“Oh, I’ve another four or five years left in me,” he would say of the job, although I wasn’t so sure now, given the trouble I knew he’d be responding to. They were strange words, regardless, as he didn’t take the job until he was nearly forty. He said he had been a sailor in his youth, and that line of work took him all over the world. In particular, he told me of his voyages to East Asia, wherein he spent most of his time in an island nation called, “Japan.” It was there that he’d found himself a wife, a firebrand of a woman whose proper name was, “Akari,” but he called her, “Red,” telling me that she used to wear primarily red clothing in her day-to-day life. 

Red was about as attractive a subject as her husband. She spoke perfect English, even adding details or correcting stories her husband had told me. And, as she readily demonstrated, she was sure a shot as her husband was, with two guns, no less. But the most shocking thing about her was her language. Good lord! The Sheriff and I joked that her mouth could make his old sailing friends blush.  However, once I got over my initial surprise, she proved to be a wonderful woman, and it was clear that the pair loved each other deeply. They’d had two children, a girl, and a boy, with the daughter giving birth to their first grandchild two years ago. Their son was set to be married at the end of the summer.

Knowing this, I was all the more worried when the Sheriff entered the saloon. Even with his family acutely aware of the dangers of his job, it hurt to imagine his wife as a widow, his children fatherless, and his grandchild growing up to never know him.

Lance and his men made no movement as the Sheriff sauntered up to the bar. He exchanged a quiet greeting with the bartender, got a whiskey bottle, and poured himself a drink. The whole time he had his back to the three men but kept an eye on their reflections in the big mirror over the bar. It was at this point that he saw me, in the far corner of the room. He raised his little glass to me then, and I nodded back in response. He finished his drink and poured himself another.

Lance and the others continued to pay the Sheriff no mind. They were busy shuffling cards for another hand of poker. In the middle of the cutting, Lance looked up, studied the Sheriff for a moment, and a fox-like grin spread across his face. I’ll transcribe their words now as best as I can remember.

“Evenin’, Sheriff.”

Reynolds remained with his back to the men. “Lance,” he said softly. “Who’re your friends?”

“Only ol’ cow punchin' pals of mine,” Lance replied. Now, the other two had their eyes locked on the back of the old Sheriff.

The silence in the room was deafening, and as my nerves grew more strained, I noticed the bartender, a fellow everyone called “Mack,” duck into a backroom.

The Sheriff finished his second drink, and I began to wonder what was taking Lance so long to make a move. He and his boys were a good thirty years younger than Reynolds, and while the Sheriff certainly had a fierce reputation, the town had been mostly quiet for the better part of a decade. As my eyes darted between them though, I did notice the Sheriff’s hand resting idly atop the butt of his pistol. But could he turn to shoot them in time? 

Between sips, the Sheriff said, “You’re wanted, Lance, for the murder of Pete Wilson.”

“Self-defense, Sheriff,” said Lance, coldly.

“His wife saw everything. Says you goaded him into it. She’ll testify to that fact. You three are coming with me.”

“That’ll be hard, Sheriff,” Lance said, as he and his men began to rise from their chairs. I saw Courtney start to reach for his gun, with Lance putting out a hand to stop him. Reaching their full heights, the three men waited for the Sheriff’s next move. 

Finished with his third drink, Reynolds set the glass down on the bar. Watching his reflection in the mirror, I saw a cold fury come over his face. And when he spoke next his words dripped with venom.

“Damn punks. I was like you three when I was younger. Only, folks called me something different then.”

Courtney and Woods exchanged nervous glances, while Lance opened his mouth. “What’d they call you, Sheriff?”

Finally, Reynolds faced the killers. He stood, all six-foot-three of him, in the classic gunfighter stance. “They called me, ‘Rattlesnake.’”

“Rattlesnake.” Good God, I swear that was the name he used. If he were the man I was thinking of, then at one time Sheriff Reynolds was the most notorious killer this side of the Mississippi. Stories abounded of the notorious gunfighter, drunkard, and bandit. It was said that at age thirteen he had killed his first man. And by eighteen he’d killed close to thirty, or maybe more. He had a gang, all men older than he was, but none better than him, and together they cut a path of destruction from one end of the West to the other. They robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Sometimes they killed Indians, and other times they fought with Indians against the Cavalry. Speaking of, the gang ran up against the armies of the United States, Mexico, and Canada, each time escaping with their numbers primarily intact. Two dozen posses must have been formed to bring them in. They all limped back to where they came from if they came back at all. For a time, it seemed nothing could stop the Rattlesnake Gang’s reign of terror.

That is until they did something quite unusual. They stopped running, hunkering down in a small Mexican town, just across the border. Turning it into their private Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s said the gang aroused the ire of the peasants they mistreated. They fought back against the gang, keeping them trapped in the town until the arrival of the Mexican Army. For seven long days, the gang held off the Mexican troops until one final assault where all of the gang were killed, save for Rattlesnake himself. After his capture at age twenty-one, it was said he died in an attempted escape from the train transporting him to trial in America. However, rumors existed that said he had successfully escaped and made his way to a land of vice and sin located… in Asia! Could it have been?

It must have, for after he uttered the name, the foxy grin fell from Lance’s face. Instead, his mouth hung open slightly, in surprise. His two men looked fearful, and I saw in the Sheriff’s determined face that he had meant what he said. Again, the silence was maddening.

Lance reached first, with his men following suit. No sooner had their guns cleared leather than three shots thundered from the Sheriff’s gun. It was like it had appeared in his hand, that’s how fast this old man’s draw was.

I had barely any time to process this, as the thuds from the three men’s crumpled bodies snapped me back to reality. Through the gunsmoke, I watched as the Sheriff, pistol still in hand, took a few steps toward the men. Outside, a clamor began to arise, as people were coming to see who had survived.

It was at this point that the Sheriff looked at me again and I became frightened. If he was the former “Rattlesnake,” and at that point, I saw no reason to doubt that conclusion, what would he do to me, now that I knew the secret?

He stared at me for a moment, before a wide grin spread across his face. “You’ll keep that out of your book, won’t you,” he asked. His smile told me he was kidding, but who would say no to a man who could shoot like that? I nodded.

The Sheriff then took a glance at the three dead bodies. Holstering his gun, he gave one more quick nod to me, before stepping out into the night. Coming up to one of the windows, I saw a crowd had formed outside. The Sheriff spoke to his deputy and the undertaker. They came into the bar, but my attention remained on the sheriff.

Wading through the crowd, he ignored the cheers and pats of congratulations from the townsfolk and stepped into the open arms of his wife. With lights cast from lamps outside, I swore I could make out tears in her eyes. They embraced, with the Sheriff kissing his wife on the top of her head. An uncommonly tender gesture from such a man. They turned and walked away into the night, and, as I watched them go, I could not help but wonder what had happened to the man called, “Rattlesnake” that made him change from one of law’s strongest opponents to one of its most-renowned servants.