The Gun Fight

Chapter Twenty-eight

He tried to sit down and rest but there seemed to be a spring in him that coiled tight every time he sat down. First the tension would affect his hands and feet, making them twitch. Then his shoulders would twist with a tortured restlessness, his hands would close into white-knuckled fists, and the turbulence in him would show in his eyes as a haunted flickering.

Then, abruptly, he’d be on his feet again, pacing back and forth on the sitting room rug, the fist of one hand pounding slowly and methodically into the palm of the other. His gaze would flit about the room from one object to another as though he had lost something and was making a rapid, futile search for it. His boots scuffed and thudded on the thick rug and there was no rest in him.

Robby dropped down onto the couch for the twenty-seventh time and sat there feeling the coils drawing in again. His chest rose and fell with quick, agitated breaths as he stared at his hands.

On the bottom step in the hall, his brother sat peering between the bannisters, the freckles on his face standing out like cinnamon sprinkled on milk. He watched Robby start to his feet again and begin pacing.

“When you gonna fight him?” he asked.

Robby didn’t answer. He breathed as if there were an obstruction in his throat.

“Robby?”

“Three o’clock. L-eave me alone.”

“Where, Robby? Are ya goin’ out to his ranch?”

Robby’s teeth gritted together as he stopped and looked out the window at the street.

This was Armitas Street, Kellville, Texas. It was his town, it had dozens of houses and hundreds of people and stores and stables and horses and life and future. Yet in—how long?; he glanced nervously at the hall clock and saw that it was five minutes after two.

In less than an hour it might all be taken from him.

Might be? What question was there? He couldn’t draw a gun like John Benton, he couldn’t fire half as quickly or accurately. He’d never even gotten the hang of cocking the hammer after each shot; he’d always fumbled at it.

He jammed his teeth together to stop the chattering. Oh, good God, he was going to die! The thought impaled him on a spear of frozen terror. He jammed his eyes shut and felt a violent shudder run down his back.

“Robby, where are ya gonna?”

“I said, leave me alone,” Robby muttered.

“What did you say, Robby?”

“I said—! Oh . . . never mind. Shut up, will ya?”

“But where are ya gonna fight him?”

“In the square! Now will ya leave me alone!”

Jimmy sat staring at his pacing brother. He wished he was big enough to fight somebody with a gun like Robby. Maybe he could fight his father.

The vision crossed his mind with a pleasant tread—him and his father facing each other in the square, guns buckled to their waists. Awright pa, fill yer hand! Sudden drawing, the blast of pistol fire, his father clutching at his chest, him re-holstering his pistol and running to his mother. It’s all right now, ma, it’s all right. I killed him. He’s dead now and he can’t hurt us no more.

His eyes focused on Robby who was on the couch again. He looked over at the clock.

“There isn’t much time,” he said, helpfully.

Robby forced his lips together, eyes staring at the floor.

“Robby, there isn’t much time.”

Robby stood up with a lurching movement and went to the window again. He stood there tensely, punching slowly at his cupped palm. Jimmy sat there listening to the dead smacking sound of the fist hitting the palm.

“Robby, there isn’t much—”

“Will you shut up!” Robby screamed at him, whirling, his face contorted with rage. Jimmy felt a sudden jolting in his stomach and drew back from the bannister quickly.

“I was only—”

“Get out of here!” his brother yelled. “I’m sick of lookin’ at ya!”

Jimmy sat there rigidly, thinking how much Robby looked like his father when he was mad.

Robby started for him. “I said—get outta here,” he warned, his voice a strange, unnatural sound.

Jimmy pushed up to his feet and ran up the steps, a sudden dryness in his mouth. At the head of the stairs, he stopped and glanced back. Robby hadn’t come out into the hall; he could hear him down in the sitting room, pacing again.

Slowly, he settled on the top step and looked down the staircase. He wished he could wear a gun like Robby.

In the sitting room, Robby jumped up from the couch as a thudding of horses’ hooves sounded outside. It’s him—the words exploded in his mind as he ran for the window, his heart like a frenziedly beaten drum. He felt his legs almost buckle as he moved and he grunted in shock as he caught his balance.

There was no horse in the street. Robby drew back from the window with a frightened sucking in of breath. Did Benton ride into the backyard, was he going to trap him? Robby dashed for the table and, with nerveless fingers, jerked the Colt from its holster and backed away, his eyes wide with apprehension.

The back door slammed shut and there was a heavy clumping of boots in the kitchen. No, it couldn’t be Benton, he wouldn’t come in like that. It was his father, it had to be his father. He mustn’t let his father see him like this, shivering, standing here with his pistol out-thrust and shaking in his hand. But what if it was Benton? Oh God, oh God, I can’t!—he thought, choking on a repressed sob.

“Where are you, sir?” he heard his father’s voice then and, hastily, he put the pistol down on the table and sat down.

“I’m, I’m . . .” he began, then braced himself. “Here, father,” he said, not realizing how loudly his voice rang out in the house.

Matthew Coles entered the room, carrying a box with him.

“Where is your mother?” he asked.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Robby said, still sitting there, feeling as if a great weight were settling on him.

“Well, did she go out?”

“Y-yes,” Robby faltered. “She . . . she just went out in the . . . rig.”

“In the rig?” Matthew Coles said in displeased surprise. Robby didn’t reply. He watched his father put the box on the table.

“Well, we’ll settle that later,” Matthew Coles said grimly. “There are more important things to be discussed now.”

He opened the box and took out the pistol in it.

“I’ve brought you that new Colt,” he told Robby. “Since you seem to have some difficulty with hammering. The double action in this model should take care of that. I don’t believe you’ll need more than two shots, will you.”

The last sentence was not spoken as a question.

Robby watched as his father broke open the cylinder and spun it. He heard his father’s grunt and then watched him break open the seal on a new box of cartridges. Carefully, Matthew Coles inserted a cartridge into each chamber, then spun the cylinder again. He looked into the barrel from the back, then grunted again, satisfied. Jerking his hand, he snapped the barrel back into place and spun the cylinder with one thumb.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that will do fine.”

He slid the Colt into Robby’s holster and forgot about it. Pulling out a chair, he sat across from his son.

“Now,” he said, “as to Benton’s mode of fighting. I’ve spoken to several men who claim to have seen him fight once in Trinity City. According to them, he wears his pistol—a Colt-Walker single action, I might add—wears it on his left hip, stock forward, using a cross draw. Furthermore,” he went on, “there is reason to believe he’s very much out of practice. After all, he’s been away from it a long time.”