by Holt, Van
Curly had his gun almost out of the holster before Ringo even started to draw. In fact Curly never saw him draw at all. One moment he was standing motionless, staring at Curly in disbelief. The next instant there was a gleaming pistol in his hand. But even then he held his fire, perhaps still hoping Curly wouldn’t shoot.
And Curly never did. The decision was taken out of his hands, not by Ringo’s gun, but by a rifle that roared from an alley across the street. The bullet whipped past him and hit Ringo somewhere in the head. Curly saw his head jerk and then Ringo fell without a sound.
Curly stood staring in horror at the motionless body of the strange lonely man whom he had loved and sometimes hated and never understood. He heard someone cry in a low broken voice, “Oh, God!” He did not recognize the voice as his own.
He did recognize the unbearable rage gathering inside him. This was not the way he had wanted it. He had done many bad things in his time, but he would have rather died himself than to be a part—even an unwitting part—of this treachery.
He whirled and moved his gun from side to side, watching for something to shoot at on the other side of the street.
But there was no one in sight. The traitor did not expose himself.
Miss Sarah screamed and ran out of the hotel, falling in the dirt beside Ringo, trying to shelter his body with her own.
Curly started toward them, almost sobbing. “Is he dead?”
“You keep away from him!” she screamed hysterically. “Don’t you come near him!”
She suddenly seized Ringo’s gun and pointed it at Curly and he backed off, stumbling and almost falling. Then the old Mexican, Don Juan, was suddenly beside her, gently taking the gun from her hand and saying something in a low soothing voice. He gathered Ringo up in his arms as if he were a child and carried him into the hotel, and Miss Sarah grabbed Ringo’s black hat out of the dirt and followed him.
Curly heard someone running across the street farther down and turned in time to see the shadowy figure duck into the Bent Elbow. The man was carrying a rifle and Curly knew who it was. He had known all along.
Grief and rage were like a team of strong horses pulling him down the street in long strides. He flung the batwing doors open and saw Cash hastily downing a glass of whiskey. His rifle was leaning against the bar beside him.
“You goddamn sorry son of a bitch!” Curly said, striding toward him with his hands clenched into huge fists.
Cash’s eyes widened in alarm when he saw the wild rage in Curly’s contorted dark face. He grabbed for his rifle, but not in time. Curly jerked it out of his hands and broke the stock off on the bar, then sailed the rest of it through a window. He grabbed the front of Cash’s shirt with his left hand and shoved his right into Cash’s face. A piece of the shirt tore off in his hand and Cash ran backwards about ten feet and then sat down hard on the floor.
He pointed at Curly with one hand and wiped blood from his mouth and nose with the other, “I saved your life!” he cried. “He would have killed you!”
“I’d rather be dead than to be alive like this!” Curly shouted. “Can’t you understand that, you fool?”
Chapter 18
It was just getting light when the stranger came in quietly through the batwing doors. Jackpot stood dozing behind the bar. He blinked in surprise when he saw the tall lean man in black. For a moment he thought he was looking at a ghost.
The stranger stopped at the bar and thumbed his hat back on his blond head. “Open kind of early, ain’t you?”
Jackpot shrugged. “I ain’t closed. I kept thinking that there”—he nodded at Curly asleep on the saloon floor in his rumpled brown suit, his soiled white hat pulled down over his face—“would wake up and drag hisself out of here. Then I went to sleep myself sitting in a chair and just woke up a few minutes ago.”
The stranger glanced at the sleeping man in silence. Then his frosty blue eyes returned to Jackpot. “Hear you had a little excitement around here last night.”
Jackpot clammed up. “A little.”
The stranger watched him blankly, then glanced toward the back of the saloon. “Guess you wouldn’t have a pot of hot coffee back there someplace?”
“Afraid not.”
The stranger shrugged indifferently. “I guess what I need is something stronger anyway.”
When his drink was poured he sipped it in silence, glancing occasionally at the man asleep on the floor, but making no comment.
When he had finished his drink he looked at Jackpot and said, “I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention seeing me to anyone.” He nodded at Curly. “Especially him.”
Jackpot looked into the stranger’s still, frosty blue eyes and a little shudder went through him. He looked away and shrugged. “I ain’t seen you.”
“Obliged.” The stranger laid some money on the bar and went silently out through the batwing doors and disappeared. Jackpot stood behind the bar listening for the sound of the stranger’s horse moving away, but he heard no horse. All he heard was Curly snoring on the saloon floor and muttering in his sleep.
When Curly woke up the sun was shining in his eyes through the broken window and there was a painful hammering in his ears. At first he thought it was just the headache, but then he realized it was somebody driving nails in wood with a real hammer, over toward the hotel.
He sat up with a groan and held his head in his hands for a while. “What’s all that hammering about?” he asked finally.
Jackpot looked at him blankly, then shrugged and said, “The old Mexican building a coffin, I guess.”
Curly sat there and thought about it, his hands over his eyes. It was all coming back to him a little at a time, and it hadn’t been just a bad dream, as he had hoped.
“He’s dead, then?” he asked bleakly, not looking at Jackpot.
“He must be,” Jackpot said. “They usually don’t bury people who ain’t.”
Curly sat on the floor a while longer, then sighed and climbed to his feet and limped to the bar. He was stiff and sore and ached all over from the night on the hard floor. He had never felt worse in his life, and there were no words to describe his headache. But if he hadn’t felt so bad, he figured his conscience would have killed him.
“Gimme a drink, Jackpot.”
Jackpot poured it in silence, and Curly said, “Sorry about that window. I’ll pay you for it when Uncle Willy gets back and pays me for them horses.”
Jackpot glanced at him out of small hard eyes. “What makes you think he’ll come back?”
“What makes you think he won’t?”
Jackpot shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
“Sometimes I feel that way myself.”
Curly finished his drink and started toward the door. Then he turned around and said, “What day is this? Ain’t it Sunday?”
Jackpot nodded. “Easter Sunday.”
“I’ll be damned,” Curly said. “I’d plumb forgot.”
Jackpot shrugged. Sunday was usually just another day in Boot Hill. Even Easter Sunday.
But this one was different. Today they would bury the only real friend Curly had ever had, and Ringo would still be alive if it wasn’t for him.
Funny, Curly thought as he went out. When he was alive I wanted him dead. Now I’d give anything to bring him back.
The bright sunlight hurt his eyes, and made his head throb worse. There wasn’t a cloud left in the sky, and it was already getting hot again. The desert was beginning to flower and the day mocked him with its beauty.
As he went along the empty street, he shifted his eyes toward the hotel without moving his head. There was no one in sight and the hammering had stopped.
He turned into the general store, which was open despite the holiday. Old Grady Bascom stood behind his counter as usual, his face as wrinkled and expressionl
ess as a dried-up prune.
Curly had trouble meeting the storekeeper’s glance. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and turned to look out at the deserted street.
Grady was silent behind him.
“You know when they aim to bury him, Grady?”
“This morning, I think,” Grady said in a reluctant tone. “The old Mexican dug the grave last night and I guess he’s got the coffin made. I don’t hear his hammer.”
Curly was silent, his haunted pale gray eyes watching the front of the hotel through the window. It looked as deserted as the rest of the town. He pictured Miss Sarah sitting alone in her room, by the plain wood coffin.
He pulled his hat a little lower. “You think she’d mind if I went out to the cemetery with them and maybe give a hand?”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea, Curly,” Grady said. “She don’t seem to want anyone to get near him except that old Mexican. It’s like she thinks we all had a hand in his death.” After a moment Grady added in a puzzled tone, “Almost like she thinks someone might still try to harm him somehow. Old Darius went upstairs to try to help out any way he could, but she got almost hysterical and shut the door in his face. He cried when he told me about it.”
“How’s old Don Juan going to manage the coffin by himself?” Curly asked.
“That old man’s strong as an ox,” Grady said. “And I guess she’ll help what she can.”
Curly sighed and started toward the door. Then he turned and said, “By the way, Grady. I noticed Ringo didn’t have anything when he left here yesterday. I reckon it ain’t none of my business what he wanted.”
“He was looking for a rig of some kind, and thought I might have one for sale. I told him there wasn’t a buggy or buckboard in this whole town, but I could let him have my flat-bed wagon if the price was right. He took it off my hands. Didn’t say what he wanted it for.”
“I reckon I know what he wanted it for,” Curly said. “Him and Miss Sarah were planning to leave town about today.”
“I think she is going to leave anyway, as soon as they get done burying him.”
“Old Don Juan going with her?”
Grady nodded, “I think so. He came in earlier and bought him a new suit of clothes. But I figure she gave him the money. Bought him a new sombrero, too.”
It was getting on toward noon that Easter Sunday so long ago. The sun was very bright and the humidity in the air made the heat worse. Curly was standing in front of the Bent Elbow in his wrinkled brown suit, feeling sick and dizzy and squinting against the painful light. The Hatcher boys had come out of the saloon to stand behind him, as silent as he was.
They had all been in the saloon drinking when old Don Juan backed the wagon up to the hotel porch and slid in the board coffin. That must have been an hour or more ago, because they had already been out to the cemetery and were coming back. Old Don Juan looked mighty proud in his new suit and big sombrero. Miss Sarah sat on the seat beside him in a black dress and hat, her white face partly hidden by a black veil.
They came on by the hotel without stopping and didn’t seem to notice old Darius Winkler on the veranda, crying and waving his arms. Miss Sarah’s suitcases were already in the wagon and old Don Juan’s few belongings were tied up in a bundle.
Curly kept his eyes on Miss Sarah’s pale beautiful face, knowing he was seeing it for the last time. She sat rigid on the wagon seat with her hands clasped in her lap. She held her head high, her chin up, looking straight ahead. But her lip quivered as they passed the saloon and for just a moment there was a look of bitterness and near panic in her eyes.
Curly took off his hat but she gave no sign that she saw him. They drove on down the street and stopped in front of the stable. Old Don Juan got down and went into the stable and soon came back out leading Ringo’s black horse. He tied the horse behind the wagon, got back on the seat and drove around the stable, heading west along the stage road. The last thing Curly saw was Ringo’s black horse trotting behind the wagon, the saddle empty.
“That old greaser will be sleeping with her before long,” Cash said with a strange bitterness.
“Shut up,” Curly said. “Miss Sarah’s a lady.”
“Lady, hell,” Beanbelly muttered.
Curly took a step toward him and Beanbelly backed off. Curly didn’t feel like chasing him.
“Get out of my sight, all of you!” Curly snarled. “I don’t want to see any of you for about a week!”
He tramped down the street toward the stable and Cash muttered, “Hell with him.”
They were still standing there when he came back from the stable on the Appaloosa and rode past them, his bitter gray eyes turned ahead as if he didn’t see them. Blondie was standing at the door of the Road to Ruin, but Curly didn’t seem to see her either. He rode on along the street until he was almost to the cemetery.
Then he suddenly halted and sat motionless in the saddle for a long moment, his back to the town. As the Hatcher boys watched with puzzled eyes, the big rustler turned his horse and rode back along the street as far as the general store, got down and went inside. A minute later he came back out with a shovel, got back on his horse and rode back to the cemetery. Leaving his horse ground-tied at the edge of the road, he walked out into the graveyard with the shovel, disappearing behind an empty building at the end of the street. “He’s gone crazy,” Beanbelly said. “He’s gonna dig up that grave.”
“Hell with him,” Cash said. “While he’s doing that, let’s go have some fun with that stuck-up bitch. If it ain’t us, it will be that old greaser.”
Beanbelly grinned. “Just what I was thinking.”
They got their horses from the stable and headed west along the stage road. As soon as they were a little distance from town they put their horses into a lope and soon caught sight of the wagon moving slowly along the road nearly a mile ahead. Even at that distance they could see that Ringo’s horse was no longer tied behind the wagon.
“What happened to that black horse?” Beanbelly asked.
“Got away, I guess,” Cash said. “We’ll worry about the horse later.”
“Couldn’t keep him no how,” Comanche Joe said. “Curly know what happened.”
“That’s right,” Beanbelly said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“He’ll know anyhow if somebody finds the wagon,” Cash said. “There’s a deep wash a few miles ahead. We could sort of hang back till they get there, then take the wagon up the wash a piece and bury it.”
“What about the horses?” Beanbelly asked.
“Kill them and bury them too,” Cash said, “Bury every damn thing. After we’ve had our fun, that is.”
Curly had just laid his coat aside and started shoveling the fresh mound of dirt away from the grave when a movement at the corner of his eye attracted his attention.
Wyatt Earp stepped out of the tall brush at the edge of graveyard with the famous Buntline Special in his hand and an unmistakable willingness to use it in his frosty blue eyes.
“Curly,” he said, “can you think of any good reason why I shouldn’t blow a hole through you?”
Curly gaped at him in surprise. “Where in hell did you come from?”
“Haven’t been there yet. But that’s where you’re fixing to go, Curly.”
As he spoke, Wyatt’s bony thumb eared back the hammer of the Buntline.
Curly held up his hand, sweating freely. “Wait!” he said. “Just wait till I finish digging up this grave. That bastard may not even be in it.”
Wyatt glanced at the grave. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
Curly went back to shoveling away the loose dirt. “Got to thinking. I thought he was dead and buried once before. He could of pulled the same trick again, right under my nose.”
“Keep talking, Curly,” Wyatt said. “I alw
ays said you’d talk your way into a grave.”
Curly glanced uneasily at the huge Buntline Special.
“Well, at least it won’t be a shotgun this time.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Wyatt said in a puzzled tone, “How the hell did you shake off all that buckshot I put in you?”
“I had on Ringo’s bearskin coat. It was almost like being armor-plated.”
“I’ll be damned,” Wyatt said softly. “That must make three or four times he saved your worthless hide, in one way or another. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have started with Mad Dog Shorty. I would have started with you, Curly.”
Curly stopped shoveling for a moment, blinking at him in surprise. “So that was you. Ringo said somebody else was using that shotgun on them boys, but he wouldn’t say who it was and I just figgered it was him.”
“Ringo wasn’t like you, Curly. He never lied unless he just had to.”
Curly shrugged as he went back to shoveling the loose dirt. “I always figgered a man should keep in practice, for the times when he does have to.”
Wyatt’s face got red, an old anger finding its way to the surface. But his voice remained quiet and casual. “Well, I’ll say one thing, Curly. If Ringo’s in that grave, it will be a mighty big consolation to put a bullet in your stinking guts. You may find it hard to believe, but I loved that man like a brother.”
Curly gave him a mean look. “I’d find it hard to believe you could love anyone like a brother, even one of your own brothers.”
A pale rage flared in Wyatt’s eyes and almost choked him. He thrust the Buntline out as if to fire, but managed, somehow, not to pull the trigger. He even managed, somehow, to get his temper back under control. “What if I told you he was my brother, Curly?” he asked.