The end of July will see a BHW on the racks with the title of Monty McCord. There's a story behind that title.
It started the day I met Monty McCord at a Western Writers of America conference two years ago. Monty McCord. What a name! Perfect for a cowboy protagonist. "Hey, Monty," I said. "Gotta have your name. Can I use it for my next hero?"
"As long as you don't drag it through the muck," he said.
"Never happen," says I.
I sat down and began to write Monty McCord, the story of a Colorado cowboy. Just to give you a whiff of what the story's like, here's the first little bit for you to read.
Monty
McCord topped the hogback above Mexican Hat and reined in his dappled sorrel.
He threw a leg over the horn of his saddle and pulled makings from his shirt
pocket. As he rolled the smoke, his eyes scanned the village, then the
approaches, then the heights of the mesas off toward Monument Valley. For a man
with Hunter Billings’ riders on his back trail, Monty made his smoke like he
didn’t have a care in the world. Hunter Billings. Gawdawful hunk of an old man
who figured he owned Twin Fork Basin and the town of Watsonville, even though
Frank Watson was there before him and even though Ellen Watson made it clear
she wanted nothing of Billings’ boy.
Women.
Monty
figured Ellen was OK, as women went. She took over the Flying W when old Frank
passed on, and she did a rightful job of running the spread. Monty McCord
admitted that. Ellen Watson was some woman. But she owned a ranch and Monty
McCord was nothing more than a line rider. A good line rider, but not one who
could sidle up to a ranching woman and make her notice. Besides, she was the
boss.
Shit.
Dust
showed on his back trail.
Monty
snubbed out the smoke on his saddle horn, ripped the paper and scattered the
tobacco. He rolled the paper into a tiny ball with thumb and forefinger and
tossed it away, a habit born of years riding in the pine tree country of
Arizona’s White Mountains. Suddenly he missed the peace and quiet of the Cooley
ranch where he’d cut his teeth as a cowboy.
What the
hell was he running for? He’d beat the shit out of nasty snot-nosed Hartley
Billings. Tromped his ass. Then killed him.
Wouldn’t
have done that if the kid hadn’t shot at him when he was about to leave through
the batwings of Woodrow’s Saloon. The kid’s bullet had very nearly clipped
Monty’s ear, and worse, damn near holed his spanking new black Stetson.
Monty
reacted. His hogleg was out and cocked as he turned. He touched off a shot as
the pistol came in line and Hunter Billings’ precious son lay dead.
Shit.
The
cloud of dust seemed closer. A mile? Less?
Monty
McCord was tired of the chase. Not because he’d ridden so far. Not because of
the gaggle of hard riders on his trail. Just because of the unfairness of the
whole thing.
Hartley
Billings had pushed Monty. Pushed him hard, saying he was a two-bit puncher
who’d die with a horn in his guts or pitched from his horse into some worthless
bottomless canyon.
“Shit,
kid,” Monty said. “You can’t even wipe your own ass. You gotta call some
dollar-a-day waddie to clean up your goldam messes. You ain’t got what it takes
and your old man knows it. That’s why he wants you to spark Ellen Watson. She
could save the H Bar H for him. But you. I hear you like men better’n women.”
The kid
came in punching, and Monty laid him out. Had to give the boy credit. He got up
and came in again, swinging a chair.
Monty
kicked young Billings’ legs out from under him and connected with a looping
right as he tried to get up. Smashed the boy’s nose. Monty pushed the fight,
slowly beating the kid to a pulp as he backpedalled all the way to the bar.
“Nuff,”
Hollard Smythe, the bartender, said. “Things’ll go hard enough as it is. Lay
off.”
The kid
crumpled.
“I hear
you, Holly,” Monty said. He picked up his new black hat, cleaned the sawdust
off it, and set it on his head at a jaunty angle. He walked for the batwings
and the kid had to shoot at him. A man naturally shoots back and Hartley
Billings lay dead.
“Jayzus,”
Holly said. “Old Man Billings’ll be after your ass, Monty. You’d better light a
shuck.”
Monty
did. And now he had to decide whether to keep running. He never was one to run.
Wasn’t like him. He walked Baron down the hill and into Mexican Hat.
A dumpy
stop on the Outlaw Trail, Mexican Hat bore the name of a rock formation off to
the west, marking the eastern edge of Monument Valley. One saloon, one cantina,
and a rickety place without windows that stood empty, but wore a faded sign
that read Garrison’s General Store. Monty counted the hovels. Thirteen looked
lived in, half a dozen abandoned.
He
walked Baron the sorrel down the trail . . . it would be hard to say a wagon
road led into Mexican Hat . . . with the sun climbing near its zenith. Heat
waves formed a mirage of cool water over under the southern horizon. Sideless
brush jacals kept the harsh sunlight from tiny patches of red dirt. A lizard
panted, halfway up a bare juniper pole. Monty pulled his black Stetson low over
his eyes. Without showing any sign, he searched the little village for anything
unusual. A dog lay at the edge of the street, tongue lolling. The dirt around it
said the dog was in its usual place.
Two
horses stood before a low adobe structure that had CANTINA whitewashed on one
side. The whitewash was nearly gone, but the name was still readable. Twenty
yards away, facing the cantina, a false-front frame building wore a sign that
said “Whiskey.” One horse stood hipshot in front of it. Nothing moved. Not even
flies.
Half a
mile on down the dusty track, a rickety bridge spanned the San Juan river.
Maybe the only reason the town existed. It certainly was about the only place
where cows and ponies could be swum across the San Juan and pushed down the
Trail toward Chinle, Juan Lorenzo Hubbell’s trading post, and Navajo Springs,
where the thirsty stock could at last get a decent drink. Commodore Owens
always had a bottle for the cowboys at his place there, and he never asked
leading questions.
Monty
chose the saloon. He could drink mescal when worse got to worst, but preferred
a civilized drink like branded whiskey. Old Grand-Dad, or Turley’s Mill. Maybe
he’d have time for a snort or two before Billings and his iron-toting men rode
in.
He tied
Baron to the hitching rail next to a brown that looked like it hadn’t had a
square meal or a chance to browse in the last month, maybe more.
There
was no door, just an opening in the false front. Windows on either side gaped
without panes, like the empty eye sockets of a longhorn’s skull. Monty
shrugged.
Inside
the saloon, Monty stepped aside and waited till his eyes could adjust to the
dim interior. A quick glance showed him the scene. Dust on the floor. Dust on
the chairs and tables. Dust on the empty bottles behind the bar. An old man
with a scraggly beard stood with his back against the wall beyond the bar.
Monty walked slowly over. He took the kerchief from around his neck and flapped
it at the bar, moving enough dust for a place to put his elbows, which he did.
“Whiskey,”
he said.
The old
man shuffled over. “I’d sell you house whiskey,” he said, his voice sounding
like his throat was full of sandpaper, “but I ain’t got none. You’ll have to
make do with Old Potrero or Jameson’s.”
“Old
Potrero’s good,” Monty said.
The old
man squatted and rustled around in the space back of the bar. He stood up with
a clear bottle in his hand. “Knew I had some left,” he said. The bottle bore no
sign of a label. The liquid in it was amber.
The man
blew the collected sand and dust out of a shot glass and poured it brim full.
“That’ll be a dollar,” he said.
“A
dollar!”
“Yep.”
“Shee-it.
Get four drinks for a dollar over to Woodrow’s in Watsonville.”
“This
ain’t Watsonville. You can move across to the cantina. They may have some
mescal. Most likely tiswin, though. A dollar.”
Monty
paid.
The old
man set the glass in front of him and put the bottle back under the bar.
“Whose
cayuse outside?” Monty asked.
“Mine.
Keep him there to draw customers. Mostly it works.”
“They
got two in front of the cantina,” Monty said.
“White
men usually want whiskey. One horse’s enough.”
“Looks
like he could use a good bait of oats.”
The old
man cackled. “Mister, you think a shot of whiskey’s steep at a dollar, try
buying a sack of oats. Me and that cayuse’ve been over more than one trail
together. He gets fed afore me.”
Monty picked up the shot
glass. “Mud in your eye,” he said, and tossed the whiskey. His eyes watered and
the liquor burned its way down his throat and into his stomach. He knuckled his
watering eyes. “Damn,” he said.
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