Go right at ’em, Virgil used to say. There’s trouble, go right at ’em. Right now.
“You shoot at me?” I said.
“Me,” Wickman said.
He was playing to the audience that had begun to gather.
“Me?” he said. “Why would you think it was me?”
“’Cause you’re a back shooter,” I said.
The banter went out of Wickman’s voice.
“I ain’t no back shooter,” he said. “You don’t know nothing about me. Every man I killed was facing me straight up.”
“I know a back shooter when I see one,” I said. “I bet you never shot a man wasn’t drunk. This morning you missed me by five feet.”
“I missed shit,” Wickman said. “I wanted to I coulda put that bullet right between your ears.”
“So you was just thinking to scare me,” I said.
Wickman opened his mouth and closed it and backed away a step.
“Didn’t work,” I said.
“I’m just saying it was me shot at you I wouldn’ta missed.”
“Naw,” I said. “’Course you wouldn’t. You’da drilled me from behind, back shooter.”
“Don’t call me that,” Wickman said.
The audience began to spread out a little. I thumbed back both hammers on the shotgun and rested the butt on my thigh with the barrels pointing at the ceiling.
“You ain’t behind me now,” I said.
“You think I’m going up against that eight-gauge,” Wickman said.
“I ain’t pointing it at you,” I said.
The audience spread out farther.
“I’m pointing the shotgun at the ceiling,” I said. “Good gun hand should be able to clear leather and drill me ’fore I can drop the barrels.”
I was right, there were people who could win that matchup, and I wouldn’t have made them the offer. But I was betting that Koy Wickman wasn’t one of them. I was probably the first person he went up against that he couldn’t bully, maybe the first one that was sober, and almost certainly the first one that was sober and had an eight-gauge shotgun. He backed up another step. The audience gave him plenty of room.
“Want go drink a little courage,” I said. “Come back later?”
He went for it. He was pressured, probably scared, and I was right. He wasn’t that good. He fumbled the draw slightly and I hit him in the face with both barrels. It turned him completely around and propelled him about three steps before he went down. It didn’t blow his head off like I’d said it would. But it was an awful mess. I reloaded.
The room echoed with silence, the way it usually did after a shooting. The smell of my gunshots was strong. Wickman’s Colt was ten feet from his outstretched hand. He’d never even aimed it. People looked briefly at what was left of Wickman and looked quickly away. The people who had been standing closest to him were spattered with blood and tissue. One man took his stained shirt off and threw it away from him. I thought about Virgil Cole again.
You gotta kill someone, do it quick. Don’t look like you got pushed into it. Look like you couldn’t wait to do it.… Sometimes you got to kill one person early, to save killing four or five later.
Wolfson came into the saloon from wherever he’d been, with two Chinamen. One Chinaman had a big piece of canvas, the other one had a bucket and mop. He nodded at the mess I’d made on his floor.
“You fix,” he said to the two Chinamen. “You clean one time. Chop, chop.”
The men went about it without expression. The one with the tarp wrapped it around Wickman and dragged him out through the door they’d come in. The other one mopped the floor.
“Anyone comes down from Liberty to ask about this,” Wolfson said, “I’ll talk to them. Everybody saw him draw on you… and the sheriff’s a friend of mine.”
I nodded, thinking still about Virgil’s advice. Virgil was always clear, and he was always certain. But he wasn’t always right.
I was hoping he would be, this time.
6.
Koy Wickman had been the toughest man in town, and I had killed him. It appeared that now I was the toughest man in town. And it made for a highly increased level of civility in the Blackfoot Saloon. I waited to hear from the O’Malley Mining Company. But nothing was forthcoming. Meanwhile, I sat in my high chair each evening amid the pleasant hubbub of a successful saloon. Days I read some, and rode my horse around, looking at the country. It was pretty unstressful, and I didn’t mind it for a while. Sooner or later, I knew it would get boring, and I would have to move on. But for now it was good to sort of rest up from my days with Virgil in Appaloosa.
It was a Tuesday night when things began to change a bit. I was in my chair when a little whore named Billie came into the saloon, walking fast, and headed for me. Billie always claimed to be twenty, but she looked to me about fifteen. And this night she also looked scared.
“There’s a man gonna get me, Everett,” she said.
“Customer?” I said.
“Yes,” Billie said. “But he don’t want to just fuck me. He wants to do things to me, you know?”
“Hurtful things?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t have to let him do hurtful things, do I, Everett?”
“No,” I said.
A squat, bowlegged fella with long arms came through the same door Billie had entered and looked around the room. He spotted Billie and came toward her hard, pushing people out of the way. He didn’t appear to be heeled, but I could see the handle of a knife sticking out of the top of his right boot. Billie saw him and hunched up behind my chair.
“Everett,” she said.
I nodded.
“Be all right, Billie, just stay quiet.”
Again she said, “Everett.”
Again I nodded. The man with the knife in his boot shoved a drinker aside to get next to Billie, who had wedged herself behind my chair. He grabbed her arm.
“Everett,” Billie said.
“Let her go,” I said to the knife man.
“I want that whore,” he said.
“Make the usual arrangements,” I said. “But no grabbing.”
He took his hand off her arm. I was pretty sure he knew I was the guy who killed Koy Wickman. On the other hand, he was drunk, and drunks can be stupid.
“I already paid for the little bitch,” he said.
“And you already done business?” I said.
“I fucked him,” Billie said.
“So?” I said to the guy with the knife.
“So she run off ’fore I was through.”
“He wanted to do stuff that hurt,” Billie said.
“I paid for her,” he said to me.
“That’s for fucking,” I said. “It don’t cover hurting.”
“I wasn’t gonna hurt her,” he said. “We was just playing a little.”
“She don’t want to play,” I said.
“She don’t want to?” he said. “She don’t want to? She’s a fucking whore. Who cares what she don’t want to? I paid good money for the little bitch.”
“You do what you supposed to?” I said to Billie.
“I done stuff with his pecker and then I fucked him,” she said. “He got a ugly little pecker.”
“Probably don’t see a lot of pretty ones,” I said.
The man bent down and took the knife from his boot. It was a big bowie knife with a wide blade. I rapped him on the wrist with both barrels of the shotgun, and the knife clattered to the floor and slid away. The man doubled over, holding his arm against his stomach.
“You cocksucker,” he said. “You broke my fucking arm.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It feels broke,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“You got no right to be banging me with that fucking eight-gauge.”
I looked at him and didn’t say anything.
“I want my damned money back,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Ain�
��t you gonna talk?” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “First, your arm ain’t broke. I can tell. Second, she fucked you, so you don’t get your money back. Third, you annoy one whore in this establishment, ever, and I’ll kill you.”
He stared at me. I stared back. He wanted to say something. But I had, after all, killed Koy Wickman. Still nursing his arm against his stomach, he turned and went to pick up his knife.
“Leave the knife where it is,” I said.
He stopped without looking back and stood still.
“I paid eight dollars for that knife,” he said finally.
I didn’t say anything. He took another step toward the knife on the floor. I cocked the eight-gauge. The sound was bright and clear in the room. He stopped again. I could see his shoulders heave as he took in some air. Then, without looking at me, he turned away from the knife on the floor and walked out of the saloon.
I let the hammers down easy on the shotgun. The pleasant hubbub picked up again. Billie stayed where she was behind my chair.
“What if he comes back,” she said.
“He won’t,” I said.
“What if he gets another knife and comes back. He’ll cut me, I know he will.”
I looked at her little girl’s face with too much make-up on it.
“Got a couch in my room,” I said. “You can sleep on it, if you want, till you get to feeling more comfortable.”
“I could sleep in the bed,” she said. “Be no charge.”
I shook my head.
“You’re too young for me, Billie,” I said.
“I’m twenty years old,” she said.
“The hell you are,” I said. “You want to stay with me on the couch?”
“Yes.”
I fished my room key out of my pants pocket.
“You want to go up now?”
“No,” she said. “I want to stay with you.”
I nodded.
“Wolfson won’t like that so much,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he wants his whores working.”
“I can’t work any more tonight, Everett,” Billie said. “I just can’t.”
I nodded.
“Mr. Wolfson says something, you tell him it’s okay,” Billie said. “He won’t go against you.”
“Sure,” I said. “Get a chair. If there’s any trouble, stay out of my way.”
“Yes, Everett,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
7.
Wolfson joined me for breakfast.
“One of my whores is sleeping in your room,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Meals here are part of the deal,” Wolfson said, “but not the girls.”
“She’s just sleeping there,” I said. “I ain’t employed her for anything.”
“If you ain’t fucking her,” Wolfson said, “why’s she sleeping there?”
“One of her gentleman friends threatened to cut her,” I said.
“Didn’t you throw him out the other night?”
“Yep.”
“You think he’ll come back?” Wolfson said.
“Nope, but she does.”
“She’s scared,” Wolfson said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And she ain’t working,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I hired you to help me make money,” Wolfson said, “not lose it.”
“He cut her up, what would she be worth?”
“Nothing to me,” Wolfson said.
“If she run off, what would she be worth?”
Wolfson nodded.
“So you’re letting her hide in your room.”
“Few days,” I said. “Until she ain’t scared.”
Wolfson nodded.
“Because you’re concerned for my best interests,” he said.
“Sure.”
“And that’s why you’re looking out for her like this,” Wolfson said.
“Nope. I’m looking out for her ’cause I’m softhearted,” I said.
Wolfson looked at me maybe. His off eye made it a little hard to say for sure what he was looking at.
“Still ain’t carrying her weight,” he said.
I nodded.
“Take it outta my pay,” I said.
“Christ,” Wolfson said. “You are softhearted.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Didn’t seem too softhearted when you blew a hole in Koy Wickman,” he said.
“That was business,” I said.
“And this ain’t,” Wolfson said.
“No,” I said. “This is softhearted.”
“Well, it’s business for me,” Wolfson said. “I’ll take it outta your pay until she’s back at work.”
I nodded.
“Fuck her if you want,” Wolfson said. “You’re paying for it anyway.”
“Too young for me,” I said.
“Says she’s twenty,” Wolfson said.
“You believe her,” I said.
“No.”
8.
Three days later I had another whore complaint. A customer had tied Short Sally to the bed and left her. One of the other girls had come in to borrow something and found her and cut her loose, and she come running to me.
“Said he wasn’t through with me yet,” she said. “Told me he was going out with his friends and when they came back, all of them would finish me up.”
“He in the room?” I said.
“Finish me up, Everett,” Short Sally went on. “That’s what he said, finish me up.”
“See him in the room?” I said.
Short Sally looked around. She wasn’t scared like Billie had been. She was ripping.
“That’s him, the fucking pig, there playing faro,” she said. “The fat one dressed kinda fancy.”
I said, “Come with me, Sal,” gave the eight-gauge to one of the bartenders, got down from the chair, and walked over to the faro game.
“This one?” I said.
“Him,” she said.
He was wearing a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat. I took it off his head with my left hand as he started to turn, tossed it on the floor, grabbed a handful of hair with my right hand, and pulled him and the chair over backward.
“Hey,” he said.
I let go of his hair and straightened and kicked him in the stomach. He gasped. I stomped on his crotch. He yowled. I reached down and got hold of his collar and started to drag him toward the door. Short Sally ran along beside us, bending over, calling him a “fat cocksucker.”
When we got to the door, I dragged him to his feet and pushed him against the doorjamb.
“I see you in here again, I’ll kill you,” I said.
He shook his head.
Standing beside me, Short Sally spit in his face. I’m not sure he even knew it. I turned him and pushed him through the doorway, put my foot against his butt, and shoved him face-first out into the street. Then I turned and went back to the lookout chair. Short Sally hurried along behind me.
“You shoulda killed him, Everett, the fat bastard, why didn’t you kill him like you done Koy Wickman?”
“Can’t kill ’em all, Sally.”
“Why not? Why can’t you?”
The bartender handed me the shotgun and I put it across my lap.
“Never actually quite thought about it, Sally. Killing ’em all just don’t seem like a good idea.”
“I think it is,” she said.
“I can see that, Sal,” I said. “But you ain’t the one got to do the killing.”
9.
What the fuck are you?” Wolfson said. “Fucking
Saint Everett of the Whores?”
"Just keepin’ order,” I said.
“You know who that was you kicked in the balls last night?”
“Can’t say that I got his name,” I said.
“Name’s Greavy,” Wolfson said. “Matthew Greavy. He’s a county commissioner.”
I had a bite of biscuit so I chewed and swallowed before
I answered. Wolfson drank some coffee.
“So it’s okay if he abuses your whores?” I said when the biscuit was down.
“It’s important for me to stay on the right side of the county,” Wolfson said. “I ain’t out here looking to sit here in a saloon kitchen for breakfast all my life.”
“Pretty good breakfast,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Wolfson said. “A business is like a lot of things: It grows or it dies. I plan to grow.”
“So maybe you should issue an abuse-my-whores pass to guys like Greavy. Then when I start to kick him in the balls, he can flash the pass, and I stop.”
“You being funny?” Wolfson said.
I put some sorghum on another biscuit and ate it.
“I guess not,” I said.
Wolfson stood up and walked around the kitchen. The Chinaman was busy chopping onions and paid us no attention. We never talked when he made my breakfast. I didn’t understand Chinese. I didn’t know if he understood English.
“You’re good at your work, Everett,” Wolfson said. “Don’t know if I ever seen better. You’re good with a gun. You’re good with your fists. You ain’t afraid of much. And people like you. But whores are fucking whores, you understand. They get abused, they get abused. They’re used to it.”
I nodded.
“You buy what I’m saying?” Wolfson said.
“You’re the boss,” I said.
“I know that, I want to make sure you know it, too,” Wolfson said. “Anytime you think the whores are having problems, you bring them to me.”
I nodded and ate some biscuit. I didn’t know about his language skills, but the Chinaman made a nice biscuit.
“You buy that?” Wolfson said.
“When I can,” I said.
“What do you mean, ‘When I can’?”
“Sometimes this kinda work,” I said, “you don’t have time to consult your employer.”
“So you use your own judgment.”
“I do,” I said.
Wolfson fixed me with his one-and-a-half-eyed stare.
“You do, and it’s the wrong judgment, and you’ll be out of a job,” he said.
“I’d surely miss these biscuits,” I said.
10.
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