The gun man Jackson Swagger : a western / Stephen Hunter.

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Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter, "a true master at the pinnacle of his craft" (Jack Carr), returns with a classic Western--gunfights, horses, saloons, and looming above, the ominous presence of the railroad--about a Civil War veteran investigating the dark reality of a prosperous ranch.

In the frying pan of a drought-scorched 1890s Southwest, an old man shows up at the region's only prosperous spread, the Callahan ranch, seeking work. Jack is flinty, shrewd, tough, and a natural with a gun. As an incentive to be taken on at his age, he shows the foreman an uncanny skill with one of Mr. Winchester's latest models. He knows a sharpshooter would be valuable to Colonel Callahan and head gun man Tom Voth.

But he has his own mission. Aware that a young cowboy on the ranch has died mysteriously, Jack begins to investigate. He soon realizes that the death and the source of the Callahan wealth are dangerously entwined and that many of the dark forces of the American West are at play on the ranch. Soon enough, it's the season of the six-gun and its fastest shootist.

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Chapter One CHAPTER ONE The sun was a blowtorch, scorching the Arizona Territory crisp. Sagebrush, some living, some dead, bounced indifferently about the raw landscape. While most of America prospered in the wonderful year of 1897, here vegetation had turned brittle while the once abundant and variegated cacti had retreated within themselves, their spindly arms forming structures more appropriate to crucifixion than blossom. Every hillock was its own Golgotha. The wind was contaminated by the vast amounts of grit and other matter it hurled about, so that a man's face went raw in the pelting. Hardly any water lay free, and access to what little remained was strictly controlled by men with shotguns. The mountains seemed like scar tissue on an immense scale, the rivers trickles, the watering holes puddles of mud and shit. Animals died in the thousands, mostly of the big dry. Bones, bleached white by the blaze, littered the land. Wolves, coyotes, and big cats, who fed on the smaller creatures in normal times, were out of business, having moved on or simply perished along with their prey. As for folks, most of them just hung on, hoping for rain, not believing that it would ever arrive again. They dreamed of water and cursed their god for withholding it. They breathed dust, grew sluggish with despair, and turned on one another. In this miasma of despond, only two areas of prosperity remained. The first was the railway town, called Railhead No. 4, the fourth on the way west to California. It was sustained by Eastern money, not cattle, bearing the name Arizona Southern and being a subsidiary of the great Union Pacific. It was laid out straight to run from Nogales to Yuma, hence cutting a day off the detour up through Tucson. It was largely populated by single men of singular immaturity, and was rich in vice. A whorehouse was a good business, while a hardware store was not. Second was the Callahan Ranch, the Crazy R, which alone among the big spreads had not dissolved under the pressures of the drought. Though its surviving cattle were as bony as anybody's and its water holes as dismal, Colonel Callahan was able to keep a full complement of gun men on salary. Having more money than anybody, these boys tended to dominate all encounters that came their way. All wore Mr. Sam's Peacemaker in Mexican holsters. All were said to be proficient. Naturally rumors arose, suggesting that the colonel's sources of income might not be all legitimate. Some said that his secret business was railroad security and labor discipline, some said he owned interests in the string of brothels in Railhead No. 4. Some even said--though not to him--that the Dark Riders, a legion of enforcers and revengers unseen by day, were headquartered at the Crazy R. There was another feature, of course. As the big spreads closed or hunkered in, they had to release their cowboys. Saddle tramps became normal, as singly or in clumps, formerly affiliated cowhands roamed the roads, looking for a place to land. Some turned to crime. Others abandoned the cowboy life and retreated toward the growing cities of the West Coast, and left their horses, guns, and memories bitterly behind. Others tried a variety of ploys to get themselves hired, but for the rare opening a hundred men were available. It got to be a problem, so that the wanderers were not welcome at the few places that might sooner or later have jobs. It so happened that one day in May, hotter than the axles on hell's chariot, a solitary pilgrim on a nag more dead than alive and skinnier than a museum dinosaur, picked his way toward the Callahan spread. He paused to see a hacienda of ample proportion flanked by outbuildings of two bunkhouses, a barn, a cookhouse, a warehouse, and other signs of freshly painted viability. It stood on a plateau of a gentle hill. You would notice the central fact of this fellow's existence immediately: he was old. The face, baked by a thousand years on the prairie, was nut-brown, though the shade did nothing to disguise the net of fissures and gullies that ensnared it--that which could be seen or inferred under a density of dappled white-gray beard--into an imitation of a hide drying into a shield a young Apache might admire. The mouth was a dash among the swirls, and hair hung down from his hat, which was not your ten-gallon Westerner's headpiece, but more citified, of a kind called fedora that had lately been showing up on the plains and desert. Since the geezer could not have afforded such a thing, it was logical to assume it had been won in poker or taken at gunpoint. Or perhaps scavenged at the site of a mysterious massacre. His fingers were long, but as for his body, though it appeared to be long as well, that information was hidden under a rawhide duster that was so much a part of the cowboy outfit it did not come off even in scalding weather. The eyes were hard, and crafty, the boots well beaten, on their fifth or sixth pair of heels and soles. He didn't look like he'd say much or explain much. Perhaps he wore guns under the duster, but the garment didn't reveal them by shape; he had a scabbard under his saddle, but no Winchester in it. Rather it held the tarnished brass hilt of a cavalry saber, presumably atop a blade that had drawn blood. The rope on his horn looked loose and well used, perhaps older even than the man himself. He rode to the hacienda and waited, still on horseback. Though other cowboys lounged about the place, none paid attention to him. Why would they? He was an old man in a dry time, without a future or a past. He was negligible. He was a nuisance. In time a fellow--no cowboy, more of a former cowboy type, given now to office work for the cattle operation and logistics--came onto the porch of the hacienda, and gave him a once-over. "Who might you be?" "Name's Jack. Looking for work. Heard you might be taking on." "Ain't you a bit elderly, Jack? The work here is killing hard, sometimes hard killing. Apache off the reservation, rustlers, folks come with guns to take water that ain't theirs. The lead flies. You'd be more comfortable in a rocker, on a porch, sipping lemonade, waiting to pass quietly without pain." "Probably so. But who would pay for such ease?" "I see. Rootless, then?" "Had a good life working for various outfits. Last place, up in Colorado, the bank took over. About thirty of us were released. We scattered. I had saved up a little, lived on that for a time. Yep, lots of lemonade, usually with whiskey. But the money ran out and the lemonade and whiskey followed. So here I am." "It's true we're looking. But these jobs are good, and the colonel only takes the best man, Jack. Hard to see how you qualify as a best man." "Sir, I learned the horse with the Arkansas cavalry in the big war thirty years back. I had four years of battle and sleeping on bare ground. I've got the bullet holes and the pieces of tin to prove it. I stayed with the horse as my two war mounts were the noblest creatures I ever knew. Never saw a man to match them. Cowboyed here, there, everywhere, sometimes going all the way to guns. All these years later, I can still stay in the saddle sixteen hours a day, live on beans and coffee, sleep in the brush, and do it again the next day and the next. I can rope and shoot and brand, I can ride fence, I can track. I've been around the Apache and the Northern Cheyenne, don't lose my head if I see a batch of either on the approach. When bullets fly, I am calm, as I am when the bear charges. I have all the cowboy skills, at the highest. I'll prove it if you let me." "Yet I see no guns." "Pawned. Maybe pick them up later when I get a job, though the pawn usury is so high it might be better to start anew." "Pawnbrokers and whore-runners are the only ones making money today. You sure you're not just here for a handout? We get a lot of that. Unattached cowhands roll in, beg for work, claiming they're the best. But they're really cadging for a free meal and a quarter or so for a whiskey the next town they go. That wouldn't be you, would it, Jack?" "No, sir." "The colonel doesn't like that. He likes honesty and loyalty. His army ways. He was in the big war too, though not your side. I wouldn't go bragging on how many Unions the Arkansas Cavalry in general and you in specific sent to glory." "I got no brag in me." "Then I guess everything you say is true. But still, I'm not seeing anything special. You must be special good at something, and some things--" "I have a gift for the rifle." "Every man I ever met claims to be a good shot." "I can show off a little." The man considered him, looked him over three times and then a fourth. "Don't know why I'm favoring an ancient string bean so, but as it turns out we could use a good rifleman." "As I say, I don't brag. Just let the Winchester do my yapping." It took a while. A long while. As he waited on the porch, he watched the life of the spread play out. At a certain moment near twilight, a herd of cowboys rode in. They were rangy, young, and looked like knights of a sort, and carried themselves as such. They had confidence, being good at their jobs, and that was expressed in bravado form, whoops and yelps. "Buckaroo" seemed to be the word for such youngsters. They were too in love with themselves, the fun they had each day, the whooping and hollering, to notice the heaviness of the work, or its occasional danger. They wore tall, giant hats and their legs were encased in the flappity-flap of leather chaps to prevent the horseflesh from chafing the boy flesh. Nothing's dangerous if you're that young, even a war. Jack remembered himself thirty years or so earlier and thought that he could fit in easily enough with this tribe. They hadn't been in battle, true battle, and did not know what artillery and massed musket fire or a few Gatlings could do to men such as them. Perhaps they'd remain so innocent. But there was another group, not so merry, not so wild. These were men of a smaller bunkhouse off to the left, who kept to themselves. In fact, that building was encircled in range wire, to dissuade visitation. A narrow gate led in and out. These fellows enjoyed their privacy and, like most of a private nature, valued it highly enough to defend it by any means possible. You wouldn't want to annoy them, and they'd have a code of behavior more stringent than most and would probably ride any new arrival hard, no matter the age, to make certain he was up to their standards. It went with that kind of man, and Jack had spent enough time as one in his life to know their byways and predispositions. You got off on the right foot with them or you never made it up. First impressions were the only impression among that sort, he knew as a fact. It didn't surprise him to feel that eyes from that building were on him hard, even if no evidence of it was available. But it seemed in accord with what he'd heard of Callahan, that some of the place's agents were known to move by dark and behave in ways nobody cared much to talk about or acknowledge. Most powerful men had a corps of serious men about, and that went from the president of the United States on down the whole ladder to the president of the school board. Some worked off strength, some worked off firearms, some worked off persuasion by fist or club. But no matter, they took themselves seriously and their place in the world was hard-earned. Then a man detached himself from the place and headed toward Jack. He was tall and thin, his pants tight, his boots bright, his hat low over his eyes, and a mustache like a bat's wings occluding his mouth. He looked like he didn't laugh or talk much, but if he spoke folks would always listen, whether it was instructions or corrections. As for the laughter, it never would come, unless drunkenness was involved. He wore no chaps. Instead he was gunned up too, the Colt 4¾-inch Peacemaker model in basket-weave leather cut and bent by a skilled Mexican, otherwise lacking in ornamentation. The gun, Jack knew, was of a sort meant for fast, close shooting. You'd use it in a fight, maneuvering quickly, and the caliber would be big enough to put most fellows down on the first shot. Jack saw how useful to the bearer the pistol was, as expressed in its shiny beauty, meaning probably that it was cleaned hard by him, as if to bid fair warning to the world of who and what he was. The stocks were still the New Haven black rubber, the mottled purple and smeared yellow of the case hardening on the frame still vivid. The hammer had been snicked back a notch, which made it easier to cock and thus faster, so that he was always ready to go to work with it. In the same fashion, his hand never strayed far from it. He approached. Eyes dark, narrow. No smile under the mustache, no softness or welcome or sense of etiquette. It may have been Victorian times all about, rich in ceremony, fashion, and decoration, but where this fellow was, it would always be all business, straight to point or holster, whichever was called for. He was the timeless warrior. "You claim to be some sort of special shooter. Why ain't you with Annie Oakley in her Wild West show?" "Way past women. Wouldn't know what to say to Miss Annie. Just looking for a spot where I can be of value in the years I have left." "How old?" "Middle fifties. Born in 1842." "No rifle?" "Had to pawn it. Needed to eat. But I can shoot most as well as my own, with fair ammo and sights lined up straight." "Well, lookie here," said the man. "Here's Mr. Boseman with a rifle." Mr. Boseman--so the first fellow seemed to be called--stood there, a well-cared-for Winchester of the 1892 model in hand. "My own," he said. "I don't shoot it so much anymore, so it's clean. Here's three cartridges." Jack took them, .38-40s. He felt the density to the stubby lead projectile outweighing the bottleneck case and the powder that gave it its fuel, feeling the familiarity of something long a part of his life. "Crank 'em out yourself or buy fresh from the New Haven boys?" "New Haven. Bought 'em with the rifle. We do have a fellow who comes out and reloads shells for us once a week, but I haven't used my store-bought up yet. Anyway, make a difference to you?" "If you or this town fellow put 'em together, no telling how they might fly, what speed, what drop over distance. If they're from New Haven, I'd guess they fall four feet the first fifty yards, six the next, and eight the third. I got a better chance of hitting knowing that." He manipulated the shells adroitly, proving only that he could manipulate them adroitly. Turning the firearm to its side, he inserted them, one after the other, into the receiver loading gate, feeling them fight the magazine spring as they were driven into the tube under the barrel. He tested the rifle against his shoulder a bit, dropped it, raised it. Then he said, "Tell me what needs a hole." The dark man said, "See the smaller bunkhouse? For some damned reason it's got a useless weathervane atop--" Jack threw and clamped the lever, feeling the mechanics of the gun pick up the first cartridge and lift it to the chamber, even as they tilted and locked the hammer with a satisfyingly metal-on-metal click, then drove the package into place as the lever was closed. In the same motion he put rifle to shoulder, cheek to stock, eye to front sight, held six inches high, and pressed the trigger, which obediently released the hammer against the cartridge's primer, detonating it and sending the whole thing into a well-regulated sequence of events. The noise was sharp, the burn of the black powder was instant and copious, and even against the brightness of the day a flash registered, and a hundred yards away, the tin rooster bent spastically under the impact of the 180-grain bullet, while clanging loudly. "That one?" asked Jack. "You only wounded him," said the dark man. "Maybe luck had a part to play and--" But before he finished, Jack repeated the ceremony of the rifle and fired a second time, and this time the rooster vibrated with the same clang and gave up the ghost, skittering down the roof over rough shingles to the ground. Four or five gun men, in various states of undress but all armed, poured from the building. "Sorry to disturb you fellas," Jack called. "Just a little rooster pecking." Silence clotted the air for a bit. Then the dark man said, "Mr. Boseman, can you get us a few pieces of fruit or a gourd from the kitchen? This fellow shoots well at something standing still, let's see how he does when the target is moving." "Yes, sir," said Mr. Boseman. He left and seemed gone but seconds before returning. He had two melons with him, of the sort called cantaloupe. And two more of his treasured New Haven cartridges. Jack reloaded smartly. "All set, old-timer?" asked the dark man, the melons in hand. Jack levered the rifle again. "Why not?" he said. The boss lofted one cantaloupe, then the other, into the air. Jack didn't bother to shoulder the arm. Locking it under his elbow, he calculated on intuition both speed and deflection, fired, levered, and fired. In both cases, the fruit exploded, flinging gobbets of melon about the universe. Silence again. "I have a cartridge left," said Jack. "Anything else need a bullet?" "Maybe Joe Pye?" said Mr. Boseman. "Make a lot of folks happy." The dark fellow said, "My name's Voth, first name is Tom but you'll never call me that unless you marry my sister and she died seven years ago." "As you insist, Mr. Voth. I go by Jack." "Forget the mister. Voth is enough. Only Jack?" "For now." "Paper on you by full name? Bounty men on your tail?" "Truth is, I don't know. Sometimes if you get in a fracas, it depends on who wins whether they put out a poster or write a dime novel." "Seen that too. Are you fixing to join the gun men?" "If that's your colonel's decision. I didn't specify your group as opposed to the younger, louder boys in the big bunkhouse. It wouldn't be polite. I just need a job." "Southern? Your voice seems to indicate it." "My people are from Arkansas. Served in the cavalry. But I left after the war. Couldn't settle down, it seemed. Needed stars above and clear territory ahead." "The colonel will like that, being himself military." "He will find me well versed in army ways, even if it was a different army." "That was very fine shooting." "It seems to run in the family. Nobody knows why." "You impress. I like the calm. I like the lean, so no need for much beyond trail food. I like the softness of voice, the direct stare; I like the big hands, good with pistols, I'd bet. But do I like you? Hard to say yet." "I understand." "Let me tell you something. This frontier is ragged everywhere except in my bunkhouse. It's tight-run, obedient, and capable. No time for learning, no time for amateurs or clowns. You do what's required and do it well. You back up the men on each side of you and I mean to the death, if need be. We do get in scrapes and men die, that's the fact." "I have thought that part through," said Jack, "and am easy with it." "Well, if he sends you our way, let me tell you what to expect. He needs a lot of gun talent because once a month he sends ten wagons south fifty miles to Mexico. It's rough country the whole way, but getting there's nothing compared to getting back. He keeps this place running off a deal he's got with the commandant of a Federale outfit in charge of the state of Sonora. "This fellow sells the colonel his grain, his foodstuffs, his flour, everything you need to run a spread this size, at a nickel on the dollar, as stolen from the Mexican government. You see it around here, that's where it comes from. But getting it back, that's the hard part. Braves who've jumped the res and want to be Geronimo, Mexican revolutionaries, Mexican military units on the roam, bandits both Mex and ours, it's all gold to them because it can keep them operating too. On the way back, it's rare we don't get jumped at least once, sometimes two or three times. Men die on both sides. Sometimes we lose a wagon. Tough work. You sign with us, you will get shot at a lot, you will shoot back a lot. If you've got the sand to stand up to that, we'll welcome you. If you run or hide, we'll kill you. Telling you before just so you know." "Been shot at a bit." "Your life is equal parts duty, loyalty, and courage. And violence." "I can pay that coinage." "You understand, when you step through that door, you are mine to use as I see fit, in accordance with the colonel's larger wishes." "I do." Voth turned to the administrator, Boseman, and said, "Tell the colonel I want him." The colonel: Jack's own age, but with a whisper of fancy to him. Clearly well raised in a landed family, schooled not only in Latin and Greek but in which spoon, when to stand or sit, how to control body demands to fart or gurgle, which were ladies and which were whores and how to treat each one. No handshake, no warmth. No sit-down. No drink offered. No hospitality. His hard army eyes bored into Jack, who met the stare easily without back-off, yet did not offer defiance, only connection. "Jack, is that it? Only Jack?" "Yes, sir. For now, as much for you as me." "So be it. Our outfit has many men of a single name. Now, you claim, sir, the war as heritage and education." "I was in it, start to finish, not counting hospital time." "How many times hit?" "Six. One bad one. A .54 ball just over the heart. That boy could shoot a lick. It kept me in hospital for six months. Finally, I pronounced myself fit and rejoined the fellows." "The fellows being?" "Third Arkansas Cavalry, under Earle and then Hobson, part of Joe Wheeler's Army of Mississippi. Company D, called Danley's Rangers after the major, and named for him to the end even though he didn't make it." "Too many good men didn't make it. Think of what we lost and how it will set us back." "I do, sir." "How many big fights?" "Seventeen named battles, I believe. Then skirmishes that busted out any time, any place, and nobody bothered to remember or write down and put in the books." "Rank?" "Sergeant major by the end." "So you've led men under fire." "Many a time." "After?" "Was wild for a while. No accounting for why. Care not to remember it much. Killed too many buffalo, too many Indians, mostly Comanche. And Northern Cheyenne, very brave men. Then cattle fights, water fights, land fights, even whiskey fights. It was not a good time." The colonel considered. "Sit down," he finally said. "I am told you are of high gift as a rifleman. We need that. If we can drop our attackers from afar, we save the up-close pistol work that gets far too many of ours killed. That would be your job. In our army, we called them sharpshooters." "In mine too." "Then I hated them. You Southerners could shoot a bit too. Now I need them." "I hated them too. Now I'll be one." "Strange world, no? Anyhow, I must tell you I run this place different than most places. You may have sensed that. I have cowboys for the cattle, but cowboys aren't gun men. They work too hard to practice the pistol and I hate to lose a good roper to a fight over a water hole. I have a small group that now seem to be called Dark Riders. Voth runs them. There are men of a certain caliber who take pleasure in seeing their talents for chaos orchestrated and put to practical use. The sort that seemed to end up as sappers in my army. Yours too, I suspect." "That is so." "I suppose Voth told you most of it. When we move supplies up from Mexico, we are jumped more than once. Fights the whole way back. If you're who you say you are, it's nothing new or strange. If not, it'll eat you up and the boys will see your weakness. They won't abide it." "I understand." "All right. Need a drink? I have whiskey of several kinds, British gin, sour mash, what have you. It's a full bar." "Whiskey straight would be my choice." The colonel ushered him over near the fireplace, under the dead-eyed watch of a gigantic elk and its crown of thorns, and after pouring led him to a plush chair. He himself sat opposite. "I must tell you a story," he said. "Otherwise, you could say you were tricked into my employ. It begins with hope, it ends, alas, with death." Excerpted from The Gun Man Jackson Swagger: A Western by Stephen Hunter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Publishers Weekly Review

In his energetic latest Swagger family novel (after Targeted), Pulitzer winner Hunter traces the sharpshooting dynasty back to 1897. Elderly Jack Swagger, his face "a net of fissures and gullies," arrives at Callahan Ranch in Arizona territory looking for work as a hired gun. He puts on an impressive enough display that Colonel Callahan offers him a job protecting grain and flour deliveries to a corrupt official in Mexico. First, though, the colonel relays a cautionary tale about a previous employee known as Teacher, whose noble refusal to let horses suffer during a shoot-out led to his death. From the outset, Hunter makes it clear that Jack's job search belies his ulterior motives, but author and character both keep their cards close to the vest. Meanwhile, Jack displays superb marksmanship while facing down foes including smuggler Joe Pye, Mexican army major Arau, and violent Frenchman Etienne d'Auclair. Hunter tends to favor ornate dialogue ("The ranch is America," the colonel says at one point. "It is large, splendid, and provides for the many. Indeed, some sins have been committed to keep it on keel. That is always so of large entities"), but he keeps tension high throughout, and readers with a thirst for bullets will be satiated. This is a solid yarn. Agent: Esther Newberg, CAA. (Oct.)