Free Haxan by Kenneth Mark Hoover Page B

order. He had the hammer seated on an empty chamber. He was a cautious man and knew basic gun safety.
    I handed the weapon back to him. “Brand new Schofield. Where’d you get that?”
    “My Uncle Henry got me this here pre-production model.”
    He was being evasive. I decided not to push it. A lot of men had secrets, big and little, out on the frontier.
    “Know how to use it?” I asked.
    “I can hit something if I have time to aim.”
    “Let’s go out back and try it out. Do you mind?”
    “Not at all, Mr. Marwood. I guess you need to know if I can shoot.”
    We exited the office through the back door and found ourselves in an empty sandlot with broken crates, discarded bottles, and wild bunches of purple cactus growing along a ragged fence line made from ocotillo.
    “Let’s see you plink that tin can.” I pointed to a can lying against the fence twenty yards away.
    He set himself, pulled his gun from the Mexican holster, and fired. He was much too quick. The bullet ploughed dirt a foot in front of the can.
    “This job doesn’t call for quick draw tricks, Jake,” I cautioned. “The man who keeps his cool and takes his time, even under fire, can beat the faster gun.”
    “Sorry, Marshal. I guess I was trying to show off.” He holstered his gun, relaxed, and pulled iron. He thumbed the hammer back, took careful aim, and fired. The tin can jumped.
    I clapped him on the back. “Good enough for government work, Jake.”
    He flushed at the compliment. I got the idea he wasn’t the kind of man who heard a lot of them in his life.
    “How about you, Marshal?” he questioned with a glint. “Can you hit it?”
    I drew my gun and fired. The can jumped a foot in the air. Jake aimed and kicked it forward once it landed. We knocked it around the yard two or three times until he missed.
    “You’re awful good, Mr. Marwood,” he admitted. His eyes were shining. “Fast, too. Why do you use a cap and ball?”
    “Comfortable with the feel of the iron, I guess. Anyway, it’s what I got used to when I learned to shoot. Too old a dog to change now.”
    “I heard Hickok uses a cap and baller.”
    I knew what he wanted to talk about. You could see the curiosity building in his face. No wonder he lost at cards, with a readable face like that.
    “You ever kill a man, Jake?”
    He pursed his lips and thought. “Don’t rightly know. In Laredo we were set upon by Mexican bandits who had crossed the Bravo. They were out to steal our remuda. Me and my pards fired into them and two men fell into the river. The others ran hell for leather back across the border. I don’t know if I killed one of those men or not. I don’t like dwelling on it.”
    “No man does if he’s honest.”
    “I heard about that trouble you cleared up in Montana Territory,” he prompted. “Once you hit this town people started talking in whispers. There are other stories, too, about your reputation. They say you ran with a hard bunch in south Texas. There’s even stories you spent time with the Mandans up north. I hope you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Marwood.”
    “When your back is against a wall, Jake, you do what you can to get out of it. When it’s you or the other man, that’s an easy decision.”
    “Yes, sir,” he answered in earnest. “I will remember.”
    Back inside the office I told him everything I knew about Connie Rand and his gang.
    “I want to run this man down, Jake. If Rand is
comanchero
then he might also be the one who killed Breggmann. Keep your eyes and ears open when you move about town. Don’t try to take Rand yourself. Come and get me first.”
    “Yes, sir, Marshal.”
    We finished setting up the office. Jake tacked the circulars up and put the important ones outside on the flat board.
    He came back in. “Marshal, I remembered something I ought should tell you. After I brought Fancer to the Doc’s I went back to the Texas Star for another beer.”
    “Trouble?”
    “It was Pate Nichols. He and Coffer Danby liked