Golems of Laramie County

Chapter one

The bullet careened off the rock we hid behind, me and Laramie County Sheriff Matt Cassidy. The slug — a .45, I guessed by the sound of its discharge, which meant our nemesis had at least two guns in his arsenal, the .45 plus an old Sharps he'd used a few minutes ago — hit rock with a solid thwack! an inch or two from my ear. Hot wind ruffled my hair as the bullet spiraled off, whining, spent, into the cool morning air.

"Watch yourself, Bix," Matt said in his standard, unflustered tone. I didn't need Matt's prompting. Too close, that bullet. Startled me, it did, and I more or less fell down on my butt hard as Matt reached up to tug me back under cover.

All I'd done was raise my head up a touch over the rock to see where our fugitive Harvey Kirschner was in the boulder patch up ahead and he'd taken a potshot at me. Forgot to take my hat off, is what I'd done. Didn't expect Harvey to take a shot at me — another shot, I mean. He'd already done so once. That's why we were hiding behind our rock.

So I had my hat on and Harvey had been looking and he seen my head come up afore I could reconnoiter his locale in the rocky cluster up ahead. Careless, poking my head up like that. Call it age. I was fifty.

"I'm okay," I said, peeved, more embarrassed than anything else. Sitting with my back up against our rock, I swept my hat off, and scanned it for bullet holes. Found none, but I smelled gunpowder.

"Uh-huh," Matt said, not taking his eye off the rocks. He was peering through a narrow cleft in the rock we hid behind, which was no bigger than a dead cow. We dove for the meager shelter when Harvey fired a shot from his Sharps a few minutes ago as we closed in on him. Didn't expect him to shoot, but he did. Dove for shelter like spooked rabbits, we did, not thinking there might be snakes at home where we dove. There weren't.

Maybe thirty, forty yards farther up the narrow box canyon we'd followed Harvey, the tumble of wagon-sized and bigger rocks, like a giant sack of spilt potatoes, that plugged the upside of the canyon proper, provided good cover for ol' Harv, but we were out in the cold, shelterwise. No trees or rock or brush between our little pebble and that big rock pile.

A wind gust wafted the stale perfume of sweat up my nose and it wasn't our horses either. They'd trotted back downhill when we dismounted, away from the gunfight, right after Harvey fired that first shot; smart critters they. And it wasn't from the heat. Too early in the day. I smelled my own sweat, salty and tainted not only with exertion but, I admit, a touch of fear. I ain't afraid to admit when I'm afraid.

Ol' Matt never sweated. I never did figure out how he did it. Always smelled like a barbershop, alcohol and peppermint.

"Did you see muzzle flash?" I asked him.

"Nope." He held his Winchester, the one he'd used when he was sharpshooter for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show before he took up sheriffing. Held that fancy rifle steady, ready.

"Damn it," I said, "I wish he'd just skedaddle up over them rocks, and head out till he can calm down."

"Uh-huh. Yeah, then we could tail him and catch him napping," Matt said, chewing on his lower lip, as he did when thinking hard. He could shoot steady, a natural he was, but he was not fast on the draw, if you get my drift. Chewed his lip. "Hm. Follow his trail, hang back a bit, then wait'll he settles for a nap or lunch, or —"

"But he ain't gonna."

"Whyfor not?" Matt frowned, trying hard to puzzle out whyfor not, without looking away from the cleft in the rock which gave him scant view of Harvey's hidey-maze.

"And give up his poke?" I nodded toward Harvey's wagon, about fifty yards ahead and to the right of Harvey's rock pile, maybe twenty or thirty feet from where Harvey watched us. His old nag Blue fidgeted in her traces, head bobbing, snorting, facing the boulders, trying to back away from the ruckus. Harv had the wagon brakes jammed on tight. In the wagon bed was hides, looked like, covered with a canvas tarp. That's what we'd come after him for. Stolen hides, we had reason to suspect.

Matt gave me a quick glance. "You don't think he'll try to make a break, then?"

"Well, not while we're here. And his wagon. He seems right determined to keep the goods."

"Then," Matt muttered, chewing lip, thinking, watching. "Then — what? Should we leave? Let him go?"

I sighed. "Leave?" We were stuck out in the open on flat ground behind a dead-cow-sized rock, with no other shelter within sixty or so feet, maybe seventy, but it looked like a mile, facing an armed desperado who had a bead on us and at least two weapons to chose from. He was no more than thirty, forty yards away, and even as bad a shot as Harvey was, I didn't like the sitch.

Behind us, nothing for a hundred yards, and in front, Harvey Kirchner, armed and dangerous. Left or right, we had open field and too much of it. Harvey'd gotten the jump on us and we were in a tight scrape, and no mistake. We couldn't run — he probably wouldn't run — we couldn't rush our adversary, couldn't shoot it out, and Harvey looked determined.

I spat. "We need to talk some sense into Mr. Kirschner, 's what I think."

"Hm," Matt said.

We'd come after Harvey that morning when Jim Croix reported he'd caught Harvey in his tannery on Second Avenue as he went to open for the day. Harvey had broken in and Jim caught him red-handed, he said, burgling some hides and pelts. Jim said Harvey had drawn on him — probably with the .45 that nearly creased my brow — then hightailed it out of Laramie, headed west on the Centennial Road. Jim came on the run to the Wrangler Cafe across the street from the sheriff's office, where me and Matt were breaking our fast, and we dropped our bacon and got on Harvey's tail lickety-split.

Rode hard and fast after him, we did. Didn't want Harvey to get too far west, let him get up in the Medicine Bows, where we'd be hard put to find the stolen booty if he took a notion to hide it up there. No, the idea was to catch up to him on the road while he was still slowed by his old wagon and his old horse before the sun even thought about nooning.

We passed Charlie Horse's flock sudden-like as we rounded a bend in the road just at dawning. Startled the flock and they scattered. Charlie's shepherd golem paid us no mind as we galloped past. It just started rounding up sheep, doing its do. I made a mental note to ride out to Charlie's place later in the day, after we brought Harvey in, to apologize and to report the golem looked a mite gimpy for some reason I didn't have time to ponder.

Charlie's golem was among the last few dozen in Wyoming, maybe less as nobody has taken a census recently, far as I know, and by far the oldest and smartest. Charlie'd made it when he was a littlun. He doted on that golem so much he gave it a name. Called it Bob Peep.

Harvey had his old wagon pulled by his old nag Blue and we had two fresh young mounts so we caught up to him in jig time, as expected. But when he saw our dust behind him glittering in the just-risen sun, he left the road, took off cross country, southwest, running hard and fast, and holed up in this box canyon — just past the abandoned Hanson homestead, which lay behind us now maybe a half mile. Surprised us, him taking off like that. And shooting. Wasn't like Harvey.

But a good thing, I was thinking at the time, that old man Hanson, who'd died two months ago's nephew, hadn't taken up the place he'd inherited yet because it looked like ol' Harv was turning desperado and no telling what he might do. He'd pointed a gun at Jim Croix, so Jim had told us, and he'd shot at us. What if the Hanson kid was there and had taken a dislike to being disturbed — trespassing! — at sunup and had waved a gun in protest at Harvey riding up past his place? Would ol' Harv have shot at the boy? Harv was riled, for certain sure.

We'd had run-ins with Harvey before, nothing too serious. He was a loner lad, no family, but neighborly enough when he felt like and was sober. A ne'er-do-well, but no more rowdy than a dozen or so cowboys we had to heel regularly every Saturday night. Semi-educated, which is to say ignorant but not stupid. Did odd jobs, trapped, labored, cowboyed, as needed. Bunked in his old wagon, mostly, wherever sunset happened to catch him. Sold stuff out of that old wagon now and then. Junk. Stuff he'd made or found. Firewood.

Hides, sometimes.

He'd done chores for just about everybody in the valley, I'll bet. Helped build the town jail. Even helped Wind in His Pants set trap one winter.

Never knew him to burgle townsfolk. He just wasn't bold. And shoot at folk? At the sheriff and his deputy? Whatever had come over our Mr. Harvey Kirschner?

"You boys ought to garble, garble," Harvey yelled, his voice wandering off in the wind, which gusted thither and yon, trying to figure out which way to go and how hard to go there. Decent kite-flying weather, maybe, later today, when the wind settled. Clear, not too warm. Spring, best time of the year, my vote.

"What'd he say?" I asked Matt.

"Dunno." Eyes fixed, as I've said. The crack in our rock barricade was maybe two inches wide at most, irregular, made the rock look like a split melon. I wondered if maybe ol' Harv might not get off a lucky shot and catch Matt right in the eye, but Harvey couldn't shoot worth beans.

Little comfort, as a Sharps slug is as big as a stump cigar. I touched my scalp again where that last shot, the .45, passed — too near.

Matt yelled, "What say, Harvey?"

Harvey replied, "What?" Harvey couldn't hear. Busted eardrum or something.

"I said," Matt said, "What?"

"What?"

"What?"

This went on for a spell before Harvey caught on and said, "I said, you boys ought to garble goddam garble, is what I said."

"Oh," Matt hollered back.

"What?"

Kept his eye peeled through that crack in the granite, Matt did, trying to figure out where Harvey was in those rocks up ahead, and his Winchester ready. If he was worried Harvey might get a lucky shot through that peeky hole, he never showed it. Matt, steady Matt. That's why he was such a crack shot. Steady, all the time, him. If Harvey so much as twitched his mustache, Matt would have his position fixed. It would then be just a matter of firing a shot, melt a little mustache wax, to convince Harvey he was a dead man walking and his only hope was to heel.

"Come on, Harvey," Matt muttered, teeth-grinding, his only show of impatience so far, "show yourself, just a hair." He hollered, "Harvey, you remember that turkey shoot at the fair last summer?"

"What?"

Matt repeated, louder.

Long pause. "Yeah." Harvey had come in close to last. Matt had won, as usual. "Garble, garble."

"I got a bead on you, ol' pal," Matt said. "Like I done on that turkey. You hear?"

"What?"

Matt repeated twice before Harvey got it.

"I hear. Garble, garble, garble." Didn't sound too agitated this time. A bit worried, maybe? Encouraging, that sound, like maybe Matt's bluff might work and we had a chance Harvey would come to his senses.

But.

"Matt," I whispered. "I can't —" My throat was sandpaper dry and I didn't have much spit, but I swallowed and persisted. "Matt, ol' buddy, you can't see him neither."

"Well, Bix. . ." Matt thought, chewed lip, one hand plucking up bluebells by his knee. "Well, Bix. . ."

"And how long before you figure Harvey figures that out?"

Answer came with a shot, this time from the Sharps. It hit rock — thwack! — and grit splattered in the air above our heads and pattered down on us like hail.

The buffalo grass under us was a mite damp from the morning dew, and I was beginning to feel a bit stiff in my old bones. We'd only been in our cramped position a few minutes, but I could feel the sun rising higher up behind Harvey's rocks, getting hotter, and we'd be in desperate shape, healthwise, before too many hours passed. And I had to piss.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "We need us a plan."

"Uh-huh." Matt focused southwardly, upvalley, looking for his shot, eye steady, Winchester ready. "A plan."

I did some lip chewing of my own. Couldn't rush Harvey, didn't look as if we could talk sense to him, couldn't run for it — I doubt Matt would entertain turning tail anyway — and we couldn't shoot our nemesis, or make him surrender, the better option, unless we could force him to show himself. Boxed and bollixed, we were.

And with his wagon boxed in too, Harvey wasn't likely to hightail it, I suspected.

What could have turned him into a desperado? Something special about those hides and pelts?

I was chewing on options when I heard the eight o'clock westbound Butterfield, Bold Enterprise, drone toward us low on the eastern horizon.

I looked up, saw that big dirigible's blunt, round nose clear an aspen patch out that way. "Eight-fifteen, eight-twenty," I said.

"Uh-huh." Matt never took his eyes off those rocks where Harvey hid.

I took out my pocket watch. "Eight-twelve. Right on time." I watched the dirigible. "Ain't she a sight?" Repocketed the watch, gift from my sister Peggy before she went on her mission to Africa, then married that English gent.

The dirigibles were new enough to still be fascinating, I guess, like electric lights, telephones, bicycles, and those horseless carriages. I felt uneasy about them, those dirigibles — don't know why; maybe the engine noise, but they weren't as noisy or obnoxious as your auto-mobile, I'd seen one down to Denver once — but most folks love to watch the dirigibles come and go. Fascinating advent of the 20th century, coming up in four and a half months. Big noisy celebrations planned in town, make the dirigible engine takeoff whine seem like a whisper in church.

A thousand feet up or so, at cruising altitude, Bold Enterprise and her mate, Indomitable Spirit that flew east out of Laramie in the afternoons, looked like big floating cigars with little stubby wings and fluttery flags and potbellies slung below where the passengers and baggage hung in whicker cabins and pods. Sometimes when the wind wasn't blowing too hard and you were alone out on the range and under their flight path, you could yell up to folks and hear them yell back at you and wave. If you wanted to.

Still, noisy beasts, they. Big. Blocked out the sun.

Suddenly, I had me an idea.

"Matt, Matt, Matt." I tugged on his sleeve. "I got me an idea."

"Uh-huh."

"We got to run — now!"

"Uh-huh." He jerked his head to look at me, still tugging on his sleeve, his eyes buggy with startlement. "What?"

Bold Enterprise was almost overhead now, but a bit to the north, its propeller's rattling drone getting louder and louder. In a few seconds, it would pass on to the west and out of sight. I didn't have time to explain things to Matt.

"You go that way," I pointed west, "and I go that way," I drew my Colt Peacemaker from my waistband and pointed it east.

"But — "

I didn't give Matt a chance to think, which would have been a waste of time. Bold Enterprise was almost overhead right now. I fired two or three shots toward the rock warren where Harvey hid, then I stood and ran as fast as my little old legs could carry me, eastward. Matt was a little slower getting the idea, but he got it, stood, fired a couple shots at where Harvey maybe was, and bolted the other way — I hazarded a glance back to make sure — and we made it to our respective shelters — me behind a big fallen cottonwood, and Matt to a deep-enough dry creek bed, farther away from our dead-cow rock hidey, but he was younger and had longer legs so he got to his spot okay and at about the same time I got to mine.

While Harvey gawked up at the a.m. westbound Butterfield, as most folks were apt to, and as I suspected he might do — I told you he had nothing under his hat but hair — we got the jump on him. Now, we could close in at our leisure and close out this disagreeable episode. I felt exhilarated, not just winded from my forty-yard dash through the open.

"Matt, you okay?" I yelled. My lungs stung. Age.

"Uh-huh," he yelled back. I couldn't see him, and I couldn't see Harvey neither, but that was okay. Matt was okay, and me and him would creep in now, under good cover, nab Harvey, and get home before lunch.

"We got you surrounded, Harvey," I yelled, "so you might as well — "

The hair on the back of my neck rose, and I turned a bit, just my eyes.

There he was.

Harvey crouched behind me, aiming that Sharps right at my back. That's how come we couldn't see him after that last shot. He'd moved.

"Garble, garble," he said, grinning through tangled teeth, sputtering chaw. Needed dental work, did ol' Harv, I could smell. But his eyesight was good, and that Sharps held steady.

"Garble garble, hands high, and turn around, varmint," he said.

Slow and careful, I set my Colt down and tottered to my feet, hands wide and high. I wondered if Matt could see me — us — and how far away he was. I turned to face Harvey.

"Why, it's Horace Bixby Weybech," he said, "the goddam Third." His eyes bugged out, surprised-looking, but that huge Sharps barrel didn't waver enough for my liking. Slug big as a cigar. "As I live and breathe."

"Now, Harvey, just who were you expecting?" I tried on a smile, but it wavered. I hoped Matt would come up with a plan that would keep me from spilling my guts, so to speak. Never expected to find myself in such a predicament.

"What?"

"I said —"

"Deppity Weybech, matter of fact," Harvey said, as if sneaking up on the idea. "Garble, goddam garble, huh?"

"Now, Harvey —"

"And that must mean — hm. Is that —" He waved the Sharps barrel to the east, toward Matt, a smidge. "Is that Sheriff Matthew Cassidy yonder in the crick? Sounded like him —"

"Uh-huh. Now, Harvey —"

"Well, goddam it." Harvey spat, indignant. He kicked a dead tree limb on the ground about the size of my leg and all twisted up like I feel some mornings, to express his mood. The dead log fell apart, maybe bug infested, and I expected to see ants and beetles scatter, but that ain't what I seen.

"Harvey," I said, because of what I seen, but he wasn't having any. He was on a tear, and like I said, he couldn't hear. And he was focused on me, not on what his "I'm pissed off" kick had brought to light.

"I thought you was bandits," he said, "trying to rob me. I thought garble, garble —"

"Uh, Harvey —"

There are moments in a body's life more important than your life's first first breath, or your last. The first and last moments you don't notice because you're too young in the first place and too old in the second. It's them in between, those are the ones I'm talking about. Those moments change a body, and define a body. Take the moment Matt asked me to be his deputy. Saved my butt, he did, dried me out and saved my butt. And the moment I first laid eyes on Susanna Huckabee. Get sappy and call it love, I don't care.

Sometimes you don't know those moments are happening, even as they happen. You recognize their significance later, or maybe never. But sometimes, you feel the moment, know it, even as it happens, and nothing's ever the same anymore.

That one, right then — was such a one.

That moment, standing there looking at that Sharps pointed at me, big as a cannon, and seeing a rattler, as thick around as your calf, exposed sudden-like to the harsh daylight when Harvey kicked his home to pieces, and pretty mad about it, three feet away from his boot, coiled and ready to spring and sink its fangs into his leg. Right then, the same instant, seeing Matt had crept up on Harv, from behind, more or less. The world had shifted, tilted on its axle, and it spun around me in its center, spun slow as molasses in February.

I started to say something, maybe to warn Harvey. But I knew, even as I started, things were underway. Too late.

The snake reared.

The Winchester barked.

Then, even as I saw the snake's head explode into red mist, the Sharps barked.

I got hit. I went down.

Even as I fell, and the world faded to black, I heard the Winchester crack again.

The last thing I remember of that endless, February molasses moment before I faded out, the moment that stood like a signpost that said "That Way, everything that was, and This Way, everything that will be," I saw Harvey's head explode.

The Golems of Laramie County is now available from Yard Dog Press. $11.00.

Home