Kid Lay
A Sheriff Jim Price Adventure
By
Boyd Neisler
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Boyd Neisler on Smashwords
Kid Lay:
A Sheriff Jim Price Adventure
Copyright © 2011 by Boyd Neisler
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
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Kid Lay
A Sheriff Jim Price Adventure
Since noon, several citizens had stopped by the Sheriff’s office to tell him about the young man in the Red Bull Saloon and his stated intentions. As a precaution to their concerns and his well-being, Sheriff James “Jim” Price searched through his wanted posters for any person known as Kid Lay. Kid Lay was not wanted in this part of the country, so he surmised the kid either was new to the gun-fighting crowd or had taken an alias. Another head popped in. “Sheriff, the Kid is waiting for you at the Red Bull.”
With a tired sigh, Jim looked at his watch; it was two pm. “Thanks Amos, tell him I’ll be along directly.”
Jim had seen the kid ride in the day before. He was riding a slightly swaybacked crow bait horse that showed harness marks from pulling a wagon and plow. It was a horse no self respecting outlaw would have ridden. He had a horse that could go all day behind a plow or wagon, but mile of hard riding and he would be winded. So, the kid must be new, or perhaps his own cayuse had stepped into a prairie dog hole and broke its leg, or some other misfortune and the kid had to buy or steal whatever was available. As the kid passed he looked over at the Sheriff, eyes hidden under the brim of his hat widen at the sight of the badge on Jim’s chest. The kid’s clothes wasn’t typical of the sort of bad people he was use to dealing with, More like a kid fresh off the farm in his Sunday go to meeting duds. His holster rig confirmed that thought. It was store bought new. The holster that he could see showed no wear from the gun, with the belt itself very new looking and stiff.
As the kid continued passed the Sheriff’s office he could tell the kid wasn’t over eighteen, probably closer to sixteen years old. Rather than stop the kid and question him, he would watch him for a day or so. Perhaps he was just passing through.
“No, I couldn’t be that lucky” he thought to himself, “he’s here looking to make a name for himself.”
He remembered the day he found himself riding into town. One street wide, three blocks long. Two saloons complete with gambling and sporting girls. Two general stores, one hotel, sheriff’s office and one combination livery stable/blacksmith, in addition to the bank, barbershop which was also the part-time dentist and full-time undertaker, and the doctor, sometimes veterinarian. At the end of the street, they were building a combination school and church. Riding down the street, he had watched the Sheriff approach a man standing in front of the saloon. Stopping his horse in front of the general store, he dismounted. He then saw another man approach the old lawman from the rear. As the first man was talking to the sheriff, the man in the rear suddenly pulled his gun and shot the sheriff in the back, killing him in cold blood. He heard the one that had been standing in front of the now dead lawman tell the other, “Now we take the bank.”
Stepping from his place at the hitch rail, Jim spoke in a cold low tone, “I don’t think I’m gonna’ let you boys get away with murder and rob a bank all the in the same day.”
Spinning around the one who had just killed the sheriff, his gun now in its holster snarled. “What business is this of yours?” The stranger in front of him, stood two inches shy of six feet weighing one hundred sixty pounds with no trace of fat. What was most impressive of this stranger, was the cold look in his icy blue eyes and the well worn gun and holster on his hip.
“I’m thinking of making this my home, and don’t believe you two will make very good neighbors.”
The two Quimby brothers slowly moved until they stood about six feet apart. Sham Quimby, the older of the two was saying “Hadn’t figured on having to kill two men today, but so be it.” As he spoke, his hand was reaching for the shooting iron on his hip. As it cleared the holster, he felt a sudden blow from the bullet that hit him in the forehead dead center between his evil eyes. His gun dropped to the ground in mid-draw, he never heard the second shot that ended his brothers’ life with its flight putting a hole in the Bull Durham tobacco sack tag hanging from his shirts’ left breast pocket.
That was three years ago. The Mayor and city council asked him to be the new sheriff, and as they say, the rest is history. Since then the town had been very peaceable with the exception of a couple of instances and the normal Saturday night cowboy reveling.
Turning his thoughts from the past to the present he pushed back from his desk got up from his chair and walked to his hat and gun belt hanging on a peg imbedded in the wall. “Well,” he said to no one, “might as well get this over with.”
Jim thought to himself, this kid seems to be in an awful hurry to make a name for him by killing a town sheriff. With a deep sigh he seated his hat in place covering a head of unruly hair. Slipping the gun belt around his narrow waist, he settled it into place. Rising up after tying the leather throng about his leg, removing the leather thong holding the gun in place, he pulled it from its worn but oiled holster, flipped open the loading gate, and spun the cylinders insuring all except one contained unfired cartridges. A methodical check all the moving parts showed all was in a smooth and free condition. Satisfied the pistol was in perfect working order, turned the cylinder, and inserted a sixth bullet in the chamber; he closed the gate and slipped the gun into its holster. Normally, Jim would have only five shells in the gun, with the hammer resting on the empty chamber, but in a shoot out, you never knew when the extra bullet might save your life. Going to the door, he opened it, stepped into the brilliant afternoon sun, and began his slow trek of two blocks to the saloon and impending confrontation.
As Jim walked along the dirt street, he noticed people looking from inside their shops and stores. Nodding to a few brave ones that stood on the boardwalk, he told them, “You might want to get off the street until this is over.”
“Do you need any help, Sheriff?” One asked.
“I appreciate it, but this is what you pay me the big bucks for.” He replied, chuckling to himself thinking about the fifty dollars a month. Forty of that was going to the bank paying for a small ranch a few miles from town.
Sheriff Price’s wide hat brim hid his eyes in its shadow of the early afternoon sun. Twenty foot away stood a young gun slick wearing a two gun, tied down, holster rig was gassing to a couple of saloon bums about how many men he had dispatched and how the Sheriff would be his next victim.
Little did the Kid know, but this was not Sheriff Price’s first rodeo, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, he had been here before. In fact, he had been here several times before. Had he used the greenhorn trick of notching his pistol handle, there would be eight notches in it.
Facing the youngster, Jim said. “Kid, I’m not goin’ to stand here and listen to you gas about how bad you are. Hand over your guns, go with me to the jail, let the judge give you day or two. You eat and sleep the city’s dime. Afterwards you can go to the saloon and tell all your buddies how bad you are. You can even tell them what a dirty low-down rotten scoundrel I am for tricking you. Then after a drink or two, you can pick your guns up and leave town. Right now the only law you have broke is carrying a gun in the city limits. The bartender told you to check your guns when you first came in.” Even as he said it; he knew his talk was falling on deaf ears. The Kid would be feeling that he was being backed into a corner that he couldn’t walk away from without looking yellow. “Leon!” The Sheriff called out. “Did you show this young man the sign with the rules?”
“Sure did Sheriff, just like you told me,” said an overweight, middle aged, balding bartender from the saloon. “Showed him the sign and then told him what they were just in case he can’t read. Sure told him he had better check his guns and if he shot them in the city limits, he was to be fined $10.00 or 10 days. If he got into a gun fight and shot an innocent bystander and killed them he would hang. If’n he just wounded them, he paid the doctor bill, their bills while they got well and then paid a $250.00 fine. If he shot a horse then he paid double what Gus at the livery says the horse is worth and last if his shot just caused damage, he paid for it. Sure told him all the rules just like you said.”
“You understand all that kid?”
“Yeah, I do Sheriff, but I don’t intend to do anything but kill you!”
“Ok kid, but a couple of last things you should know. You called me out, that makes’ my death a hanging offense. So if you should shoot me and I die, then you die on the gallows. Second, look to your right, in the door of the gun shop. What do you see? I’ll tell you what you see. You see the barrel of a Henry 44-40 pointed straight at you. Even if you should out draw me, you will die. Either way, you are a dead man if you pull iron. So now do the sensible thing and drop ‘em on the ground and come with me.”
“Can’t do that Sheriff!” The young man known in these parts as the Kid Lay replied. “It just wouldn’t look right, here in front of all my friends. Call off your rifle; this is between you and me.”
“Kid, I don’t mean to bust your bubble, but you don’t have that many friends, and the rifle stays.”
“Well, I guess when I kill both ya lawdawgs that will make me the fastest gun in town. I’ll open up this town, and then I’ll have lots of friends.”
“Kid, I know you been reading those dime novels about how the gun slick always has the fastest draw, shoots straight and sends the other fellow to Boot Hill. Believe me, it don’t always work that way. Even if you get lead in me first, I’ll put a hole in you before I hit the ground. You’ll get a bullet in the biggest part of you. A belly shot person is not a pretty sight. You’ll die very slowly and very painfully. There is nothing the doctor can do to help you--a little laudanum to ease the pain. Either way you die here on the street or on the gallows. Now, what do you want on your marker?”
“You can put Kid Lay if you beat me.” The kid boasted
“Have it your way, now fill your hands.”
Tex Ewalt, (a noted gun slick traveling in the area,) had told the kid, by removing the trigger he could gain a good half second draw time on his opponent, showing him his own modified pistol. Following his advice the kid had the gunsmith work over the hammers and triggers of both guns just the day before. The spring tension on the hammers had been tightened along with the knurled grooves filed until they were smooth and the trigger removed. All he had to do was pull the hammer back as he drew the pistol and then slip his thumb off of it and the increased spring tension drove the hammer forward into the cartridge.
“I’ll show you.” The Kid said going for his right hand streaking for gun on his hip.
Sheriff Price’s hand flashed to his side, in one smooth liquid motion, he had his thumb over the hammer pulling it back as his hand easily pulled the Colt clear of the holster ready to fire. Squeezing the trigger was all that was necessary for the Sheriff to do, ending the Kid’s short time on earth.
Grabbing for the gun, he saw the Sheriff had already pulled his gun and it was pointed straight at him. He knew at that moment he was bought and paid for. If the Sheriff so desired, he could shoot and kill him in the name of self defense. The Kid knew his actions in the next blink of an eye would determine his fate. All the days and weeks of practice were paying off for the Kid. His hand was automatically pulling the gun from his holster; his thumb pulling back the hammer. Fear suddenly overtook him half way out the holster causing his thumb to slip from the slick surface the hammer. At that same moment, the same sudden fear caused the kid’s bladder gave way and he began to involuntary wet his pants. His thumb slipped from the hammer. The bullet fired from the holstered gun, downward toward the ground, only instead of the bullet hitting the ground, it hit the Kid’s booted foot. He would see later at the doctor’s office he had shot off two of his toes.
Pain caused the Kid to fall to the street, when he attempted to grab and hold the now bloody booted foot. Rolling over toward a hitch rail, he rolled into a pile of fresh horse manure and puddle of urine from the just vacated horse. All this time yelling and screaming as loud as he could.
“Shut up!” Sheriff Price yelled with his cocked pistol pointing at the Kid, walking toward him, he kicked the dropped gun out of the way. “Real easy now, slip that other shooter out and toss it to the side.” Once both pistols were out the Kid’s reach, the Sheriff eased the hammer down on his pistol and slid it into its holster. “Kid”, the Sheriff said with a chuckle, “I want you to know, you are the first gunman I have ever had shoot himself for me. I really appreciate that. Now get on your feet and head toward the jail and maybe one of your good friends will get the doctor to meet you there.” Jim said, shaking his head and laughing.
“I can’t get up.” The Kid whined with a sobbing voice.
“You should have thought of the consequences before calling me out. Now get to your feet like a man, or crawl like a snake. I don’t care either way.” Sheriff Price said picking up the Kid’s guns, looking at them for the first time. Seeing the missing triggers, he knew what had happened as he shoved them in his waistband.
With the kid still lying on the ground, the sheriff said. “Kid, I’m going to ask you one time and one time only, and I want your word on it. Am I going to regret not killing you later on?” Before the kid could answer, the Sheriff had pulled his pistol from his holster and fired five shots as fast as he could thumb back the hammer making it sounding like a short roll of loud thunder. Each shot just shaved the fabric of the inside of each elbow and the inside of each knee with the fifth just grazing his crotch. “If I thought for a moment that you would get a crazy idea later on down the road, just know that each of those bullets could have been in your knees and elbows. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about you back shooting me. In fact, your biggest problem would be going to the privy and wiping yourself. Also, if and when you should decide to start a family, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of your own kids.” He said looking at the fifth shot.
Two days after the big shoot out, the town had taken on its normal activities. Sheriff Price was walking toward the Busy Bee Restaurant just as Dr. Beaman was coming out.
“How’s the kid coming along Doc?” Jim asked the older man.
“He’ll be up and around in another day or two.”
“Good, I have several projects lined up for him to do, in order to pay your bill, and the city fine for discharging a gun in the city limits. Miss Millie wants her house painted. Gus at the livery has some fence and corral work that needs to be done. You know of anything around here that needs repaired or painted, because if you don’t someone is always need a new privy dug.”
“Widow Smith needs someone to get her garden ready for planting; I need the windows washed at both my office and at home.” The doctor replied.
“How much does he owe you?”
“Well,” the old doc said, scratching his nearly hairless head. “I amputated two toes, he’s been laid up for about two days, he should be up and around in two more, so oh, about six dollars should be about right.”
“Your six, the city’s ten, that’s sixteen, then after he pays fifty cents a day for food and room, it seems he will have about thirty two days to work off.” Turning, Jim started down the street, when he stopped and turned to the doctor. “Before you turn him loose, get me or my deputy so we can explain to him again what he is to do and why?”
“Sure thing Jim;” he said as he turned walking in the direction of his office.
The next two days passed without incident. Since entertainment was scarce, the gun show was still the topic of conversation in the saloons and among the spit and whittlers in the chairs in front of the general store facing Main Street.
Stepping out of his office, Jim watched as his deputy and the Kid on his make shift crutches come down the street from the doctor’s office. It looked like the Kid was having a rough time of it, with a couple his toes missing on the right foot. However, Jim had no sympathy for him. He had really tried his best to get the kid to throw down his irons and come peacefully.
“How you feeling Kid?” Jim asked.
“Foot hurts like blazes.” Came a surly reply.
“We might as well get right down to business then; Doc tells me you owe him six dollars for his services. You got that?”
The Kid shook his head side to side.
“Then how do you intend to pay that bill?”
“Wasn’t figurin’ on needin’ no money to pay him.”
“Your figurin’ ain’t worth spit!” Sheriff Jim hurled back. “You owe the city ten dollars for failing to check your firearms. Don’t suppose you have that either.”
A slow shake of his head was the only reply the Kid had.
“We are going to make it as easy on you as possible, Ernie, the gunsmith gave you two dollars apiece for your irons.”
“Why, I just gave ten dollars apiece for them last week.” The Kid blustered.
“That was before you blotched them up so bad, that you are lucky to get anything for them. He also gave you five dollars for the holster rig. That makes nine dollars. That pays Doc and gives you three dollars toward the ten you owe the city.” Gus said if you want to sell the horse he could give you fifteen for it and ten for the saddle and riggings. If that is agreeable, you can leave our fair city with twenty-eight dollars in your pocket.
“How do I get out of town if I sell my horse?”
“Kid, I’m tired of calling you Kid, what is your real name?”
“William Lay of the Fort Smith, Arkansas Lay’s”
“Well, Bill, you don’t mind if I call you Bill? Come to think about it, I do believe you might have earned a gun slick’s name for your performance. Let’s see, we can call you Three-Toe’. Yeah, I like that ‘The Three-Toe Kid’. No, that don’t sound quite right, we got to get you last name in it. How’s about ‘The Three-Toe Lay Kid’? That’s got a nice ring to it.
Unduly impressed with his new nickname, he replied “How am supposed to leave town without my horse?”
Counting out three dollars, he handed it to the kid saying, “I don’t really care, but it seems I done told you, Gus will buy your saddle and riggings for ten dollars that pays your fine. You still got thirteen dollars in your pocket.”
“What about a saddle a man can’t ride without a saddle?”
“Appears to me you didn’t think about the finances of gun fighting before you hit the trail. When you go get your mount, tell Gus to give you an old saddle blanket. I don’t care about you, but I do the horse. Now Mr. Three-Toe Lay Kid, do us both a favor and get out of my town.”
“You’re a tough man, Sheriff.”
“No, it’s a tough land, and the tough trail your traveling will get you killed, and it’s not goin’ to be in my town!”
The Kid slowly turned, his swollen, bandaged foot raising little puffs of dust in the street as he limped toward the livery, muttering to himself, “I sure hope pa can use some more help on the farm, because I sure ain’t cut out to be a gunfighter.”
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About the author
I am a retired design engineer who worked for an Ophthalmic manufacturing company. I also retired from the US Army Reserve as a Master Sergeant (MSG). My wife and I have two children. Both young men are currently in the military. (US Army). One, a Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) currently on deployment in Afghanistan, the other; a Sergeant First Class (SFC) stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado after returning from his third deployment in Iraq. We also have five grandchildren.
My wife retired from federal service and is currently at home with me. We enjoy traveling. We currently have three rescue pug dogs to keep us company.
I hope you enjoy this story as I plan to submit several more in the near future.
To paraphrase, “If you enjoyed the story, tell your friends, it not, tell me.” I can be reached via e-mail at Kuguar@sbcglobal.net.