Virgil Cole had come up to stand with us. Virgil rarely made any noise when he walked.
“Well, well,” he said.
“Maybe we won’t have to kill him after all,” I said.
“How come you shooting holes in our window,” Rose said.
His voice was amused, as if he was having some fun with a mischievous boy.
“’Cause O’Malley owns it, and I’m with Wolfson.”
Rose nodded.
“He’s with Wolfson,” Rose said to Cato.
Cato didn’t speak.
“Lucky Wolfson,” Rose said, and smiled.
Boyle misunderstood Rose’s pleasantness. The mild tone made him feel even braver.
“So you fellas gonna do something about it?” he said.
Rose grinned.
“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Hackworth, we are.”
The drunks around Boyle began to move away from him. Boyle looked like he was trying to focus.
“What are you gonna do?” he said.
“We’re probably gonna shoot you, Hackworth,” Rose said.
“I got my gun right out,” Boyle said, and waved it at them. “What if I shoot you first?”
“Don’t make much difference, Hackworth,” Rose said. “Don’t figure, drunk as you are, you can hit either one of us, assuming you got the balls to actually try.”
“I got the balls,” Boyle said. “I got the balls. Don’t you think I don’t.”
Rose nodded indulgently.
“Maybe you do. And maybe you even hit one of us,” Rose said, smiling faintly, “the other one kills you.”
Boyle’s support moved farther away from him. Boyle frowned as if he was trying to concentrate. Rose stepped down off the porch of the Excelsior and began to walk toward Boyle.
“It occurs to me, Cato,” Rose said as he walked toward Boyle, “whoever shoots Hackworth got to go in later and clean the weapon.”
Cato nodded.
Boyle began slowly to back away as Rose walked toward him. He seemed not to know that he was doing it.
“I hate to clean a weapon,” Rose said. “Don’t you, Cato?”
Cato nodded again.
Rose reached Boyle, and suddenly his gun was in his hand and he brought it down hard across Boyle’s forearm. Boyle yelped, and his gun spun into the street. The fading remnants of Boyle’s supporters departed.
Rose’s gun was back in its holster. Boyle was hunched over, nursing his forearm against him. Rose took hold of Boyle’s shoulders, turned him, and kicked him in the backside.
“Go home, Hackworth,” he said.
“If I was sober,” Boyle muttered.
“You was sober,” Rose said, “you’d be dead. Me and Cato don’t take much pleasure shooting drunks, ’less we have to.”
Boyle looked at his gun lying in the street.
“Leave it,” Rose said.
“What am I supposed to do without a gun?” Boyle said.
His voice was petulant.
“Far as I can see,” Rose said, “whether you got a gun or not don’t make much difference.”
Still holding his bruised arm, Boyle looked for a moment longer at the gun. Rose took hold of his shirt collar in the back and shoved him toward the hotel. Boyle stumbled a couple of steps and slowed and got himself organized, and walked clumsily across the street toward the Blackfoot Hotel.
Rose looked over at the Blackfoot Saloon and saw us and smiled and made a thumbs-up gesture. I nodded. Then he went back up onto the porch, and he and Cato went back into the Excelsior.
“Too bad,” Virgil said to me. “Somebody’s gonna have to kill him. Woulda been convenient if it was them.”
30.
Her last client had left, and Billie’s evening was over. She sat with me and Virgil in the back of the Blackfoot and drank some whiskey thinned with water.
“How come that fool did that,” Billie said.
“Henry Boyle?” I said.
“Yes. How come he tried to go up against Cato and Rose.”
“Drunk,” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Scared,” he said.
“Scared and drunk,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Probably a connection,” he said.
'But if he was sacred,” Billie said, “why did he start trouble?”
“Seen a lot of kids like that,” Virgil said. “Killed some. They grow up scared and they think if they had a gun maybe they wouldn’t be scared. So they get a gun and they half learn to use it, and maybe they shoot a couple of drunks more scared than they are, and they think they are gunmen. They ain’t. What they are is still scared.”
“If I could shoot like you,” Billie said, “either one of you, I would never be scared of nothin’.”
Virgil grinned.
“I wasn’t scared ’fore I ever had a gun,” he said.
It startled me. Not the business about being scared and not scared. I understood that. It was just that I couldn’t imagine Virgil without a gun. As long as I’d known him, Virgil had been exactly what he was. Which was Virgil Cole. I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.
“I bet I’d feel a lot safer with a gun,” Billie said.
“And you’d have reason to,” Virgil said. “But you ain’t brave without a gun, you ain’t brave.”
“But Henry Boyle don’t know that,” I said to Billie. “You make a living doing gun work, you got to accept the possibility somebody gonna shoot you dead.”
“No matter how good you are?” Billie said.
“No matter how good,” I said.
Billie nodded.
“So you have to be brave anyway,” she said.
Virgil and I both nodded.
“Or at least calm,” Virgil said. “Calm’s probably better than quick, and scared don’t make you calm.”
“Henry can shoot a lot better than most,” I said. “’Cause most can’t shoot at all. But it’s not enough for him. Unless he can be the best, he has no peace of mind.”
“And he’s not the best,” Billie said.
“Nowhere near,” I said. “And if he ain’t the best, then he ain’t safe. Somebody might kill him.”
“He got embarrassed at target practice the other day. So he got drunk and went off on Frank Rose and Cato Tillson. It coulda got him killed. But instead it got him humiliated again. Now he’ll have to do something else, ’cause he can’t stand feeling the way he does.”
“Why?” Billie said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
“Most of the people start trouble like that are scared,” I said. “Wickman was scared.”
“It’s funny, you know? If you boys are right, then the way you know a guy’s not scared is if he don’t start
