The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The curious little way-station stood between the edge of the desert and the main settlement. One side of its main room sported a sparsely-stocked bar. The remainder was filled with a hodge-podge collection of canned goods, saddlery, hardware. The main feature, however, was a large display of pistols, rifles, shotguns and ammunition.

The owner, a plump little widower known only as Milton, was accustomed to days when not a soul appeared from dawn to dusk. He was content with his isolation, never bored and never lonely. His passion for guns—although he never shot one himself—let him fill the empty hours with endless oiling and wiping and polishing of his stock.

The afternoon was waning when he laid the last pistol tenderly on its display pad and closed the case. He glanced through the window towards the courtyard and stiffened. His mouth fell open.

A strange man was coming on foot from the desert. He was obviously in the last stages of exhaustion. He stumbled toward Milton’s well. He fell against the well kerb, scooped handfuls of tepid water front the bucket, splashing them over his blistered face, sucking up cautious sips.

Through the closed door Milton could hear a steady, hoarse animal whimpering between the sucking noises.

His first impulse had been to run out and give succour, but something held him back. He had been visited before by fugitive outlaws fleeing to or from the desert. None of the encounters had ended pleasantly for him. This newcomer had the look of danger.

Milton matched up a small board sign inscribed: CLOSED. He inched the front door open far enough to hang the sign outside, eased the door shut again. He ran to the corner for the stout oak timber with which he barred himself in at night.

The door was hauled open before he could fit the bar into its brackets. The stranger stumbled through, dripping water. At close range he was even less prepossessing.

A word crashed into Milton’s mind, made shambles of any coherent thought

Ugly...

He backed up nervously. “I was just closing for the night”

“You just opened again,” Tuco croaked.

His gaze fell on the shelf of bottles behind the bar. He stumbled across, snatched a bottle of whisky and drank thirstily. A full third of the liquor had vanished before he lowered the bottle.

He let go an explosive, “Ah-h-h-h—” He stared around,the room and his eyes glittered. “Guns. I need a hand gun—the best one made.”

“Yes, yes,” Milton said. The stranger’s ugliness was that of death, with a foretaste of rot. Milton ran to a case and hauled out pistols, one at a time. “Here are only the very finest, mister. Remington, Colt, Root, Smith and Wesson, Navy, Joslyn—”

“That’s enough,” Tuco growled. “I know guns.”

He examined each pistol with the eye and ear of an expert, testing the trigger pull, the spring’s force. He spun cylinders close to his ear to gauge the set of the ratchets. When he found one that pleased him he loaded it sand thumbed back the hammer. His gaze roved the room, searching for a target.

“Wait,” the little man cried nervously. “Out in the back is a small range where you can try it out. You’ll know exactly—”

“Show me,” Tuco growled. “Come on—move.”

Milton scuttled to a rear door and opened it to reveal a small courtyard with a row of targets across the for side. Behind each target hung a piece of iron that would clang on a bull’s-eye.

The pistol bucked and slammed in Tuco’s hand. Five shots blasted and each one set iron to ringing. Milton, his eyes wide with awe, followed Tuco back to the counter.

Tuco growled, “Shells.” He reloaded and thumbed back the hammer. “How much?”

“Fifteen dollars, sir.”

“You don’t get the point, friend,” Tuco said through his teeth. “Think about it and try again.”

He waggled the gun and Milton suddenly became achingly conscious that the muzzle pointed straight at his face. He paled and swallowed heavily.

“A—a hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars, sir.” He snatched up a cigar box and opened it to reveal a stack of worn banknotes. “See? It is all the money I have.”

“You got the idea finally.” Tuco snatched the bills. “Where’s your horse?”

“In the stable—out back.”

Tuco grinned and slipped his new gun into his holster. “Now I’ve got everything I need but a cigar.”

“A cigar? Yes, sir. I have them right here, sir, the best in the West.”

“The cigar I’m looking for,” Tuco said savagely, “has the face of a black-hearted son of a whore behind it.”

CHAPTER 7

FEW men, Sentenza reflected, ever had the privilege of watching a bloody, day-long battle from a choice box seat. And even fewer men, his thoughts ran bitterly, had the hellish luck to arrive on the ground where a fortune in gold was buried at a moment when two idiot and unaware armies were mauling one another to pieces over it.