low on one side with a turkey feather sticking from its
band. Shaggy auburn moustaches draped the man’s
mouth. And in that smoky light it was plain to see he
waxed his Vandyke to a fine point the way it glistened.
“There stands Bill Perk,” the businessman said.
“Go on and dust him if you can.”
Fallon Monroe could tell by the way the man spoke
he didn’t believe it possible he could kill Bill Perk so
easily.
“Give me the money,” he said.
The man reached inside his coat and took out his
wallet.
“Half now, half when the job’s done.”
“I won’t be sticking around after, you can under-
stand that, can’t you? All now.”
“How I know you won’t just take off.”
“I do, tell Bill Perk I stole your money. He’s the
sheriff, ain’t he?”
The man smiled, counted out one hundred dollars.
Fallon Monroe counted it, then folded it and put it
inside his hat: a sugarloaf of dark gray slightly sweat
stained.
Bill Perk was talking to a Mexican in Spanish. Fal-
lon didn’t know what he was saying and didn’t care.
He eased up to him from the off side, saw the Mexi-
can’s eyes take note. Swift as that he brought up the
Peacemaker, cocking it as he raised it, saying loudly
enough for everyone to hear: “It’s the last time you
come around to screw my wife, goddamn you!” Bill
Perk turned, his long face full of surprise. Too late.
He had just enough time to see the barrel wink fire—
maybe—not a split second more. The shot rocked
him back on his heels and when he fell, his big spurs
jangled as his legs trembled then fell silent.
“Son of a bitch ought to learn not to cuckold an-
other man’s wife,” Fallon shouted to the stunned
crowd. “I warned him once already. A man’s got a
right to protect his own, don’t he?” Then he strode
quickly out into the cool night, got on his horse, and
rode away.
Those who knew Bill Perk were not surprised
someone had cashed in his chips for him, nor were
any overly saddened to hear the news. In fact, it made
for good gossip for a time: folks saying as how Bill ate
a bullet for his carnal sins. They took a certain plea-
sure in speculating as to who the vengeful man was,
but even more so as to who the wife was that Bill Perk
had been screwing. It kept them scratching their
heads for the better part of a week.
A hundred dollars for less than a minute’s work
seemed like found money.
And so Fallon Monroe set to practicing his new
profession with deliberate coolness killing half a
dozen fellows all over west Texas and both sides of
the border, retreating often enough back to Okla-
homa to visit Clara and lie low.
“You come and go without a word,” she said.
“That’s the way I am,” he said.
On two of the visits she’d become pregnant, with a
little more than a year separating the baby girls she
delivered. Neither time was Fallon there for the birth
of his daughters. It set Clara’s heart against him.
“I can’t continue to live like this,” she said.
“I make a living for us,” he said.
“You treat me like your whore.”
“I can’t stand doing nothing, sitting around.”
“The railroad is hiring,” she said.
“Railroad? What, laying rails, gandy-dancing, not
me. That’s back-breaking low work.”
“You’ve never said what it is you do,” she said.
“You go away and you come back with money, but
you’ve never said what or how you earn it.”
“Does it matter?”
“If it is something illegal,” she said. “Am I to also
become a widow, or be wife to a man who ends up in
prison?”
These discussions would lead to arguments and he
would leave again.
The next time he returned to Oklahoma she saw
the decline in him. The liquor had finally begun to
take its toll: he’d lost a great deal of weight and he
looked older by ten years.
“No more,” she said. The girls were now six and
seven years old. “They ask me where their father is
and I don’t know what to tell them.”
Things had become too hot for him in Texas. The
Rangers were after him and so were the Texas State
Police. He’d shot one in San Antonio and wasn’t sure
if the man had died or not; it had been a dispute over
a Mexican woman.
“Fine,” Fallon said. “I will take us all north of here.
I hear there is plenty of cheap land in the Dakotas.”
She wasn’t entirely convinced of his motives, but
he vowed that he would find work that would keep
him close to her and the children. They left that very
night, packing what they could into trunks, leaving
the rest. She didn’t understand his haste to be gone.
In Bismarck he seemed to settle down for a time.
“I like it that you’ve changed,” she said. He
