A Heep of Trouble

Catfish Paradise, Arizona

1886

Lindy Drinkwater watches Jackie Diamond continue to fleece the Heep brothers.

“What a bunko artist. Jackie should at least lose a few hands.”

“When it comes to cards, tin horns always think they’re the top dogs,” Tuck Barnett replies.

“Diamond’s makin’ me jittery,” Lindy replies, rubbing his bald head to ease the stress. “Better fetch Hack.”

Lexington “Lotta” Heep leaps from his chair, his hulking figure hanging over card-sharp Jackie Diamond.

Forty-six-year-old Lotta Heep is 320 pounds of brutality, impatience, and anger, his larger-than-life physicality matching that of his more caustic twin brother, Danton “Big” Heep. Their Hopi Indian mother often joked she had no meat left for her other boys, so forty-two-year-old Montrose (Mo), and thirty-five-year-old Lytel (Little) barely exceed 120 pounds.

“You’re a cheatin’ four-flusher, Diamond!” Lotta Heep yells.

The other players back away from the table.

“You’re just a bad loser, and a mean drunk,” Jackie replies. “Maybe you oughta cut your losses and fold your tent.”

“It’s sound advice, brother. You never was lucky at cards,” Little Heep says. Knocking back his beer, he stumbles toward the bar.

“Cut my losses? Maybe I oughta cut you instead, Diamond!” Lotta Heep bellows, reaching for his Bowie knife.

Lotta Heep pushes the table against Jackie, trapping him in a corner. Jackie tries to cover his face as Lotta Heep hacks at him.

Two wild swings open gashes on Jackie’s face, spraying the wall with blood.

Marshal Hack Halpern pulls back the swinging doors, entering the bar. The raw-boned, lanky lawman is followed by Thad Mullins, the well-dressed, olive-skinned owner of the town’s general store.

“PUT DOWN THAT PIG STICKER!”

Lotta Heep twists his bulk toward Hack as Jackie escapes from behind the table.

Hack’s gun crashes down on Lotta Heep’s forehead, opening a blood-spurting gash.

“You son of…”

Lotta Heep falls backward against the table, crushing it into kindling.

Slamming his beer down on the bar, Mo Heep draws his gun.

Thad swiftly punches Mo on the side of the head. Staggering, Mo drops his gun.

Still determined to get to Hack, Mo pulls out his knife, shuffling toward him.

“Watch your back, Marshal!” Thad yells.

Spinning around, Hack pulls out his revolver, firing two shots at Mo.

Mo clutches his stomach, veering toward the door.

Mo struggles to mount his horse as the dumbfounded crowd gathers in the doorway.

Pointing his pistol at the crowd, he squeezes off several erratic shots.

“I see you, Harlan Holyoake! The Heeps is gonna get you!”

Kicking his horse, Mo speeds out of town, barely hanging in the saddle.

“You’re just gonna let him ride off?” Lindy asks Hack. “You need to run him down before he gets back to his brothers.”

“He’s gut shot. He might not make it back to them alive.,” Hack replies. “Besides, the last known whereabouts of the Heeps was across the border where I can’t touch ‘em.”

“But they’re gonna want to free Lexington and get even with you for shootin’ Mo,” Thad says.

“Yeah. But In the erstwhile, I need some of you boys to carry this lummox to jail and get Doc Banks.”

Lindy lets out a concerned sigh. “I know Harlan Holyoake’s supposed to be the deadliest sharpshooter to ever pick up a rifle, but if he’s in town, he needs to put a whole lotta gone between him and the Heeps.”

Clinging to his horse’s neck, Mo slips into the Heeps’ camp.

Big Heep and Little Heep ease him down to the ground.

“What happened to him?” Little Heep asks.

“Pretty clear, ain’t it? Big Heep wheezes. “I told them two chuckleheads not to stir the pot in town.”

“Looks like the pot done boiled over,” Little Heep replies, cradling his brother.

Big Heep’s bearish features loom over Mo.

“Can you speak, boy? Where’s Lexington?”

“… Marshal.. buffaloed him… Harlan Holyoake…”

Big Heep’s anger stirs.

“What about that sidewinder?”

“I saw him… Harlan Holyoake is alive…”

Jackie holds a bloody wet rag against his swollen cheek.

“You should let Doc stitch you up,” Tuck says.

“I’m not gonna skin that fat hog. Marshal Halpern can’t cross the border, but I can. I’ll give you five hundred apiece for each brother and a hundred for any of those clodhoppers they slither around with, dead or alive.”

“I dunno, Jackie. They ain’t the Cole Younger gang but they know how to handle themselves. Besides, they’re not wanted in California. That’s why they’re hiding out there.”

“Well, they’re likely wanted here. We get a wagon and bring the bodies to wherever we can cash them in. We can claim they tried to rob us, and we were just defending ourselves. You’ll not only get what I’m gonna pay you, you’ll get whatever their hides are worth here.”

Tuck scratches his whiskers. “I don’t wanna ride across the state line with three or four dead men in a wagon. They get ripe real quick. And the Heeps ain’t layin’ down their guns without a fight.”

“Who says we have to fight them?”

“You walloped him pretty good,” Dr. Levon Banks says.

The slight, grey-haired sixty-six-year-old physician pulls back Lotta Heep’s eyelid, looking into his watery stare.

“Is he gonna be all right?” Hack asks.

“Them Heeps got hard heads,” Buddy Bohm, Hack’s boyish twenty-year-old deputy says. “World’ll be a better place if Lotta Heep goes to Hades.”

“He’s got a fractured skull,” Levon says. “He also suffered a heart attack. If he has another, I don’t wanna be around when his kin come to claim his body.”

Buddy pats his gun. “Let ‘em come.”

“Easy, Wild Bill,” Hack scolds.

“I’m curious about somethin’,” Levon says. “Lotta Heep muttered Harlan Holyoake’s name as he was bein’ carried here. He mumbled it two or three times like it was important to him.”

The wiry deputy’s blue eyes brighten. “You’ve ain’t heard of Harlan Holyoake? He was a fast, mean desperado who robbed banks in these parts with the Heeps about fifteen years ago. No one, not Hickock, Ringo, or Earp, was faster than him.”

“A mankiller,” Levon comments.

“He never killed anybody when he was an outlaw,” Hack replies.

“That ain’t what I read,” Buddy objects.

“You need to stop readin’ them dime novels. They’re made-up yarns by writers in New York that ain’t been west of Pennsylvania. Holyoake killed plenty of people, but it was durin’ the war. He was a Yankee sharpshooter. Killed at least twenty men from eight hundred yards when he was barely sixteen. After the war, there were plenty of sore Rebs who wanted his hide, so he threw in with the Heeps. Old man Heep treated him better than his sons.”

Levon checks Lotta Heep’s pulse “How’d Holyoake wind up on the Heeps' bad side?”

“Rumor is Holyoake double-crossed the gang for immunity and the twenty-thousand-dollar reward on their heads. He shot old man Heep dead outside the bank they was gonna rob in Rosewood and disappeared. Lotta, Mo, and Big Heep were captured and did ten years apiece. They swore if they found Holyoake, they’d kill him.”

“Sounds like you’re readin’ from the same books as Buddy.”

“It ain’t hogwash that before Mo rode off Lindy and everybody else in the saloon heard him say he recognized Holyoake,” Buddy says.

“Holyoake’s living here?” Levon asks. “I bet he’s masqueradin’ as Max Minter, the blacksmith.”

“Nah. Max was only five years old during the war,” Hack replies.

Lotta Heep groans, his body thrashing and rising off the bed.

Hack grabs Lotta’s torso, forcing him back down as Buddy pins his legs.

Lotta Heep lets out a pained scream. He tries to rise, then collapses, letting out a progressively weakening moan.

Levon listens to his heart. Pulling the stethoscope from his ears he says, “I don’t want to sound like a wisenheimer, but we’re in a Heep of trouble now.”

Tuck and three of his fellow ranch hands follow Jackie into the Heeps’ campsite. Two men appear to be sleeping under their blankets by the fire.

“Where’s the others?” Tuck whispers to Jackie.

“Behind you.”

Jackie and his cohorts turn to face Big and Little Heep. Beck Battey and Dummy Horn rise from their blankets, pointing their guns at them.

Jackie and his men drop their guns.

“I told you they’d come to us,” Battey brags, winking. His cousin, Dummy, nods in agreement.

“Well, la-de-da, Beck You need to be more like your cousin,” Big Heep says.

“He’s mute.”

“Exactly.” Big Heep smiles broadly, displaying his decayed teeth. “Quiet you boys ain’t. We practically heard your wagon comin’ from town.”

“I come for an apology. That’s all,” Jackie offers.

“Sure. And you needed three friends to help you get it. I’m sorry your face looks like an unfinished puzzle. We dug a hole for brother Montrose earlier. Looks like we shoulda dug a trench.”

Thad Mullins looks up at the town’s unfinished water tower. His hand goes slack, and he lets go of the reigns of the buckboard.

“Harlan Holyoake’s latest pet project,” he says with a mixture of pride and melancholy.

Hack gazes at the tower. “Yep. Thanks to you, the town’ll have enough water to get through our nasty summer droughts.”

Thad gives the Marshal a mournful look.

“You can look at me like an old hound dog all day long, Harlan… I mean Thad, but I’m not changin’ my mind. You and Myrna gotta leave town.”

“We’ve lived here for ten years. We met here. We own a business.”

“Your banishment ain’t permanent. We’ll send for you when the smoke clears.”

“I don’t want you fighting my battle.”

“When I told Doc and the others who you were, the first thing they thought about was you and Myrna’s safety, and all the things you’ve done for Catfish Paradise. We owe you more than we can ever pay back. You raised the money to open a school, built the church, and sold tools and seed to farmers on credit when times were hard.”

“I don’t want to run. That’s why I came here. I wanted to start life all over again.”

“It ain’t runnin’, it’s preservation. You’re the most valuable resource this town’s got. Maybe you can outgun one of the Heeps, but there’s a whole barnyard of ‘em comin’. If the Heeps can’t find you, they can’t kill you. They’ll come into town, bury their brother, raise some drunken cain, and move on.”

“They’re not going to take Lexington’s death lightly.”

“It’s like you told me, they’re thieves, not killers,” Hack replies. “Reasonable folk would understand that what I did was in the line of duty.”

“The Heeps aren’t reasonable folk.”

Hack turns to Myrna. Sensing the two men’s argument is at a stalemate, the pale, soft-hearted brunette keeps her hands folded and her head down.

“Talk to your man, Myrna.”

“Hack’s right, Thad. Harlan Holyoake, the decorated sharpshooter, the heartless desperado, doesn’t exist anymore. I married Thad Mullins, and he’s a law-abiding, generous, caring man. You can’t let your past swallow up the present. If you do, what’ll happen to us?”

“Don’t try to melt me with those pretty blue eyes of yours. You’re as tough as nails.”

“I’m not as tough as I used to be,” Myrna says.

“Neither am I.”

Shaking Hack’s hand, Thad pulls on the reigns of the buckboard, guiding it out of town.

Big Heep rides into town, followed by Beck Battey and Dummy Horn. Little Heep brings up the rear, nervously viewing each closed shop.

Lindy pokes his head out of the door of his saloon.

“They’re comin’, bold as brass,” he announces to the crowded room of jittery townsfolk hiding in his establishment. “There’s only four of ‘em.”

Turning back to the petrified crowd, he adds, “Guess that’s still too many for the likes of us.”

Two well-dressed men close the door to the newspaper office, their shoes clomping loudly as they run down the sidewalk toward the saloon.

Big Heep scans the dry, dusty main street, his stare focusing on Dr. Levon Bank’s office.

“Beck, fetch Lexington at the sawbones’ office.”

Battey hustles across the street.

“So, we take Lex and go?” Little Heep asks hopefully.

“You kiddin’, ain’t you little brother? We come here to kill Holyoake, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

“But we don’t know what name he’s usin’. It’s been fifteen years. He could’a changed his appearance,” Little Heep says.

“Montrose recognized him. You just look for the dude with the yellow streak. Speakin’ of which, you seem to be gettin’ a little skittish yourself, brother.”

“We ain’t murderers.”

“I got my first taste of killin’ yesterday. I liked it.”

Battey pushes a resistant Levon across the street.

The doctor looks up at Big Heep with unwavering defiance.

“Since Lexington ain’t with you, I’ll assume he’s sleepin’.”

“It’s worse,” Battey says, his voice on edge. “He’s dead!”

Big Heep’s inflamed eyes narrow. “He was only buffaloed. Either you’re the worst sawbones ever to hang a shingle, or the Marshal murdered him.”

“He took a hard hit, that’s for sure. But his death isn’t on the Marshal. Lexington died because his heart burst. He was too fat,” Levon replies, staring pointedly at Big Heep’s bulging belly.

Big Heep grabs at Levon's neck with both hands, hoisting him to eye level.

“I can always add you to my list of who to kill in this dustbin. You listen good, sawbones. We’re gonna march you down to the Marshal’s office, and you’re gonna call him out for us.”

“So, you can slaughter him? Shoot him in the back?”

Big Heep gives Levon a decayed grin.

“You got a lotta grit for an old coot, so I’m gonna let you live… for now.”

Big Heep entrusts Levon to Battey, who pushes him down the street.

“Dummy, Lytel, draw a bead on the jailhouse windows. You see a barrel poke out you start shootin’,” Big Heep says. Raising his voice, he yells. “C’mon out Marshal, and bring your Deputy. It’s your time of reckonin’ for murderin’ my brothers.”

The door slowly creaks open. Hack appears, followed by Buddy.

“Neither one of them is Harlan Holyoak,” Levon points out.

“I didn’t expect ‘em to be. So, where’s he at, Marshal?”

“Never heard of him,” Hack replies.

“Try again.”

“How you gonna take Holyoake?”  Buddy chirps “You’re so fat I bet you ain’t seen your toes since you was a baby.”

“And you ain’t gonna live to be a man, boy if you keep sassin’ me.”

Buddy reaches for his gun. Big Heep quickly pulls out his revolver, shooting Buddy in the chest.

“So much for me bein’ slow. Told you I like the taste of killin’, Lytel,” Big Heep sneers. “I don’t wanna kill you yet Marshal, so drop your iron on the ground.”

Hack complies as Levon continues to struggle in Battey’s grasp.

“Let sawbones do his diligence, Battey. “There’s no need for me to kill anybody else, Marshal if you tell me where Holyoak is.”

Levon searches for Buddy’s pulse, quietly muttering, “What a waste.”

Big Heep glares at Levon. “And my twin, the man I share my blood and soul with, dyin’ from a bump on the head, that’s just fine with you, but defendin’ myself ain’t, ‘cause I’m a Heep…Well, I’m waitin’, Marshal. Where’s Holyoake?”

“I told you. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

A pair of women exit the boutique two doors down. Big Heep signals Battey and Dummy to capture them.

“We’re gettin’ pretty deep in hostages, Marshal. I know you’re a hard man, and I admire that, but the raw fact of it is, I’ll kill everybody in this town in order to have my vengeance on Holyoake.”

“Wait. There’s something you need to know,” Hack says. “Harlan Holyoake didn’t double-cross you. Your father did. When Holyoake confronted him about it, your father tried to kill him.”

“Holyoake would have had to tell you that tall tale himself. So, he may not be here now, but he was. Get up on my horse, sawbones.”

Levon reluctantly climbs into the saddle.

“You a surgeon, sawbones?”

“Yes.”

“Ducky. ‘Cause this is gonna be what folks with schoolin’ like you call irony. Marshal, You tell Harlan Holyoake we’re gonna perform surgery on the Doc and send you a piece of this old man every two hours, startin’ with his operatin’ hand.”

“What about these lovely ladies?” Battey asks.

“None of us have had much female companionship lately,” Big Heep replies slyly.

Hack spits at Big Heep’s feet. “You’re a disgusting pig.”

“Oink, oink,” Big Heep retorts.

Big Heep draws his gun. “As for you, Marshal, I ain’t got no patience left for you.”

Big Heep cracks Hack over the head with his gun.

“That’s for Lexington and Montrose.”

Big Heep aims his revolver at the Marshal’s head as Hack slides to the ground.

“And this is from me.”

A voice calls out, “DANTON HEEP!”

Big Heep looks up at the water tower as the loud report from a rifle rings out.

Big Heep stiffens as blood pours from his forehead.

Pushing the women aside, Battey, Dummy, and Little Heep scramble for their horses.

Battey reaches for the horn of his saddle, falling backward when a bullet buries itself in the back of his skull.

Dummy vaults onto his skittish horse. The crack of another shot blows him from the saddle.

Shaking, Little Heep raises his hands in surrender. “I never wanted no part’a this!”

Groggy, his scalp bloody from his wound, Hack picks his gun up, holding it on Little Heep.

He looks up at the water tower. Thad rises from its basin, holding a Sharps rifle. Barely able to see over the top, Myrna waves at Hack.

“It’s a good thing you’re so hard-headed, Harlan Holyoake,” Myrna says.

“Harlan Holyoake died ten years ago. I’m Thad Mullins.”