28.
Wolfson’s army was sleeping in his hotel, eating in his dining room, and drinking in his saloon. Except for Cato and Rose, who stayed in town upstairs at the Excelsior, O’Malley’s forces were domiciled at the mine. They didn’t have anything to do until the fight started, so they spent a lot of time in the New Excelsior. From across the street, O’Malley’s army didn’t look like much of an improvement on ours.
“Be a kindness to the world,” Virgil said, “to let them fight to the death.”
“Wouldn’t be a loss,” I said.
We were sitting on the front porch of the hotel, with our feet up on the rail.
“So,” Virgil said. “Wolfson’s got his army and O’Malley’s got his army. What happens now?”
“I don’t think they know,” I said. “Either one of them.”
“And the sodbusters?” Virgil said.
“They say they’re backing O’Malley.”
“That mean,” Virgil said, “they’re buckling up, riding on in?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Don’t think they know.”
“They can’t keep paying these people to sit around and get drunk,” Virgil said. “Somebody going to have to do something.”
“I know.”
“Sodbusters were smart, they’d stay out of it until they see who wins,” Virgil said.
“They ain’t smart,” I said.
“Neither is anybody else,” Virgil said.
The Chinese cook came out of the hotel carrying biscuits and coffee on a tray. He put the tray down on the floor between us and went back in. I poured us some coffee.
“Chink ever say anything?” Virgil said.
“No,” I said.
“Does what he does, and keep his mouth shut,” Virgil said.
“He does,” I said.
“He’s smart,” Virgil said.
Across the street, Cato and Rose came out of the New Excelsior and sat down on its porch. Rose pretended to shoot us with his forefinger. Cato simply looked at us. I nodded at them.
“Why do you suppose they’re in town?” I said.
“Keep their troops from trashing the saloon,” Virgil said.
I nodded.
“It’s a problem,” I said.
Henry Boyle came walking up the street from the livery stable and turned into the saloon. He didn’t look at us as he passed.
“Speaking of problems,” I said.
“I embarrassed him at the can shoot.”
“You were trying to warn him,” I said.
Virgil shrugged.
“Now he gotta prove something,” Virgil said. “To me, to himself, to his friends. Maybe all of that.”
“Could be we’ll have to kill him,” I said.
“Probably will,” Virgil said.
We drank coffee. The cook had sweetened it already.
“Maybe we should fold it up here, Virgil,” I said. “And go to Texas.”
He shook his head.
“Why?” I said. “What do you care. You’re just helping me out.”
Virgil shook his head again. I looked at him for a moment.
“You want to see it through,” I said.
“Might as well,” he said.
I looked at him some more.
“You’re figuring yourself out,” I said.
Virgil shrugged.
"Instead of enforcing the law,” I said, “you’re helping out your friend.”
“Might be,” he said.
“Rules of friendship instead of the rules of law.”
“I guess,” Virgil said.
“You slick sonovabitch,” I said. “You’re using this fight to see what you are when you’re not a lawman.”
“Useful to know,” Virgil said.
“And after that,” I said, “we’ll go to Texas.”
“Sure,” Virgil said.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, “Friendship’s real.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“Wouldn’t work if it wasn’t,” Virgil said.
I nodded.
“Know that, too,” I said.
29.
Between engagements, Billie liked to stand by the street door and keep an eye out for clients. It was early in the evening, still light outside, and Billie at the door, when there were a couple of shots fired in the street.
“Everett,” Billie shouted. “There’s trouble outside.”
“Not my problem,” I said.
“No, but you might want to watch,” she said. “Fancy Guns Boyle just put a couple bullets through the front window at the Excelsior.”
“My goodness,” I said, and got down from my chair and walked over and stood.
In the street was Henry Boyle, obviously drunk, with four more of our army, also obviously drunk. He was waving his gun at the saloon.
“Fuck the Excelsior,” Boyle hollered. “Fuck O’Malley and the Excelsior.”
He had some trouble saying “Excelsior.” While he was struggling with it, Frank Rose came out of the Excelsior, and Cato Tillson behind him. Rose moved right a few steps, Cato left.
“You doing the shooting?” Rose said.
“You bet your ass,” Boyle said. “Me, Henry Hackworth Boyle.”
Rose looked amused, and without taking his eyes off Boyle, he said to Cato, “Hackworth.”
Cato nodded.
Virgil Cole had come up to stand with us. Virgil rarely made any noise when he walked.
“Well, well,” he said.
“Maybe we won’t have to kill him after all,” I said.
“How come you shooting holes in our window,” Rose said.
His voice was amused, as if he was having some fun with a mischievous boy.
“’Cause O’Malley owns it, and I’m with Wolfson.”
Rose nodded.
“He’s with Wolfson,” Rose said to Cato.
Cato didn’t speak.
“Lucky Wolfson,” Rose said, and smiled.
Boyle misunderstood Rose’s pleasantness. The mild tone made him feel even braver.
“So you fellas gonna do something about it?” he said.
Rose grinned.
“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Hackworth, we are.”
The drunks around Boyle began to move away from him. Boyle looked like he was trying to focus.
“What are you gonna do?” he said.
“We’re probably gonna shoot you, Hackworth,” Rose said.
“I got my gun right out,” Boyle said, and waved it at them. “What if I shoot you first?”
“Don’t make much difference, Hackworth,” Rose said. “Don’t figure, drunk as you are, you can hit either one of us, assuming you got the balls to actually try.”
“I got the balls,” Boyle said. “I got the balls. Don’t you think I don’t.”
Rose nodded indulgently.
“Maybe you do. And maybe you even hit one of us,” Rose said, smiling faintly, “the other one kills you.”
Boyle’s support moved farther away from him. Boyle frowned as if he was trying to concentrate. Rose stepped down off the porch of the Excelsior and began to walk toward Boyle.
“It occurs to me, Cato,” Rose said as he walked toward Boyle, “whoever shoots Hackworth got to go in later and clean the weapon.”
Cato nodded.
Boyle began slowly to back away as Rose walked toward him. He seemed not to know that he was doing it.
“I hate to clean a weapon,” Rose said. “Don’t you, Cato?”
Cato nodded again.
Rose reached Boyle, and suddenly his gun was in his hand and he brought it down hard across Boyle’s forearm. Boyle yelped, and his gun spun into the street. The fading remnants of Boyle’s supporters departed.
Rose’s gun was back in its holster. Boyle was hunched over, nursing his forearm against him. Rose took hold of Boyle’s shoulders, turned him, and kicked him in the backside.
“Go home, Hackworth,” he said.
“You was sober,” Rose said, “you’d be dead. Me and Cato don’t take much pleasure shooting drunks, ’less we have to.”
Boyle looked at his gun lying in the street.
“Leave it,” Rose said.
“What am I supposed to do without a gun?” Boyle said.
His voice was petulant.
“Far as I can see,” Rose said, “whether you got a gun or not don’t make much difference.”
Still holding his bruised arm, Boyle looked for a moment longer at the gun. Rose took hold of his shirt collar in the back and shoved him toward the hotel. Boyle stumbled a couple of steps and slowed and got himself organized, and walked clumsily across the street toward the Blackfoot Hotel.
Rose looked over at the Blackfoot Saloon and saw us and smiled and made a thumbs-up gesture. I nodded. Then he went back up onto the porch, and he and Cato went back into the Excelsior.
“Too bad,” Virgil said to me. “Somebody’s gonna have to kill him. Woulda been convenient if it was them.”
30.
Her last client had left, and Billie’s evening was over. She sat with me and Virgil in the back of the Blackfoot and drank some whiskey thinned with water.
“How come that fool did that,” Billie said.
“Henry Boyle?” I said.
“Yes. How come he tried to go up against Cato and Rose.”
“Drunk,” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Scared,” he said.
“Scared and drunk,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Probably a connection,” he said.
"But if he was sacred,” Billie said, “why did he start trouble?”
“Seen a lot of kids like that,” Virgil said. “Killed some. They grow up scared and they think if they had a gun maybe they wouldn’t be scared. So they get a gun and they half learn to use it, and maybe they shoot a couple of drunks more scared than they are, and they think they are gunmen. They ain’t. What they are is still scared.”
“If I could shoot like you,” Billie said, “either one of you, I would never be scared of nothin’.”
Virgil grinned.
“I wasn’t scared ’fore I ever had a gun,” he said.
It startled me. Not the business about being scared and not scared. I understood that. It was just that I couldn’t imagine Virgil without a gun. As long as I’d known him, Virgil had been exactly what he was. Which was Virgil Cole. I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.
“I bet I’d feel a lot safer with a gun,” Billie said.
“And you’d have reason to,” Virgil said. “But you ain’t brave without a gun, you ain’t brave.”
“But Henry Boyle don’t know that,” I said to Billie. “You make a living doing gun work, you got to accept the possibility somebody gonna shoot you dead.”
“No matter how good you are?” Billie said.
“No matter how good,” I said.
Billie nodded.
“So you have to be brave anyway,” she said.
Virgil and I both nodded.
“Or at least calm,” Virgil said. “Calm’s probably better than quick, and scared don’t make you calm.”
“Henry can shoot a lot better than most,” I said. “’Cause most can’t shoot at all. But it’s not enough for him. Unless he can be the best, he has no peace of mind.”
“And he’s not the best,” Billie said.
“Nowhere near,” I said. “And if he ain’t the best, then he ain’t safe. Somebody might kill him.”
“He got embarrassed at target practice the other day. So he got drunk and went off on Frank Rose and Cato Tillson. It coulda got him killed. But instead it got him humiliated again. Now he’ll have to do something else, ’cause he can’t stand feeling the way he does.”
“Why?” Billie said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
“Most of the people start trouble like that are scared,” I said. “Wickman was scared.”
“It’s funny, you know? If you boys are right, then the way you know a guy’s not scared is if he don’t start trouble. And the way you know he is is if he does.”
“Some truth to it,” Virgil said. “You know what you can do, and you know that you’re willing to do it, and you don’t have to show anybody anything. It’s kind of calming.”
“I don’t know, though,” Billie said. “I’m scared. I get humiliated. I don’t start a lot of trouble.”
“Maybe you ain’t as scared as you think,” Virgil said.
“And you ain’t a man,” I said.
“I wasn’t sure you knew that,” Billie said.
"Being a man in these parts can pressure you some,” Virgil said.
31.
Virgil sat alone near the back of the saloon sipping a beer, looking at nothing, and seeing everything, the way he did. Wolfson was eating supper at the bar. He seemed in a hurry to finish. After he finished his supper, Wolfson strolled over to me in the lookout chair.
“Want you to be sure and stay close tonight,” he said. “Cole, too.”
“Can’t speak for Virgil, but I’ll be here.”
“Which means he’ll be here, too,” Wolfson said. “Maybe you could speak to him when we’re through talking here.”
I nodded and said, “You expecting trouble?”
Wolfson smiled and leaned closer to me.
“Sent some boys out to O’Malley’s to hit him tonight,” Wolfson said, “when he ain’t ready for it.”
“And Cato and Rose are at the Excelsior,” I said.
“Yep.”
“And you kept me and Virgil here?” I said.
“Case it doesn’t work, I’ll need protection.”
“What are the boys planning on doing when they get there?” I said.
“Killin’ every last soul,” Wolfson said.
“Who’s leadin’ ’em?”
“Boyle,” Wolfson said.
I didn’t say anything.
“He’s perfect for the job,” Wolfson said. “Couldn’t wait.”
“Bet he couldn’t,” I said.
“I mean, ain’t every man ready to go out and kill twenty people for no reason ’cept I told him,” Wolfson said.
“Probably a good thing,” I said.
“Oh… yeah,” Wolfson said. “Sure. Boyle’s a fucking lizard. But when you’re at war with a bunch of fucking lizards, fella like him is handy.”
“You know Cato Tillson backed him down on the street the other night,” I said.
“Heard about that,” Wolfson said. “Boyle claims he was too drunk to see, let alone fight.”
I nodded.
“Probably so,” I said.
“Okay, stay close,” Wolfson said. “Might have some high celebrating later on.”
“What about the miners?” I said.
“A few could get hurt, I suppose,” Wolfson said. “Can’t be helped if they do. We’re in a fucking war, you know.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’ll be here in the saloon, until the boys come back,” Wolfson said. “Speak to Cole. I want you and him watching me tight.”
“Sure,” I said.
Wolfson gestured to Patrick, who handed him a bottle and a glass. Wolfson took it and sat near the bar at a table where I could see him.
Wasn’t a bad plan, if you don’t mind back-shooting twenty men, who would probably have back-shot you first if they’d thought of it before you did. If it worked, it would end Wolfson’s troubles right then, and leave him in charge of the town with twenty gun hands to back him.
I climbed down from the chair, took the eight-gauge with me, and went to talk with Virgil.
32.
Henry Boyle came into the Blackfoot about an hour later. His eyes were big and his face was flushed. He held the saloon doors open and behind him came the two buffalo skinners carrying a body, which they dropped on the floor near the bar. Wolfson walked over and looked down
. It was O’Malley.
“What the fuck are you bringing that in here for?” Wolfson said.
“Thought you’d want to see him, prove that he’s dead,” Boyle said.
His voice had a high, strained tone to it.
"Okay,” Wolfson said. “He’s dead. Now get him the fuck out of my saloon.”
“You heard the man,” Boyle said in his odd voice. “Throw him in the street in front of the Excelsior.”
The two skinners dragged the body out through the rest of Boyle’s mob, which came boiling in through the door.
“We wiped ’em out,” Boyle said to Wolfson. “Ones ain’t dead are heading for Texas.”
He made a sound that might have been a giggle.
“And running hard,” he said.
Wolfson nodded absently.
“We lost two hands.”
“Good work, Henry,” Wolfson said.
Then he turned and raised his voice to the room.
“Great work, men,” he shouted. “Rest of the night, drinks on me.”
The mob cheered. Wolfson looked over at me.
“Anything goes tonight, Everett,” he said. “No rules. You may as well take the night off.”
I nodded.
“Billie,” I said. “Go to my room and go in and lock the door and don’t let anybody in but me… or Virgil.”
“I might make some money,” Billie said.
“Not enough,” I said. “Stay in my room. I’ll take you.”
She nodded. We stood and I walked with her through the saloon. Near the door to the hotel, one of Boyle’s mob grabbed at Billie’s arm.
“Hey, Billie, where you going,” he said. “You should fuck us all.”
I clubbed him across the side of the head with my fist and forearm, and he staggered back against the doorjamb, and we went out and went upstairs to my room. I took my spare handgun off the top shelf of the closet, made sure it was loaded, and put it on the nightstand.
“You know how to shoot it?” I said.
“Cock it and pull the trigger,” Billie said.
“Okay,” I said. “Use both hands. And don’t be afraid to shoot.”
“I ain’t afraid to shoot,” Billie said. “Anybody comes in here I’ll shoot him in the pecker.”
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