There had never been a doubt in Ray's mind about what to do, after he
had figured out who Pappy was. I don't think it was the bounty that set
his mind for him. He probably never even thought of that. He just had
too much law in him to let a killer like Pappy Garret lie there and do
nothing about it. He glanced at me briefly, without saying anything. I
guess he figured that my question wasn't worth answering.
I said, “Let him alone. He hasn't done anything to us.”
Ray had his gun out now. He glanced at me curiously, and there were
two small clicks as he pulled the hammer back. “Are you crazy?”
“We can saddle up and go our own way,” I said. “Let the law catch him
if they want him. What has the law ever done for us?”
“You
must
be crazy,” Ray Novak said softly, not bothering to
keep the scorn out of his voice. “Didn't you hear me? That man's Pappy
Garret. He's killed twenty men. He'll kill that many more if somebody
doesn't stop him. Stopping a man like that isn't just a job for the
law. It's a job for every man who wants to live in peace, for every man
who wants to see law and order come back to Texas.”
I don't think I would have done anything if he hadn't made that
speech, but when he got to talking about the right of law, and the
wrong of outlaws, he got a holier-than-thou glint in his eyes like a
camp-meeting preacher. Anyway, I was tired of Ray Novak. I was tired of
his reverential respect for a tin sheriff's badge. I said, “Oh, hell,
stop being so goddamn self-righteous!”
He looked as if I had kicked him in the gut while he wasn't expecting
it. Over beneath the cottonwood, Pappy Garret stirred uneasily, and it
occurred to me to wonder why a man like that would go to sleep in the
company of two strangers. Because he was asleep. There was no mistake
about it now. Ray threw one quick angry glance in my direction—a
glance that said that he was through with me, that from now on we could
ride our separate ways.
“Very well, Tall,” he said tightly. “I'll take care of it myself. You
don't have anything to do with it.”
“You're going to shoot him while he's asleep?”
“I'll take him any way I can. You don't give a mad dog a chance to
protect itself, do you?”
All the talk had been in low whispers, but it was over now. Ray
stepped out quietly, his gun at the ready. I could see what was going
to happen. Ray would say something to wake Pappy—I knew he didn't have
it in him to shoot a sleeping man. He would wake Pappy and Pappy would
see how it was and try to get his guns. That would be the last move he
would ever make. I had seen Ray handle guns and I knew Pappy Garret
didn't have a chance.
I watched the sleeping gunman as those thoughts went through my mind.
Pappy's face was relaxed now and I could see the deep lines of
incredible weariness around his eyes and mouth. He looked as if he
hadn't slept for days. I knew that he hadn't slept for years. Not real
sleep. But now he lay like a log, numbed with weariness and comforted
with hot food in his belly. He didn't look like a killer to me. He
looked like an old man—very old and very tired—who couldn't hold his
eyes open any longer.
Ray was coming up on Pappy's left, moving silently. In just a minute
it would be over, if Pappy made a move for his guns. He would be able
to sleep then—the long sleep that lasted forever.
The shout, when it came, startled me as much as anybody. It came
high-pitched and loud and I hardly recognized it as my own.
“Pappy, look out!”
I lurched up to my feet. I don't know what I thought I was going to
do then. It was too late to do anything but to stand there,
half-crouched, and watch.
If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it. I never could
entirely believe it when I watched Pappy handle guns. And you wouldn't
believe that a man like Pappy could come awake as quick as he did, or
that a man could move as fast. It all happened so fast that you
couldn't be sure where the movement started and where it ended. He
flipped over on his stomach and rolled on his right side, and his right
hand started plunging down to his holster before my first word was out.
Ray was almost on top of him. His .44 was already out and cocked, and
Ray was the man who could put two holes in a tossed-up can before it
hit the ground. But by the time he got his second shot off this time,
it was too late.
Ray Novak's first bullet slammed into Pappy's saddle, where his head
had been only an instant before. Before he could thumb the hammer and
press the trigger again, Pappy's own deadly .44 had bellowed. Pappy lay
on his side, firing across his body. He must have drawn the gun and
cocked it while he was flopping over, but it looked as if it had been
in his hand all the time. One bullet was all he used.
I still hadn't moved. I stood there in that frozen half-crouch
waiting for Ray Novak to go down. When Pappy fired only once, I knew it
was over. He got to his knees and slowly lifted himself to his feet,
darting a glance in my direction.
He said mildly, “Just unbuckle your pistol, son, and kick it over
here.”
I slipped the buckle on my cartridge belt and dropped it. Then I
kicked it toward Pappy. But the thing that held me fascinated was Ray
Novak. He was still standing. He wasn't even swaying. Then I saw that
his gun hand was empty and I began to understand what had happened.
It hadn't been anything as fancy as shooting a man's gun out of his
hand. Not even Pappy Garret could have done that, shooting as fast as
he had, from the position he had been in. He had shot to kill, but the
bullet had nicked Ray's forearm, making him drop the gun.
I lost any suspicion I had about Ray Novak's guts. He had plenty.
There was nothing he could do now but stand there and wait for Pappy to
finish him off. But he didn't flinch, or beg, or anything else. He just
stood there, staring into those pale gray eyes of Pappy Garret's, while
bright red blood dripped from his fingers and splashed in a little pool
at his feet.
“What are you waiting on, Garret?” he said. “Why don't you go ahead
and finish it?”
Pappy smiled that tired half-smile of his. He said softly, “I
wouldn't waste another bullet on you. If I decide to kill you, I'll
beat your brains out with a pistol butt. Now get the hell out of here
before I do it.”
Ray Novak's face burned a bright red. For a moment he didn't move.
Then Pappy started toward him, slowly, holding his .44 like a club.
Ray said, “I'll get you, Garret. There won't always be carpetbag law
in this country. And then I'll get you, if it's the last thing I do.”
Pappy kept coming, half-smiling, with his pistol raised.
Ray turned then, and walked off, leaving a little trail of crimson in
the tender green shoots of young grass. He didn't look at me. He walked
on by. Around the bend he got his horse saddled, and pretty soon we
heard him ride away.
I started to go myself. There was no explaining the reason I had
yelled the way I had. Probably it had been because of a lot of things.
Ray Novak and his everlasting talk of law. Ray Novak being able to put
two bullets in a tin can. Even those rides of his over to Laurin's
might have had something to do with it. All that, and Pappy lying there
under the cottonwood, looking like a tired, helpless old man.
Anyway, I had done it. Ray Novak and I were through for good now, but
I didn't give a damn about that. I turned and started up toward the
bend in the creek to get Red saddled up.
But Pappy said, “Just a minute, son. I'd like to talk to you.”
I TURNED AROUND. Pappy looked at me as he punched the empty cartridge
out of his pistol and replaced it with a live round. After a moment he
said:
“Thanks.”
“Forget it. I wasn't trying to buy anything.”
“You called me Pappy,” he said. “How did you know who I was?”
“The other fellow figured it out. His old man used to be a town
marshal and he saw your picture on one of the dodgers that came through
the office.”
Pappy shook his head, puzzled. “I know a man on the run when I see
one. And he was on the run, the same as you. He didn't look like a
marshal's son to me.”
“His pa was marshal before the carpetbaggers took over.”
Pappy began to understand. He rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his
bushy chin. He moved back up the slope a few steps and sat down,
leaning back with his elbows on his saddle. After a moment he untied
the dirty bandanna and mopped his face and the back of his neck.
There was something about him that fascinated me. Only a minute ago
he had come within a hair's breadth of getting a bullet in his brain,
and all the emotion he showed was to wipe his face 'with a dirty
handkerchief.
“Well,” he asked, “what are you staring at?”
“You,” I said. “I was just wondering how you came to go to sleep at a
time like that.”
He thought about that for a moment, and at last he sighed. “I was
tired,” he said simply. “I haven't slept for more than two days.”
I should have saddled Red right then and rode away from there. There
was trouble in the air. You could feel it all around, and you got the
idea that trouble flocked to Pappy like iron filings to a lodestone.
But I didn't move.
I said, “Ray Novak will be on your trail again. Sooner or later he'll
be riding behind a marshal's badge, and when that happens he'll hunt
you down. You should have killed him while you had the chance.”
I half expected Pappy to laugh. The idea of Pappy having anything to
fear from a youngster like Ray Novak would have been funny to most
people. But Pappy didn't laugh. He studied me carefully with those pale
gray eyes.
“A man does his own killing, son, and that's enough,” he said. “I
reckon if you want this Novak fellow dead, you'll have to see to it
yourself.”
I flared up at that.
“I don't care if he's dead or alive. Ray Novak doesn't mean anything
to me.”
Something changed in Pappy's eyes. I had an idea that way down deep
he was smiling, but it didn't show on that ugly face.
“Maybe I spoke out of turn,” he said finally. “I guess you're right.
I should have killed him... while I had the chance.”
There didn't seem to be any more to say. I turned and headed around
the bend to where Red was picketed, and Pappy didn't make any move to
stop me. But I could almost feel those eyes on me as I threw the
double-rigged saddle up on Red's broad neck and began to tighten the
cinches. I got my blanket roll and tied it on behind and I was ready to
go. I was ready to leave this creek and Pappy Garret behind. I had
enough trouble as it was, and if I got caught, I didn't want it to be
with a man like Pappy. I swung up to the saddle and pulled Red around
to where the outlaw was still standing.
“I guess this is where I cut out,” I said. “So long, Pappy.”
“So long, son.”
He looked a hundred years old right then. His heavy-lidded,
red-rimmed eyes were watery with fatigue, and once in a while little
nervous tics of sheer weariness would jerk at the corner of his mouth.
“Well,” I said, “take care of yourself.”
“The same to you, son,” Pappy said. I started to pull Red around
again and head downstream, when Pappy added, “Just a minute before you
go.”
He moved over a couple of steps to where his saddlebags were. He
opened one of them and took out a pair of pistols, almost exactly like
the ones he was wearing. Gleaming, deadly weapons, with rubbed walnut
butts. He came over and handed them up to me.
“Bad pistols are like bad friends,” he said. “They let you down when
you need them most. You'd better take these.”
I didn't know what to say. I looked at Pappy and then at the guns.
“Go on, take them,” he said. “A fellow down on the border let me have
them.” And he smiled that sad half-smile of his. “He wasn't in any
condition to object.”
I took the guns dumbly, feeling their deadly weight as I balanced
them in my hands. I had never held weapons like them before. They had
almost perfect balance. I flipped them over with my fingers in the
trigger guards, and the butts smacked solidly in my palms, as if they
had been carved by an artist specially to fit my hands.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, Pappy,” I
said finally. “You win.”
He looked surprised. “I win what?”
“I'll keep watch while you catch some sleep. That's what you wanted,
wasn't it?”
Then I saw something that few people ever saw. Pappy Garret smiled.
Not that sad half-smile of his, but a real honest-to-God,
face-splitting smile that reached all the way to his gray eyes.
“I think we'll get along, son,” he said.
So that's the way it was. I unsaddled Red again and staked him out,
then I took my position up on the creek bank while Pappy stretched out
again with his head on the saddle. He raised up once to look at me,
still slightly amused.
“My hide is worth ten thousand dollars at the nearest marshal's
office,” he said. “How do I know you won't try to shoot me while I'm
asleep?”
“If I'd wanted ten thousand dollars that bad,” I said, “I'd have
killed you the first time you went to sleep. And I wouldn't have been
polite enough to wake you up first. I don't let my conscience bother
me, the way Novak does.”
Pappy's mouth twitched, and there was that almost silent grunting
sound, and I knew that he was laughing. He was dead asleep before his
head hit the saddle again.
I had time to do some thinking while Pappy slept. I decided that
maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea, after all, to stick with Pappy until
we reached the Brazos. If anybody would know all the outtrails to miss
the cavalry and police, Pappy Garret was the man. And avoiding cavalry
and police was about the most important thing I could think of right
now.
I didn't think much about Ray Novak. We had never been anything in
particular to each other, and now that we were separated for good, I
was satisfied. I didn't give a damn where he went or what he did.