and slow, letting everyone in on the fact.
“T’ make this fair,” he said, “I’ll count t’ three. You’re each free t’ aim an’ fire at the count o’ three. All right? Then after … you got t’ remember that dueling is outlawed in this whole country, by federal law that is … then after you boys shoot … I got to tell you that it will be my bound duty as a sworn peace officer, both o’ the United States gummint an’ now of the town of Addington, Texas, also … when you boys are done shooting, I will have t’ arrest whichever one of you is the survivor. You’ll forgive me, I hope, but I didn’t stay a peace officer this long by taking chances, an’ one of you boys will be standing there, a criminal sure as hell, with a loaded gun in his hand an’ me having to arrest him. Which I will be duty bound t’ do. So what I got t’ explain t’ you both is that while one o’ you will have the satisfaction of blowing a hole in the guts o’ the other an’ winning his point by force of manly arms, that same one is gonna have to be taken down by me right after. One o’ you will be dead in the sawdust on this floor here, an’ the other one I will not take no chances with. What I will have t’ do soon as you boys are done shooting at one another, I will protect myself and all these innocent bystanders by shooting whoever is left standing. An’ if I do say so my own self, I am a pretty good shot with this here Colt gun so I will aim careful an’ you won’t feel hardly a thing. A hard thump on the head an’ it’ll be over. All right? You boys ready? One.
“Wait, wait, now wait a damn minute.”
“Jesus, Marshal, you can’t mean …”
“It’s clear as clear can be,” Longarm said agreeably. “You boys take care of business, then I take down whichever one o’ you is left. Real simple.”
“But that means we would both die!” Jennings yelped.
“Oh, I dunno,” Longarm said. “The one I shoot will be cold meat pretty certain, but there’s always a chance that the other fella will get over his wounds.” He shook his head as if in great admiration. “It’s purely amazing what a human person can stand an’ keep on living. Hell, I’ve seen fellas with their jaws shot clean off, others with holes you could push a fist through in the lungs, or if you’re hit in the balls you near always live. You can have your pecker shot clean off an’ hardly even need much time to heal. You wouldn’t think that, but it’s true.”
Neither Jennings nor Brightwax looked so eager to deliver the other a come-uppance any longer. In fact, Longarm thought they were commencing to look just the least bit pale, each of them.
“Are you ready now? One …” What the hell was he going to do if they let him keep counting? he suddenly, and rather terrifyingly, thought. “Two
…”
“Jesus, Marshal, can’t you give us a minute to think about this?”
“Oh, hell yes. I’m sorry. I just thought …”
“Dammit, Henry, I’ll lay mine down if you’ll lay yours down too.”
“I’d lay mine down, Randal.”
“Both of us at the same time then?”
“Yeah, but … not on the count of three. Let’s just kind of reach out … like that, yeah, and lay them on the bar. Easy now. Easy does it. And … oh, jeez.”
Both men looked limp and purely wrung out as if they’d just passed through a great and unsettling ordeal. As perhaps in fact they had.
Longarm managed to look disappointed as he uncocked the Colt and returned it to its holster. “Bartender, I think it’d be a good idea if you’d pour some drinks now,” he said. “Startin’ with those fellas over there, eh?”
Chapter 39
If he had let them, the politicians and powers that be likely would have kept him occupied half the night long. Or longer. And he simply was not interested in putting himself through that. The silly sons of bitches talked exhaustively, endlessly, about nothing at all. And all of it so intense and serious that if you didn’t listen closely you might actually think they were saying something.
Even before they got around to formally naming him acting police chief, Longarm gave up and slipped away to the hotel.
He left word at the desk that he was not in. Not to the mayor, not to Judge Sproul’s widow, not to any-damn- body. Then he went upstairs and got the best, and earliest, night’s sleep he’d had in he couldn’t remember how long.
Come morning he ate in the kitchen. He tried sitting down to a normal table in the restaurant but was so overwhelmed with people coming by to ask, to bitch, to worry or simply to talk that he soon enough gave up on that and carried his plate into the kitchen where it was hot and noisy and crowded. But where at least he could eat his meal without interruption.
He could not say the same about the routine at City Hall. Once he sat down behind the police chief’s desk he was fair game for any citizen who wanted to pester him.
And he would have sworn that a clear majority of the Addington populace was intent on having “a few minutes of your time, sir, that’s all I ask.” And all of them on this one short morning.
Being chief of police amid a bunch of damn busybodies proved not as easy as Longarm might have thought. For certain sure not as easy as he would have hoped.
Hell, there was one poor woman who in all seriousness accused her neighbor of eavesdropping on her. By way of the neighbor’s house cat.
“It spies on me, you know. It’s true. It really does.”
“Then what I suggest you do, ma’am, is bribe the cat to spy on the neighbor for you,” he told her back, just as serious and solemn as he knew how.
“Oh, I couldn’t do a thing like that.”
“No? Then have you considered talking to the pharmacist about a good poison?”
“My neighbor is the only pharmacist in town, sir.”
“Then go to the hardware store and ask about a trap, ma’am.”
