When it reached the half circle, the knob was wrenched from his hands as the door sprang back with surprising force. The whole thing was so unexpected there was a fractional delay in his reflexes. Enough delay for him to take the full impact of the two-barreled shotgun. Most of the top part of his head fountained upwards as he spanged backwards, hit the rails and cartwheeled over to drop the fifteen feet to the ground floor.
With no brain virtually left in his smashed skull, it was too late for him to figure that his last contract had been on––himself.
George Tyree, the proprietor of The Star and Garter dismantled the apparatus he had so thoughtfully constructed. A cable had led from the door through a pulley on the ceiling, pulled tight by a weight. Clamped to a table, itself screwed to the floor, was a double-barreled shotgun with enough power to drop a mature buffalo bull. A wire round the double triggers had been activated via another pulley by the falling weight.
His reception clerk stood on the bloodstained landing and watched him threw the open door.
Two hired hands were to bury Queenan out of town in an unmarked grave. There was a thousand bucks stuffed in his waistcoat pocket.
A crowd including Ray Ward, Babette and Maisy had gathered outside the hotel as the body was carried out and hoisted unceremoniously onto the back of a buckboard. Other townsfolk had watched as the body was been taken down Main Streets past the railroad stop and out of town. Nobody asked any questions. Because everyone in town had been in on the subterfuge.
There was no such person as Jeremy Blackwell. It was the false name used by George Tyree when commissioning Queenan. Many years ago, when the Union Pacific railroad had first cut across the terrain, there had been no stop here. It had been a man called Tyree who had negotiated with the railroad company for a stopping point. So, in a way he had founded the town. In his honor the people making up the original population had named the town after him.
He had two sons, Peter and George. As they’d grown up together they’d been like oil and water. After their father had died things got worse between them so Peter had left while George remained as the owner of The .Star and Garter. The only thing George knew about his brother was that he was working in some mine. That is until he heard of Peter’s death, murdered by some paid gunslinger for trying to start a union amongst the mineworkers. Then, the only things George could remember were the good times––and that Peter had been his brother. He had set about using his resources to trace Peter’s killer and to lure him to town.
Tyree was no longer a frontier town; it was thought the day of the gun had long been over. Maybe for this reason, George could not bring himself to shoot Queenan cold-bloodedly or even pay someone else to do it––although the townsfolk would not have blamed him if he had. So he’d set up the trap––if Queenan were to die, it was to be by his own hand, his own greed, his own curiosity. Everyone in town, from mayor to chambermaid was aware of the fatal door that was not to be opened.
Now it had been opened and the day of the gun––the gun–– was finally over.