The Gun Fight

Robby bit his lip. “But, I—” he started, too weakly to be heard. He leaned forward, the blood pounding in his head. He hadn’t agreed to anything like that. He watched the two of them with sick eyes as they planned the use of his life.

“Apology?” said Miss Winston with a coldly withdrawn tone.

“Well,” Mr. Coles explained, “I am not a man to shirk the truth, ma’m. But neither am I a man to advocate violence unless it is absolutely necessary. Mister Benton was in my shop today disclaiming any responsibility in this matter.”

Miss Winston looked shocked. “But you didn’t believe him?” she said, tensely.

“Naturally not,” Matthew Coles assured her. “However . . . we must allow for all possibilities other than violence, ma’m. I believe John Benton to be guilty as charged. But, if he is willing, before the public eye, to confess his guilt and repent, I . . . see no reason why violence should not be avoided.”

Matthew Coles leaned back, thinking himself a quite reasonable and impartial man.

“But if he said he didn’t do it,” Robby suddenly broke in, “he’s not going to apologize!” His voice was nervously excited as he spoke. His hands were cold and shaking in his lap.

“Sir,” Matthew Coles declared firmly, offended at this outburst as reflecting on his parenthood, “the conditions as stated are unchangeable. Either Benton admits his guilt and repents . . . or violence must, unavoidably, be used upon him.”

Robby felt himself shake as a wave of nausea swept over him. I’m not going to die!—the anguished thought cut through his brain—I’m not!

“One moment,” Miss Winston started heatedly, “all this talk of admission and, and of apology is no longer reasonable. This afternoon I took my niece home in a near-hysterical state. She will be compelled to remain there until this terrible thing is settled. Not by her mother, not by me but by gossip! She’s been driven from the streets by scorn!”

Matthew Coles looked indignant and shocked.

“In my shop this very afternoon,” Miss Winston went on, furiously, “a customer—I won’t mention her name —asked me—bold as you please!—if it were true that Louisa was—” she swallowed reticence, withdrawal, ingrained shame of all things physical, “—was with child!” she finished, her voice a whisper of passionate outrage.

Matthew Coles stiffened as though someone had struck him violently across the face. Robby looked suddenly blank.

There was shocked silence a moment, then the low, teeth-clenched voice of Matthew Coles rolling out slowly.

“Naturally,” he said, “this puts an entirely new aspect on the situation.”

“But . . . but Louisa never said that—” Robby started.

“It no longer matters what Louisa said!” Agatha Winston cried out vehemently. “What matters is that her reputation and the reputation of our entire family is being dragged through the mud!”

Robby flinched at her angry words and stared at Miss Winston speechlessly.

“Unless you stand up for my niece, she’ll never be able to lift her head in Kellville again! She will be shamed, her mother will be shamed, and I’ll be shamed!” Miss Winston’s voice broke and she began sobbing dryly, hoarsely.

“My dear Miss Winston,” Matthew Coles said quickly, jumping up from his chair, a fiercely accusing glare thrown at his son.

Miss Winston fought for control, hastily and ashamedly brushing away the hot tears that sprang from her eyes.

“We’re shamed, shamed!” she sobbed miserably.

From where he sat, motionless and numb, Robby could see the whitened pulsing at his father’s jaw, the tense set of his mouth. He looked down at the weeping Miss Winston for a moment. Then, before his father could say a word or look toward him, Robby stood with one wooden motion. He couldn’t feel his hands or his feet, only the blood pounding so hard at his temples that he thought his veins would burst and spatter blood across his face.

He didn’t know if it was courage or cold, drained terror. But his mind suddenly recognized the situation in all its clarity—Louisa driven into hiding, the town leering at her, picking at her reputation with insulting fingers.

“Don’t cry, Miss Winston,” he heard a strange, unnatural voice say in his throat.

Miss Agatha Winston looked up at the grim-faced young man and it seemed for a moment to Robby as if both she and his father were old and helpless and that it was up to him alone to settle the matter.

“Louisa will be defended,” he heard the words go on as though he stood apart, listening. “Her honor will be defended. I’ll stand up for her.”

“When?” his father asked and it seemed a perfectly reasonable question in that moment, a question spoken from necessity.

“Tomorrow,” Robby said. “Tomorrow I will.”

His brain seemed to be hanging in a great, icy emptiness, like some crystalline machine suspended in a winter’s night, bodiless—clicking and moving of itself, divorced from all fear and trepidation. There was a responsibility to be assumed, nothing else mattered. Manhood required it and he must live or fall by the demand. Tomorrow he would fight John Benton in the only way it could be done.

Robby Coles knew his father was shaking his hand strongly but he didn’t feel it and he hardly saw it.

Chapter Seventeen

“No, sir,” John Benton said over the supper table that night, “I admit I’m still a tenderfoot when it comes to cattle ranchin’ but one thing I do know; you’re not goin’ to get as strong a cow horse lettin’ ’em graze. Feed ’em grain; they earn it. They’re a lot better workers for it.”

Lew Goodwill shrugged his thick shoulders. “Well, I guess that’s up to you, boss,” he said. “Most outfits I rode with, though, let their hosses graze.”

Benton took a drink of his hot coffee, then put down the cup. “No, grain makes harder muscles,” he said. “Gives ’em more endurance, I know that for a fact.”

Julia brought more biscuits to the table and sat back down to her supper without a word. She probed listlessly at her meat, the fork held apathetically in her fingers.

Benton noticed how she toyed with her food and reached across the broad table to put his hand on hers. She looked up with a faint smile.

“Honey, stop worryin’,” he told her. “Nothin’s goin’ to happen.”

Her smile was unconvincing. “I hope so,” she said.

Merv Linken made a wry face as he chewed his beef. “Ma’m, you ain’t got nothin’ to fret about. Robby Coles ain’t bucklin’ on no iron against yore husband.” He made a mildly scoffing sound. “That’d be like tryin’ t’scratch his ear with his elbow.”

Julia tried to appear reassured but was unable to manage it.

“Saw the Reverend ridin’ out o’ here, this mawnin’,” Lew Goodwill said, looking up from his food. “What’d he want?”

Benton always wanted his men to feel as if they were part of the family and, as a result, there were few secrets among them.

“Yeah, what’d that ol’ sin-buster want, anyway?” Merv asked, his leathery face deadpan, his light blue eyes fixed on Julia.

“Merv, you stop that,” Julia scolded and the deadpan changed to cheerful grinning. Julia tried not to smile back but couldn’t keep from it.

“You’re a terrible man, Merv Linken,” she said, the corners of her mouth forcing down the smile. “There’s no hope for you.”

“He came out to say I should ride into town and clear it all up,” Benton told Lew Goodwill when his wife had