The Crossroads at High Noon

The sun beat down on Luke MacGruder as he strode down the wagon track. His spurs clicked with each step, and drops of sweat beaded on the tip of his nose, and fell into the dry dust that coated his boots as he walked to the crossroads. It was nearly noon, and today, a man would die.

If he was fast enough, and brave enough, that man would be Buck Vagram, known throughout Carbon County as Black Buck, a violent, whiskey filled gunfighter who had killed six men (and seven Indians and two Chinamen). He had come to Battle, Wyoming Territory, and immediately set up shop in Buster’s Saloon. It was there that Black Buck killed Red Jim, Luke’s close friend over a game of faro.

He would have shot him right there, but not for Nancy Wigram, a half injun mystic who stood up in the middle between them, and condemned them both in a strange tongue. For some reason that Luke couldn’t fathom, she wasn’t shot right then and there by Buck. But Nancy then spoke plain enough, stating that the feud would continue at noon the next day, out at the Battle Pass crossroad, a place where the old wagon trains would stop and camp as they headed west, and where a great massacre of Indians took place decades ago, before any white men had come to this country.

So, Luke found himself walking his horse down the track, as the summer sun browned the grassland around him. In the distance, a small herd of cattle grazed freely, the mountains in the backdrop and a cowpoke looked towards him, on the watch for trouble. He would get none from Luke today.

Luke unsheathed his 1851 Navy Colt, and checked the action, and made sure each chamber was loaded. He swore by that gun, having bought one after losing a shooting contest with Wild Bill Hickok just after the war in Abilene. The Navy was Hickok’s favorite gun, and it was Luke’s too. Never failed him. He put the gun back in its holster, and picked up the pace. He would not be late.

Luke figured there would be a small crowd to see him shoot Buck, but there were only three colored men there when he arrived, two sitting on opposite sides of the intersecting wagon trails, holding banjos, and a third standing behind a covered table with whiskey bottles on it off to the side. Luke hitched up his horse at an old post, and moseyed over to the table.

“What will you be having, sir?”

Luke’s throat felt parched just at that moment. “Whiskey. What is all this? I figured there would be crowd. The whole town knows what happened at Buster’s.”

The barkeep let him finish the shot before answering, “Well sir, this is going to be a private showing. You will are here at his request, and these refreshments are provided at his cost.”

One of the banjo men smiled a cooked smile at him. The other tipped his worn brown cap. “And who is he?”

Sweat dripped off the colored man’s face as he deadpanned, “Mr. Abbadon.”

“And where is this Abbadon?”

“He will be along in due time.”

Luke took another shot of whiskey, and wiped his brow. Would Buck even show?

After the thought crossed his mind, he spied Buck trudging down the other track, leading his horse as Luke did. He reached the edge of the crossroads, and looked up. He looked disheveled, a ratty beard with patches of gray, his black hat tainted with the chalky dust of the road. His eyes appeared bloodshot, and he wiped his nose with his sleeve as he approached the bar.

The bartender nodded to him, “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Vagram?”

Buck nodded, and downed the shot. “I see this vermin got here early,” his words slow and halting.

Luke placed his hand on his pistol, “I can arise with the sun and get a day’s work in while you are sleeping it off, Black Buck.”

Buck place his hand on his Colt Army Revolver, when the bartender pulled a street howitzer from under the table, “Now gentlemen, its not yet time to begin. Have a drink, and rejoice. For today one of you will be delivered!”

Buck grumbled something under his breath, and turned away, taking a bottle with him. Luke took another shot, and sat on the bar-stool at the table. The hot sun baked them all as a slight breeze crossed the valley. An eagle screeched as it dived on prey in the grass. “So, tell me, what do you know of this place? Why did Mr. Abbadon chose it?”

The colored bartender lightly cleared his throat, “It is a place of reckoning. Where true earthly justice takes place. Your settlers would hang their transgressors over at that tree, while the Indians would dispense their savage redress for harms done to the tribe. Mr. Abbadon appreciates that.”

Luke looked over at the tree. It wasn’t there a few moments before, he could swear it. Its branches twisted in the air, its bark slightly reddish. He walked over to it, for nothing else to get some shade, but it was hotter under the tree than out in the bright sun. Strange symbols were cut into the trunk, and he imagined for a moment a body of a woman swinging from the tree, the angry crowd taking pleasure as she breathed her last.

The two banjo players stood in unison, and began strumming their instruments. The bartender raised his voice, “Its nearly time gentlemen, please approach the bar so I can discuss the rules for this contest.”

Luke returned to the bar, as Buck shuffled his way back, the bottle nearly gone. “Mr. MacGruder, Mr. Vagram, thank you both for getting here for this contest promptly. We will begin right at noon, exactly. The players will play until the last chime, and at that moment you can begin. Please do not have your firearms out before the players have stopped. Failure to do so will be met with severe consequences.”

Buck put the bottle down, slowly enunciating his words, “What kind of consequences?”

“I’ll shoot you.”

Luke smirked. He couldn’t believe that Buck had drunk so much before this. He never would fog his mind with so much drink before engaging in a gunfight.

“Now with that understood, once noon has begun, you may fire. You must kill your opponent before leaving or there will be consequences. If you run out of bullets, we have a store that you can use if you so desire. Costs are covered by Mr. Abbadon.”

The banjo music started to swim in his head. “Now, wait a moment. I don’t see any Abbadon here, and why is he so interested in this? He wants to see men shoot each other, he could go to Abilene or Dodge City if he wants to see men kill each other. Why out here? And where is he?”

The bartender flashed a toothy ivory smile. “He will be here at the hour appointed. And he wants to see justice done here, at this place. A grave injustice was done, and its time that the perpetrator pay for it. Gentlemen, I believe its time for you to go to your positions. Remember, not to strike until its noon, when the banjos cease. Not a moment before.”

Luke walked towards his side of the crossroads, while Buck trudged, his long coat flapping in the slight breeze. The banjoists picked their strings while a rustling in the grass spoke of a chase between predator and prey.

“MacGruder, you don’t remember me, do you?” surprisingly, the slurring in Buck’s voice had vanished in the steps from the bar to his spot.

No, what was he talking about? “Should I, Black Buck?”

He wiped his nose again with his sleeve. “You remember, MacGruder, a small homestead just outside of Detroit, Kansas? Before the war?”

Luke removed his hat, and wiped the sweat away with his handkerchief. “No, should I? I did live in Abilene before the war, but I don’t remember ever going to Detroit.”

Buck staggered for a moment, and muttered something to himself. He then tilted his hat back, ever so slightly. “I should have figured. You went on to all brave and beautiful things, all dressed in blue. You forgot all about something that probably meant nothing to you at the time. Well, its about time you remember MacGruder.”

Luke put his hat back on, as the banjos picked up the pace, the music just loud enough to be heard but not drowning out the two gunfighters. “Remember what? Those days were chaotic, and bloody. Why remember them?”

Buck clenched his fists, “Why? WHY? I guess you are right, I mean, they worked out for you, a successful ranch hand out here in the territory, your life going swimmingly. But I caught up to you, and I’ll have you know why I’m Black Buck.”

“Well, are you going to spit it out before I put a hole in you, Buck?”

Buck spit on the ground, “There was a night, that a group of men came to a homestead. They spoke of freeing men from bondage, and they believed that who stood with those who owned those men were evil. They came to this homestead to cleanse the prairie of that evil, and cleanse they did. With fire, and sword, they burned that homestead, and killed the woman and two children who lived there.”

Luke’s throat got very parched. He remembered now. Luke, Red Jim, Davis Crownhall, George Baker, Travis Baker, Vincent Forman, Killian Jones, and Peter Marker had ridden out on a night in 1858, intent on driving out pro-slavery forces from Kansas. After being refused entry by the woman inside, and several shotgun blasts from her attempting to scare them off, they dealt with the problem. It was Davis who shot one of the fleeing boys in the back as the cabin burned. “So, what’s it to you?”

“Well on that night, the woman’s husband was away, having fallen asleep under a willow tree after a lazy afternoon. That husband awoke to the gunshot that ended his son’s life, and to see the cowards that did such an act ride away as though nothing had happened. That husband found out who those cowards were just in time for them to run away to the war. So the man did the honorable thing, put on the gray, and sought justice on the battlefield.”

Luke ran though his memory. Both of the Baker boys died in the war, hit by snipers. Killian had his throat cut when on sentry duty towards the end of the war. “You mean to say he found it?”

“Yes, but the war ended before he could kill them all. Then one by one he hunted them, the emptiness inside never being filled, but his pain deadened by their faces at night and the bottle. It was the same bottle that both cursed him, so he did not die with his family, and allowed him to avenge their death. You may think that the husband and his wife sinned by believing that one man could own another, but the wages of that sin should never have been death. And now it is.”

The banjos rose into a crescendo. The banjoists both had a deathly grimace on their faces, eyes wide in anticipation. “That remains to be seen Buck. See, I would have just the same reputation as you do, but I do my killing in the broad daylight, where its legal and such. And I kill scoundrels and copperheads, while you murdered good Union men. You weren’t the only ones we burned out of Kansas in those days, not by a long shot.”

Luke would have thought it would have incensed Buck, but a calm washed over his face. “Do you hear that MacGruder, its nearing the end of the music. You are the last one, the last one I need to bring low. You already killed me on that night, ended my life as a good man. I swore on that night that I would deliver you all to the son of the morning himself. We are all bad men. None of us are leaving here. None.”

Luke smirked. “I am.” His finger twitched on the handle of his Colt, the itch growing the yank the smoke wagon and go to work. The banjoists fingers were blurs on the strings, the haunting music weighing Luke down, causing his shoulders to sag. The bartender looked straight ahead, holding the street howitzer, ready for anyone to jump the gun. As for Mr. Abbadon, he was still absent.

Luke tensed, and the music rose to a flurry of notes, and Luke could swear he saw smoke rising from the strings. They must have the devil in them, he had never seen anyone play so fast. He looked back to Buck, who had slung back his coat, his pistol ready and his hand above it. Luke breathed out, and suddenly there was silence.

A shot rang out.

*******

“I must congratulate you, Mr. Vagram, for your attention to detail. You have admirably fulfilled the contract you have signed with Mr. Abbadon, and in less time than you originally asked for. You are one month short of ten years to the day when you signed it.”

Buck nodded, and poured himself a shot. “I suppose he will want to collect right now then.”

The bartender shook his head. “Whatever people say about him, Mr. Abbadon’s word is law. You had ten years, ten years you have. One for each of your son’s I believe. I know he is pleased with the quality of your work, and that you didn’t waste much time. Most of the time in matters such as these, people forget, or try to get out of it, saying they need more time when they feel that they could move on to better things in their life. You stayed with it, and for that, he salutes you.”

“I don’t think I need it.”

“That is your prerogative, Mr. Vagram. You know what to do when you are ready. I will be here for as long as you wish to stay.”

Buck drained another shot of whiskey. One of the banjo players was digging a pair of graves under the tree, the other strumming a dirge softly at the other end of the table. Buck didn’t feel better, even with the sense of accomplishment that he felt. He got them all, and without any of them noticing who was doing it.

He took one last shot, and pulled out his pistol. He looked through the chambers, seeing just one bullet in them. He had only brought two. That was enough.