_Illustrator_: Wm. Ashman
_Stories of the old West were filled with bad men who lived
by the speed of their gun hand. Well, meet Buck Tarrant, who
could outdraw them all. His secret: he didn't even have to
reach for his weapon...._
* * * * *
Joe Doolin's my name. Cowhand--work for old Farrel over at Lazy F
beyond the Pass. Never had much of anything exciting happen to
me--just punched cows and lit up on payday--until the day I happened
to ride through the Pass on my way to town and saw young Buck
Tarrant's draw.
Now, Buck'd always been a damn good shot. Once he got his gun in his
hand he could put a bullet right where he wanted it up to twenty
paces, and within an inch of his aim up to a hundred feet. But Lord
God, he couldn't draw to save his life--I'd seen him a couple of times
before in the Pass, trying to. He'd face a tree and go into a crouch,
and I'd know he was pretending the tree was Billy the Kid or somebody,
and then he'd slap leather--and his clumsy hand would wallop his
gunbutt, he'd yank like hell, his old Peacemaker would come staggering
out of his holster like a bear in heat, and finally he'd line on his
target and plug it dead center. But the whole business took about a
second and a half, and by the time he'd ever finished his fumbling in
a real fight, Billy the Kid or Sheriff Ben Randolph over in town or
even me, Joe Doolin, could have cut him in half.
So this time, when I was riding along through the Pass, I saw Buck
upslope from me under the trees, and I just grinned and didn't pay too
much attention.
He stood facing an old elm tree, and I could see he'd tacked a playing
card about four feet up the trunk, about where a man's heart would
be.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him go into his gunman's crouch. He
was about sixty feet away from me, and, like I said, I wasn't paying
much mind to him.
I heard the shot, flat down the rocky slope that separated us. I
grinned again, picturing that fumbly draw of his, the wild slap at
leather, the gun coming out drunklike, maybe even him dropping it--I'd
seen him do that once or twice.
It got me to thinking about him, as I rode closer.
* * * * *
He was a bad one. Nobody said any different than that. Just bad. He
was a bony runt of about eighteen, with bulging eyes and a wide mouth
that was always turned down at the corners. He got his nickname Buck
because he had buck teeth, not because he was heap man. He was some
handy with his fists, and he liked to pick ruckuses with kids he was
sure he could lick. But the tipoff on Buck is that he'd bleat like a
two-day calf to get out of mixing with somebody he was scared
of--which meant somebody his own size or bigger. He'd jaw his way out
of it, or just turn and slink away with his tail along his belly. His
dad had died a couple years before, and he lived with his ma on a
small ranch out near the Pass. The place was falling to pieces,
because Buck wouldn't lift a hand to do any work around--his ma just
couldn't handle him at all. Fences were down, and the yard was all
weedgrown, and the house needed some repairs--but all Buck ever did
was hang around town, trying to rub up against some of the tough
customers who drank in the Once Again Saloon, or else he'd ride up and
lie around under the trees along the top of the Pass and just
think--or, like he was today, he'd practise drawing and throwing down
on trees and rocks.
Guess he always wanted to be tough. Really tough. He tried to walk
with tough men, and, as we found out later, just about all he ever
thought about while he was lying around was how he could be tougher
than the next two guys. Maybe you've known characters like that--for
some damfool reason they just got to be able to whup anybody who comes
along, and they feel low and mean when they can't, as if the size of a
man's fist was the size of the man.
So that's Buck Tarrant--a halfsized, poisonous, no-good kid who wanted
to be a hardcase.
[Illustration]
But he'd never be, not in a million years. That's what made it
funny--and kind of pitiful too. There wasn't no real strength in him,
only a scared hate. It takes guts as well as speed to be tough with
a gun, and Buck was just a nasty little rat of a kid who'd probably
always counterpunch his way through life when he punched at all. He'd
kite for cover if you lifted a lip.
I heard another shot, and looked up the slope. I was near enough now
to see that the card he was shooting at was a ten of diamonds--and
that he was plugging the pips one by one. Always could shoot, like I
said.
* * * * *
Then he heard me coming, and whirled away from the tree, his gun
holstered, his hand held out in front of him like he must have
imagined Hickock or somebody held it when he was ready to draw.
I stopped my horse about ten feet away and just stared at him. He
looked real funny in his baggy old levis and dirty checkered shirt and
that big gun low on his hip, and me knowing he couldn't handle it
worth a damn.
"Who you trying to scare, Buck?" I said. I looked him up and down and
snickered. "You look about as dangerous as a sheepherder's wife."
"And you're a son of a bitch," he said.
I stiffened and shoved out my jaw. "Watch that, runt, or I'll get off
and put my foot in your mouth and pull you on like a boot!"
"Will you now," he said nastily, "you son of a bitch?"
And he drew on me ... and I goddam near fell backwards off my saddle!
I swear, I hadn't even seen his hand move, he'd drawn so fast! That
gun just practically _appeared_ in his hand!
"Will you now?" he said again, and the bore of his gun looked like a
greased gate to hell.
I sat in my saddle scared spitless, wondering if this was when I was
going to die. I moved my hands out away from my body, and tried to
look friendlylike--actually, I'd never tangled with Buck, just razzed
him a little now and then like everybody did; and I couldn't see much
reason why he'd want to kill me.
But the expression on his face was full of gloating, full of wildness,
full of damn-you recklessness--exactly the expression you'd look to
find on a kid like Buck who suddenly found out he was the deadliest
gunman alive.
And that's just what he was, believe me.
Once I saw Bat Masterson draw--and he was right up there with the very
best. Could draw and shoot accurately in maybe half a second or
so--you could hardly see his hand move; you just heard the slap of
hand on gunbutt, and a split-second later the shot. It takes a lot of
practise to be able to get a gun out and on target in that space of
time, and that's what makes gunmen. Practise, and a knack to begin
with. And, I guess, the yen to be a gunman, like Buck Tarrant'd always
had.
When I saw Masterson draw against Jeff Steward in Abilene, it was that
way--slap, crash, and Steward was three-eyed. Just a blur of motion.
But when Buck Tarrant drew on me, right now in the Pass, I didn't see
any motion _atall_. He just crouched, and then his gun was on me. Must
have done it in a millionth of a second, if a second has millionths.
It was the fastest draw I'd ever seen. It was, I reckoned, the fastest
draw anybody's ever seen. It was an impossibly fast draw--a man's hand
just couldn't move to his holster that fast, and grab and drag a heavy
Peacemaker up in a two foot arc that fast.
It was plain damn impossible--but there it was.
And there I was.
* * * * *
I didn't say a word. I just sat and thought about things, and my horse
wandered a little farther up the slope and then stopped to chomp
grass. All the time, Buck Tarrant was standing there, poised, that
wild gloating look in his eyes, knowing he could kill me anytime and
knowing I knew it.
When he spoke, his voice was shaky--it sounded like he wanted to bust
out laughing, and not a nice laugh either.
"Nothing to say, Doolin?" he said. "Pretty fast, huh?"
I said, "Yeah, Buck. Pretty fast." And my voice was shaky too, but not
because I felt like laughing any.
He spat, eying me arrogantly. The ground rose to where he stood, and
our heads were about on a level. But I felt he was looking down.
"Pretty fast!" he sneered. "Faster'n anybody!"
"I reckon it is, at that," I said.
"Know how I do it?"
"No."
"I _think_, Doolin. I _think_ my gun into my hand. How d'you like
that?"
"It's awful fast, Buck."
"I just _think_, and my gun is there in my hand. Some draw, huh!"
"Sure is."
"You're damn right it is, Doolin. Faster'n anybody!"
I didn't know what his gabbling about "thinking his gun into his hand"
meant--at least not then, I didn't--but I sure wasn't minded to
question him on it. He looked wild-eyed enough right now to start
taking bites out of the nearest tree.
He spat again and looked me up and down. "You know, you can go to
hell, Joe Doolin. You're a lousy, God damn, white-livered son of a
bitch." He grinned coldly.
Not an insult, I knew now, but a deliberate taunt. I'd broken jaws for
a lot less--I'm no runt, and I'm quick enough to hand back crap if
some lands on me. But now I wasn't interested.
He saw I was mad, though, and stood waiting.
"You're fast enough, Buck," I said, "so I got no idea of trying you.
You want to murder me, I guess I can't stop you--but I ain't drawing.
No, sir, that's for sure."
"And a coward to boot," he jeered.
"Maybe," I said. "Put yourself in my place, and ask yourself why in
hell I should kill myself?"
"Yellow!" he snarled, looking at me with his bulging eyes full of
meanness and confidence.
My shoulders got tight, and it ran down along my gun arm. I never took
that from a man before.
"I won't draw," I said. "Reckon I'll move on instead, if you'll let
me."
And I picked up my reins, moving my hands real careful-like, and
turned my horse around and started down the slope. I could feel his
eyes on me, and I was half-waiting for a bullet in the back. But it
didn't come. Instead Buck Tarrant called, "Doolin!"