Curly Bill and Ringo (21 page)

Ringo didn’t say anything else. He had never been much of a hand for talk, and knew it would do no good now. He just stood there, completely motionless, and watched Billy Bishop with his somber blue eyes. When Billy looked into those cold still eyes, he was gazing into eternity, but he was too green to realize it.

“I’m fixin’ to kill you right here and now,” the boy said. “Then I reckon folks will know who’s the fastest.”

Ringo’s eyes got a little colder and remoter and there was a trace of contempt in them. But whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself, as usual. He still stood straight and seemingly relaxed, while the Bishop kid slowly bent into a tense crouch.

The boy must have realized how ridiculous he appeared in contrast to the seasoned gunfighter, for his face got red and his lips twisted with bitter resentment and he suddenly cried in a trembling voice, “Draw, damn you!”

As he spoke his gun came up in a silver blur and exploded. But his lead streaked for the sky after Ringo’s bullet had driven him back. The boy died as he crumpled to the ground.

No one had seen Ringo draw. His hand was literally quicker than the eye.

He looked at the still body of Billy Bishop for a moment, and then he turned his cold blue eyes on the Hatcher boys. His jaw had the hard murderous look and his chest swelled up with rage.

Curly held himself tense, watching with tortured eyes. He fully expected to see Ringo turn his gun on the Hatcher boys and blast them all into hell.

But just then Miss Sarah came out on the hotel veranda with a stricken breathless look on her pale face, and Ringo silently holstered his gun and crossed the street to the hotel, taking her arm and escorting her back inside.

The Hatcher boys crowded around Billy Bishop, gazing down at him in speechless awe. Curly went toward them and said in a harsh bitter tone, “You sons of bitches! Are you satisfied now?”

They looked at him blankly, and he roared, “You got him killed! Now bury him!”

“You’re mighty careless about the company you keep, Curly,” he said.

“Well, I reckon there ain’t as much to pick and choose from as there used to be,” Curly said, surprised at the blunt sarcasm in his tone. “But come to think about it, you never did approve of most of my friends, did you, Ringo?”

Ringo poured himself another drink, not even bothering to look at the rustler. “I never approved of any of them.”

“That’s right,” Curly said. “You never would of had anything to do with the Clantons if it hadn’t been for me. You always made them feel like they weren’t in your class.”

“They weren’t in my class,” Ringo said.

Comanche Joe looked at Ringo in the back-bar mirror, then spit on the floor.

Ringo didn’t miss much that went on around him and he didn’t miss that, and he was not in the mood to ignore what amounted to an insult, more instinctive than deliberate, but still an insult. He had already taken all that he intended to take off the Hatcher boys. He suddenly seemed to stand up about a foot taller, his proud head in the air and his jaw thrust out in anger. He stepped out away from the bar and moved toward Comanche Joe until he was about even with Curly. He stood there glaring at the dark youth and said, “Get down and lick it up.”

For a moment Comanche Joe stood like stone, as if he hadn’t heard. Then he whirled away from the bar and stood crouched, staring back at Ringo with a wildness in his eyes.

Curly knew what was in the boy’s mind, because he had seen him that way before.

“Take it easy,” Curly said quietly, moving toward him.

“Keep out of this, Curly,” Ringo said in a hard tone.

Curly didn’t take his eyes off Comanche Joe. He saw the wildness flash in the dark eyes, and his right fist shot up and cracked the boy on the jaw, stunning him for a moment. Curly’s left hand grabbed the big Smith & Wesson from the holster and tossed it behind the bar, although he knew it was just as likely that Comanche Joe would have attacked Ringo with his bare hands, and almost as likely that Ringo would have killed him if he had.

Suddenly the boy turned on Curly, swinging his fist at Curly’s head, Curly ducked and hooked his arm around the other’s body and threw him to the floor.

“Get out of here, Ringo,” Curly said over his shoulder.

“Sure,” Ringo said. “Just as soon as he licks it up.”

“No, there’s already been enough trouble.” Curly pointed his finger at Comanche Joe and said, “Now you stay there, goddammit, or I’m going to lay you out.” Then he turned to face Ringo, standing between him and the Hatcher boy.

Ringo’s eyes were almost as wild as Comanche Joe’s. “Get out of my way, Curly.”

Curly shook his head, “Can’t do it. I’ll lay you out too if I have to.”

Ringo’s jaw clenched. No one talked to him like that. He seemed about ready to hit Curly. Then he remembered his bad arm and began flexing his left hand, the hand he had done most of his fist-fighting with in the past, trying to save his gun hand all he could. A look of bitter frustration and helpless rage twisted his face, and he suddenly whipped up his gun and brought it down on Curly’s head before the big rustler could move.

Curly saw about a million stars and then reeled into blackness.

When he came to he was lying on the floor and Comanche Joe was lying unconscious near him. Ringo was gone and the place seemed strangely quiet and deserted.

Curly rubbed his head and looked up. Jackpot was leaning over the bar, grinning down at him. It was the first time he had smiled in ages.

Curly sat up and groaned, “What happened?”

Jackpot told him with unusual relish. When Ringo laid Curly out, Comanche Joe had come off the floor and dived at Ringo, and had dived head first into Ringo’s descending gunbarrel. According to Jackpot, it had taken Ringo about a second and a half to take care of both of them. Then he had turned on his heel and strode out of the saloon, thrusting his gun back into the holster.

“You mind handing me down a drink, Jackpot?” Curly asked.

“What’s wrong, Curly?” Jackpot taunted. “You don’t feel like standing up?”

Curly didn’t even feel like replying. He sat on the saloon floor for a while holding his throbbing head with both hands, and then managed to climb to his feet. He found a bottle on the bar and turned it up, not bothering with a glass.

“You ain’t worried about your friend?” Jackpot asked, indicating Comanche Joe.

“Not till he comes to,” Curly said. “When he does, he’s liable to go after Ringo again. But this time I don’t know as I’ll try to stop him,” he added, rubbing the lump on his head.

“I thought Ringo was your friend,” Jackpot said. “But I’m beginning to think you stretched the truth a little when you said that.”

“Jackpot,” Curly sighed wearily, “don’t keep buzzing around me. You just ain’t worth killing, especially when I’ve got a headache like this.”

Comanche Joe suddenly climbed up the bar, reached for the bottle he had started on earlier, and turned it up. Then without a word he staggered out of the saloon, carrying the bottle with him. Curly didn’t feel like warning him not to cause any more trouble, but he doubted if Comanche Joe felt like causing any, at least not for a while.

Curly looked at himself in the mirror and he hardly recognized the unhappy face staring back at him out of hooded, bleak gray eyes. In all his life he had never seen a more miserable looking fellow. His hat had been knocked off and his unruly black hair hung down on his frowning forehead. He bent over to pick the hat up, and when he raised back up his headache seemed twice as bad as before, if that was possible. “What did he hit me with anyway?”

“His gun,” Jackpot said. “Drew it and clobbered you before you could even blink.”

Curly looked at his solemn dark face in the mirror again.

“I reckon it ain’t my day.”

“Your day is past,” Jackpot said.

“Don’t talk in riddles, Jackpot. If you’ve got something to say, you better get it said before I get my strength back. Then I reckon you and me will go around and around.”

Cash and Beanbelly came in wet with sweat from their grave-digging. Beanbelly was carrying his coat and his grimy shirtsleeves were rolled up. He was drooping with exhaustion, but Cash was in better shape.

Curly looked at Jackpot. “How long was I out?”

“Not long. Just a few minutes.”

“What did you boys do,” Curly asked, “shovel a little loose dirt over him?”

Cash was looking at his head. “You’re bleeding. What happened?”

“Ringo came in and laid him and Comanche Joe out with the barrel of his gun,” Jackpot said, smiling.

Beanbelly’s eyes flickered toward the door, and Cash looked uneasy. “Where is he now?” Cash asked.

Jackpot shrugged. “Went back to the hotel, I guess.”

Cash looked relieved. “I meant Comanche Joe,” he said, rubbing his mouth.

“The hell you did,” Curly said.

“Well, where is Joe at?” Cash asked.

“Staggered off someplace with a bottle. Went back to the shack, I guess.”

‘’If he gets drunk, there’ll be hell to pay,” Beanbelly said.

“There sure will,” Curly said. “Ringo will kill him.”

“If somebody don’t kill Ringo first,” Cash said.

Curly glanced at him. “Who’s going to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Cash said bitterly. “But I don’t reckon it will be you. Billy was faster than you. Now you’re second best, but that ain’t good enough. When you’re second best, you’re as good as dead.”

“What does that make you, Cash?”

“When you’re as far down as I am, it don’t matter,” Cash said.

Curly put his hat on the bar and held his throbbing head in his hands. The talk was making his headache worse.

“You mean you got a hangover already, Curly?” Jackpot asked. “You ain’t even sobered up yet.”

Beanbelly looked at Curly. “You gonna let him talk to you that way?”

“I ain’t decided what to do about him yet,” Curly said, still holding his head. “Him or Ringo either.”

“You better hurry up and decide something,” Cash said, his voice shaking. “Ringo’s gonna kill us all, if we don’t get him first.”

“You better go see what Comanche Joe is up to,” Curly said. “If he keeps drinking, he’s liable to try something crazy.”

“You ain’t all that sober yourself,” Jackpot said.

“Come on, Beanbelly,” Cash said. “I got to get my rifle anyway.”

“What for?” Curly asked.

“You know I can’t hit nothing with a handgun,” Cash said. “But I ain’t seen many people who could beat me with a rifle.”

“Cash!”

But Cash and Beanbelly went on out without answering. Curly stood there at the bar holding his head, not even drinking. After a while the batwings creaked and Ringo came in. It was getting dark in the saloon and Curly didn’t actually look at him. He just saw him out of the corner of his eye in the mirror. Ringo stepped up to the bar and glass clinked on glass as he poured himself a drink.

“How’s your head?’’ he finally asked, sounding a lot quieter and calmer than before.

“I’ll live,” Curly said, still not looking at him. He didn’t want to see what might be on Ringo’s face. He didn’t want Ringo to see what might be on his.

“I’m sorry about that, Curly,” Ringo said after another silence. “You must know by now that I’ve only got one arm that’s any damn good. I couldn’t fight you with my fists. But that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have hit you with my gun.”

“What would happen if someone did that to you?” Curly asked. “Would you let it drop if he came around later and said he was sorry?”

“I don’t know,” Ringo said after a moment. “I guess it would depend on who it was and why he did it.”

Curly’s mouth twisted with a bitterness that he knew went beyond getting hit on the head with a gun, but that was something he could talk about. The other he couldn’t. Not to Ringo. “It wouldn’t matter who it was or why he did it. You wouldn’t let it drop. If you couldn’t use your fists, you’d go after him with a gun.”

Ringo poured himself another drink and sipped it thoughtfully. “I guess I might,” he said finally.

“Then I reckon I’ll have to come after you with a gun,” Curly said. “You’ve only got one good hand, so I can’t use my fists on you.”

Ringo looked at him carefully. “You’re not serious, are you, Curly?”

Curly was beginning to get mad, and that made his head throb even worse, and that made him still madder. “Why the hell shouldn’t I? You’ve as good as said that’s what you’d do in my place. Do you think you’re any better than I am? Do you think you’re the only one who’s got any pride?”

Ringo turned back to his whiskey. Apologizing was not something he’d had much practice at, and the words didn’t come easy. “If there’s any way I can make it up to you.” he said. “I’d try to do it.”

“There is one thing you can do,” Curly told him. “Give me back my shotgun.”