The riders stopped out beyond the firelight and a voice called out, not loud, "Hello, the fire!
Can we come in?"
"If you're friendly, you're welcome.
Coffee's on."
Those days nobody rode right up to a fire or a house. It was customary to stop off a bit and call in--it was also a whole lot safer.
There were three of them, one about my own age, the other two a mite older. They were roughly dressed, like men who were living out in the brush, and they were heavily armed. These men, by the look of them, were on the dodge. his'Light and set. We're peaceful folk."
They sat their horses, their eyes missing nothing, noting the Tinker there, knife in hand.
"You with the knife." The speaker was a handsome big man with a shock of dark, untrimmed hair. "You wishin' trouble?"
"Fixed for it. Not hunting it."
The big man swung down, keeping his horse between himself and the fire. "You look like movers," he said pleasantly. "I was a mover one time ... moved to Texas from Tennessee." He gestured to the others. "These here are gen-u-ine Texans."
He hunkered down beside the fire as the others dismounted, and I passed him the coffee pot. He was wearing more pistols than I ever did see, most men being content with one. He had two belted on in holsters and a third shoved down in his waistband.
Unless I was mistaken, he had another, smaller one in his coat pocket.
Loading a cap-and-ball pistol took time, so a man apt to need a lot of shooting often took to packing more than one gun. There was an outlaw up Missouri way who sometimes carried as many as six when on a raid. Others carried interchangeable cylinders so they could flip out an empty and replace it with a loaded one.
When the Tinker walked up to the fire they saw the other knives.
"You don't carry a pistol?"
"I can use these faster than any man can use a gun."
The youngest of them laughed. "You're saying that to the wrong man. Cullen here, he's learned to draw and fire in the same instant."
The Tinker glanced at the big man. "Are you Cullen Baker?" [The First Fast Draw, Bantam Books, 1959]
"That I am." He indicated the quiet-seeming man beside him. "This here's Bob Lee, and that's Bill Longley."
"I'm the Tinker, and this here is Orlando Sackett."
"You're dark enough for an Indian," Cullen Baker said to the Tinker, "but you don't shape up to be one."
"I am a gypsy," Tinker said, and I looked around, surprised. I'd heard tell of gypsies, but never figured to know one. They were said to be a canny folk, wanderers and tinkerers, and he was all of that.
Cullen Baker and his friends were hungry, but they were also tired, and nigh to falling asleep while they ate.
"If you boys want to sleep," I said, "you just have at it. The Tinker and me will stand watch."
"You're borrowing trouble just to feed us," Bob Lee said. "We've stood out against the Carpetbag law, so Governor Davis' police are out after us."
"We're outcasts," Baker said.
"My people have been outcasts as long as the memory of man," the Tinker said.
"No Sackett," I said, "so far as I know, was ever an outlaw or an outcast. On the other hand, no Sackett ever turned a man from his fire. You're welcome to stop with us."
When they had stripped the gear from their horses the other two went back into the brush to sleep, avoiding the fire; but Cullen Baker lingered, drinking coffee.
"What started you west?" he asked.
"Why," I told him, "it was one of those old-timey gospel-shouters set me to considering it.
He preached lively against sin. He was a stomper and a shouter, but a breast-beater and a whisperer, too.
"When he got right down to calling them to the Lord, he whispered and he pleaded, and right there he lost me. Seems if the Lord really wants a man it doesn't need all that fuss to get him worked up to it. If a man isn't ready for the Lord, then the Lord isn't ready for him, and it's a straight-forward proposition between man and God without any wringing of the hands or hell-fire shouting.
"When that preacher started his Bible-shouting and talking large about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, I was mighty taken with him. He seemed more familiar with the sins of those foreign places than he did with those of Richmond or Atlanta, but mostly he was set against movers.
"Sinful folk, he said, and the Lord intended folks to stay to home, till the earth, and come to church of a Sunday. By moving, they set their feet on unrighteous paths.
"Fact was, he talked so much about sin that I got right interested, and figured to look into it. A man ought to know enough to make a choice; and pa, he always advised me to look to both sides of a proposition.
"Back in the hills mighty few folks ever got right down to bed-rock sinning. Here and there a body drank too much 'shine and took to fighting, but rarely did he covet his neighbor's wife up to doing anything about it, because his neighbor had a squirrel rifle.
"That parson ranted and raved about painted women, but when I looked around at Meeting it seemed to me a touch of paint here and there might brighten things up. He talked about the silks and satins of sin until he had me fairly a-sweating to see some of that there. Silks and satins can be almighty exciting to a man accustomed to homespun and calico. So it came on me to travel."
Baker cupped his hands around the bottom of his coffee cup, and taken his time with that coffee. So I asked him about that fast draw I'd heard them speak about.
"Studied it out by my ownself," he said.
"Trouble is apt to come on a man sudden-like, and he needs a weapon quick to his hand. When Mr.
Sam Colt invented his revolving pistol he done us all a favor.
"Best way is just to draw and fire. Don't aim ... point your gun like you'd point your finger.
You need practice to be good, and I worked on it eight or nine months before I had to use it. The less shooting you've done before, the better. Then you have to break the habit of aiming.
"It stands to reason. Just like you point your finger.
How many times have you heard about some female woman grabbing up a pistol--something she maybe never had in her hands before--and plumb mad, she starts shooting and blasts some man into doll rags.
Nobody ever taught her to shoot--she just pointed at what she was mad at and started blazing away."
He reached inside his shirt and fetched out a gun. "This I taken from a man who was troubling me--and you'll need a gun in the western lands, so take it along. This here is a Walch Navy, .36 caliber, and she fires twelve shots."
"Twelve? It looks like a six-shooter."
"Weighs about the same. See? Two triggers, two hammers. She's a good pistol, but too complicated for me. Take it along."
She was a mite over twelve inches long and weighed just over two pounds, had checkered walnut grips, and was a beautiful weapon. Stamped 1859, it looked to be in mint condition.
"Thanks. I've been needing a weapon."
"Practice ... practice drawing and pointing a long time before you try firing. Don't try to aim. Just draw and point."
He put down his cup and got to his feet.
"And one thing more." He looked at me out of those hard green eyes. "You wear one of those and you'll be expected to use it. When a man starts packing a gun nobody figures he wears it just for show."
Come daybreak, they saddled and rode away, and the Tinker and me went west afoot. And as we walked, I tried my hand with that gun. I practiced and practiced. A body never knew when it would come in handy.
Somewhere behind me three Kurbishaws were riding to kill me.
Chapter Three.
We were six months out of the piney woods of Tennessee when we walked into San Augustine, Texas. It was an old, old town.
Seemed like we'd ever left home, for there were pines growing over the red clay hills, and everywhere we looked there were Cherokee roses.