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Short Stories & Tall Tales
The Guitar Shooter
Tom Sheehan
His mother, once called “The Diva of Independence,” said only a week after he was born, “He came with the notes, the beat and the rhythm locked in place, deep inside him forever.” And she had the vision of him hailed far and wide as the one who played “The Sweetest Guitar in the West.” She never had an inkling that he’d also be called the “Smoothest Gunman the Gods Ever Sent to Texas.”
Her name was Dulcet Randall, born Dulcet Duclan on one of the fiery streets of early Brooklyn, amid ruin, growth, mess, thievery, slums, bigots and bastards galore. She was a doorstep singer at five years of age escorted by her brawny father, at her mother’s insistence, along a line of street doors where she sang the most beautiful songs in four languages that her mother taught her, the hum in her voice from the time she was born. She swore to the day of her death that she could remember that hum … and her father’s hand holding her hand, and no man within reach ever threatened her with him at her side. Eventually his wife made Gordon “Shove” Duclan quit his job on the New York docks to guide Dulcet on her rounds where she earned more on some days than he did in a week.
Then, again at her mother’s insistence, when Dulcet was 8 and the range of her voice moving on from “the pretty little kid with the lovely voice,” the family left Brooklyn and headed west by various means, some of the transportation earned by Shove Duclan, and some eased from the source by his prowess at convincing people, which he learned at the docksides of New York.
With either approach they ended up in Independence, Missouri, which Mrs. Duclan found most favorable, and where she found work as a teacher of voice, Dulcet being her prime student and precious example to persuade potential singers and their parents unto her tutelage. She loved the hustle and bustle of the sprawling community, the wagons loaded with people and hope and dreams, a constant energy going across the land from one ocean to the other, from one huge city to the solemn plains where the prairie flowers scented the dusty roads every now and then, where adventure beckoned those who dared being adventurous.
But, she often thought, Independence might be far enough for her, for them. Her husband would always work as he did here in Missouri; he was born for it and she was making a mark of her own, getting things done. It was a fit.
In one of life’s quick turn of events, Ambrose “Shove” Duclan was shot in the back by an errant shot from a very errant shooter in a street duel. Dulcet was 15 years old, a most beautiful singer of arias and similar classical compositions and one of the most beautiful young women ever to appear in any part of Independence … including those who lived there and those who passed through in continuous waves, bound for the wild west and perhaps the blue Pacific itself.
And the eyes of two young people caught the other’s during a musical performance in a crowded tent beside her mother’s little studio. Dulcet sang a song of which young David Randall could not understand a single word, but the song hung itself permanently in his mind, along with the eyes of the singer. He had been on his way west, but found that he could not move on without that beautiful young singer at his side. His father, ready to move on again, simply said, “Davie boy, it’s best you catch up to us someplace in Texas whenever you can.” He, too, had been smitten early by a similar pair of eyes.
The young couple romanced for two years and married when her mother died from a bad infection and, immediately after the burial, Dulcet reminded David of what his father had said, and added, “Let’s go find them in Texas.” She was one month with child. And her next birthday, a week off, would be her 18th.
Her son, Devon Randall, born to play “the sweetest guitar in the west,” came aboard the family in the northeast corner of Texas, in the growing town of Plano, in 1858. Dulcet opened a private little school where she also taught music. Her husband, still at her insistence, made a few trips to larger cities like Dallas and Fort Worth looking for leads to his family’s whereabouts. His searches did not appear to be thorough.
Devon was 8 years old, bold and good with the guitar, when his father got the first good lead and they headed further west, to Abilene where they got the best and final word … his family was in Slaton, Texas near Lubbock. They left Plano on the final leg of their journey. It was 1866, the Civil War was over, and Devon, secretly, had found himself loving weapons, especially pistols, as well as he loved the guitar. He was enamored of gunslingers and how they wore and worked their weapons, and the sharp notes of rapid gunfire and the unforgettable and infamous smell of burnt gunpowder.
His grandfather, Douglas Randall, had worked his way west and found a small ranch in Slaton, Texas that prospered with his hard work. Long had he thought of searching for his son, and had sent several letters in his name back to the last known place of temporary residence, Independence, Missouri, but never received a reply.
On this day of June 12, 1866, he had risen at his usual early hour, before the dawn flash, to think accountably of his new day and the aims and needs it brought upon him. Again he’d face the day with the pain that had settled on his wife’s face, knowing she too worried about and missed her son. She knew nothing of the trouble that might come at them; he had kept his odd encounters from her, the threats from a supposed unknown source, demands coming when he was alone, as if he were followed all the time by some invisible rider keeping tabs on him, knowing where he was every hour of day or night.
His small patch of land, small for Texas, was wanted by someone not quite particular about methods of persuasion or threat.
Randall’d fight his way through anything if he could spare his wife another pain, another ache to carry within, about their son someday finding them, as her husband’s awful last words never went away, the casual departure he had also hated every day since he uttered them … though half in jest, half was in certainty.
He had to depend on that conviction, and this morning came different upon the couple. His appearance in the kitchen came after his wife Priscilla’s, who had his breakfast nearly ready and a near smile on her face. Immediately he thought it was more than a nice gesture, which usually came later in the day as part of dismissing her poor morning displays. She was gracious and loving, but said little other than her usual talk.
Randall hugged her after the meal and said, “I’m off to the lower section. I’ll probably be back for lunch, at least supper, but keep it warm in case.” He patted her on the rump and she patted him back. Night for them, he knew, would come soon enough.
The birds of morning filled the air with a pleasant music that seemed to hover at ground level and then went soaring aloft. A soft wind carried the smell of rich grass in a slow wave almost coloring his skin with a pink tenderness he had not known in quite some time. The horse under him was a long-time favored mount that never shirked work no matter how long the day carried itself.
Mornings in Texas of the day never knew what darkness would bring in tow … thieves, strange gunmen, rustlers, a friend in need, a visit from wherever, a twist of the day the morning could not reveal in its shades and shadows.
The day had so begun. The sun not yet up. Graces abounding for the couple in a separate way for each of them, he on his mount, and she in her kitchen, the hours and tasks lined up for them.
In the saddle in the lower section of the spread, low hills on the western side catching early sun rays, wildlife abounding in ear more than the eye, his horse in a slow comfort walk as the land became fully visible off to the far hills and one peak already lit up, he heard, unbelievably at first, a strumming guitar in the hands of an expert player. The hands of the player for a moment appeared in the back of his mind as they worked the strings. He closed his eyes and felt the strings somewhere on his body in a likely response, a repetition from another day.
The music had sat him upright in the saddle. Something new was afoot, something new in the very air, something new that he might talk about before evening was over, the notes crossing to his ears and his full attention across a wide place from where he knew a depression dented the earth and provided, at odd times, a place of rest for weary travelers ... or for secrecy. Never had he ushered people off his land, but always had checked them out, having seen in his journeys and work some strange undertakings by strange people.
Danger might never be further away than a horse’s sprint or the next rise, or dip, in the land.
The music from the guitar made him, at first, a bit envious, because he always yearned for such a talent, but fully realized his energies went elsewhere as needed. Yet he was able to discern some exceedingly good talent working the strings of the instrument. It brought a glorious collection of notes that he knew would sink into his soul, for a most special feeling was upon him.
Then, in a sudden revelation of beauty, he heard the loveliest voice singing a song he could not understand a word of but whose rhythm and beat definitely settled deeply in his soul: for a few luscious and precious moments he believed he had heard the voice before, back in the past so deep it might not come back again … but it had come back and he dared think of his son and the love of his life, the way his own first love, his only love, had been.
For all practical purposes, for common sense itself, the song came uproariously odd, unbelievable, and then indistinct as he felt flooded with dreams, and dares for dreams, and a hard pinch of reality snapping at the back of his neck like a struck match. His horse detected a difference that Randall would remember later, as his hoof beats stopped in mid-gait, ears perked, pointed, pulling his head to one side, toward the depression in the land.
Randall’s eyes closed. He dared not dream. He heard again his last words spoken to his son as they had echoed over all the years, and how often they had come back from Priscilla’s mouth, her eyes filled with emotional statements.
Then, the rush came upon him.
He saw himself rushing into the kitchen, grasping her in his arms, saying the words he had savored for all the dark years: “He’s here!”
The beautiful singing voice told him it would happen. Undeniably, it would happen. He saw Priscilla’s smile, her life turn again in another instant.
And the yell came, from across the grass, from across the years, “Hey, Pa, it’s us, me and Dulcet and Devon. D’you get our letter? Now you’re going to be a grandpa again. How’s Ma? You have to tell her she’s going to be a grandma again before she knows it?”
The music continued from the guitar and from the beautiful voice of a woman.
The elder Randall leaped from the saddle and hugged his son as he looked upon the singer in her swollen beauty and a young man, fair-headed, blue-eyed, handsome as a new colt, dressed in a dark vest, pale green shirt, well-worn black pants, and a pair of pistols on his belt,
This was his grandson. He was positive. Again he could hear himself say, in the kitchen as Priscilla stood by the pump or at the table, “This here’s your grandson, Grandma.”
Now, the handsome youngster still playing, the elder Randall heard hoof beats coming to spoil his grand surprise.
Four riders appeared without warning, as if issued from the earth itself, or from another hidden depression in the land.
“Hey there, Randall. We don’t allow no strangers in the area. You now that, so you best send them on their way clear out of here and clear out of Slaton for that matter.” He spurred his horse so it stood directly in front of all the Randalls, including the young pup still playing the guitar in a slowed down beat, the notes at a bass end of hearing, drum-like, getting ominous, sending a message not clearly understood by the lone talker of the mysterious riders.
But there was a message in the air of the new morning.
The big mouth talker, staring down at the guitar strummer, perhaps suddenly aware of the daring tone, the deep resentment in the beat, said, “Well, kid, you keep that up and I’ll make you strum “This Place is My Place” and make you dance at the same time. He started to reach for his sidearm, had it in his lazy right hand, when the guitarist, with his left hand drew one of his own pistols and shot the gun out of the big mouth’s hand.
As a second rider went for his gun when the youngster dropped the guitar, he too was shot but by a gun in the youngster’s right hand, both guns smoking in the morning air.
For lone moments there was no sound, no movement, then the elder Randall, with his gun now in hand and leveled at the four riders, said, “Whitey, you go back and tell your boss this land ain’t for sale, now or ever. My whole family is here now, and we’ll be something hard to contend with. He put a shot under the horses and they galloped off, to report to their boss, he supposed, to Hank Dukeshire, a rancher too big for his shiny boots and who called himself The Duke.
David Randall made the introductions. “Pa, you remember Dulcet, don’t you? She’s going to have another child soon. And this is our son Devon, this guitar player and this shooter. He’s made for Texas. It took us all this time to get here. Now where’s Ma?”
Douglas Randall asked for one thing; to let him be the first one to walk in the house and give the news. “I’ve dreamed about it ever since … ,” and he hung his head at the memory.
He shook his head to shake away the tears, hugged them all, and said again, “I’ve dreamed this for all these years.”
The tears were real, the ride was short as they came up on the ranch behind the barn, and he dismounted there and walked slowly to the house.
His wife was at the door before he got there. “What is it?” she said, knowing he never had enjoyed a short day since they came to Texas, since they came to this ranch.
He simply said as he put his arms around her, the years wiped away in a hurry, the dream sequence gone its way, too, “They’re here.” He had a hard time letting go of her.
She looked over his shoulder, and there was a jolt at her heart that leaped into her throat. She couldn’t speak, though she tried, the words staying in place but arguing for escape, wanting to be screamed.
The arrivals had appeared at the side of the barn, the brilliant sun lighting them up, the Texas sky bluer than she’d ever seen it, the lone cloud she swore was heart-shaped and the single decimal point in the whole universe focusing on the single note of her dreams … her long-lost family, her son, her daughter-in-law, and without a doubt her grandson as handsome as she might never have dreamed.
They partied all day long, the kitchen brimming with activity, aromas, plates full and filled again, her table almost alive, chatter and songs and the rich beautiful voice of Dulcet and the guitar with its endless sweetness lifting her at times off her feet. She felt so light, so light-headed, so happy, and her husband had regained the lost years that she too had lost and welcomed back the best way she knew … in the kitchen.
*
Whitey Dascomb, it was learned from a friend, had left town without seeing his boss, and his pards went with him. Then, a spattering of reports began to sift back into Slaton’s Good Grass Saloon about what happened at the Randall ranch, coming from towns down the line near Lubbock, about the guitar-playing gunman that Douglas Randall had hired: “He plays the guitar like he plays his guns, sweet and smooth and deadly accurate.” “Don’t let the kid fool you, he’s so young looking, but he ain’t. Probably got a dozen kills to his credit.” “Word I have is he comes from Oklahoma where he cleaned up a whole town in one day, then played all night at the saloon putting all the customers into happy dreams.” “If he’s got the guitar in one hand, he’s got a gun in the other hand, you can bet on it.”
On the first visit to the saloon since his son arrived, Doug Randall saw rather than heard a quick difference in the room, a change in the air, a hush settling upon the crowd. He spotted Dukeshire at the end of the bar with a few of his hands, the buzzing among them coming immediately to him. Though he couldn’t understand what was being buzzed about, it made him feel a bit relaxed that he hadn’t brought David along with him, or Devon.
Dukeshire separated himself from his group and came to stand in front of Randall, his eyes as hard as he could make them, his face getting redder and more flustered as if the image of his deserted hands had run completely around the room, all because some kid musician supposedly had run them off. What a joke that was, and all the stories that had come out of nowhere about a mysterious kid nobody else had seen. Maybe one who didn’t exist and was created by Randall himself.
He said, aloud for the room as well as Randall, “Some folks making talk about new tenants at your place. It ain’t going to make my offer any better that you got some mysterious tenants nobody has seen yet, and they tell me one of them’s a hired gun. Why’d someone shoot at my men who only came to repeat my offer?”
Randall said, “Where are they now, these men of yours? Get them in here so they can say what happened. So everybody in town can hear for themselves what really happened.”
Dukeshire’s response sounded as weak as could be: “I sent them off on another job. They’ll be gone a few weeks.”
“You mean, when you can chase them down and found out for yourself why they ran off.”
Dukeshire’s head nod brought his men to his side.
Chairs shifted in the room as many customers felt the air change again, saw a confrontation move toward reality, and realized the dreaded close quarters around them.
Still red in the face, Dukeshire said, “I don’t like you saying my hired men are quitters.” He looked over the five men who had closed ranks behind him. “Are you calling these men quitters?” He had shifted blame as he shifted his feet, a slight leaning in his posture.
Behind the bar the bartender and owner of the Green Grass Saloon, Joe Ditson, nodded at his piano player to play some music and looked around for any members of the band that were going to play that night, a group from down in Lubbock where their shows had been hailed.
He didn’t see any of them who had come in earlier to look the place over, put their equipment in place in one corner where the piano was now being warmed up.
Randall, he thought, should not have come alone. It wasn’t right for him to come with all the noise and out-of-town reports coming back about Dukeshire’s men getting run off by a kid. It was more embarrassing than anything The Duke had faced before: Nobody had ever quit on him, but he knew Whitey Dascomb was gone, was not around.
Dukeshire yelled loudly again, this time saying, “You shot at my men for no reason. I sure don’t like that. Why don’t you try that on me? Why not go for your gun now, Mr. Randall.” He stood poised, in front of his hired hands, an armed force in front of one man.
Randall looked around the room for some support, but still glad he had not brought along his son or grandson. They were here now at the ranch, finally at home. Priscilla was as happy as she’d ever been. He sensed a balance floating around him, and a surge of joy nobody else would ever know or ever suspect.
A man across the room suddenly stood up and said, “You ain’t really bracing one man now, are you Duke? With all your men? He ain’t really alone, you know.”
Hardly any breaths were taken in the saloon for long moments, questions leaping in the air, possibilities afoot, gunfire promised at the slightest move, false or otherwise.
The swing of the saloon door suddenly grabbed everybody’s attention, and a young man walked in, went toward the piano player starting into his song, and picked up one of two guitars leaning against the wall. In a second he was into the song with the piano player, the notes coming so sweetly, so convincingly true that each person in the room sensed the difference in the air, surely knew that the promised evening show would be as good as they had heard.
The piano player kept the song going, the guitar player kept with him in beautiful chords, the notes touching every man in the room. That included Dukeshire with a sudden revelation beginning to sweep through him, and Randall who was momentarily angry, and then comforted by a smile he had seen on his wife’s face.
Devon Randall, his guitar notes coming from some musical heaven, walked toward the confrontation scene at the bar, both hands at the instrument, and twin pistols showing their home on his gun belt, a wide black ribbon around his slim waist.
Dukeshire’s men shifted uneasily when their boss exhibited both surprise and question on his face as he wondered if all of them were really like Whitey Dascomb and his pards, their loyalty only going so far. And here came a moment of decision walking toward him with, of all things, a stupid guitar in his hands … in both hands. A kid, a blond kid. A kid too good looking to be all that was being said about him. A kid with both hands busy.
It was now or never for him. Too many questions hanging loose. Too much embarrassment in place. Too many people watching the kid approach him, actually threatening him, a kid with a dozen kills to his credit, as some had said.
It was too much for him. His hand dipped. His hired hands stepped back … the cowards!
He found his Colt with ease.
But the kid’s hand, the kid’s gun, and the kid’s bullet were too fast for The Duke. The slug shattered his right hand so he’d never use it again. His hired hands were frozen in place.
Musical notes still hung upon the air late that evening in the saloon, with the new group playing to a crowd still excited from earlier in the day. And on the porch of the Randall’s ranch house where the sweetest guitar player in the west, and the Smoothest Gunman the Gods Ever Sent to Texas, played and sang several times his newest song, “Gettin’ on home, gettin’ on home, got me a brush and a comb, getting’ on home, gettin’ on home.”
His grandparents were the happiest people he had ever seen.
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