The Gun Fight (20 page)

“You said you’d never put on a gun against anyone as long as you lived,” she said in a hollow voice.

He looked at her as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

“Julia, what do you want me to do—forget I’m a man? Creep away from this fight?
I
didn’t start the damn thing, I didn’t have a thing to do with it. But, for God’s sake, don’t expect me to run away from it when—”

“You promised, John.” It was all she could say.

“I said I wouldn’t put on a gun against anybody! I never said I wouldn’t defend myself! Can’t you see there’s a difference?”

“This isn’t just anybody!” she said vehemently. “This is a boy who hasn’t got a chance against you!”

“I make it that way?” he asked. “Did I tell him to challenge me?”

“It doesn’t matter who challenged who! You can’t fight him, that’s all!”

“Julia, I’m going to fight him.”

The words seemed to come from the very depth of her fear and her fury; they fell from her lips slowly and clearly.

“John Benton,” she said, “if you draw your gun against that boy, it’ll be murder.
Murder
!”

He looked at her colorless face a long time before turning away to the stove and saying, “That’s right. It will be.”

She stood there shivering, watching his steady hand pour coffee into the cup. He took the cup and walked out of the room and she listened to the sound of his boots moving through the house, then the sound of him sinking down on their bed.

Her eyes suddenly closed and she flung a hand across them as a wracking sob broke in her throat. Stumbling through a haze of tears, she moved to the table and sank down, her head falling forward on her arms, her body lurching with great, hopeless sobs.

She was conscious of the clock striking two.

Then, outside, there was a sound of turning wheels and thudding hooves. She straightened up with a gasp, a look of shocked surprise on her face. Hastily, she reached into her dress pocket and drew out a handkerchief. She dabbed at her cheeks and eyes as she stood up and hurried to the door.

It’s them, the terrifying thought came suddenly. They said three but it was only a trick and they were coming at two to catch John by surprise.

Then, in the doorway, she stopped and stared out blankly at the small woman getting out of a rig with hurried, nervous movements.

Julia stood rooted there as the woman came up to her.

“Your husband hasn’t gone yet, has he?” the woman asked quickly.

“No,” Julia said, not understanding. “No, he—”

“Thank God,” Jane Coles said fervently, then stood there awkwardly, clutching the shawl to herself.

“Come in,” Julia said, feeling her heart start to throb in slow, heavy beats. What was Mrs. Coles doing there? For a second, Julia had the wild hope that the fight was canceled and Mrs. Coles was the one they’d sent with the message. But that didn’t make sense and she knew it.

As she stepped aside to let the small woman enter, John appeared in the other doorway, tensed as though he were expecting the same thing Julia had expected.

When he saw Robby’s mother, the tenseness left his face and was replaced by a look of startled surprise. He didn’t say anything as Mrs. Coles came over to him.

“Mister Benton,” she said.

He nodded once. “Missus Coles,” he replied, looking down at the small frailty of her.

“I—” She said. “I . . . wanted to—to—”

“Yes?” he said.

There was silence for a terrible moment, a silence that seemed, suddenly, as if it would be permanent, holding them all fast in it.

But then Mrs. Coles’ faint voice spoke. “I . . . came about . . . about the fight,” she said, nervously.

Benton tightened a little but still he didn’t understand. He looked down at her with confused eyes. “I . . .” he started and then waited.

“My boy is . . .” Mrs. Coles started and then suddenly it all came rushing out. “Oh, Mister Benton, don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt my boy!”

Benton jerked back the upper part of his body as if someone had struck him across the face; his expression was one of stunned shock.

“Don’t . . .” he started to repeat her words, then broke off shakily.

“Please, Mister Benton, please. I’m begging you as
his mother. Don’t hurt him! He’s just a boy. He doesn’t know anything about g-guns or-or fighting. He’s just a boy, Mister Benton, just a boy!”

Benton’s lips twitched as he sought for proper words but couldn’t find them.

“Mister Benton, I beg of you,” Jane Coles went on brokenly and Julia shuddered, hearing in the older woman’s voice a repetition of her own words to Mrs. Coles’ husband a little over an hour before.

“Missus Coles, I . . .” Benton said nervously. “I . . . I didn’t ask for this fight. I didn’t—”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Jane Coles said miserably. “All I know is I love my boy and I’ll die if anything happens to him.”

“But Missus Coles, I just told you I—”

“Oh, please, Mister Benton,
please.
” There were tears now, running down the small woman’s cheeks, and her hands were shaking helplessly before her.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked her quietly as if he really thought she could give him an answer.

She sobbed helplessly, staring at him, unable to see any part of the situation but the threat to her boy.

“Missus Coles, what do you want me to
do
?” Benton asked again, his voice rising. “Just wait for your son to
kill
me?”

“He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t!” she sobbed. “He’s a good boy, there’s nothing mean in him. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, Mister Benton, not anyone!”

“Missus Coles, your own husband told me to be in town by three o’clock or Robby would come after me. What choice does that give me?”

She had no answer, only frightened looks and sobs.

“Missus Coles, I don’t want this thing any more than you do. I have a life too, you know. I have my wife and I have this ranch. I’m happy here, Missus Coles, I don’t want to die any more than Robby does. But I’m being forced into this, can’t you see that?”

“Don’t hurt him, Mister Benton,” she pleaded. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt my boy.”

Benton started to say something, then, abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked away from her. At the door to the inner hall, he turned.

“You’d better go home and talk to your husband, Missus Coles,” he said grimly. “He’s the only one that can stop this fight now. I’m sorry but my hands are tied.”

“Mister Benton!”

But he was gone. Julia moved quickly to the trembling woman and put an arm around her.

“You’ve got to stop him, Missus Benton,” Jane Coles begged. “You’ve got to stop him from hurting my boy.”

Julia looked at her with a hopeless expression on her face. Then she sighed and spoke.

“You’d better go see your husband, Missus Coles,” she said softly. “He
is
the only one who can stop it now. I’m . . . I’m sorry.” She fought down the sob. “You . . . don’t know how sorry I am.”

“But he won’t listen to me,” Mrs. Coles sobbed. “He just won’t listen to me.”

Julia closed her eyes and turned away.

“Please go,” she muttered thickly. “That’s all there is. Believe me, that’s all there is.”

When Jane Coles had climbed into her rig like a dying woman and driven away, Julia walked slowly into the silence of the bedroom. John was sitting on the bed, his head slumped forward, his hands hanging loosely and motionlessly between his legs. On the bedside table his coffee stood cold and untouched.

He didn’t even look up as she came into the room. Only when she sat down beside him did he turn his head slowly and meet her glance. His eyes were lifeless.

Then his head dropped forward again and his voice, as he spoke, was husky and without strength.

“I’m tired, ma,” he said. “I’m awful tired.”

Slowly, her arm moved around his back and she pressed her face into his shoulder.

“I know,” she murmured. Her eyes closed and she felt warm tears running slowly down her cheeks. “I know.”

H
e tried to sit down and rest but there seemed to be a spring in him that coiled tight every time he sat down. First the tension would affect his hands and feet, making them twitch. Then his shoulders would twist with a tortured restlessness, his hands would close into white-knuckled fists, and the turbulence in him would show in his eyes as a haunted flickering.

Then, abruptly, he’d be on his feet again, pacing back and forth on the sitting room rug, the fist of one hand pounding slowly and methodically into the palm of the other. His gaze would flit about the room from one object to another as though he had lost something and was making a rapid, futile search for it. His boots scuffed and thudded on the thick rug and there was no rest in him.

Robby dropped down onto the couch for the twenty-seventh time and sat there feeling the coils drawing in again. His chest rose and fell with quick, agitated breaths as he stared at his hands.

On the bottom step in the hall, his brother sat peering between the bannisters, the freckles on his face standing out like cinnamon sprinkled on milk. He watched Robby start to his feet again and begin pacing.

“When you gonna fight him?” he asked.

Robby didn’t answer. He breathed as if there were an obstruction in his throat.

“Robby?”

“Three o’clock. L-eave me alone.”

“Where, Robby? Are ya goin’ out to his ranch?”

Robby’s teeth gritted together as he stopped and looked out the window at the street.

This was Armitas Street, Kellville, Texas. It was his town, it had dozens of houses and hundreds of people and stores and stables and horses and life and future. Yet in—how long?; he glanced nervously at the hall clock and saw that it was five minutes after two.

In less than an hour it might all be taken from him.

Might
be? What question was there? He couldn’t draw a gun like John Benton, he couldn’t fire half as quickly or accurately. He’d never even gotten the hang of cocking the hammer after each shot; he’d always fumbled at it.

He jammed his teeth together to stop the chattering. Oh, good God, he was going to die! The thought impaled him on a spear of frozen terror. He jammed his eyes shut and felt a violent shudder run down his back.

“Robby, where are ya gonna?”

“I said, leave me alone,” Robby muttered.

“What did you say, Robby?”

“I said—! Oh . . .
never mind.
Shut up, will ya?”

“But where are ya gonna fight him?”

“In the square! Now will ya leave me alone!”

Jimmy sat staring at his pacing brother. He wished he was big enough to fight somebody with a gun like Robby. Maybe he could fight his father.

The vision crossed his mind with a pleasant tread—him and his father facing each other in the square, guns buckled to their waists.
Awright pa, fill yer hand
! Sudden drawing, the blast of pistol fire, his father clutching at his chest, him re-holstering his pistol and running to his mother.
It’s all right now, ma, it’s all right. I killed him. He’s dead now and he can’t hurt us no more.

His eyes focused on Robby who was on the couch again. He looked over at the clock.

“There isn’t much time,” he said, helpfully.

Robby forced his lips together, eyes staring at the floor.

“Robby, there isn’t much time.”

Robby stood up with a lurching movement and went to the window again. He stood there tensely, punching slowly at his cupped palm. Jimmy sat there listening to the dead smacking sound of the fist hitting the palm.

“Robby, there isn’t much—”

“Will you
shut up
!” Robby screamed at him, whirling, his face contorted with rage. Jimmy felt a sudden jolting in his stomach and drew back from the bannister quickly.

“I was only—”

“Get out of here!” his brother yelled. “I’m sick of lookin’ at ya!”

Jimmy sat there rigidly, thinking how much Robby looked like his father when he was mad.

Robby started for him. “I said—get outta here,” he warned, his voice a strange, unnatural sound.

Jimmy pushed up to his feet and ran up the steps, a sudden dryness in his mouth. At the head of the stairs, he stopped and glanced back. Robby hadn’t come out into the hall; he could hear him down in the sitting room, pacing again.

Slowly, he settled on the top step and looked down the staircase. He wished he could wear a gun like Robby.

In the sitting room, Robby jumped up from the couch as a thudding of horses’ hooves sounded outside. It’s
him
—the words exploded in his mind as he ran for the window, his heart like a frenziedly beaten drum. He felt his legs almost buckle as he moved and he grunted in shock as he caught his balance.

There was no horse in the street. Robby drew back from the window with a frightened sucking in of breath. Did Benton ride into the backyard, was he going to
trap
him? Robby dashed for the table and, with nerveless fingers, jerked the Colt from its holster and backed away, his eyes wide with apprehension.

The back door slammed shut and there was a heavy clumping of boots in the kitchen. No, it couldn’t be Benton, he wouldn’t come in like that. It was his father, it
had
to be his father. He mustn’t let his father see him like this, shivering, standing here with his pistol out-thrust and shaking in his hand. But what if it
was
Benton? Oh God, oh God, I
can’t
!—he thought, choking on a repressed sob.

“Where are you, sir?” he heard his father’s voice then and, hastily, he put the pistol down on the table and sat down.

“I’m, I’m . . .” he began, then braced himself. “
Here
, father,” he said, not realizing how loudly his voice rang out in the house.

Matthew Coles entered the room, carrying a box with him.

“Where is your mother?” he asked.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Robby said, still sitting there, feeling as if a great weight were settling on him.

“Well, did she go out?”

“Y-yes,” Robby faltered. “She . . . she just went out in the . . . rig.”

“In the rig?” Matthew Coles said in displeased surprise. Robby didn’t reply. He watched his father put the box on the table.