Donald Hamilton is best known as the creator of the Matt Helm books, which many believe is the best espionage series ever written by an American. But early in his career, Hamilton wrote a number of excellent traditional Westerns as well, including such titles as Smoky Valley, The Big Country, Mad River, and The Two-Shoot Gun. He also edited one of the seminal anthologies of the Western genre, the Western Writers of America’s Iron Men and Silver Spurs.

The Guns of William Longley

Donald Hamilton

We’d been up north delivering a herd for Old Man Butcher the summer I’m telling about. I was nineteen at the time. I was young and big, and I was plenty tough, or thought I was, which amounts to the same thing up to a point. Maybe I was making up for all the years of being that nice Anderson boy, back in Willow Fork, Texas. When your dad wears a badge, you’re kind of obliged to behave yourself around home so as not to shame him. But Pop was dead now, and this wasn’t Texas.

Anyway, I was tough enough that we had to leave Dodge City in something of a hurry after I got into an argument with a fellow who, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as handy with a gun as he claimed to be. I’d never killed a man before. It made me feel kind of funny for a couple of days, but like I say, I was young and tough then, and I’d seen men I really cared for trampled in stampedes and drowned in rivers on the way north. I wasn’t going to grieve long over one belligerent stranger.

It was on the long trail home that I first saw the guns one evening by the fire. We had a blanket spread on the ground, and we were playing cards for what was left of our pay—what we hadn’t already spent on girls and liquor and general hell-raising. My luck was in, and one by one the others dropped out, all but Waco Smith, who got stubborn and went over to his bedroll and hauled out the guns.

“I got them in Dodge,” he said. “Pretty, ain’t they? Fellow I bought them from claimed they belonged to Bill Longley.”

“Is that a fact?” I said, like I wasn’t much impressed. “Who’s Longley?”

I knew who Bill Longley was, all right, but a man’s got a right to dicker a bit, and besides, I couldn’t help deviling Waco now and then. I liked him all right, but he was one of those cocky little fellows who ask for it. You know the kind. They always know everything.

I sat there while he told me about Bill Longley, the giant from Texas with thirty-two killings to his credit, the man who was hanged twice. A bunch of vigilantes strung him up once for horse-stealing he hadn’t done, but the rope broke after they’d ridden off and he dropped to the ground, kind of short of breath but alive and kicking.

Then he was tried and hanged for a murder he had done, some years later in Giddings, Texas. He was so big that the rope gave way again and he landed on his feet under the trap, making six-inch deep footprints in the hard ground—they’re still there in Giddings to be seen, Waco said, Bill Longley’s footprints—but it broke his neck this time and they buried him nearby. At least a funeral service was held, but some say there’s just an empty coffin in the grave.

I said, “This Longley gent can’t have been so much, to let folks keep stringing him up that way.”

That set Waco off again, while I toyed with the guns. They were pretty, all right, in a big carved belt with two carved holsters, but I wasn’t much interested in leatherwork. It was the weapons themselves that took my fancy. They’d been used but someone had looked after them well. They were handsome pieces, smooth-working, and they had a good feel to them. You know how it is when a firearm feels just right. A fellow with hands the size of mine doesn’t often find guns to fit him like that.

“How much do you figure they’re worth?” I asked, when Waco stopped for breath.

“Well, now,” he said, getting a sharp look on his face, and I came home to Willow Fork with the Longley guns strapped around me. If that’s what they were.

I got a room and cleaned up at the hotel. I didn’t much feel like riding clear out to the ranch and seeing what it looked like with Ma and Pa gone two years and nobody looking after things. Well, I’d put the place on its feet again one of these days, as soon as I’d had a little fun and saved a little money. I’d buckle right down to it, I told myself, as soon as Junellen set the date, which I’d been after her to do since before my folks died. She couldn’t keep saying forever we were too young.

I got into my good clothes and went to see her. I won’t say she’d been on my mind all the way up the trail and back again, because it wouldn’t be true. A lot of the time I’d been too busy or tired for dreaming, and in Dodge City I’d done my best not to think of her, if you know what I mean. It did seem like a young fellow engaged to a beautiful girl like Junellen Barr could have behaved himself better up there, but it had been a long dusty drive and you know how it is.

But now I was home and it seemed like I’d been missing Junellen every minute since I left, and I couldn’t wait to see her. I walked along the street in the hot sunshine feeling light and happy. Maybe my leaving my guns at the hotel had something to do with the light feeling, but the happiness was all for Junellen, and I ran up the steps to the house and knocked on the door. She’d have heard we were back and she’d be waiting to greet me, I was sure.

I knocked again and the door opened and I stepped forward eagerly. “Junellen—” I said, and stopped foolishly.

“Come in, Jim,” said her father, a little turkey of a man who owned the drygoods store in town. He went on smoothly: “I understand you had quite an eventful journey. We were waiting to hear all about it.”

He was being sarcastic, but that was his way, and I couldn’t be bothered with trying to figure what he was driving at. I’d already stepped into the room, and there was Junellen with her mother standing close as if to protect her, which seemed kind of funny. There was a man in the room, too, Mr. Carmichael from the bank, who’d fought with Pa in the war. He was tall and handsome as always, a little heavy nowadays but still dressed like a fashion plate. I couldn’t figure what he was doing there.

It wasn’t going at all the way I’d hoped, my reunion with Junellen, and I stopped, looking at her.

“So you’re back, Jim,” she said. “I heard you had a real exciting time. Dodge City must be quite a place.”

There was a funny hard note in her voice. She held herself very straight, standing there by her mother, in a blue-flowered dress that matched her eyes. She was a real little lady, Junellen. She made kind of a point of it, in fact, and Martha Butcher, Old Man Butcher’s kid, used to say about Junellen Barr that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but that always seemed like a silly saying to me, and who was Martha Butcher anyway, just because her daddy owned a lot of cows?

Martha’d also remarked about girls who had to drive two front names in harness as if one wasn’t good enough, and I’d told her it surely wasn’t if it was a name like Martha, and she’d kicked me on the shin. But that was a long time ago when we were all kids.

Junellen’s mother broke the silence, in her nervous way: “Dear, hadn’t you better tell Jim the news?” She turned to Mr. Carmichael. “Howard, perhaps you should—”

Mr. Carmichael came forward and took Junellen’s hand. “Miss Barr has done me the honor to promise to be my wife,” he said.

I said, “But she can’t. She’s engaged to me.”

Junellen’s mother said quickly, “It was just a childish thing, not to be taken seriously.”

I said, “Well, I took it seriously!”

Junellen looked up at me. “Did you, Jim? In Dodge City, did you?” I didn’t say anything. She said breathlessly, “It doesn’t matter. I suppose I could forgive … But you have killed a man. I could never love a man who has taken a human life.”

Anyway, she said something like that. I had a funny feeling in my stomach and a roaring sound in my ears. They talk about your heart breaking, but that’s where it hit me, the stomach and the ears. So I can’t tell you exactly what she said, but it was something like that.

I heard myself say, “Mr. Carmichael spent the war peppering Yanks with a peashooter, I take it.”

“That’s different—”

Mr. Carmichael spoke quickly. “What Miss Barr means is that there’s a difference between a battle and a drunken brawl, Jim. I am glad your father did not live to see his son wearing two big guns and shooting men down in the street. He was a fine man and a good sheriff for this county. It was only for his memory’s sake that I agreed to let Miss Barr break the news to you in person. From what we hear of your exploits up north, you have certainly forfeited all right to consideration from her.”

There was something in what he said, but I couldn’t see that it was his place to say it. “You agreed?” I said. “That was mighty kind of you, sir, I’m sure.” I looked away from him. “Junellen—”

Mr. Carmichael interrupted. “I do not wish my fiancée to be distressed by a continuation of this painful scene. I must ask you to leave, Jim.”

I ignored him. “Junellen,” I said, “is this what you really—”

Mr. Carmichael took me by the arm. I turned my head to look at him again. I looked at the hand with which he was holding me. I waited. He didn’t let go. I hit him and he went back across the room and kind of fell into a chair. The chair broke under him. Junellen’s father ran over to help him up. Mr. Carmichael’s mouth was bloody. He wiped it with a handkerchief.

I said, “You shouldn’t have put your hand on me, sir.”

“Note the pride,” Mr. Carmichael said, dabbing at his cut lip. “Note the vicious, twisted pride. They all have it, all these young toughs. You are too big for me to box, Jim, and it is an undignified thing anyway. I have worn a sidearm in my time. I will go to the bank and get it, while you arm yourself.”

“I will meet you in front of the hotel, sir,” I said, “if that is agreeable to you.”

“It is agreeable,” he said, and went out.

I followed him without looking back. I think Junellen was crying, and I know her parents were saying one thing and another in high, indignant voices, but the funny roaring was in my ears and I didn’t pay too much attention. The sun was very bright outside. As I started for the hotel, somebody ran up to me.

“Here you are, Jim.” It was Waco, holding out the Longley guns in their carved holsters. “I heard what happened. Don’t take any chances with the old fool.”

I looked down at him and asked, “How did Junellen and her folks learn about what happened in Dodge?”

He said, “It’s a small town, Jim, and all the boys have been drinking and talking, glad to get home.”

“Sure,” I said, buckling on the guns. “Sure.”

It didn’t matter. It would have got around sooner or later, and I wouldn’t have lied about it if asked. We walked slowly toward the hotel.

“Dutch LeBaron is hiding out back in the hills with a dozen men,” Waco said. “I heard it from a man in a bar.”

“Who’s Dutch LeBaron?” I asked. I didn’t care, but it was something to talk about as we walked.

“Dutch?” Waco said. “Why, Dutch is wanted in five states and a couple of territories. Hell, the price on his head is so high now even Fenn is after him.”

“Fenn?” I said. He sure knew a lot of names. “Who’s Fenn?”

“You’ve heard of Old Joe Fenn, the bounty hunter. Well, if he comes after Dutch, he’s asking for it. Dutch can take care of himself.”

“Is that a fact?” I said, and then I saw Mr. Carmichael coming, but he was a ways off yet and I said, “You sound like this Dutch fellow was a friend of yours—”

But Waco wasn’t there anymore. I had the street to myself, except for Mr. Carmichael, who had a gun strapped on outside his fine coat. It was an army gun in a black army holster with a flap, worn cavalry style on the right side, butt forward. They wear them like that to make room for the saber on the left, but it makes a clumsy rig.

I walked forward to meet Mr. Carmichael, and I knew I would have to let him shoot once. He was a popular man and a rich man and he would have to draw first and shoot first or I would be in serious trouble. I figured it all out very coldly, as if I had been killing men all my life. We stopped, and Mr. Carmichael undid the flap of the army holster and pulled out the big cavalry pistol awkwardly and fired and missed, as I had known, somehow, that he would.

Then I drew the right-hand gun, and as I did so I realized that I didn’t particularly want to kill Mr. Carmichael. I mean, he was a brave man coming here with his old cap-and-ball pistol, knowing all the time that I could outdraw and outshoot him with my eyes closed. But I didn’t want to be killed, either, and he had the piece cocked and was about to fire again. I tried to aim for a place that wouldn’t kill him, or cripple him too badly, and the gun wouldn’t do it.

I mean, it was a frightening thing. It was like I was fighting the Longley gun for Mr. Carmichael’s life. The old army revolver fired once more and something rapped my left arm lightly. The Longley gun went off at last, and Mr. Carmichael spun around and fell on his face in the street. There was a cry, and Junellen came running and went to her knees beside him.

“You murderer!” she screamed at me. “You hateful murderer!”

It showed how she felt about him, that she would kneel in the dust like that in her blue-flowered dress. Junellen was always very careful of her pretty clothes. I punched out the empty and replaced it. Dr. Sims came up and examined Mr. Carmichael and said he was shot in the leg, which I already knew, being the one who had shot him there. Dr. Sims said he was going to be all right, God willing.

Having heard this, I went over to another part of town and tried to get drunk. I didn’t have much luck at it, so I went into the place next to the hotel for a cup of coffee. There wasn’t anybody in the place but a skinny girl with an apron on.

I said, “I’d like a cup of coffee, ma’am,” and sat down.

She said, coming over, “Jim Anderson, you’re drunk. At least you smell like it.”

I looked up and saw that it was Martha Butcher. She set a cup down in front of me. I asked, “What are you doing here waiting tables?”

She said, “I had a fight with Dad about … well, never mind what it was about. Anyway, I told him I was old enough to run my own life and if he didn’t stop trying to boss me around like I was one of the hands, I’d pack up and leave. And he laughed and asked what I’d do for money, away from home, and I said I’d earn it, so here I am.”

It was just like Martha Butcher, and I saw no reason to make a fuss over it like she probably wanted me to.

“Seems like you are,” I agreed. “Do I get sugar, too, or does that cost extra?”

She laughed and set a bowl in front of me. “Did you have a good time in Dodge?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Good liquor. Fast games. Pretty girls. Real pretty girls.”

“Fiddlesticks,” she said. “I know what you think is pretty. Blond and simpering. You big fool. If you’d killed him over her they’d have put you in jail, at the very least. And just what are you planning to use for an arm when that one gets rotten and falls off? Sit still.”

She got some water and cloth and fixed up my arm where Mr. Carmichael’s bullet had nicked it.

“Have you been out to your place yet?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Figure there can’t be much out there by now. I’ll get after it one of these days.”

“One of these days!” she said. “You mean when you get tired of strutting around with those big guns and acting dangerous—” She stopped abruptly.

I looked around, and got to my feet. Waco was there in the doorway, and with him was a big man, not as tall as I was, but wider. He was a real whiskery gent, with a mat of black beard you could have used for stuffing a mattress. He wore two gunbelts, crossed, kind of sagging low at the hips.

Waco said, “You’re a fool to sit with your back to the door, Jim. That’s the mistake Hickok made, remember? If instead of us it had been somebody like Jack McCall—”

“Who’s Jack McCall?” I asked innocently.

“Why, he’s the fellow shot Wild Bill in the back …” Waco’s face reddened. “All right, all right. Always kidding me. Dutch, this big joker is my partner, Jim Anderson. Jim, Dutch LeBaron. He’s got a proposition for us.”

I tried to think back to where Waco and I had decided to become partners, and couldn’t remember the occasion. Well, maybe it happens like that, but it seemed like I should have had some say in it.

“Your partner tells me you’re pretty handy with those guns,” LeBaron said, after Martha’d moved across the room. “I can use a man like that.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For making some quick money over in New Mexico Territory,” he said.

I didn’t ask any fool questions, like whether the money was to be made legally or illegally. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

Waco caught my arm. “What’s to think about? We’ll be rich, Jim!”

I said, “I’ll think about it, Waco.”

LeBaron said, “What’s the matter, sonny, are you scared?”

I turned to look at him. He was grinning at me, but his eyes weren’t grinning, and his hands weren’t too far from those low-slung guns.

I said, “Try me and see.”

I waited a little. Nothing happened. I walked out of there and got my pony and rode to the ranch, reaching the place about dawn. I opened the door and stood there, surprised. It looked just about the way it had when the folks were alive, and I half expected to hear Ma yelling at me to beat the dust off outside and not bring it into the house. Somebody had cleaned the place up for me, and I thought I knew who. Well, it certainly was neighborly of her, I told myself. It was nice to have somebody show a sign they were glad to have me home, even if it was only Martha Butcher.

I spent a couple of days out there, resting up and riding around. I didn’t find much stock. It was going to take money to make a going ranch of it again, and I didn’t figure my credit at Mr. Carmichael’s bank was anything to count on. I couldn’t help giving some thought to Waco and LeBaron and the proposition they’d put before me. It was funny, I’d think about it most when I had the guns on. I was out back practicing with them one day when the stranger rode up.

He was a little, dry, elderly man on a sad-looking white horse he must have hired at the livery stable for not very much, and he wore his gun in front of his left hip with the butt to the right for a cross draw. He didn’t make any noise coming up. I’d fired a couple of times before I realized he was there.

“Not bad,” he said when he saw me looking at him. “Do you know a man named LeBaron, son?”

“I’ve met him,” I said.

“Is he here?”

“Why should he be here?”

“A bartender in town told me he’d heard you and your sidekick, Smith, had joined up with LeBaron, so I thought you might have given him the use of your place. It would be more comfortable for him than hiding out in the hills.”

“He isn’t here,” I said. The stranger glanced toward the house. I started to get mad, but shrugged instead. “Look around if you want to.”

“In that case,” he said, “I don’t figure I want to.” He glanced toward the target I’d been shooting at, and back to me. “Killed a man in Dodge, didn’t you, son? And then stood real calm and let a fellow here in town fire three shots at you, after which you laughed and pinked him neatly in the leg.”

“I don’t recall laughing,” I said. “And it was two shots, not three.”

“It makes a good story, however,” he said. “And it is spreading. You have a reputation already, did you know that, Anderson? I didn’t come here just to look for LeBaron. I figured I’d like to have a look at you, too. I always like to look up fellows I might have business with later.”

“Business?” I said, and then I saw that he’d taken a tarnished old badge out of his pocket and was pinning it on his shirt. “Have you a warrant, sir?” I asked.

“Not for you,” he said. “Not yet.”

He swung the old white horse around and rode off. When he was out of sight, I got my pony out of the corral. It was time I had a talk with Waco. Maybe I was going to join LeBaron and maybe I wasn’t, but I didn’t much like his spreading it around before it was true.

I didn’t have to look for him in town. He came riding to meet me with three companions, all hard ones if I ever saw any.

“Did you see Fenn?” he shouted as he came up. “Did he come this way?”

“A little old fellow with some kind of a badge?” I said. “Was that Fenn? He headed back to town, about ten minutes ahead of me. He didn’t look like much.”

“Neither does the devil when he’s on business,” Waco said. “Come on, we’d better warn Dutch before he rides into town.”

I rode along with them, and we tried to catch LeBaron on the trail, but he’d already passed with a couple of men. We saw their dust ahead and chased it, but they made it before us, and Fenn was waiting in front of the cantina that was LeBaron’s hangout when he was in town.

We saw it all as we came pounding after LeBaron, who dismounted and started into the place, but Fenn came forward, looking small and inoffensive. He was saying something and holding out his hand. LeBaron stopped and shook hands with him, and the little man held on to LeBaron’s hand, took a step to the side, and pulled his gun out of that cross-draw holster left-handed, with a kind of twisting motion.

Before LeBaron could do anything with his free hand, the little old man had brought the pistol barrel down across his head. It was as neat and coldblooded a thing as you’d care to see. In an instant, LeBaron was unconscious on the ground, and Old Joe Fenn was covering the two men who’d been riding with him.

Waco Smith, riding beside me, made a sort of moaning sound as if he’d been clubbed himself. “Get him!” he shouted, drawing his gun. “Get the dirty sneaking bounty hunter!”

I saw the little man throw a look over his shoulder, but there wasn’t much he could do about us with those other two to handle. I guess he hadn’t figured us for reinforcements riding in. Waco fired and missed. He never could shoot much, particularly from horseback. I reached out with one of the guns and hit him over the head before he could shoot again. He spilled from the saddle.

I didn’t have it all figured out. Certainly it wasn’t a very nice thing Mr. Fenn had done, first taking a man’s hand in friendship and then knocking him unconscious. Still, I didn’t figure LeBaron had ever been one for giving anybody a break; and there was something about the old fellow standing there with his tarnished old badge that reminded me of Pa, who’d died wearing a similar piece of tin on his chest. Anyway, there comes a time in a man’s life when he’s got to make a choice, and that’s the way I made mine.

Waco and I had been riding ahead of the others. I turned my pony fast and covered them with the guns as they came charging up—as well as you can cover anybody from a plunging horse. One of them had his pistol aimed to shoot. The left-handed Longley gun went off, and he fell to the ground. I was kind of surprised. I’d never been much at shooting left-handed. The other two riders veered off and headed out of town.

By the time I got my pony quieted down from having that gun go off in his ear, everything was pretty much under control. Waco had disappeared, so I figured he couldn’t be hurt much; and the new sheriff was there, old drunken Billy Bates, who’d been elected after Pa’s death by the gambling element in town, who hadn’t liked the strict way Pa ran things.

“I suppose it’s legal,” Old Billy was saying grudgingly. “But I don’t take it kindly, Marshal, your coming here to serve a warrant without letting me know.”

“My apologies, Sheriff,” Fenn said smoothly. “An oversight, I assure you. Now, I’d like a wagon. He’s worth seven hundred and fifty dollars over in New Mexico Territory.”

“No decent person would want that kind of money,” Old Billy said sourly, swaying on his feet.

“There’s only one kind of money,” Fenn said. “Just as there’s only one kind of law, even though there’s different kinds of men enforcing it.” He looked at me a I came up. “Much obliged, son.”

“Por nada,” I said. “You get in certain habits when you’ve had a badge in the family. My daddy was sheriff here once.”

“So? I didn’t know that.” Fenn looked at me sharply. “Don’t look like you’re making any plans to follow in his footsteps. That’s hardly a lawman’s rig you’re wearing.”

I said, “Maybe, but I never yet beat a man over the head while I was shaking his hand, Marshal.”

“Son,” he said, “my job is to enforce the law and maybe make a small profit on the side, not to play games with fair and unfair.” He looked at me for a moment longer. “Well, maybe we’ll meet again. It depends.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On the price,” he said. “The price on your head.”

“But I haven’t got—”

“Not now,” he said. “But you will, wearing those guns. I know the signs. I’ve seen them before, too many times. Don’t count on having me under obligation to you, when your time comes. I never let personal feelings interfere with business … Easy, now,” he said to a couple of fellows who were lifting LeBaron, bound hand and foot, into the wagon that somebody had driven up. “Easy. Don’t damage the merchandise. I take pride in delivering them in good shape for standing trial, whenever possible.”

I decided I needed a drink, and then I changed my mind in favor of a cup of coffee. As I walked down the street, leaving my pony at the rail back there, the wagon rolled past and went out of town ahead of me. I was still watching it, for no special reason, when Waco stepped from the alley behind me.

“Jim!” he said. “Turn around, Jim!”

I turned slowly. He was a little unsteady on his feet, standing there, maybe from my hitting him, maybe from drinking. I thought it was drinking. I hadn’t hit him very hard. He’d had time for a couple of quick ones, and liquor always got to him fast.

“You sold us out, you damn traitor!” he cried. “You took sides with the law!”

“I never was against it,” I said. “Not really.”

“After everything I’ve done for you!” he said thickly. “I was going to make you a great man, Jim, greater than Longley or Hardin or Hickok or any of them. With my brains and your size and speed, nothing could have stopped us! But you turned on me! Do you think you can do it alone? Is that what you’re figuring, to leave me behind now that I’ve built you up to be somebody?”

“Waco,” I said, “I never had any ambitions to be—”

“You and your medicine guns!” he sneered. “Let me tell you something. Those old guns are just something I picked up in a pawnshop. I spun a good yarn about them to give you confidence. You were on the edge, you needed a push in the right direction, and I knew once you started wearing a flashy rig like that, with one killing under your belt already, somebody’d be bound to try you again, and we’d be on our way to fame. But as for their being Bill Longley’s guns, don’t make me laugh!”

I said, “Waco—”

“They’s just metal and wood like any other guns!” he said. “And I’m going to prove it to you right now! I don’t need you, Jim! I’m as good a man as you, even if you laugh at me and make jokes at my expense… . Are you ready, Jim?”

He was crouching, and I looked at him, Waco Smith, with whom I’d ridden up the trail and back. I saw that he was no good and I saw that he was dead. It didn’t matter whose guns I was wearing, and all he’d really said was that he didn’t know whose guns they were. But it didn’t matter, they were my guns now, and he was just a little runt who never could shoot for shucks, anyway. He was dead, and so were the others, the ones who’d come after him, because they’d come, I knew that.

I saw them come to try me, one after the other, and I saw them go down before the big black guns, all except the last, the one I couldn’t quite make out. Maybe it was Fenn and maybe it wasn’t …

I said, “To hell with you, Waco. I’ve got nothing against you, and I’m not going to fight you. Tonight or any other time.”

I turned and walked away. I heard the sound of his gun behind me an instant before the bullet hit me. Then I wasn’t hearing anything for a while. When I came to, I was in bed, and Martha Butcher was there.

“Jim!” she breathed. “Oh, Jim …!”

She looked real worried, and kind of pretty, I thought, but of course I was half out of my head. She looked even prettier the day I asked her to marry me, some months later, but maybe I was a little out of my head that day, too. Old Man Butcher didn’t like it a bit. It seems his fight with Martha had been about her cleaning up my place, and his ordering her to quit and stay away from that young troublemaker, as he’d called me after getting word of all the hell we’d raised up north after delivering his cattle.

He didn’t like it, but he offered me a job, I suppose for Martha’s sake. I thanked him and told him I was much obliged but I’d just accepted an appointment as Deputy U.S. Marshal. Seems like somebody had recommended me for the job, maybe Old Joe Fenn, maybe not. I got my old gun out of my bedroll and wore it tucked inside my belt when I thought I might need it. It was a funny thing how seldom I had any use for it, even wearing a badge. With that job, I was the first in the neighborhood to hear about Waco Smith. The news came from New Mexico Territory. Waco and a bunch had pulled a job over there, and a posse had trapped them in a box canyon and shot them to pieces.

I never wore the other guns again. After we moved into the old place, I hung them on the wall. It was right after I’d run against Billy Bates for sheriff and won that I came home to find them gone. Martha looked surprised when I asked about them.

“Why,” she said, “I gave them to your friend, Mr. Williams. He said you’d sold them to him. Here’s the money.”

I counted the money, and it was a fair enough price for a pair of secondhand guns and holsters, but I hadn’t met any Mr. Williams.

I started to say so, but Martha was still talking. She said, “He certainly had an odd first name, didn’t he? Who’d christen anybody Long Williams? Not that he wasn’t big enough. I guess he’d be as tall as you, wouldn’t he, if he didn’t have that trouble with his neck?”

“His neck?” I said.

“Why, yes,” she said. “Didn’t you notice when you talked to him, the way he kept his head cocked to the side? Like this.”

She showed me how Long Williams had kept his head cocked to the side. She looked real pretty doing it, and I couldn’t figure how I’d ever thought her plain, but maybe she’d changed. Or maybe I had. I kissed her and gave her back the gun money to buy something for herself, and went outside to think. Long Williams, William Longley. A man with a wry neck and man who was hanged twice. It was kind of strange, to be sure, but after a time I decided it was just a coincidence. Some drifter riding by just saw the guns through the window and took a fancy to them.

I mean, if it had really been Bill Longley, if he was alive and had his guns back, we’d surely have heard of him by now down at the sheriff’s office, and we never have.