 Reputation by Jim Kjelgaard
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A COLD WIND SIGHED UP THE CANYON, and whirled
bursts of snow before it. Satterlee, the city sport up here for an elk hunt,
gathered his mackinaw a little tighter about his throat and shivered in the
lee of a huge boulder. Louis Tremaine,
Satterlee’s guide, knelt beside the boulder and with great patience built up
a small pile of sticks. He struck a match, shielded it with his hands, and
touched it to the sticks. Fire crawled slowly through them, and then leaped.
Louis arose to blow on his hands, and his Gallic smile flashed. “It is very cold,” he
said. “It is that,” Satterlee
agreed. “Can you rustle enough wood to last the night, Louis?” “Oui. We shall
pass a comfortable night. You are to be complimented on securing so fine an
elk, M’sieu.” Satterlee nodded, half
in regret. “He was a game old cuss. I didn’t think anything had the courage
to go as far as he did with a 220 grain slug through his lungs.” The night shadow
deepened. The leaping fire cast its ruddy glow against the rock, and into the
pines on the other side. Satterlee dug a whiskey flask from his mackinaw, and
drank. He passed it to Louis. The wind howled up the canyon, and snow flew
thickly. Again Satterlee took the flask from his pocket and offered it to
Louis. The swarthy little guide
sat beside the fire, poking it with a stick. Presently the deep thoughts that
occupied his mind found an outlet in words: “You spoke of courage, M’sieu.
Would you like to hear a tale of courage?” Satterlee nodded. “Did you ever hear of
Doc Morton?” “The gunman?” “The man,” Louis
corrected. “The great man first and the great gunman second. I will tell you
of him.” * * * “He was my friend,” Louis went on, “my bosom friend
when friendship meant much. Of cold steel he was fashioned, and sheer nerve.
Yet, within him beat a great heart, as I myself know and as he proved in the
last gunfight he ever had. “I have seen him, M’sieu,
draw his gun from the back of a rearing horse and shoot the head from a
rattlesnake that lay in his path. You know that before he attained the age of
thirty he had killed thirty-one men in gun fights? I witnessed several of
those fights. I have seen Doc Morton approach one who meant to kill him, warn
his adversary to draw and shoot, and actually wait until the other had his
gun in hand before he himself drew. He was not merely swift. He was
miraculous, with an almost perfect coordination of mind and muscle. I might
add that all those he killed were bad men who themselves would have killed
others if he had not killed them. He had a great talent, and always it was
arrayed on the side of law and justice. “The last man he killed
was a Mexican named Pablo Gonzales, himself a very streak of lightning with a
gun. I witnessed that fight, and know about it what no one else does. But
wait. “You can perceive, M’sieu,
how a man of such stature could not help but gather unto himself great fame
and renown. But you must also appreciate something else. The West then was
not tame and secure, as it is now. It was full of adventurers of every type,
and most of them had no principles or scruples whatever. The only law was
that of the gun, and he who used a gun most effectively was most powerful.
Thus you may understand why many gunmen envied Doc Morton, and longed to give
him a try. Do I make myself evident? The man who bested Doc Morton in a gun
fight would inherit all his laurels, become known and feared far and wide as
the man who had killed Doc Morton. “But of all those who
longed to pit themselves against him, there was only one who dared.” * * * “His name was Curley Jacks, and in his own right he
was a very famous killer. There were fourteen notches on the handle of his
gun, and Curley Jacks had not fought with farmers or homesteaders. No, he had
gone against men who themselves lived by the gun, and he had triumphed. It
was the sixth of June when Curley Jacks rode into Steerhead, entered the
saloon, and announced that he was going to kill Doc Morton. “I was in that saloon, M’sieu,
and when I heard Curley Jacks boast in such a fashion I knew abject fear and
terror. Doc Morton was my friend, and this Curley Jacks was as cold as a
snake. He was a snake, though more deadly. And I knew that nothing could
swerve him from his announced purpose of meeting Doc Morton. “So, as soon as it was
feasible, I fled from that saloon. I went to Doc Morton’s office, he was then
the marshal of Steerhead, and entreated him to flee. He had not had a gun
fight or drawn a gun in two years, since he had killed Pablo Gonzales, and
this Curley Jacks must have practiced intensely before coming in to fight Doc
Morton. When I had finished my pleas, and as eloquently as I could, had
beseeched Doc Morton to take himself to a place of safety, he laughed at me!
That he did, laughed! “ ‘Louis,’ he said,
‘when this rip-snorter comes down the street I’ll be waiting for him.’ “There was nothing more
I could do, though I thought of taking a rifle, lying in ambush, and myself
shooting Curley Jacks when he came for Doc Morton. But to do that would have
been to heap eternal shame upon the greatest man I had ever known. No, he must
meet this man himself, and do the best he could when the time came to do
something. I tried then to force myself to leave so that I would not be a
witness. But it was as though I was rooted to the spot and could not leave.
All I could do was crouch behind a freight wagon and wait. “I saw Curley Jacks
leave the saloon. He was walking very loosely, but very slowly, his eyes
darting into every window and cranny as he came to it. He saw me behind the
freight wagon, but I turned my head away and he gave me no further notice.
There was only one quarry he wanted. “Then I saw Doc Morton
emerge from his office and, ah, M’sieu, he was magnificent! He stood
very tall and very straight, both hands at his side and his gun in its
holster. He seemed to be smiling as he stood there, and a great calmness sat
upon him as he walked down the three steps that led from his office to the street. “He walked slowly toward
Curley Jacks. A hundred yards separated them, and that became fifty. But even
in that moment, in spite of my great terror, I had reason to be intensely
proud. There was no jot of fear in Doc Morton, no hesitation. Like a knight of
old he walked, going forward to he knew not what, but going. And I swear that
something not of humanity or of earth went with him. It was an aura, M’sieu,
a glow. As he unhesitatingly advanced, invincibility seemed to advance with
him. Here, everything about him proclaimed, was a man who never had been and
never would be defeated. “I looked at Curley
Jacks, and my heart seemed to cease beating. M’sieu, he had stopped in
the road and was sweating! Yes, sweating! I began to hope then because I knew
that at last Curley Jacks was afraid. He had not been afraid when he came out
of the saloon, or while the hundred yards that had separated them narrowed to
forty feet. But now he was afraid, and it is like that with some men. For the
first time he seemed to realize that he was facing Doc Morton, the greatest
gunman of all. Doc Morton stopped before this frightened man, and his voice
was very calm: “ ‘Are you looking for
something, Curley?’ “It was then, M’sieu,
that Curley Jacks broke completely. He began to tremble, sweat poured in
rivulets from his face, and he tried to speak. But he could not speak. Doc
Morton said: “ ‘You’ve got ten
minutes to get out of town, Curley.’ “Then he deliberately
turned his back on this man who had come to kill him and walked back to his
office.” * * * The fire died a little, and Louis Tremaine threw a
handful of sticks on it. He sat moodily staring into the leaping flame, his
chin resting in his hands. Satterlee moved uncomfortably. “I don’t get the point,”
he said finally. “Wasn’t this Jacks just a fundamentally yellow pup, backed
down by Doc Morton’s reputation?” “Oui,” Louis
Tremaine said dreamily. “But that is only part of it.” “Why?” “Pablo Gonzales,” the
guide said. “He was a mighty gunman in his own right. What only Doc Morton
and I knew when he faced Curley Jacks was that he could not have shot if he
had wanted to. Two years before Pablo Gonzales’ bullet had paralyzed his
right arm, and he hadn’t moved it since.” Fin |
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“Reputation” was originally published
in the April 25, 1945, issue of the pulp magazine, Short Stories. It is available for the
first time since its original publication in The Spell of the White Sturgeon
/ Dusky & Other Tales in both Kindle and as a trade paperback—click here
to see it on Amazon. |
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© 1945 by Short
Stories, Inc. |
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