“Ike, he’s here for one reason and one reason only. To kill you.”
As Ike Silver was passing by, Oliver Knight had waved him into the pressroom of The Prescott Independent, saying he had something important to talk to him about.
The Independent had come out just the day before, so Matt Crowley, Knight’s copyboy/reporter/assistant editor, had the day off, and there was no activity in the pressroom. Nevertheless, Knight had closed and locked the front door so the two of them would not be interrupted.
Knight sat on his swivel chair at the rolltop and Ike stood leaning against the cluttered desk.
“There’s a stack of obituaries stretching across six states and three territories, all with the same cause of death—and that cause can be summed up in two words: Quentin Cord. He’s not here to see the sights. He’s here because he was hired to do a job and that job can also be summed up in two words: Ike Silver.”
“You can’t be sure about that.”
“Just as sure as the turning of the earth. And I’m just as sure about who hired him and I can sum that up—”
“I know, in two words.”
“Rupert Lessur.” Knight nodded. “Ike, Lessur’s got to get rid of you, and Cord’s the quickest, most effective and permanent way.”
“It takes two to make a gunfight.”
“Not the way Cord does it. The pattern’s always the same—he’ll goad, insult, disparage, humiliate, mock, slap the shit out of his victim in public, saying he won’t draw until his opponent’s gun is out of its holster. Then he’ll shoot him dead in self-defense. He’s done it time and again. Son, I don’t want to write your obituary in the next edition.”
“I don’t want you to either.” Ike smiled.
“Good.”
“But what do you want me to do?”
“I’m not sure.” Knight shrugged. “Maybe leave town.”
“For how long? I’d have to come back and he’d still be here—or else he’d follow me and I’d still have to face him . . . and with a gun. If I didn’t carry one, he’d provide it, right?”
“I suppose so. . . .”
“And I’d have to use his instead of mine.”
“Look, Ike, I know you can shoot. You proved that with those Keeler boys. But they were whiskey-soaked and that was an exhibition, not a gunfight. What the hell do you know about gunfighting?”
“I know some.”
“Some’s not good enough. Not against Cord. You’ve got to know everything—and then some. Where’d you learn?”
“In the army.”
“I never heard of any quick-draw gunfights against Confederates . . . sure as hell not at Shiloh.”
“After Shiloh. We were recuperating.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“A fellow ‘we’ called J.B. He was a scout and a spy for the North, got wounded, and while we were recuperating, he kept in practice. Showed me a few things. Even beat him to the draw—once.”
“With real bullets?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s what Cord’ll be using.”
“Oliver, I appreciate what you’re telling me, but this is something I have to face alone. And I’d appreciate it a lot more if you didn’t say anything about this to anyone—’specially my family—Jake or anybody else who might get in the way, or might get hurt.”
“Jake’s in La Paz . . .”
“But he and Ben’ll be back in a couple days. Will you promise?”
“Sure, sure. But I think somebody else’s already figured it out—besides Lessur, of course.”
“Who?”
“Belinda Millay. She knows all about Cord. . . .”
“Well, just don’t say anything more.”
“I won’t say anything to anybody, but don’t be surprised if Crook knows about Cord. I think he’s come across him before. Cord killed an army sergeant—in self-defense, of course. By the way, whatever happened to this J.B. fella? Is he still alive?”
“Far as I know.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll just close my little editorial telling you that you’re a damned fool.”
“Oliver, there’s an old saying . . .’even a fool must now and then be right.’”
“Even if he’s dead right? Ike—”
“I thank you, my friend.” Ike smiled. “Now if you’ll kindly unlock that door . . .” He pointed toward the entrance.
“All right, all right . . . but I myself would shoot that son of bitch Cord in the back . . . if I weren’t afraid of guns.”
“Ike,” Crook said, “I got a notion to throw that son of a bitch Cord in the stockade. . . .”
“On what charge?”
“I’ll think of something while he’s in there . . . trespassing on government property . . . spitting in the river . . . gimping . . . some damn thing. . . . The truth is—”
“The truth is, Colonel, you know better. There’s nothing you could say or do that’d stick, and you know it.”
“Yeah, and I knew Sergeant Bronson, a good man and a good soldier, but not good enough with a gun . . . not against Quentin Cord.”
“Colonel, you’ve got enough on your mind keeping peace in the Territory . . . you weren’t sent here to worry about what happens to one civilian named Ike Silver.”
“Are you telling me my duty, Ike Silver?” Crook said in too gruff a voice.
“Just a gentle reminder, Colonel Crook, which you’re too good a soldier to need, but thanks anyhow.”
“If there’s any way, any way at all, fair or foul, that you can think of. . . do it! That’s an order, Captain.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel.” Ike nodded.
“You told me not to tell you how to do your job, Mister Cord,” Lessur said, “but there’s one thing you ought to know about a friend of Ike Silver’s.”
“Which friend is that?”
“Her name’s Belinda Millay . . .”
Ike Silver thought about J.B.—6′2″, azure-blue eyes, long yellow hair, lean and raw-boned, slow to speak, but panther quick and leather tough when pressed into action. Born an Illinois farm boy, but a natural with a gun, he became a lawman in Kansas by the age of twenty, and then in other places until he enlisted as a scout and spy for the Union.
Ike thought about the times at the hillside of the hospital when J.B. kept in practice while teaching Ike the fine points of the art of gunfighting—and the way J.B. did it was an art . . .
“There’s them that keep the hammer on an empty chamber. I’m not one of ’em. Don’t you be either. Might need that extra bullet. Now this is important. Never . . . never squeeze the trigger unless you’re willing to kill . . . and I mean kill without compunction or hesitation. Got that?”
“I got it, J.B.”
“Good. Because an instant of hesitation could cost you your life, because the other fellow won’t hesitate, and that’s the difference between the quick and the dead. And you’d better be quick or else you’ll be dead. Follow me?”
“I follow, J.B.”
“And don’t do anything dumb like aim to wound. That lets him get off a shot, a shot that could kill you. And never aim for the head. Know why?”
“Too small a target.”
“Partly right. The other part is that the head moves quicker than the rest of the body. The chest, Ike, that’s the place . . . broader and slower, and that’s where the most vital target is . . . the heart. Now, speaking of that, don’t give him a broad target by standing square on. The less he has to aim at, the better your odds of coming out alive. Got that?”
“Got it, J.B.”
“And forget that shit about watching his eyes. He shoots with his thumb and trigger finger. When that hand starts to move, you move faster . . . unless you decide to move first . . . and don’t worry about being fair—worry about being alive. That’s why I say don’t squeeze unless you’re willing to kill . . . just like war. Only difference is a gunfight is a war between two people. Hook. Draw. Fire. Three elements in one swift, sure motion. Hook. Draw. Fire. Repeat that.”
“Hook. Draw. Fire.”
“Good. Now there’s just one other element. Accuracy. All the rest is bullshit unless you hit the target. Part is natural. The other part is practice. See that tree over there with that hanging branch?”
“I see it.”
“That’s a man who’s willing to kill you . . . unless you kill him first. The leaf on that branch is that son of a bitch’s heart. When I say ‘now’ his hand is starting to move. You move too. Hook. Draw. Fire. Fast, but not too fast or the barrel won’t be level. You ready, Ike?”
“Ready, J.B.”
“ Now. ”
A half dozen years later in Prescott, Ike was thinking back on how that unlikely friendship and tutelage began. In the ward of a makeshift hospital that had been Southern University, a tall man lay unconscious with feet extending over the cot next to Ike’s. The man had been shot in the back while climbing over a wall on a spying expedition of a Confederate compound. He made it back to his headquarters, gave his report, then collapsed. After the operation, he was taken to the wardroom, became delirious with his right hand trembling like an October leaf.
The doctors and nurses were too busy with other patients, bleeding and expiring, to do any more for this patient.
But Ike, still recovering from his own wound, did do something.
For more than forty-eight hours, Ike held the man’s trembling hand, soothing and massaging it, until it trembled less and less and then not at all.
When the man regained consciousness, he looked into Ike’s eyes and felt the warmth of Ike’s hand as one of the nurses told him what Ike had done.
And the man told Ike that without the use of that hand he didn’t have much, or any, future as a lawman.
So it began.
The friendship and the tutelage while they both recovered.
Hook. Draw. Fire.
Both Ike and J.B. went through that swift, sure motion hundreds of times, as hundreds of leaves on hundreds of branches were ripped into and fell onto that hillside, until both men were discharged and went their separate ways, leaving hundreds of spent cartridges among the leaves and grass.
But shooting at a leaf was far different than shooting at a man’s heart while that man held a gun and was aiming to shoot you first.
And that’s what Quentin Cord would be aiming to do.