A notched gun

By Walt Coburn
Walt Coburn gives us a moving little story that swings a dramatic arc from the Old West to the battlefields of France.
Sam Graybull was a killer. He proved it now as he backed slowly out of the Valley Bank with a smoking Colt in one hand and a gunnysack full of currency in the other. The teller had made a move for the automatic below the money counter. Sam Graybull’s bullet had caught the unfortunate man between the eyes.
The cashier, his movements sluggish from stark fear, made a break for the side door and was shot in the back.
“You’ll be next,” he told the young lady stenographer, “if you let out one yap.”
The blizzard outside muffled the sound of the shots. There was no one abroad in the little storm-swept cow town to block San Graybull’s departure. He mounted the horse that stood humped in the snow. In five minutes he was lost in the storm, made thicker by the shadows of dusk. He left no telltale sign. Because the country between Milk River and the Bad Lands was as familiar as a child’s back yard, he had no fear of capture. He tied the sackful of money to his saddle and fashioned a cigaret with thick, blunt fingers that were steady.
“That damn’ bank dude’s mouth flopped open shore comical.” The rattle of Sam Graybull’s laugh was blurred by the wind.
No fear of pursuit marred the killer’s flight. He knew the ways of sheriff’s posses. They would hole up at the first ranch. That is why he had held off till the storm broke, then rode into town and stuck up the bank. A one man job. Cunningly planned, cold bloodedly executed. The lives he had taken were but tally notches on his gun, no more. He would boast about it when he got drunk.
“That other’n piled up like a beef.”
The storm swirled and moaned. The horse drifted with the wind, headed south for the Bad Lands. A man could hole up there and get plenty drunk. Grub in the cabin. Wood enough for a month. Hay a-plenty. A keg of moonshine licker. When a man got hard up for company, there was Pete Peralta and his wife across the river. Pete was a damn’ fool but he knowed how to keep his mouth shut. Pete was all right. Just didn’t have the guts to go out and take chances, that was all. Mebbe if it wasn’t fer the missus, Pete might swap a hayfork fer a gun and pick up some easy money. Pete’s missus was just a young thing. Purty enough, so far as looks went. Kinda quiet. Scairt, like as not, because she wa’n’t used to men that had guts. But she had sense. Close mouthed like most ’breed women. No damn’ sheriff’d ever git anything outa Rose Peralta.