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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Tommy Typhoon - Part Two
The Death Of Tommy Typhoon
Andrew Stuchlik
I stand with the glaring, beaming sun at my side. I slow my breathing to calm my body, to focus it into the actions that are to follow. I can feel the eyes of everyone around me, all of them staring at me, all of them are waiting in anticipation of what would happen in the next few seconds. My wife and my son are standing out in the audience. Annie’s praying and my son smiling, still too young to realize what was going on. The sight of his father’s face provides a comfort and security with just a smile; it was like he felt nothing could go wrong with his father near by.
I turn my head and stare down the man standing in front of me, a young face to be sure. He couldn’t be more than twenty years old. I see him looking at me but through his confidence, I can see the boy whose mouth and self-assurance had gotten him in deeper than he would’a liked. While I- on the other hand- am a more kind of experienced- secure.
I’ve done this, stood face to face with death and come out standing, more times than I can count now. This is how I provide for my family. This is how I give us the life that keeps us comfortable. Although, Annie would argue about how comfortable she was with my chosen profession. But, I’m a gunfighter and I am very good at what I do.
You see- for me- there was never any risk to it in my mind, for me it was just a cravin’ that I had to satisfy. It wasn’t the thirst for blood, or the taste for death that I had in mind. It was simply the hankerin’ to know who was better. That’s not to say that I didn’t know the risks of it, but it’s like I said before, I am a gunfighter and I am very good at what I do.
Some say that I’m just lucky but I just laugh. If this was a game of luck, then surely I could never have lasted this long. Luck has a way of catching up with you and I have yet to be caught. I’ve been injured over the years, but it wasn’t ever nothin’ but a sacrifice I made to win. You can’t always expect to get away unscathed, that’s just ridiculous to think such things. Alls you can do is aim true and try and keep your opponent from givin’ a blow you ain’t ready to take.
I ain’t never killed a man. Guess I never had it in me. I will win a gunfight, but I will never take another man’s life for the sake of a game. Which, I ‘spose, is rightly all this is. In all my years of doin’ this- all the times I have pulled the trigger- it was never in the aim to kill, and to this day, I never have. But, I ain’t never lost neither. It’s only ‘cause I do win that I ain’t dead yet, and that’s the same reason that I ain’t ever killed no one. I can tell where a fella is aimin’, even before he pulls his gun. It’s in their eyes. I compensate for this by where I aim. I ain’t no good to anyone if I let a fella hit me in the head, so I gotta make sure I hit his shoulder before he gets that round off. A man can’t hit nothin’ if he can’t lift his arm.
I spose some mistake me for arrogant, but it ain’t arrogance. I jus’ like a challenge and a lot of people know it. If you think you can beat me, well I welcome the challenge, but there ain’t much that can touch me when I am fightin’. Especially when I see my wife’s concern and my son’s smile; that’s pretty much it. It might as well be over after that. With them in my corner I don’t need much else.
The clock strikes twelve and the match ends with me standing and the other fellow hurtin’, and still, I ain’t ever killed a man before. That just happens to be something that people find real hard to believe. One of the most famous gunfighters there is, to have never killed a man, ‘specially considering how many men I’ve fought. But, that’s God’s Honest Truth- as true as I live and breath now- I have never sent a man to his grave.
Though, rumors of me exceed farther than I have ever traveled; that and the way that people have a way of spinning fact into something other than it is, follows me everywhere I go. There are more versions of my life- that I hear even from strangers- than there are any that I could ever imagine for myself. Maybe I’m not the creative type, or maybe I’m jus’ a lot more realistic ‘bout the way things really are.
I walk over to my family and I see that Annie is still covering her eyes and shutterin’ in the worst thoughts that come with the trade. She was always there for my fights, but I can count on one hand, the number she had actually watched. Bless her sweet heart.
I have been with a lot of women in my years, but ain’t none of ‘em ever been close to half the woman as Annie. She was like dynamite in my veins. She was one of the strongest women that I had ever met in my whole life, but every time I touched her, she melted under my fingertips. I love that woman more than I had ever loved anything. She had given me everything I hoped I could have: The heart of a beautiful woman, with all the support I could ever need in her eyes, and a son of my own, who was the spittin’ image of what was best in the two of us.
I hold her in my arms, like I do at the end of every one of my fights, and I can feel her sigh of relief on my chest. She holds me like I’ve just come back from the dead. My son snaps out of a temporary shock and runs to hug my leg; the sound of the gun fire scares him every time. I guess that I can’t really expect more outta a kid so small though. Hell, he’s barely four now and he’s been, only just recently, allowed to come to my fights in the first place.
Truly, I feel blessed every time I can hold them in my arms, even though the thrill of the fight still clinging to my veins. I walk over to the sponsor and he hands me a wad of bills as big as a fist. I take a few dollars off the top, slip them into my pocket, and hand the rest to Annie. She smiles at me and puts the rest of the money in her purse. I give her a kiss, I tell her that I love her, and that I will see her after while. She nods her head towards me and looks me in the eyes, penetrating every part of my heart. I pick up my son and hold him close to me, while I tell him that everything was going to be okay. He pulls away for a second, wiping the tears from his eyes, and smiles a big smile for me. He hugs me tight, I tell him to go with his mom, and that I would be home soon. They go, knowing that I would be.
Annie really never got too angry with me ‘bout the way I was after a fight. She knew that I needed time to wind down. And- she knew- just like I said, every night I was home to hold her. I think that was enough for her, jus’ knowing that I would be home, jus’ like I said I would.
I walk along the dusty road leadin’ up to the saloon and sweat is still pourin’ down my face under the hot sun. People are singin’ praise in my ears as I make my way to a little place called Betty’s. I have been to this town a few times, but out of all the towns I had been to, I never felt quite as comfortable as I did here. This is the kinda place that I could see myself settlin’ down in. It was kinda a small town, but most of the people who lived here were good, honest people you could rely on and that really makes all the difference.
I walk in and people all over the bar offer to buy me drinks. I oblige and tell them to gimme a double shot of whiskey straight up, no ice. Which is pretty much the same thing I always drank. I drink a few down and I talk with a few of the people who had seen my fights before. All of them are telling’ tales of things I had done in the past. Some of which were true and some of which that weren‘t, but all are being told over the laughs of the people who had claimed to see it. But, some of the people that were here, before I had gotten here, had gotten up and left.
I was used to that sorta thing. Some people like to only believe the worst in people, and believed all the rumors of all the men that people had said I’d killed. I didn’t think much of it, cause those kinda people were everywhere that I went. Those were the same sort of people that I didn’t want to share a drink with. Close minded fools of people who only want the world to be terrible because that was easier that to think that a gunfight didn’t have to be so dreadful a thing.
I see the man that I fought today walk into the bar. His arm is in a sling, but otherwise okay. He comes over to me, weaving through the crowd of people and shakes my hand. I smile at him and give him a pat on the back. We talk a little, and say little more than necessary. I reach into my pocket, and hand the bartender the money, and tell him, that tonight, this man drinks for free.
Most people that saw me do this, were taken back by it, but if my opponent was a good sport about it, I did this most every time after a fight. They may have lost, but tonight was still their night more than mine. They had tested themselves, and though they may have come up still wanting, they were brave enough to step out there. For that, they had my respect, and I felt it only polite to pay. That was the only reason I carried money with me at all, I ‘spose.
So I am drinkin’ down a few drinks, after most of the people had gone home, and after the wind that had been blowing the saloon doors steadily open and close had died down, between the fight, and all the people that had flocked around me earlier, I felt a little worn out. A man approaches me, one that I had seen before, one whose reputation was well known just bout everywhere there was people. His name was Silas McGrath, and rumor had it that he ran with a gang of Mexicans known for their ruthlessness and brutality. The newspapers were littered with their exploits. Stealing, raping, and death in their every step, their calling card. Couldn’t be more then twenty men or so, but they were feared the country over for their cruelty.
“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?” Silas asks.
“I’m okay.” I tell him.
“Bout ready to call it a night.” I say, finishing up my drink.
“Well I got something to say anyhow, and I think you should probably hear it, if you got any sense at all.” He says. I push my glass forward, and I sigh hard.
“I’m listening.” I say to him, more annoyed than anything else.
“I want you to throw the fight tomorrow.” He says, and I look at him like he’s half-mad. Booze and a good time can make people say some crazy things, so I give him a minute, but starin’ into his eyes, I knew he wasn’t kiddin’.
“You see, that guy your facin’ tomorrow, just so happens to be a cousin of mine.”
“Gotta alot of money ridin’ on that cousin of mine to win.”
“More money than most men ever see in a lifetime.”
“They say that you have never been beaten in a gun fight before.”
“So needless to say, the odds are through the roof.”
“I suppose they are.” I say.
“So you understand then.” He says to me.
“There’s alot of money to be made off this.”
“Listen.” I say.
“I ain’t ever thrown a fight in all my life.”
“I ain’t about to start now.” I can tell that he is getting angry at the fact that he didn’t intimidate me right away. At first he just smiles a crooked smirk at me. Then the smiles drops off his face and he stares at me hard, trying to figure out if I was bluffing or not. He got even angrier when he realized I was unaffected by his stares.
“You think you can keep doing this forever?” He asks me.
“Eventually your luck is gonna run out, and then where will you be?”
“You’ll be dead or your career will be over, and you‘ll have nothing but the clothes on your back.” He says. I stand straight up and look him in the eyes, a few of the other guys that had followed him in started to stand, but with a motion, he tells them to sit back down.
“The only way your cousin will beat me, is if he’s better than me.” I say to him.
This really pisses him off. His eyes flare up, but there wasn’t nothin’ he could do. I knew that if he‘d tried to per sway me like this, he knew that I would out gun that cousin of his.
Then, out of nowhere, he starts to laugh. It doesn’t break the hostile mood or anythin‘, but only makes the air thicker. Things get even more tense, if that was even possible. But I knew that I couldn’t back down, and I am not sure I could have anyways. It jus’ wasn’t in my nature. People had tried to bully me over the years, but they all go away after they realize that I wasn’t for sale.
Money was never a real big thing for me. It took care of my family and gave us what we needed and everything we could want, but it was not what drove me, or my wife‘s ambitions. It was just a bonus for me, and for Annie, it was just paper that made it so we could give our son what we never had as kids…. Stability.
He starts to say something, but stops himself, going over it in his head as if he was reciting something from a book. He nods when he thinks that he has it to the rhythm that he wants to say it in.
“As I see it, you’ve got two choices.” He says.
“You can either agree to this arrangement, and make a fortune that most men will never see in all their lives...”
“Or you WILL lose, and you WILL get nothing.”
“What makes you so sure?” I ask him, as a sickly Cheshire grin comes over his face.
“You see.” He starts.
“I made a special kind of deal.”
“I made a special kind of deal with the man who specializes in special sort of deals.” He says.
“You better be careful what kind of deals you make with a fella like that.” I tell him.
“Chances are, it won’t come out the way you wanted.” I warn him, my expression and tone of a voice that is never wavering, and I do not give even a single inch. He just laughs it off and says:
“We’ll see.” He says.
“IF you don’t, you WILL lose, Tommy.”
“And I will be there to see it, of that I AM sure.” He gets up, and a few of the other men in the bar get up and leave with him.
I try not to think much of it. If there is a man here that can beat me, in any number that they can come in, then I would be more than glad to meet them. I dream of the day that I can go without being constantly challenged. Without the constant attention. It’s all still a game for me now, but there will come a day that Annie will have had enough of all of this. We already have more money than we know what to do with. We don’t need anything else even now, but I won’t give up now, maybe ever, it just isn’t in me and I don’t think it ever was. And, I’m still entirely too young to retire.
I go back to the suite that we were staying at in the hotel, and I am greeted by my wife. My son had already fallen asleep in the adjoining bedroom, which was fine by both of us. The time that I spent alone with Annie were some of the best times I had ever had. Don’t get me wrong, I love my son, with all of my heart, and with every bit of me. I thank God everyday that I have him, but Annie was something completely different. She was an angel that had no rightly purpose being here on earth. But, she was mine, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do that could take her from me.
The way that she kisses me, is the way that kisses were meant to feel. The way that I feel when I hold her is a gift that no other but God himself could know. She knew me inside and out, sometimes I wondered if she knew me better than I ever knew myself. She is all that ever could be dreamed in a woman, all that ever could be love.
I bring her home something special today, though. I bring her a rosary made by the finest materials, bound by a piece of heaven itself. She was a god-fearin’ woman, but I spose I couldn’t blame her, considering the line of work I was in. When she saw it, her eyes grew large and her skin grew softer, if that was even possible. She put it around her neck, and thanked me without ever saying a word. Those next hours passed by in seconds flashing together to a perfect harmony of sights and feelings.
I wake up the next morning, with her in my arms, and my son nuzzling his way in between us two. I sit up a little and smile when I see his face. I tussle his hair for a minute, and lie my head back down, after closing him in my arm too. We sleep like that for a few more hours before I wake up, knowing it was time for me to get ready to go.
We have, what has become a little ritual. We get out of bed together, and while my son is playing, and my wife cooking breakfast, I slowly get ready. I take time to make sure everything is perfect, before I even step out into the dining room. I grab my son and pick him up playfully, sit him down in his seat, and then I sit down. We all join hands and pray, and then we all enjoy a light-hearted breakfast, joking with each other like we hadn’t seen each other in weeks.
After this, I tell my son good bye, and kiss my wife. I tell her that everything will be fine. She nods with a tear in her eye of all the could-be’s and waves me as I walk off into the town. I need time to prepare myself before every fight. It helps me get my head into the right place. A place where I ain’t getting killed, a place where I ain’t killing no one. I knew that they would meet me at the fight, just like they always do.
I start to head to where I am supposed to be a few hours later, and I see a little boy walking with his parents. I can tell that he recognizes me, but before he can finish saying hello, his parents stop him. I knew why they had, but it kinda got on my nerves, even though I was growing more and more used to it. I deal with people like this a lot. People who believe the rumors of Typhoon Tommy, or at least the more morbid of the rumors. They say that Typhoon Tommy isn’t really a man at all, just a demon wearing a man suit. That he has slain countless men, with no rival. That he made a pact with the devil, and that he is untouchable by mortal men. They think that Typhoon Tommy is a monster.
None of these things were actually true, but I can’t stop rumors, just like I can’t stop people from believing what they want to believe. But, just cause people believe it, don’t make it any more true, in fact it don’t make it true at all. People can believe whatever they want, and there ain’t nothin I can do or say to change their minds.
I walk out to the middle of town around eleven-fifty. I walk to my side, and I can see that the man is already in his. I look over the crowd and pick out my wife and my son. Standing there in support just like they always do, and I gaze at the people’s faces in the crowd, jus’ like I always do. I can see faces I have never seen before, there is one man in particular, that stands out cause he is obviously trying not to stand out. I never see his face, but I don’t think much of it now. There is only one thing that I have to think about now, and he is right in front of me.
I hear the bell strike once, then twice, and finally the twelfth time. We draw and I shoot. The poor man never even had a chance to draw before it was over. I smile and look down at the ground for a second, before I lift my head back up. I turn and look to the place where my wife and son had been, but now are gone. I’m in shock for a second, frozen in place where my feet rest. They had never left before I had come to them, in all the history of all the fights they were there for. My heart races as I run through the crowd looking for them.
I call out their names as loud as I can, pushing hard at the people who are in my way. I run up and down the streets, and in a few of the shops, but they weren’t there. And that’s when I hear it, gunshots, just two. My body surges with energy as I run to the spot where they had come from. I see Silas there, standing over the bodies of my wife and son, smiling.
“I told you, you WOULD lose Tommy.” He says.
“I told you, I would be here to see it.” He jumps up on his horse, and rides out of town before anyone else had made it over. There wasn’t a sheriff in this town, not that it would matter much. Everyone was too afraid of him to do anything about it anyhow.
My body is shaking and I collapse to my knees. Tears well up in my eyes and I can’t barely see nothin. I have this pain in my guts that is like nothing I had ever felt in my life. I open my mouth and an emotion pours out in an audible noise. People would tell stories afterwards of hearing two different things. One group spoke of hearing a yell so fierce that the devil himself ran for cover. The other said that it was all the sadness in all the world pouring out from a man in a single scream. The reality is that it was both in the same sound.
I get light-headed as I hold my wife and son in my arms, pulling them close to me. I sit there on the street for almost an hour with my heart pouring down my face. I hold my wife and son’s head in my arms, with agony filling up all the places of me, the places that didn‘t used to exist at all.. It’s now breathing, smiling, and alive.
I see Annie’s rosary still hanging from her neck, I gently lift it off, and wrap it from my hand almost all the way up my arm. I squeeze it tight in my hand, and a mixture of two different types of blood drip from it’s still pearly beads.
The undertaker stares at me solemnly, his eyes pouring tears down his normally stern, bony face. I lay them both carefully on the ground and rise, still unable to take my eyes off of the shell of my family. Without moving my gaze, I handed him a stack of bills bigger than anything he had ever seen before, and told him to prepare a funeral like he had never done before, to use all of his skills to cover up what they had done, so I could have an open casket funeral. He nods, and tells me that he will do everything he can, barely being able to speak over hidden sobs.
Its about dark now, and the tears from my face have finally stopped running. My whole body is on fire. I have never thought such evils as I am thinking at this moment. I walk down the street not slow, but not too fast either. People’s mournful glares trying to meet my face as I pass them by, but I don’t let a single one look into my face. They would surely see something that I have never been before this moment. They would see a man that I have never been before. I guess he wasn’t even so much a man at all, but more rather the whispers of nightmares too frightful to speak of. I had become the cold sweats that exist between the nightmare and the reality suddenly becoming strikingly similar.
I get on my horse and start heading out to the ranch that I knew I would find them at. They lived a good ten miles outside town. They probably figured that they could see anyone coming on the flat Kansas landscape from there. It gave me some time alone with my thoughts but I really couldn’t think at all. I ain’t never killed no man before, so why would they take my family from me? I might have been stubborn but I did not deserve this, and neither did my wife and son.
Mostly all I did on the ride out there was pray. I prayed that my son and my wife had already found heaven, and they were some place better. Somewhere far away from all the terrible things that were in this world. But, most of all, I just prayed that if they were up there staring down at me, that they would cover their eyes before they saw what I was about to do.
The wind that was blowing hints of what was to come, were drown out in my ears by a hate surging in the emptiness where my insides once were. I get around to the front of the house and get off my horse slowly. Two Mexicans had their guns trained on me as I made my way up to the front doors. They look at me, knowing who I was, and that I knew who they were.
“Where’s Silas?” I ask em, my voice cold and devoid of any recognizable human feeling.
“Depends on what you want with him.” The taller one of the two tells me, almost stuttering as they forced the words out.
“I want to see him.” I respond.
“Gotta take your gun.” The other one says to me. Both of them seem on edge, probably expecting me to come here. Both of them weary about the things that they had heard of me.
The shorter one reaches for my gun, sitting in my holster. He only reaches for one, while the other was sitting kind of hidden by my long overcoat. The other man is staring me down, as I am sizing them both up in my mind.
Then as swiftly and fluid as an ocean current, one, then two men lay dead at my feet, both of them now the same height lying on their stomach’s. Not a single bullet wasted, not a single motion wasted. The stains of their blood are setting in to my clothes, as puddles leaked out from holes in their bodies and collected around the soles of my boots. I reload my guns, figuring I would probably need every bullet I came here with. I ain’t ever killed a man before this moment, and now two were dead, and there was a part of me that liked it. There was this brand new part of me that thirsted for more to feed the emptiness, the demon inside of me that they had let loose.
I kick open the door hard with my foot and the men inside are taken by surprise. I don’t really know how they didn’t hear the first two shots, but I am not thinking now. I’m just acting, reacting to a rage that drives me. I’m no longer a man at this moment, I am their worst nightmares of un-quartering unremorseful.
My actions are now like a symphony, in every move I make, every pull of the trigger perfectly synchronized. I am without fault or opening this mistake. The men fall around me into limp piles of flesh with every flash of the rounds fired from my guns. I walk slowly only stopping behind the pillars that provided perfect cover, every now and then to reload. They yell in horror, but I just grow more beyond reach every time the holes appear in each one of their foreheads. Twenty-two who had once stood in that open space, who had once breathed, once lived, now lie twenty-two dead men.
I breathe out, as all the men in the room lie dead at my feet. Silas not among them, well at least not yet. I kick down the doors of each of the rooms that I pass by, killing anyone who may be in there, one by one, until I finally get to his office. He is sitting with his chair turned to the wall. He sits in silence, waiting for me.
He gets up slowly and we stand at opposite sides of the room from each other. We are both preparing for what would come next. He is calm, and I am enraged. He motions for the draw, and I shoot out his shoulder. Then I take his other shoulder from him. Next his left leg, then his right. He is kneeling before me when I walk up to him. I kick his deck to one side of the room, and his eyes remain fixed to the floor. He has no illusions of living through this, and I can tell that he is scared. His emotions fall on a man whose heart had died on that street today, by his hand, and I feel nothing. I put my gun up against his head, as my finger caresses the trigger. I realize something in that moment, something that I prayed would never come true.
People would talk about this incident for decades to come. The tale of the Manhattan massacre. Thirty five men in all would die in this ranch today, all from the hand of one man. All from the hand of one demon.
Two things happened when I pulled the trigger that last time, other than seeing what the inside of what Silas’ head looked liked. With that last gunshot of the night, two things rung out in my head, the only things I could hear over the noise of my own pain. Typhoon Tommy was dead, and I have become the monster that everyone always thought I would be.
Part Three - The Life and Times of Thomas Sanderson>>
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