Chapter 5 – Along Pine Cone Tracks

Once Henry had gone, it took me several days to summon the will to pick up the guns from where I'd left them on the table. Several days where I moped around the cabin, only straying from my chair on the porch to feed the animals or get water, my mind a whirl of conflicting emotions and thoughts.

Once I finally managed to motivate myself to action I quickly realised that my left hand, although still functional, would probably never be dextrous enough for shooting a handgun with anything approaching my old speed again. The trigger finger in particular was stiff and slow to move, the tendon obviously damaged somehow. Melancholia hit me like a hammer and I put the pistols back down on the table without even feeding any shells into the chambers, retreating to my cocoon-like blanket on the porch and staring out at the dark blue skies, the trees murmuring in disappointment around me.

Finally one of the goats, in typically blunt approach, head-butted me into movement and, after I'd fed the cantankerous beasts, I made myself a promise that I'd try again on the morrow.  

The next day I slipped the gun belt that held the right pistol around my waist, the holster low on my hip. Having decided to make a start, my intention was to concentrate on the right hand to start with, now that my left had seemingly failed me. The weight of the gun was both familiar and disconcerting. The holster felt comfortable, the weight of the gun nestling solidly against my leg felt empowering somehow. But my body felt wrong, changed, and weakened. Above all that loomed the spectre of my recent past: my confidence in my own abilities was shot.

I found a fallen tree a short distance from the cabin, wasted a couple of bullets getting the hang of a new and different weapon, and then spent a happy few minutes blowing pine cones and stones off the top of the log, a little of my old confidence returning as I realised I could still shoot with the same degree of accuracy I used to. I practised my draw, my muscles effortlessly remembering the movement despite the long weeks since they'd performed the action, the speed still there.

Having vanquished numerous helpless cones and stones, something the old man had said about the accuracy of the handgun popped into my head, and I moved back from my seed and rock opponents thinking to test his words. I was used to facing a man over a relatively short distance, reliant on my speed and accuracy to take them down, but even then the occasional bullet missed, something I'd previously always put down to nerves or a dodgy bullet, and the speed of the following shots was equally important.

I moved back to three times the distance and tried again: my accuracy was appalling. I'd never really tried it before, never really seen the effect distance had on the handgun, even a good one like the Smith and Wesson Rimfire that I now held.

The rifle was next. I hadn't shot one for a while, my step-father had let me shoot one on the farm when I was a kid, but it was his weapon and a very old one. And, while I worked for John Chisum, I'd carried an old rimlock rifle that one of the farmhands leant me but I'd never really needed to use it preferring to get in close and rely on the skills my towering ego had always convinced me were the best.

The rifle the old man had given me was very different to those I'd used before. A modern and precision engineered piece of gunsmithery, the Winchester was a beautiful gun. God only knows where Henry had obtained it, although I remembered John Evans carrying one he'd won in a game of poker, so perhaps the old thief had obtained it after I'd blown him away in the same way he'd obtained the pistols.

It certainly looked the same as the one Evans had carried. The '73 model Winchester had always been a favourite among riders in the west, but rather than the carbine with its normal twenty inch barrel, this one was the rarer twenty four inch rifle used for greater accuracy, usually among competition shooters or marksmen. The lever used to chamber a round on the weapon that I lovingly held was ornately fashioned and had obviously originally belonged to a man of some means.

Seeking to calm myself and temper my excitement, I cleaned the gun, oiled it and polished the stock. And only then, after familiarising myself with the action, did I chamber a round and move outside to kill some more pinecones.

Once I'd gotten the hang of it, the accuracy of the Winchester astounded me. I'd survived up until then on the fast and adrenaline filled world of the gunslinger. Action was nearly always all up close, everything was about the celebrity and the power you had over other people. I'd occasionally been handed a rifle if I'd joined a posse or if I was out in the wilds when I worked as a ranch hand, but up until that moment I'd never really had occasion to use one other than as a deterrent. My brother had always been far fonder of the weapon than I'd ever been.

Now though, I was a beaten shadow of my former self, learning to live my life again. This new weapon gave me a reason to live, a new skill to learn and master, and maybe even a method of revenge. My damaged left hand could support the stock easily and, as I happily blasted cone after cone and stone after stone to oblivion over greater and greater distance, I realised that I could still shoot. My only talent was still alive.

A few days later with my confidence buoyed by my successes with the right hand gun and the rifle I tried shooting a pistol with my left hand. It did work but only if I took my time and the pain I experienced in my hand the following day was indescribable. After that I resolved to try and move the hand more to attempt to speed the recovery and flexibility.

I spent the following days practising my new skills, trying to improve the movement in my left hand and feeding the goats. Not that they needed much care, as the damn things would eat almost anything that didn't move, and a few things that did. I realised fairly quickly that the old man had given me that particular task simply to give me something to do while my brain decided to get itself back into shape.

As I started to move around more and more, I slowly started getting myself back to my former level of fitness. I took to walking in the hills around the cabin, exploring the pine needled tracks and terrain, and experiencing the outdoors for the first time in years without being perched on the back of a horse or sat in a wagon. Although I was still only in my teens, I'd spent too long as a hired gun and now the clean air of the hills, lack of poker, whisky and women, or the adulation of fawning fools gave me space to clear my head and get myself fit again.

As the days passed, the rifle became part of me, an extension of my arms. Using a sheet of leather I found in the cabin and the copious amounts of time I now had on my hands, I fashioned a holster for it, almost like an old style quiver. This left the stock of rifle sticking out above my shoulder so I could reach up and grab it, the lower portion of the leather sock left free so it tilted up when I pulled allowing a smooth and swift removal of the gun. I had to put a piece of light strong wood down the length of it, to stop it crumpling up as I drew the gun, but once I'd sorted out the early teething problems it worked well and I was ridiculously proud of my efforts.

My 'gun quiver' was attached to a belt slung over my shoulders and I made two separate belts to carry ammunition, spare cartridges slotted into loops like twin bandoliers across my chest. On my right hip I, still carried one gun. The other gun belt that had originally housed the left-hand pistol I bastardised and made another leather holster so the other gun now sat in the small of my back. This meant I could grab it with my right hand for use as a spare instead of having to immediately reload the one at my hip. I suppose in many ways I was still a bit of a boy playing with guns, but it felt good to be carrying all those weapons, giving me a sense of security that had been beaten out of me by Tennant. A hunter's knife strapped to my left hip completed the ensemble and I strutted around the cabin, the very picture of a New York City boy's impression of the Wild West desperado.

Like so many before me, I'd grown up with the stories of the Wild West, the gold rush and the dangerous, stupid or brave men who went west to make their reputation or fortune. Even as a child in New York we used to devour the cheap books that glorified the life of a cowboy and described the adventures a man could have in the untamed lands to the west. That glory and fame seemed a long way away after being left for the vultures, and although I stomped around pretending to be the great hero, continuing flares of pain from my still work-shy left hand continually reminded me of the bitter reality of my situation.

The old man laughed at me when I greeted him on his return.

"You look like you're about to wage a one man war son, like one of them city boys who wants to come west and play at being a cowboy." He grinned at my discomfort, his words echoing my own recent thoughts and then spoke again, softly reaffirming his presence.

"I've brought you a few things, I hope I've got the sizes right. Now, put a pot of coffee on to boil, and I'll tell you what's been going on."

~

We sat on the porch in the sun for quite some time talking things through. He'd brought me some new clothes to replace the near rags and borrowed shirt I'd worn up to that point. Up until my fall from grace I'd always worn black, considering that it flattered my image as a dangerous gunman. But now I felt cleansed as I sported a plain linen shirt and trews; the cheaper, harsher material replacing the fine black cotton I'd always worn up until then. My image seemed less important to me, and I felt a very different man to the swaggering ego-filled youth I'd been mere weeks earlier.

Henry had spent just over a week in town, trading, getting supplies, drinking, and picking up on the gossip and feeling of the place since the gunfights and my subsequent disappearance.

As we talked, it became apparent that the entire balance of power in the settlement had changed. Once Tennant's brother had died and I'd disappeared, reputedly being scared off by Tennant, Arcturius Black had staged a town meeting and declaimed an end to the violence that had plagued the town. That had lasted all of two minutes until Tennant had calmly walked up to the man and shot him down in cold blood. He declared himself mayor of the town, his men strategically placed as an overt threat to any potential dissidents, and installed one of their number as Sheriff, pinning the tin star to his chest himself. No-one present had objected, cowed as they were by the sudden and brutal death of one of their own. Since then, his men had taken complete control of the small town, doing away with the few who had challenged them since.

"So Tennant has taken over from his brother?"

Henry nodded. "He runs the town almost completely. I was lucky to find anyone to trade with me at all. Anton the shopkeeper still keeps his shop, but Tennant has threatened to take his daughter away if he opposed him. Anton does what he can in small ways, but is ultimately powerless. Thankfully I didn't run into the murderous bastard while I was there, but the town is slowly dying under the iron heel of Tennant. There have been rapes, shootings and murders since you killed his brother. No-one is safe."

"So what the hell do you want me to do old man?  Do you expect me to wander in there on my own and take them out? How many men does he have? Are they all in town or are some still at his ranch? You want me to get killed just to save a few scared fools who cower behind their curtains rather than sending for a lawman or taking the law into their own hands?"

Henry remained silent as I ranted on, closing his eyes and leaning his chair back against the wooden walls of the cabin, seeming to enjoy the sun that warmed his wrinkled face despite me wittering on and spoiling the calmness that surrounded us.

Once I'd finally run out of steam, sitting back down to get my breath back, he opened his eyes and looked at me, his gaze steady. After taking a final mouthful of the bitter black coffee, swirling the remnants around in his mug before depositing the grounds off the edge of the porch, he spoke softly, still holding my eyes with his to make his point certain.

"It's your choice son. You don't owe them people nothing, and I sure as hell don't either. They only tolerate me because I bring in a little silver every now and again, and you are dead to them, just another wandering gun. Just remember though, nothing lasts for ever, even the mountains that surround us..."

The old man levered himself out of his chair and took the tin mugs inside, leaving me alone with my thoughts. After a few moments he returned and dumped a couple of boxes of bullets in my lap.

"Thought I'd better get some more, I figured you'd be practising while I was gone. There's plenty more behind the shelf if you need 'em. Now, make yourself useful and go hunting, we could do with some fresh meat on the table."

He looked at me again and smiled gently, dropping a gnarled hand briefly to my shoulder.

"Go and have walk lad, it'll do your head good."

I went into the cabin and removed most of my weaponry, leaving just the rifle in its holster on my back. Taking a small pouch to carry some spare bullets and without another word to Henry, I picked up my new hat, and walked round the back of the cabin and up into the resin dark woods.

I walked without any real direction for some time until my tired legs forced me to stop for a rest. Dipping my hand in a small stream I washed my face and drank my fill, then sat on a rock looking out to the west.

"Nothing lasts forever..."

The old man's words whirled around in my head and I sat there for some time and thought through the choices that had brought me to the mountains and Mimbres.