A Shootout in Jerome
by D. L. Chance

A bullet, probably from an old Henry by the distinctive low-pitched echoes off nearby hillsides, cracked past Breck's ear to gouge a splintery groove along the barbershop's sun-silvered wooden wall.

Catching a glimpse of Jack Calloway at the corner of a hardcase saloon across the street, he stepped back into the doorway of the barbershop and propped his head back against the bare, unpainted jamb. Sweat trickled into his eyes and a thin trail of blood seeped down his left hand to drip onto the toe of his boot.

He felt it as each precious drop of his life raised a small dust cloud on the expensive custom-made boot he'd hastily slipped into before running into the sun-blasted street of Jerome, Arizona, and headlong into the bullet Calloway's now-dead brother Josh had managed to graze the fleshy part of his left forearm with before catching one of Breck's better-thrown rounds in the teeth. Josh lay in the dust just off the walkway, his boot heel still resting on the outer lip of the rough plank walk outside the barber's front door. Ignoring the occasional twitch of the recently departed outlaw's foot, Breck tried to make himself as skinny a target as any paint on the doorway would have been had the damn barber chose to paint it.

Again, he wished mightily for a smoke.

Pale, frightened faces peered out of windows all along the side of the street he could see from where he stood, but he knew there'd be little to no immediate help from the local citizenry in this dustup.

Dammit! Why hadn't he thought to bring his damn double-hung gun belt rig to Arizona in the first damn place!

He silently calculated how many guns the Calloway Gang might have put into the field this hot mid-morning and wondered if he had enough rounds left in his Remington .44 to serve the entire bunch, as his extra shells were still sitting comfortably in his single-hung gun belt on the valise back in the tub room of this same barbershop. Probably not, he decided as a whiskey-rough voice shouted out from across the street.

"You got my brother, Hartfield," Jack Calloway screamed, enraged. "You just shot him down dead in the street, and I'm gonna kill you for that there and nothing else!"

"I'm much obliged," Breck called back, rattling the barber's door to make sure it was still locked behind him. "And I must say I'm right relieved by the generosity. I'll just take it you're going to forgive me for busting up your rustling business then?"

An infuriated gurgle came from the area of the saloon corner across the way.

"I'm gonna kill you slow for ever drawing breath on this world, Hartfield!"

"I don't wonder, I reckon." Breck noted a shadow movement in the heavily painted front window of a cafe next to the saloon. He nodded to himself. "And here I thought you had some Christian charity in you, Jack Calloway," he yelled, "but I guess I was wrong. A Hartfield don't like being wrong, Jack." He'd need to expose at least an arm to get a clean shot at the cafe, and a long pistol shot it looked to be, too. But it beat making such a dandy target himself by stepping all the way out from his scant cover.

On the other hand, though . . . .

"Say, I lost count," he suddenly shouted. "How many things is that you're gonna kill me for, again?"

The shadow crept slowly toward the middle of the window, the shape of a rifle barrel obvious in the backlit silhouette. Breck guessed the gunhand must be figuring to smash out the glass then jump through, levering rounds as he came.

A stupid plan.

"See," Breck continued almost conversationally in his raised voice, "I'll lay down in peace knowing just how many scores you managed to settle with me today. Hey, do you boys mind if we call a little truce so I can take a minute and hunt up a smoke?"

Calloway set up an incoherent bout of furious cursing, then pegged a shot at the doorway. His bullet smashed the front bracket holding the "Barber" sign over the door. The signboard suddenly swung loose, missing Breck's face by the thickness of a good coat of shaving lather, and swayed halfway free on its remaining eyebolt. The hidden rifleman threw another useless round at the wooden false front, nicking the sign on its outward trip and spinning it a half-turn. The bastard had a lousy eye for shooting, Breck decided.

"Dammit, Hartfield," Calloway bellowed, "I'm gonna – "

Breck stepped onto the boardwalk and threw a quick shot at the cafe window, starring the painted glass at the place where the lurking shadow's chest clearly stood. Then, ignoring the commotion his single bullet touched off inside the eatery, he calmly turned toward where Jack Calloway was all but dancing in the dirt alongside the saloon's wide porch overhang. Slowed by his wounded arm, Breck knew he'd missed the outlaw boss as soon as the Remington bucked in his fist.

The rustler/killer had time to widen his eyes and fall to the dust, then slither back into the narrow dark space between the saloon and the brick building next door before Breck's tardy slug chewed a splinter from the wooden corner of the saloon just over his head.

"Damn," Breck muttered. One less round, should things get truly interesting directly.

Calloway returned the lead, drilling a hole through the hanging sign and setting it to swinging again.

"Dammit," he railed, "you ain't decent people, Hartfield!"

"I reckon not."

The most interesting thing to Breck about the one-sided gunfight was the fact he hadn't cared at breakfast this very morning one way or another just what the Calloway brothers and their sundry collection of bar loafers and murderous saddle tramps might be up to in the mountains and valleys near Cleopatra Hill. The Hartfield's family business, out of Denver, dealt only with those who could boast the deep pockets necessary to buy the specialized set of extremely sensitive and dangerous services the family provided. Rustlers, claim jumpers, and even Jack Calloway's brand of mean but smalltime murderers were strictly petty operators – matters for local law enforcement.

But the town marshal had apparently decided to go fishing up in the hills with the local sheriff when it was learned that one of the famous Hartfield brothers had turned up in Jerome and looked none too happy. They didn't even stop to find out which brother, or why he wasn't the perfect picture of good cheer.

"You know, Jack," Breck called out, "most men'll nerve themselves up to try shooting a Hartfield just because they think it'll get their name in one of those silly yellowback books." He wiped sweat from his eyes, as his Stetson was keeping company with his spare ammunition inside and the sun on his uncovered head was a hot, heavy hand. "But I don't reckon you can even read, can you?"

Calloway answered with more lead.

"Didn't think so."

A new shot, an even wider miss from the unseen rifleman with the Henry, placed the would-be sniper in a different spot now. Moving around for a better angle, Breck knew he'd need to keep a better ear out for that one.

John Breckinridge Hartfield had come to Arizona Territory a week back for the sad funeral of an old friend. On his way home, tired and dusty after a long night of bouncing over the Mingus Mountain stage road from Prescott, he decided to lay over at the breakfast stop in Jerome and get a shave and bath, and maybe a nap, before starting the rough trip downhill to Cottonwood, where he could catch the Flagstaff train up from Phoenix. He would have left Jerome on the noon stage if the brash and reckless Josh Calloway hadn't recognized him and braced him inside the very barbershop at his back.

"You ain't a very forgiving man, are you, Jack?"

"Damn you, Hartfield!"

"You already did."

Though he'd never laid eyes on them in his life, Breck had heard of the Calloway brothers, and recognized them almost on sight. A successful man in his business made it a point to learn just who might, and who might not, be interested in filing his notch to a sidearm – and besides his brother, Cole, or Coldheart to those who had reason to fear him, there were lonesome few other successful men in his line of work.

According to the wanted posters the family kept on file at the Hartfield offices, Jack, the elder Calloway, habitually wore his graying beard thick and unkempt to hide a badly broken and poorly healed jaw. But the crooked jaw line was still unmistakable. Pale, colorless eyes peering out of all the hair made Jack look every bit as mean as he in fact was, even if he wasn't all that great a shot.

The late Josh Calloway was different. With no unusual facial features saving dull, blank eyes and a weak chin, Josh was wiry and fast and accurate with his irons. But the chinless baby brother couldn't claim ownership to even half of what Jack used for intelligence. Breck was still amazed the skinny sumbitch even recognized him in the barber chair.

Jack and Josh had been run out of Colorado a few years back for plying their lethal trade among the mining districts west of Trinidad. Even so, Breck never bore them any personal hard feelings. Until now.

The rifle spoke again, the shot breaking out one of the small panes of glass in the barber's front window. Breck heard a sudden intake of breath from behind the solid plank door at his back and smiled, his fair-featured face turning into something cold and dangerous. The soft jangle of a spur inside the shop widened the grin into a frosty grimace of deadly determination.

And he casually noted the smoke belched out by the Henry was still hanging in the calm heat behind a water trough just to the right of the cafe.

Carefully, Breck slipped the three empty shells from the Remington's well-oiled cylinder and palmed them. Then he thumbed back the hammer to full cock.

Time to put an end to this foolishness.

"Jack," he called out, "if I don't make it, here's a few souvenirs for you two boys that're left, but I don't want you smoking my cigars." He tossed the spent hulls onto the boardwalk. "You can tell folks they're from J. Breckinridge Hartfield's last dance."

On the rough wood planks of the walk, near Josh's worn-out boot heel, the brass cartridges lay glittering in the relentless sun. Calloway and his rifleman had no way of counting how many there had been.

"Breckenridge? Hell, Josh swore you was Coldheart when he saw you step off that stage," Calloway shouted. "Ignorant bastard. But I reckon any Hartfield will do me. Watch him, Dude," he called out to his sniper, "he's reloaded now, and I heard this'n's just as handy with the iron as his big brother. Kinda like me'n Josh – damn!"

Breck stepped from the deep doorway and turned to drill a slug through the door behind him. A quick return bullet punched splinters off the thick planks of the boardwalk less than a foot from Breck's left boot and went whistling off across the street. Inside, a body fell heavily, heels drumming on the floorboards and spurs jingling merrily.

Before the needle-tipped wood shards even fell back to hit the barber's dusty threshold, Breck stepped smoothly out onto the walk to pump a round at the rifleman before swinging his Remington toward Jack's position.

The sniper screamed and threw a battered old Henry rifle over the trough and out into the dirt. "You got me, Hartfield," he cried, his hands springing into the air. "I'm coming out."

"Good," Breck yelled, his eyes never leaving the area where Jack Calloway still lay under cover. "Stand polite by that cafe door yonder, and you might live to get to prison."

"I will!" Holding his left hand to a uselessly dangling right arm, a weasel-faced little creature in spectacles and a dusty derby lurched to his feet and staggered over to stand near the painted cafe window. "Yes sir!"

"I said stand by the door!"

"Yessir!" The outlaw slithered over to stand quaking next to the café entrance. "I'm here."

"Now stay there." Breck then ignored the man. His eyes narrowed as he thumbed back the hammer again – an unusually loud noise in the silent, empty street. "Jack," he called, "you're the last one. I can see you from here. Are you gonna join this here pardner of yours in Yuma, or your brother in the graveyard?"

"Damn you," Calloway shrieked. "How the hell'd you know there was just the five of us, Hartfield?"

Breck let out the deep breath he'd been holding, silently thankful his hunch – the strange talent that had seen him more or less safely through so many of these silly tragedies – had served him yet again.

"Because I'm a Hartfield, Jack Calloway," he yelled back, unusually proud of the fact for some fool reason. "A Hartfield."

Calloway lay quietly in the shaded dust for what felt to Breck, standing in the direct heat of the sun without his hat, like a long, long time. Then the badman cussed.

"I heard you damned Hartfields never shoot a man when he's showed he's through. That the fact?"

"That's the fact."

Another longish time crawled by. Then a battered old Peacemaker flew out to kick up dust in the street. Again, Breck heaved a sigh of relief.

Keeping the muzzle pointed directly on the spot where Calloway would appear, Breck walked out and picked up the tired, oft-repaired Henry and checked its load. He nodded, satisfied. Retrieving the heavy old Peacemaker, with its six live ones in the wheel, he let the fat but deadly rounds fall to the dirt at his feet. Then he tossed the now harmless old weapon over his shoulder. He cocked the Henry and moved it to his stiffening left hand.

"You ready now, Jack?"

"I reckon I am, dammit!"

"You gonna give me trouble?"

"Hell, you got all the guns."

"Then let's go."

Jack Calloway came slowly to his feet. Breck motioned for the former would-be sniper, Dude, to walk forward and stand in the street in front of the saloon. More faces were appearing at windows up and down the street, and a few brave souls were even venturing out onto the walkways.

As if in a nightmare he couldn't quite wake from, Jack walked forward to stand next to his last living partner.

"I got your word, Hartfield," he said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously when Breck didn't lower the Remington. "You gave me your word you wouldn't shoot."

"Yeah." Breck suddenly lifted his .44 and pointed it at a spot between and above Jack Calloway's wild eyes. At this, Dude began blubbering and fell to his knees in the dust. "I did, didn't I?"

"N-Now, Hartfield," Jack stuttered, "even you wouldn't shoot me down in front of all these here witnesses." His voice became almost a wail. "You wouldn't do that!"

"Let's have the other gun, Jack."

"Other – " Breck thumbed back the Remington's hammer. "Oh! I plumb forgot that one!" Calloway reached gingerly inside his loose-fitting shirt and brought out what looked like a grimy Starr five-rounder. He tossed it across to Breck. "Here you go," he said amiably. "You can point that cannon somewheres else now."

But the unsmiling eye of Breck's Remington never wavered.

"They found a rancher by the name of Pete Martin on his range over in the Chino Valley a couple weeks back," he said softly. "Pete had better than a dozen bullet holes in him." A look of animal rage came over Breck's otherwise affable-featured face. "By the damage to the corpse, some of those holes came from a Henry. Then it looked like someone stood up real close and shot him in the back after he was already down and dying. He was found still looking over his shoulder at whoever done it. I don't suppose you gents'd know about any of that, would you?"

The sniper's hands suddenly flew to his face. He fell over on his side, sobbing like a child.

Jack Calloway swallowed back a huge gulp. "I . . . we don't get over into the Chino Valley much. Didn't. Didn't get over into the valley."

"You got 'em, mister," someone shouted from the walk in front of the saloon. "Put that smoker down now."

A woman in the gathering crowd agreed. "Killing unarmed men is just plain old murder," she called out.

Breck ignored the bystanders. Instead, his finger whitened as he put pressure on the trigger mechanism – a lethal movement Jack could hardly miss. "Pete Martin was my friend," he said softly. "Now I'm gonna ask you again. Do you know anything – "

"Hellfire, we did it, Hartfield!" Muscles in Calloway's crooked jaw worked furiously, rippling his nasty beard as he glanced around at the growing crowd. "We did it. Hell, that's our job. Rustling. That Martin bastard just came along when he should'a stayed at the house." Calloway half-turned and threw a vicious kick at his openly weeping gunhand. "Damn your worthless ass, Dude. I told you over and over to get rid of that damn museum antique you shoot!"

"B-But it was my Granddaddy's," Dude bawled, half-heartedly returning the kick. "In the war, he – "

"Hey," Breck bellowed, tapping lightly on the side of Calloway's head with the Henry's long barrel, "there's plenty of time for that when y'all get together with Josh there in hell directly."

Calloway looked back at Breck, and the steady muzzle of the unforgiving weapon, and gulped again. "I told you what you want, Hartfield," he bellowed. "I confessed! We done it, and I'm not denying it. Now park that damned cannon, dammit!"

Breck's eyes narrowed.

"Dammit, Hartfield, you gave me your damn word! Put it down. I told you what you wanted, and in front of these here witnesses, too. Put the damned cannon up now! I told you – "

Breck pulled the pistol's trigger.

The hammer clicked loudly on an empty chamber.

Calloway reacted to the dry snap as he would have if Breck had actually shot him – he screamed and fell backwards over his partner.

Onlookers gasped like the faithful watching a miracle in church.

"I reckon you did tell me at that, Jack Calloway," Breck said, sighing. Casually, he passed the revolver to his left underarm and pointed the Henry in the direction of the heaped-up outlaws. "And these people can all testify in court to your confession. But at least now you know how Pete Martin felt watching someone drop the hammer on him." Turning to the townspeople, he raised his voice. "If someone wants to go round up your town law now, I'd sure appreciate it."

A couple of men took off running up the hilly street toward the partially treed upper end of town.

When he could talk, Calloway gazed into Breck's now calm face. "But I saw you reload that piece, Hartfield. How come – "

"You saw me get rid of empty shells," Breck said, shaking his left arm to keep down the stiffness. "I didn't have anything to reload with. They're all with my clothes back in the barber's tub room."

Calloway wouldn't let it go. "Then where's that sixth round?" he wailed. "Where's the damned sixth round?"

A grin spreading on his face, Breck winked at the outlaw boss. "Now you know it ain't safe to carry but five rounds in a sidearm you ain't about to put to immediate use," he said lightly. "Hell, anyone knows that."

Breck watched as Calloway mentally counted off his shots.

One bullet served Josh. Number two went into the gunny hiding inside the café – they were just hauling his corpse out into the street now – and number three chipped wood off the saloon corner above Jack's head. The backshooting bastard inside the barbershop – barbers don't usually wear spurs when they're working, and don't generally have call to shoot a paying customer in the back anyway – must've caught round number four somewhere around the breastbone, and number five clipped that piece of meat off the bespectacled rifleman's right shoulder. Jack Calloway's eyes became the size of buffalo pies.

"Then, when you made me surrender just now, you was . . . ."

Breck shrugged. "Armed only with my good looks and righteous intentions, Jack." Then his smile slipped. "But still, Pete Martin was my friend."

Calloway's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Now how in hell could you have knowed we did that one?"

Breck merely stared at him.

"Dammit! How did you know, Hartfield?"

They were just fetching out the body from inside the barbershop, and Breck felt a welcome relief seeing he'd been right about this one too. The backshooter turned out to be a big ugly bastard with a hard-used double-hung holster rig, slung low and ready for deadly chores he'd never again have reason to do.

Armed men came up and jerked the live outlaws to their feet, but Jack Calloway kept his wild eyes on Breck.

"Hartfield! How did you know?"

"You told me, Jack," Breck said, noting the belated arrival of the town law. "Just now. See, I was only guessing 'til then."

Despite two men holding onto him, Calloway slumped to his knees in the dusty street, muttering curses at everything and everyone in sight.

Breck eased the hammer down on the Henry, then passed it to an old man wearing a town marshal's badge. He shoved his Remington into his belt. Needing a Carolina desperately, he turned his back on the outlaws and walked toward the barbershop to get the bath he'd come there for in the first place. Behind him, Jack Calloway screamed again.

"Hartfield!"