© Gary W. Addis, 1994 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Member of Author’s Guild,
Private Eye Writers Of America,
Mystery Writers of America

The boy was tall for his age, and thinner than a reservation Apache. He was dressed in a flowery, brown, flour-sack shirt and ragged hand-me-down britches. A typical farmer's brat, I thought, watching him dismount from a sway-backed mule. He tugged at the frayed rope looped through his pants, and grinned shyly at us.

He tied the halter reins together around the animal's neck, patted her on the rump and said, "You mosey on home now, Mattie."

After watching a moment to make sure the mule headed in a southerly direction, the youngster walked across the porch and stopped before the front door of the ranch house, where four of us were sort of supporting a wall with our weight. With lively blue eyes he looked us over.

He said, "Where can I find Mr. Timmons?" Before anyone could answer, he grinned again and added, "I reckon I'm gonna sign up to work with you cowboys." He didn't seem a bit embarrassed that we all laughed. He stood there, grinning, waiting.

Rudy took the matchstick he had been mauling from his mouth and said, "Boy, you best go catch that mule. The Circle B don't have no crops that need weeding."

The boy looked Rudy up and down, then, quietly, replied, "I don't reckon you'd be Mr. Timmons." The youngster turned to me. "Mister, are you Wallace Timmons?"

This gave my fellow cowhands a good laugh. Whenever I've had money, it has slipped through my fingers as quick as smoke through a good chimney. Me, I have never owned anything except the clothes on my back, a good set of guns and a horse. And, right now, I didn't own a horse. I'm Billy Sims. Maybe you've heard of me; I'm a professional gunman. Generally, I don't talk much. I spat a stream of tobacco juice and shook my head at the boy.

Mr. Timmons stomped out onto the veranda. Right away, the boy squared his shoulders and tried to look intelligent. Not that Timmons was dressed any different from us. Though he could have afforded fancy suits and silk cravats, Wallace Timmons always wore denim britches and calico shirts. The only extravagance he permitted himself sat atop his balding head. His hat was a stiff-brimmed, brand-spanking-new black Stetson, while ours were sweat-stained and nearly as limp as old Charley Bell, who has been known to pass out drunk in church. Except for the Stetson, Wallace Timmons looked exactly like a regular cowpoke, but his brusque manner plainly said, I am the boss.

Timmons, glaring at each of us in turn, asked, "Am I paying you boys to stand around jabbering all day? What's all the racket out here?"

It was Rudman who spoke up, of course. He wasn't one to miss a chance to butter the boss's cornbread. He pointed a finger at the boy and sneered, "This here farmer's brat wants to sign on with us, Mr. Timmons."

Wallace Timmons cocked his head to the side, giving the kid a long, hard look. "Say, ain't you a Hopkins?"

The boy didn't flinch under the cold appraisal. "Yessir, I'm Jimbo Hopkins."

"Well, what the hell are you doing on my ranch? I don't loan my animals or tools to no farmers."

"My pa's a sodbuster, sure enough, but I can't help that. You give me a chance, I can learn to do anything these fellows can."

Bo Wills, the segundo, whispered in Timmons's ear. Both men grinned. After telling the boy to wait, Timmons walked off a few feet and motioned for me. Like a slinking hound that nobody notices until it gets underfoot, Wills sidled along.

Wallace Timmons leaned close and laid his arm across my shoulders. "Bo came up with an idea, Billy. How would you like to get fighting wages again?"

"How much are we talking about?" I asked.

"Cowhand wages--thirty and found--plus an extra fifty a month. And you probably won't even need that gun of yours."

"Who's gun am I gonna use then, Mr. Timmons?"

"I just want you to take that boy under your wing. Get him drunk; introduce him to the ladies; teach him to gamble. Let everybody around town see it. Ol' Sam is a stubborn man, but, to get his son away from..." Wallace left it unsaid. He knew I'd take no insult lightly. "Well, he might just sell that bottomland outright. But, better still, he might finally get mad enough to grab a gun."

"And if he does, I kill him, right?"

Bo Wills grinned. "Only in a fair fight." The segundo's teeth looked like moldy leather.

I frowned and crinkled my nose. "Wills, you have to stop rolling cow manure up in your cigarettes. It makes your breath stink somethin' fierce." As I knew he would, Wallace Timmons latched onto Bo's elbow and motioned him back. Bo was too good a foreman for him to lose.

Timmons asked, "Well, what do you say? will you do it?"

"Let me think on it some," I said.

"Billy, I need that farm's water. My cattle are thirsty and I got another herd coming up from Mexico next month."

My first inclination was to say no. Over the years, I had taken an awful lot of gun jobs, but only for people I liked, and I didn't much like Wallace Timmons. Most big ranchers run roughshod over sodbusters, true enough, but Timmons was the kind of man who would run a horse to ground, then leave it lay to die of thirst. But I was remembering a certain red-headed gal in 'Frisco. It required deep pockets to keep her in perfume and trinkets.

"Eighty a month and found is enough for a little gunplay," I said, "but it sure as hell ain't enough to make me a babysitter. I'll hold the little boy's hand for a hundred a month, and if I have to kill the farmer, I want a $200 bonus."

"Done," Timmons said.

I grinned. "You agreed awful fast. I shoulda ast for five."

Timmons winked. "I'd of give you a thousand. I still might, if you get it done quick enough. But don't bring me no more trouble with the law."

Timmons went back into the house. Bo Wills, smiling like he was welcoming a returning hero, walked over and clapped the Hopkins boy on the back. "Well, Jimbo, it looks like you done got y'self a job. You gonna work with Billy Sims, here. You go where he goes and do what he does. He'll teach you what you need to know."

>From that minute on, Jimbo Hopkins became my shadow. I could hardly go to the outhouse without him wanting to follow.

Tall and gangling for a fourteen-year old, Jimbo already sat a horse as if it were glued to his butt. Like me, he had small, quick hands and a steady eye, so he quickly graduated from tossing loops at stumps to roping calves for branding. In no time, Jimbo would have made a top hand, but, as Bo Wills kept reminding me, it weren't my job to make Hopkins a cowhand. I was supposed to make the kid a hell-raiser.

To that end, on Saturday night I took the boy with me into town. We bellied up to the bar in the Whiskey River Saloon, the rowdiest watering hole in El Paso.

"Charlie," I said, "a whiskey for me and my young friend."

"A mite too young, ain't he?" asked the bartender. "If Sam Hopkins finds out I served liquor to his kid, he'll skin me."

Generally, I didn't shove my gun rep into anybody's face. That kind of bullying behavior was a good way to earn a bullet in the back. It had happened to better men than me--my friend Bill Hickock, for instance. But this here was business.

I stared into Charlie's eyes and said, "Maybe he will, maybe he won't. What is for certain is that if you don't set two glasses and a bottle of bourbon on the bar in two seconds flat, I'm gonna part your hair in a new way." I patted my holster.

We got the whiskey. A gun rep can be a handy thing.

Jimbo gagged on the first shot, but gamely accepted a second, then a third. We moved to a table. As I watched the youngster suck in his breath at the bite of the liquor, trying so hard to be a man, I felt a twinge of conscience, but only a bit. After all, that 'Frisco redhead wouldn't wait forever.

About then, two saloon girls appeared at our shoulders: a top-heavy, mousy-haired brunette, and a skinny blonde.

When Sam Hopkins entered the bar, Jimbo and I still sat at the table. The brunette was giggling at one of my smutty jokes, and the blonde was nibbling on Jimbo's ear. He was blood-red from embarrassment, but he was, obviously, enjoying every second.

Sam Hopkins was a big man. He stood better than six feet tall, and he had the shoulders and chest of a bull. There was fire in his eyes, too, but his lips quivered and his big hands shook.

Twirling his flop-eared hat in his hands, he said, "Boy, your mama won't like you being in a place like this. I want you to come home with me."

Jimbo shoved the girl away. "You better get out of here, Pa, before somebody picks a fight with you. You might get hurt." Bystanders snickered.

Sam Hopkins tugged on Jimbo's arm. "Come on, son."

This is what I had been hoping for. I shoved back my chair; it clattered to the floor.

"Hey, old man, don't be bothering my young friend."

A muscle in Sam's eyelid twitched. "Cowboy, I don't want no trouble-I just want to take my boy home."

I laid my spare pistol on the table. "Pick up the gun and use it. Or walk out of here branded a coward before the whole county."

Fear is a professional gunfighter's friend. I waited, watching as it wormed its way into Hopkins's heart. But, still, his hand inched toward the cold steel.

The boy said, "Pa, leave it lay! This here is Billy Sims--he'll kill you!"

The farmer's eyelids continued to twitch, but his fingers closed around the pistol grip. "You're Billy Sims? The hired gun?"

I feined surprise. "Now you gone and hurt my feelings...I thought for sure everybody in these parts recognized me on sight."

Jimbo sneered, "Just go on home, Pa. I ain't going anywhere with you."

Sam Hopkins's whole body quaked at the cruel disdain in his son's eyes. He turned the pistol in his hands.

I chuckled. "That ain't no shiny new plow, sodbuster. Use it or eat it."

After maybe a minute, he laid it gently on the table, dropped his head and walked out. The saloon erupted in laughter.

Jimbo's face flamed. With a small, pained, voice, he said, "Pa's a coward, Billy." He threw back his shoulders. "Nobody'd ever get me to back down that way."

I gruffly shrugged aside the hands trying to pat me here and there. Everybody wanted me for a friend, but nobody wanted to be my friend.

"Boy, if your pa had put his finger inside that trigger guard, he'd have died on the spot, and he knew it. That don't make him a coward."

"Aw, Billy, he won't stnad up to nobody, not for no reason, not even with his fists. He won't sell that worthless old farm, but he won't fight for it, neither. So we just set there in that drafty old sod house and let Mr. Timmons's hands drive cattle across the wheat fields, tear down Ma's clothesline and drag her washing through the cow pies."

Over the boy's shoulder I spotted Bo Wills, back to the bar. Grinning like he wanted to show off his purty brown teeth, he lifted his beer in a silent toast. I turned away without acknowledging him. I wasn't exactly proud of what I had done.

But I was being paid to do a job. I proceeded to get the boy staggering drunk, and, afterwards, I got him laid. While the boy was upstairs with the skinny blonde, I went outside for a breath of air.

"Mr. Sims, please," a soft voice said from the shadows. "I need to talk with you."

I turned, immediately doffing my hat. I knew who she was. She was Linzie Hopkins, the sodbuster's wife. She was plain as an unpolished boot, but she was sure a lady, even I could see that.

"Ma'am," I said. "What can I do for you?"

"I want my son back, Mr. Sims."

"Ain't this a job for your husband, ma'am? He send you to beg me to throw the little fish back?"

Mrs. Hopkins' chin lifted. "My husband doesn't know I'm in town. He's gone home now, after the deed to the farm. Isn't that what this is all about?-to force us to sell out to the Circle B?"

"Well, if that's so, then I reckon your problem is over. Timmons will pay you plenty for that water--he won't cheat you. You can use it to take your son back east, where he can't be corrupted by the likes of me."

Linzie Hopkins laughed bitterly. "That won't solve anything, will it? Not now. If Sam and I leave, the boy won't go with us...will he?"

I saw her point. "Not likely, no. But it's your husband's fault, not mine. Tonight wasn't the only time he has backed down from a fight in front of his boy."

Her shoulders quivered. "My husband killed a man once with his fists-his own brother. He swore he'd never fight again."

I threw up my hands. "Lady, what do you want from me?"

"I want my son back, Mr. Sims. Just give me my son back."

Vague as it was, I understood her request. "I don't do nothing without getting paid for it: I'm a professional; I got my standards."

"I...I only have ten dollars. But...but I'll get more, somehow. If you'll give me a little time."

I smiled wryly, and mentally kissed the 'Frisco red-head goodbye. "The ten is about right," I said, holding out my hand.

Linzie Hopkins handed over the single gold coin, reached up and kissed my cheek, then quicker'n a snake darting into a hole, she turned and ran up the street.

I yelled, "Hey! I'm not going to let no man beat me to death! Not for no ten dollars, I ain't!"

I got back to the saloon just as Jimbo was clopping down the stairs, red-faced from booze and leftover embarrassment. When he spotted me, he squared his thin shoulders and grinned like he'd just whipped Jim Corbett in a fair fight.

"Come on, Jimbo," I said, lightly punching his arm, "I want you to watch this."

Since I knew Wallace Timmons was eating--dining, he'd call it-- at the Cattlemen's Association's private club, I went there. Me and Jimbo leaned against the porch rail, waiting. Within minutes, Sam Hopkins rattled up on a rickety buckboard.

Jimbo muttered, "What's he doing here?"

I clapped my young friend on the back. "I'm going to make your pa fight me."

Jimbo said, "I wish you wouldn't, Billy. I wish you'd just leave him be."

I barred the door to the club with my body. Sam Hopkins waggled a folded paper. He said, "I got the deed right here. Mr. Timmons is inside, ain't he?"

"Yeah," I sneered, "he's here. But that ain't going to save your yellow hide, Hopkins."

The big man took a shuddering breath. "I'm selling out. This ends it. I'm not fighting you."

I took off my gunbelt and tossed it up the street. "Was that what you were afraid of?"

"I'm not fighting you with guns or knives or fists or even turkey feathers."

"You're not?" With my right hand, I knocked Jimbo's hat off his head. The big man didn't move, but his eyes glinted dangerously, and I could see a muscle clench in his jaw. Jimbo backed away from me, more hurt emotionally than physically. I grabbed his shirt front and punched him twice, hard, then shoved him into a trough.

On second thought, afraid the boy'd drown, I reached into the brackish water. Suddenly, my wrist was imprisoned in a grip like the jaws of a bear trap. A sledgehammer fist pounded into the side of my head. I went to my knees and counted stars. Fists clenched at his sides, the big man waited. For me to recover, I reckon, so he could do it again.

I grabbed Hopkins around the thighs and lifted and shoved. We both sailed off the porch, landing with a grunt in a juicy horse pie.

Since I was on top, I got up first. I kicked Sam repeatedly in the ribs and gut. He was a big man, with muscles hardened by back-breaking labor, while I was just a medium-sized saddle bum whose body had been ruined by too much whiskey and soft-living. But I fight dirty.

Then, off in the distance, I caught a glimpse of a skirted lady half in shadow. A contract was a contract. I bent down to pull Hopkins to his feet. As I knew I would, I caught a punch square on the jaw.

The blow lifted me a foot in the air and hurled me backward. Scrambling around in the dirt and horse manure on my knees, my fingers closed around a familiar mother-of-pearl handle.

I sat up and faced the big man. Would I have used the gun?-Does the sun set in the West?

Most likely my practiced reflexes would have caused my finger to squeeze off all five rounds. But suddenly the toe of a booted foot struck my forearm, and the pistol went flying. Clutching my hand to my chest, I tucked my chin in and glanced at my attacker. Jimbo stood three feet from my head, readying another kick.

I rolled away from Jimbo's pointy-toed boot, scrambled to my feet, lunged toward Jimbo, and stepped into his father's roundhouse right.

I was barely conscious when somebody pulled Sam off. I heard Jimbo's voice, pleading, "Don't, Pa. Don't kill him. He ain't worth it, Pa."

I scratched in the dirt and found my gun. I raised up on my elbows and watched the father and son mount their rickety buckboard.

Linzie Hopkins stepped from the shadows and gazed at me a moment. As she settled her shapely backside on the wagon seat, she looked down at me and with grateful eyes said a silent, "Thank you."

Spitting dirt and blood, I stood up. I opened the cylinder of my pistol and blew dust from the barrel. Hardly thirty seconds later, Wallace Timmons, Bo Wills, and Carl Rudman appeared at my elbow.

"Damnit!" snarled Timmons. "You had him! He's a big sumbitch--nobody woulda blamed you if you'd a blown him to kingdom come!"

Bo Wills sneered at me. "Sheeit.... thought you was a perfessional, Billy."

I smiled a wicked I-dare-you kind of a smile at the rancher. Bo and everybody else, I ignored.

Shrugging, I said, "Well, like they say, us hired guns ain't got no loyalty...we always sell out to the highest bidder."