Smoke Jensen, the Beginning Read online

  Briggs and Quantrill decided to join their bands together for an attack on the post. They encountered Union soldiers, most of whom were black, and chased them back to the earth and log fort.

  There, the Rebels attacked, but the garrison, with the help of a howitzer, managed to fight them off. Quantrill decided to move on the post from a different direction, and chanced upon a small Union detachment escorting Major General James G. Blunt and wagons transporting his personal items from his former headquarters in the Department of the Frontier at Fort Scott to his new one at Fort Smith. During the engagement, nearly all of the Union soldiers were killed, though General Blunt and a few mounted men managed to escape.

  As a result, what had started as a battle became known as the Baxter Springs Massacre. Neither Briggs, nor any of his men had participated in that part of the fight, but the word massacre had been applied to the entire campaign, which by, implication, included Kirby.

  Although he had been but one of many who had participated in the fight, he was a little hesitant about going into the settlement again. He took a deep breath, thinking. It had happened almost two years ago. He could be reasonably certain that he wouldn’t be recognized as one of the guerrillas who had been there that day.

  Kirby nodded his agreement and they approached the little settlement which had grown up around the fort. A small building built of rip-sawed unpainted boards had already weathered gray. The roof sagged, the building leaned, and an extension was obviously newer than the rest of the building. The sign out front read:

  Murphy’s

  BEER WHISKEY EATS

  Kirby and his pa tied their horses and pack animals off at the hitching rail, then stepped inside. The interior light was dim, filtered as it was through the dirty windows. Beams of light projected through the cracks between the boards, the shining beams alive with hanging dust motes.

  The bar, such as it was, consisted of a few boards stretched between barrels. In a white apron and a low-crowned hat, the bartender was wiping glasses and putting them on a shelf behind the bar. Above the glasses, another shelf sported a row of whiskey bottles. A barrel of beer was just to the side.

  Four tables with chairs made up the seating, one of them occupied by three men.

  “This is a saloon, ain’t it, Pa?”

  “Not the fanciest I’ve ever seen, but yes, it’s a saloon.”

  The two stepped up to the bar.

  “We’ll each have a beer,” Emmett ordered, putting a dime down on the plank bar. He started coughing again, a deep and ragged cough.

  “That’s some cough you got there, mister.”

  “It’s the dust,” Emmett said.

  The bartender didn’t respond, but filled two mugs and set them before Emmett and Kirby. The two took the mugs over to a table and sat down.

  “Drink up, boy,” Emmett said, holding his mug out across the table toward Kirby.

  Kirby took a swallow. It wasn’t the best thing he had ever tasted, but on the day of a long, hot ride, it tasted good enough.

  “Ha!” Emmett said, slapping his hand on the table. “I was there when you took your first step, I was there when you spoke your first word, and now I’m here for your first beer. It tastes better when it’s cold.”

  “Hey!” called one of the three men sitting at the other table. “Them pants you’re wearin’ . . . they’re Rebel pants, ain’t they?”

  “They’re just trousers,” Emmett replied.

  “But they’re Rebel pants.”

  “If you don’t like my pants, mister, don’t look at ’em.”

  From under the table, the man brought his hand up holding a pistol, pointing it toward Emmett. “Take ’em off. We don’t allow Rebels . . . or Rebel pants here.”

  “I’ve no intention of takin’ ’em off.”

  “Do you know who I am? My name is Tim Shardeen. I reckon that name means somethin’ to you, don’t it, Reb?”

  Emmett shook his head. “It don’t mean a damn thing to me.”

  “It woulda meant somethin’ if we had ever met durin’ the war. The outfit I rode with was called Shardeen’s Raiders. Angus Shardeen is my brother. That mean anythin’ to you now?”

  “Only that you was a bunch of murderin’ Jayhawkers.”

  Tim grinned. “Then you know I ain’t kiddin’ when I tell you that if you don’t take off them Rebel pants, I’ll shoot you dead ’n take ’em off you myself.”

  “Let it go, Tim. What are you wantin’ to get involved in this for? Hell, him ’n the boy ain’t doin’ nothin’ but drinkin’ a beer,” one of the others at the table pointed out.

  “I don’t like Rebs.”

  “The war’s over,” said the third man at the table.

  “Not for him, it ain’t. I’m goin’ to count to three ’n if he ain’t took off them pants by the time I get to three, I’m goin’ to shoot him dead. One—”

  A loud boom interrupted the count, and Tim dropped his pistol and grabbed a bloody wound in his wrist. Everyone looked from Tim to Kirby, who was holding a smoking pistol, having drawn it quietly and unobserved.

  “Damn! You shot me!” Tim shouted.

  “Yeah, I did,” Kirby replied.

  A pressure bandage was quickly applied to the wound.

  “How . . . how the hell did you make a shot like that?” Tim asked through clenched teeth.

  Kirby shrugged. “It was an accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “I was tryin’ to kill you.”

  One of Tim’s drinking buddies stood up. “We’d better get ’im to Doc Strafford before he bleeds to death.”

  Still gripping his wrist, Tim headed to the door with his friends.

  “Mister?” Kirby called to him.

  Tim Shardeen turned with a frown on his face. “Don’t waste your time apologizin’ to me.”

  “Oh, I ain’t apologizin’. I want you to take a message to your brother for me.”

  “What would that message be?”

  “My name is Kirby Jensen. I want you to tell your brother that if I ever run into him, I plan to kill ’im.”

  “Ha! You’re goin’ to kill my brother, are you? How old are you, boy?”

  “How old do you have to be to kill a man?” Kirby pointed his pistol at Tim Shardeen again.

  “No, no! Don’t shoot!”

  “You will deliver that message for me, won’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll deliver it.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  The three men left the saloon.

  A few minutes later, Emmett and Kirby rode on, a little wary at first, but the farther away from the town they got, the less concerned they were. By the time they made camp, they were more than thirty miles west of Baxter Springs.

  “Are you good enough with that handgun to get us a squirrel for our supper?” Emmett asked.

  “I reckon I am, if I see one.”

  “What about that one?” Emmett asked, pointing to a squirrel halfway up a tree about a hundred feet away.

  Kirby pulled his pistol, raised it to eye level, aimed, and fired. The squirrel fell to the ground and he hurried over to retrieve it.

  “You clean the squirrel. I’ll gather some wood and get us a fire goin’,” Emmett said.

  Half an hour later, the spitted squirrel was roasting over the fire, coffee was boiling, and the Jensens were sitting nearby.

  Emmett looked at Kirby pointedly. “What happened back in the saloon . . . when you shot the gun out of that feller’s hand? That warn’t no accident, was it?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think it was.” Emmett nodded toward the gun. “I been aimin’ to ask you about that pistol. I know you didn’t have it when I left home. How did you come by it? And how did you learn to shoot like that?”

  “A bunch of Jayhawkers come through the farm one night, headin’ back to Kansas like the devil was chasing them, ’n that was just about right ’cause about half an hour later Bloody Bill Anderson and his boys come rid
in’ up. They stopped to rest and water the horses.

  “Turned out this young fellow was with them. He couldn’t have been no more ’n a year or so older ’n me. He seen me there alone with nothin’ but a shotgun, so he give me this Navy gun and an extra cylinder.”

  “That seemed like a right nice thing for him to do,” Emmett replied.

  “Yes, sir. I thought it was. He was nice . . . and soft-spoken, too.”

  “You seen him since?”

  Kirby looked straight ahead. “No, sir.”

  In fact, he had seen him several times since then, on those occasions when the Ghost Riders and Quantrill’s Raiders happened to join up for an operation. He felt bad about lying to his father, but he justified it by telling himself that the day would come when he’d tell everything.

  “You thank him proper, did you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “He told me. He said it was James. Jesse James. His brother Frank was with the bunch, too. Frank was somewhat older ’n Jesse.”

  “All right. That tells me how you got the gun. But it don’t say nothin’ ’bout how come it is you can shoot so well.”

  Kirby looked at his pa and grinned. “I practiced a lot.”

  “You musta spent a lot of money for bullets.”

  “Yes, sir, I reckon I did.”

  “Well, then, I can see why you didn’t have no money left from the farmin’, seein’ as you spent it all on bullets for practicin’. As things is turnin’ out, what with where we’re goin’ ’n all, bein’ able to shoot is goin’ to be a lot more important than knowin’ how to plow a straight row.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me about Angus Shardeen.”

  “Pa, you know about him. He’s the one that burned the Gimlin farm, remember?”

  Emmett frowned. “That’s why you said you wanted to kill ’im?”

  “That’s not the only reason. He also come through on a raid and kilt Kenny Prosser ’n his ma and his little brother. Kenny was a good friend of mine, if you ’member. ’N he also kilt Merlin Lewis ’n his family.”

  Kirby was telling the truth. Those two county families had been killed by Angus Shardeen.

  “All right. You do know that takin’ a blood oath like that, which is pretty much what you just done in tellin’ a man that you aim to kill his brother, is puttin’ quite a load on your shoulders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How fast can you get the gun out of the holster?”

  “I don’t know,” Kirby admitted. “It ain’t anythin’ I’ve ever had to do.” Being able to shoot straight had been not only a help but a necessity when he was riding the Bushwhacker trail, but a quick draw wasn’t.

  “If you set yourself the job of findin’ someone and killin’ ’im, especially someone like Angus Shardeen, bein’ able to pull the gun out fast is somethin’ that might come in pretty handy, don’t you think? It’s called a quick draw.”

  “A quick draw,” Kirby repeated.

  “Yeah. Stand up there and do a quick draw for me. Let me see what you can do.”

  Kirby stood up, then made a grab for his pistol. It was awkward and the draw was slow.

  Emmett laughed. “Looks like we’ve got some work to do. You’ve already showed that you can shoot straight. Now you need to learn how to draw.”

  “You think I can learn?”

  “I don’t have no doubt. You have sort of a natural-born smoothness about you, so I have a feelin’ you’re goin’ to learn pretty fast how to do a quick draw. With that and accurate shootin’, I’ve no doubt but that you’ll wind up bein’ a man to be reckoned with.”

  “Why would I have to be reckoned with?”

  “Because where we’re goin’, you’re goin’ to have to live by laws that aren’t necessarily wrote down anywhere. But just ’cause they ain’t wrote down, don’t mean they ain’t laws that need to be followed.”

  “What kind of laws are you talkin’ about?”

  Emmett had another bout of coughing before he responded. “I’m talkin’ bout the laws of decency and good sense. Don’t take what ain’t yours, don’t cheat at cards—for that matter, don’t cheat at nothin’ else, either—don’t call a man a liar if he ain’t, and don’t be afraid to call him one if he is. And if you do, you have to be prepared to back it up.”

  “Back it up with a gun, you mean?”

  “Yes. Where we’re goin’, the time is more ’n likely goin’ to come when no matter how much you try and avoid it, you’ll wind up gettin’ pushed into a corner. When that happens, you won’t have no choice but to try and defend yourself. If the one who done the evil is faster and better with a gun than the one that got the evil done to him, the wrong man might die.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “I hope you do see what I mean, Kirby, because I’m going to teach you how to make a quick draw.”

  “Can you do a fast draw, Pa?”

  “Fair to middlin’.”

  “How did you learn?”

  Emmett leaned back against a big rock, thinking about what he wanted to say. “Remember me tellin’ you ’bout those boys from Texas? They taught me all the skills a person needs, and I can pass those skills on to you. But it takes more than skills. It takes a natural ability like what I was tellin’ you about. I’ve seen you move all your life, Kirby, and you got a natural way of doin’ it. Things has always come easy to you, easier than it ever did to your brother. Easier than it ever did to me, easier than it has to anyone else I’ve ever knowed or even seen. With a little practice, you’ll not only be a lot faster ’n me, few—if any—in the country will be able to stand up to you. But that’ll come with a sense of responsibility.”

  “What kind of responsibility?”

  “The responsibility to use your gun only when it’s right, only to defend yourself or the innocent. Can I count on you to do that?”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  “You promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  “I know you will, son. I only asked you to make the promise so’s it’ll be somethin’ you’ll always keep in your mind.” Emmett had another coughing spell.

  “Pa, you told the bartender that it was the dust makin’ you cough. Only, there ain’t no dust here now. Besides which, you been acoughin’ a lot ever’ since you got back from the war. Why is it you’re coughin’ so much? You ain’t got what they call the consumption, do you?”

  “Where did you hear about consumption?”

  “Miss Margrabe said her pa died of the consumption.”

  “I ain’t got the consumption. Now, are you ready for your first lesson?”

  “Yes sir, I reckon I am.”

  “Good. But before I teach you the fast draw, I’m going to have to teach you to shoot.”

  Kirby chuckled. “Pa, I’ve already showed you that I can shoot.”

  “You have, huh?” Emmett pointed to a thumb-sized protrusion from the branch of a nearby cottonwood tree. “Take a shot at that little branch for me.”

  Kirby raised the pistol to eye-level and fired. His bullet snapped the branch and he turned to his father with a satisfied smile on his face. “I told you I could shoot.”

  “You aimed, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because I wanted to hit what I was shootin’ at. That’s why.”

  Emmett gave instructions. “Shoot at it again, but don’t aim this time.”

  “What do you mean, don’t aim? I don’t understand. How am I going to hit it, if I don’t aim?”

  “You are going to think the bullet onto your target.”

  “What?”

  “Let me show you what I’m talking about.” Emmett pulled his own pistol and shot at the part of the branch that was left. He didn’t raise the pistol to eye level and aim, he just pulled the trigger and another piece of the branch was shot away.

  Kirby’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that wi
thout aiming?”

  “I told you. I just thought the bullet onto the target.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Emmett said as he put his pistol back in the holster. “There’s no sense in drawing really fast if you have to stop and aim. You have to draw, aim, and shoot all at the same time. In order to do that, you have to think the bullet onto the target. Now, you try it.”

  Kirby pulled the pistol and automatically started to raise it. He stopped himself, then held the gun out in front of his body and fired. He missed.

  Emmett stood up. “Here, let me help you out. Turn yourself at an angle, sort of caddy corner, so that you aren’t facing the target.” He positioned Kirby accordingly. “Now, don’t turn your body, but look at the target by turning your head back toward it.”

  Kirby responded.

  “Bring the pistol up to eye level and aim at the target, just as you did before, but don’t shoot.”

  Kirby did.

  “Good. Close your eyes and lower your pistol so that it is pointing straight down.”

  Kirby did as instructed.

  “Now, with your eyes closed, aim at it again.”

  Kirby opened his eyes and looked at his pa. “What do you mean, aim at it again? How am I going to do that if my eyes are closed?”

  “Just listen to me, boy. Close your eyes and with them still closed, bring your arm back up, thinking about where the target is. When you think you have it lined up, tell me.”

  Kirby closed his eyes and brought his arm up until he thought he was aligned with the target.

  “Pull the trigger, but don’t open your eyes.”

  Kirby pulled the trigger.

  “Now, open your eyes and look.”

  He did that and saw a white chip had been taken out of the limb, just below the small branch he had been shooting at. It was a miss, but it was a very close miss.

  “I almost hit it!” he said excitedly.

  “That was pretty good. Now, spread your feet apart about the width of your shoulders. Keep your legs straight, but not stiff. Think you can do that?”

  Kirby tried it a few times, then looked at Emmett. “Yes, I can do it.”

  “What are you going to do with your other arm?” Emmett asked.