The Gun Fight (21 page)

“Well, we’ll settle that later,” Matthew Coles said grimly. “There are more important things to be discussed now.”

He opened the box and took out the pistol in it.

“I’ve brought you that new Colt,” he told Robby. “Since you seem to have some difficulty with hammering. The double action in this model should take care of that. I don’t believe you’ll need more than two shots, will you.”

The last sentence was not spoken as a question.

Robby watched as his father broke open the cylinder and spun it. He heard his father’s grunt and then watched him break open the seal on a new box of cartridges. Carefully, Matthew Coles inserted a cartridge into each chamber, then spun the cylinder again. He looked into the barrel from the back, then grunted again, satisfied. Jerking his hand, he snapped the barrel back into place and spun the cylinder with one thumb.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that will do fine.”

He slid the Colt into Robby’s holster and forgot about it. Pulling out a chair, he sat across from his son.

“Now,” he said, “as to Benton’s mode of fighting. I’ve spoken to several men who claim to have seen him fight once in Trinity City. According to them, he wears his pistol—a Colt-Walker single action, I might add—wears it on his left hip, stock forward, using a cross draw. Furthermore,” he went on, “there is reason to believe he’s very much out of practice. After all, he’s been away from it a long time.”

I’ve never been near it—the words moved across Robby’s brain but he didn’t speak them. He sat staring at his father, his eyes unblinking, his entire body feeling numbed and dead.

“These men further claim that Benton never fires at a distance of less than thirty feet. So that, I believe you may be able to seize an advantage over him by drawing your weapon at a greater distance. Your accuracy is good enough for that; especially with the better rifling in this—” he gesture toward the gun in the holster, “—weapon.”

Robby swallowed the heavy lump in his throat. No, I’m sorry, he thought, I’m not going to do it. But, again, he said nothing. He sat stiffly, listening to his father plan his life away while, under the table, his nails dug into his palms without him feeling it.

“I believe you’ll find much less in this battle than you expect, sir,” Matthew Coles went on confidently. “John Benton has been away from gunplay a long while. Furthermore,
I think we’ve seen ample evidence that he’s lost his nerve. In particular, his attempts to back out of this meeting. Then, of course, there was the time he refused, point-blank, to aid the men of our town in that posse. Yes—” Matthew Coles nodded once, “—it’s clear that the man is no longer what he once was.”

Robby’s throat was petrifying. It came slowly, starting at the bottom and rising as if someone poured cement in his mouth and he kept swallowing it. He shuddered, his hands twitching in his lap.

“As to having the issue settled in the town rather than out of it, well, I believe you can understand that. This entire matter can be settled only when the people of the town see that you are willing to defend the honor of your intended bride. They must see it; for the sake of all concerned.”

Silence a moment. Matthew Coles drew out his watch and pressed in the catch. The thinly wrought gold cover sprang open and he looked calmly down at the face. His head nodded once with a curt motion and he closed the watch and put it back into his pocket.

“It’s time,” he said, looking at his son with a sort of pride. “Shall we go, sir?”

Robby didn’t answer. There was something cold and terrible crawling in his stomach as he stared at his father.

“Sir?” asked Matthew Coles.

“I—”

His father stood up with one, unhesitant motion. “Are you ready, sir?” he asked like a general asking his troops if they were ready for suicidal battle.

Robby found himself standing up even though he didn’t want to. He started for the door on numbed legs.

“Your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, his voice slightly acidulous.

“Father, I—”

“Put on your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, calmly.

I’ve got to tell you!—Robby thought in agony of speechless terror. But he found himself moving back to the table on legs that felt like blocks of stone, he saw his hands reaching for the belt.

It weighed a hundred pounds; his shaking hands could hardly lift it.

“Come, sir, there’s no time to waste. We want to be there before three.”

Robby put the gunbelt around his back and fumbled at the buckle. As he did, he stared down at the butt of the new Colt and thought about drawing it against Benton. He thought of walking across the square toward the tall ex-Ranger, of trying to outdraw a man who had killed thirteen outlaws; thirteen men who, themselves, could have outdrawn Robby without trying.

Thirteen!

He couldn’t help it. His fingers went limp suddenly and the unfastened belt and holster thumped loudly on the rug.

“Be careful, will you, a—”

Matthew Coles broke off suddenly his mouth gaping as he stood there staring with incredulous eyes at the tears that were scattering across Robby’s cheeks and listening to the hoarse, shaking sobs his son was trying, in vain, to control.

“What is the meaning of . . . ?” Again, he couldn’t finish. His head moved forward on his shoulders and he peered intently into the twisted face of his son, staring at the trembling lips, the wide, glistening eyes, the quivering chin.

“What is the meaning of this, sir?” he asked, heatedly. “Explain yourself this very—”

“I-I-I c-can’t, I
can’t
, father! Please, p-lease. I can’t. I . . . j-j-just can’t.”

“What?” The word came slowly from Matthew Coles’ lips, rising with anger.

“I can’t, I c-can’t. He’ll kill me, he’ll k-
ill
me, father. I’m a-f-
fraid
.” Robby didn’t even try to brush
away the tears that laced across his cheeks and dripped from his chin and jaw.

“Can’t, sir?” Matthew Coles was having trouble adjusting to this. “Can’t? What are you saying to me? There is no question of—”

“I won’t
do
it!” Robby cried suddenly, his voice cracking. “I
won’t
! I’m not gonna die f-for nothing!”

His father seemed to swell up before him and Robby stepped back, nervously, a rasping sob in his throat. Matthew Coles looked at him with terrible eyes, his hands twitching at his sides.

“Pick up your weapon, sir,” he said in a slow, menacing voice.

“No . . . n-no,” Robby muttered fearfully, his chest jerking with uncontrolled breaths.

“
Pick up your weapon.
”

“No. No, I can’t, father, I
can’t
!”

“You have given your word, sir,” Matthew Coles said, his voice quivering as he repressed the volcano of fury within himself. “You have promised to defend the honor of your intended bride. Everyone is waiting, sir, everyone expects it. Pick up your weapon and we’ll say no more of this.”

Robby backed away another step, shaking his head with little, twitching movements. “No,” he muttered. “No, I . . .”

“Pick up your weapon!” his father shouted, his face growing purple with released fury. He took two quick steps across the rug and clamped his rigid fingers on Robby’s arm. Robby winced as the fingers dug into his flesh. He stood there staring at his father, his head still jerking back and forth, his lips moving as if he were trying to speak but couldn’t.

“You cannot back out of this! This is something you have to do, do you understand! It’s a matter of honor! If you do this thing to me, there will be no place in this house for you! Do you understand
that
!”

“F-f-father, I—”

“
Are you going to pick up that gun and come with me!
”

Robby tried to answer, to explain but terror welled over him again and he started to cry harder, his shoulders twitching helplessly, his throat clutched with breathless sobs.

“
No!
” he cried out and his head snapped to the side suddenly as Matthew Coles’ broad palm drove stunningly against his cheek. The room seemed to blacken for a moment and Robby stumbled back, clutching at his cheek with one hand, his eyes dumb with shock.

“Coward!” his father screamed at him. “Coward, coward,
coward
! My own son a coward!”

Matthew Coles lurched away toward the hall, his face a mask of near-mad rage. At the doorway, he twisted around.

“When I come back tonight I want you gone! Do you hear me,
gone
! I don’t want a coward in my house! I won’t have one! Do you understand!”

Robby stood there, shivering without control, staring with blank eyes at his father.

A moment more his father looked at him.

“Swine,” Matthew Coles said through clenched teeth. “Filthy little coward. You should have been a girl, a little girl cooking in the kitchen—hanging on your mother’s apron strings.”

Then Matthew Coles was gone in the hall and Robby heard the front door jerked open.

“By tonight!” he heard his father shout from there. “If you’re still in my house then, I’ll throw you out!”

The door slammed deafeningly, shaking the house. Robby slumped down on the couch and covered his face with shaking hands. Trying to fight off the deep sobs only made them worse. He couldn’t control anything. He sat there trembling helplessly, hearing his father gallop away outside, the sound of the gelding’s hooves drowning out the noise of the turning wheels.

Suddenly, Robby looked up and caught his breath.
Jimmy was standing on the bottom step, looking at him. Robby felt himself grow rigid as he looked at his younger brother. He couldn’t take his eyes off Jimmy’s face and couldn’t help recognizing the look of withdrawal and disappointed shame there. He opened his mouth as if to speak but couldn’t. He didn’t even hear the back door shut.

He stood up nervously and walked on shaky legs to where the gunbelt was. Bending over, he picked it up and held it in his hand, seeing, from the corners of his eyes, that Jimmy was still there. It’s true—the words lanced at him—it’s true, I am a coward, I
am
!

That was when his mother came in.

She stopped for an instant in the hallway, her eyes on Jimmy. Then she looked into the sitting room. When she saw the dazed, hurt look on Robby’s face, she started toward him.

“Darling, what
is
it?” she asked, hurrying across the rug, her arms outstretched to him.

Robby stepped back. His mother rushing to embrace him, in his mind the lashing words of his father—
You should have been a girl, a little girl cooking in the kitchen, hanging on your mother’s
—

“Oh, my darling, what happened?”

It was the sound in her voice that did it; that sound of a mother speaking to her little boy who she never wants to grow up and be a man.

“No!” he said in a strangled voice, suddenly twisting away from her arms and running toward the hall, the gunbelt clutched in his cold hand.

“Robby!”

He didn’t answer. He saw the face of his younger brother rush by in a blur and then he was flying down the hall and into the kitchen, the frightened cries of his mother following him. He was on the porch, jumping down the steps and running into the stable where his horse was already saddled.

As he galloped out of the stable, his mother rushed
out onto the porch, one thin arm raised, her eyes dumb with terror.

“No, Robby!” she screamed, all the agony of her life trembling in the words.

As he started down Armitas Street for the square, Robby began buckling on the gun.

T
wo fifteen.
She stood in the leaden heat of the sun, shivering fitfully while she watched the shape of her husband dwindle away. She stayed there until he was gone from her sight. Then, slowly, with the tread of a very old and very tired woman, she walked back to the house.

She shuddered as she stepped into the relative coolness of the kitchen and her eyes moved slowly around the room as if she were searching for something.

In the middle of clearing the table, she suddenly pushed aside the stack of dishes and sank down heavily on a chair. She sat there, shivering still, feeling the waves of coldness run through her body. We’ll have to move now—the thought assailed her—we can’t possibly stay here with a murder on our conscience; we just can’t.

Her right forefinger traced a straggly and invisible pattern on the rough table top and her unblinking eyes watched the finger moving.

Suddenly, her head jerked up and she felt her heartbeat catch. A horse coming in.

Julia pushed up with a muttering sound of excitement in her throat. He was coming back; he wasn’t going into town! Her footsteps clicked rapidly across the kitchen floor and she jerked open the top half of the Dutch door.

It was like being drained of all her energy in an instant. Dumbly, she stood there, watching Merv Linken as he rode over to the bunk house, reined up, and dismounted. When he’d gone in, she turned away from the door slowly, unable to control the awful sinking in her stomach.

A moment later, she was running across the hard earth toward the bunk house, her blond hair fluttering across her temples.

Merv looked up in surprise as he bandaged his right wrist.

“Ma’m?” he asked.

She stood panting in the open doorway. “Will you hitch up the buckboard for me, Merv?” she asked breathlessly.

“Why . . . sure, Miz Benton,” he said.

“What, what happened to your wrist?” she asked vaguely.

“Snagged it on some barbed wire,” he said. “It’s nothin’.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Will . . . you do it for me right away, Merv?” she asked. “I have to get into—”

From the way the skin tightened over his leathery face, Julia realized suddenly that he knew.

“I just passed him,” Merv said grimly. “He didn’t say nothin’ to me. Nothin’ at all. Didn’t even look at me.”

Abruptly, he tore off the end of the clean rag he was bandaging his wrist with and started for the door without another question.

“I’ll have her ready for you in a jiffy,” he told her.

Ten minutes later, she was driving out of the ranch on the lurching, rattling buckboard, headed for Kellville.