by Bill Brooks
Teddy had stayed off a little ways and seen the whole thing. He didn’t want to be underfoot of Bill but rather to gain his confidence slowly while maintaining an aura of casualness. He saw the woman talking to Bill, saw Bill walk off toward the trees then return, and saw them talking some more before Bill meandered off toward town looking less noble than he usually looked.
He angled in from his position of observation and fell in step with Hickok.
“I was just on my way over to your camp to see if you wanted to join me for supper.”
“That’s a good idea,” Bill said. “I don’t suppose you could stake me to some poker money after?”
“Yes, I could stake you say twenty dollars.”
“Twenty oughter do it. I’ll have it doubled in half an hour.”
Charley had not mentioned Bill’s skill with the picture cards, but Teddy figured it must not be very good for he was always getting Charley or someone other to stake him to a game.
They went to the oyster bar at the Union Pacific Railroad Hotel and dined on fresh oysters, Bill saying, “A feller has to eat a lot of these to fill his belly, but they’re tasty when dipped in melted butter.”
Later, after Bill had lost the money Teddy staked him to and they stood having a cocktail at the bar, Bill said, “I’m thinking I need to clear out of town for a while myself.”
“Why’s that?” Teddy asked.
“It’d just be best…”
“Oh.”
Bill sipped his cocktail while looking around the room. Teddy saw Ned Loyal and Hank Rain standing at the far end of the bar together. Hank had a red mark across his cheek that wasn’t there the last time Teddy had seen him. It looked like it could have been made by a knife, or a bullet.
Teddy saw the two men eyeing him and Bill.
“Yes, maybe it’s best you left for a while if you feel like leaving.”
“Squirrel Tooth Alice showed up at my camp this evening unexpected. Maybe if I get into the wind for a few days, she’ll leave without my having to ask her.”
“Somebody from your past?”
“Old flame, but one that’s still got some heat to it.”
“And you being a married man…”
Bill looked at him. “A man’s only as good as his word, in my book. I took a vow to my wife and I intend on keeping it.”
“That’s admirable.”
Bill drained his glass, choosing to pass on the story Alice had told him about somebody coming to kill him. Hell, if he had a plug nickel for every yahoo intent on killing him, he’d be living in a mansion. But he wasn’t living in no mansion and he sure wasn’t dead yet!
“I guess I’ll go and sleep out on the prairies tonight.”
Teddy took out the key to his room and held it forth for Bill. “I have a room over at the widow Bonney’s boardinghouse. You can sleep there tonight if you want.”
“That’s positively generous of you, old son. But where will you sleep?”
“Not to worry, Bill.”
Hickok held forth his hand and Teddy shook it. Teddy felt he’d won Bill’s confidence and respect in that simple gesture.
“Charley was right about you making a good pard.”
The manager of the hotel came up and shook Bill’s hand and asked if he could buy him a drink, and Bill accepted and said, “Buy one for my pard here too, Harry.” He did, and then Bill asked Harry if he’d stake him to a poker game, and the manager said sure and gave Bill fifty dollars. Bill thanked him, then went off and bought his way into a game, making sure he got the seat where his back could be against the wall.
“That Bill’s got the worst luck of any man I ever seen at the card tables,” the manager said. “He calls it luck, I just think he’s a piss poor hand at the game.”
“Why’d you stake him then?” Teddy asked.
“Why? Hell, he’s Wild Bill, that’s why.”
Teddy stayed put at a place along the bar where he could keep an eye on Bill. Ned Loyal and Hank Rain continued to collaborate about something, and finally Hank made his move, but Teddy intercepted him.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Hank looked at him, a scowl troubling his features. “You wouldn’t what?”
“Do whatever it is you’re planning on doing. He’ll kill you, and if he doesn’t, I will.”
Hank touched the fresh scar on his cheek. “Then it was you last night,” he said.
“You think what you want.”
“Maybe I’ll do you first, then him.”
“Your play.”
Hank look around toward the bar, but Ned wasn’t there any longer. Then suddenly it was as though a shadow moved in, and Bill said, “Trouble with you third-raters is you’re never good enough to be first-raters. Like my pard said, ‘Make your play.’”
But there wasn’t any play to be made, for Bill had the barrel of one of his Navies pushed against the ribs of Hank Rain with the hammer thumbed back, and it wouldn’t have taken anything at all to send a bullet into him. They all three knew and understood that much.
“There’s been some sort of mistake here,” Hank said.
“You goddamn right there is,” Bill said. “Now pull that iron or clear out of town.”
That’s about when Hank started to sweat like it was July and he was bailing hay. “I’d be a fool…with you already drawn and cocked.”
“You are a fool and about to be a dead fool,” Hickok said.
“Shit,” Hank said. “You shoot me like this, they’ll hang you. I ain’t drawing.”
“Then get in the wind.”
Hank Rain turned and walked away with as much pride as he had left.
Bill said to Teddy, “I can’t see too good at more than ten feet. Let me know if he turns or goes for his six-banger.”
Teddy waited until Hank cleared the room, then said, “You would have killed him and not given him a fighting chance, wouldn’t you?”
“You damn right I would have. It’s something you better heed too, old son.”
Bill twisted his Navy about, stuck it butt forward in his sash and went back to his poker game. Teddy could still see that look in Bill’s eyes that said he’d been a split second away from blowing Hank Rain’s innards out.
About three in the morning Bill rose from his chair, shoveled his hair up under his hat, and headed for the door. Teddy joined him, making an excuse as to why.
“I need to get some things from my room before you bed down.”
“That was a brave and kind thing you did back there tonight, old son.”
“He’s the one took a potshot at you the other night. Just so you know.”
“I figured as much. That scratch on his cheek wasn’t made by any woman.”
“What if he tries again?”
“He won’t. Whatever he had in him, ain’t in him no more. He had a look at the other side of the river and didn’t care for what he saw.”
They entered the boardinghouse and Teddy grabbed his valise, saying, “I know you’re not normally an early riser, but I’ll be down at the café for breakfast if you change your habit. I’d like to talk with you about your plans before you head out.”
“Where’s the privy?”
“Out back.”
Bill nodded, stepped out through the rear door and closed it behind him.
Teddy headed back up the hall, but she opened her door when he went past.
“I waited for you to return,” she said.
“I had to be somewhere.”
She looked at the valise in his hand. “You’re leaving?”
“Just for tonight. I gave my room to Wild Bill; I hope that’s okay with you.”
“Where will you stay?”
He shrugged. “The hotel’s lobby maybe.”
She stood back away from the door. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
She reached for him and took him by the wrist, and he went in and closed the door behind them.
Chapter 17
A cardinal, i
ts blaze of red feathers, stood perched on the windowsill, and she said, “Look.”
It was a thing of beauty in a most unbeautiful place, just as he saw her as a thing of beauty. She expressed the amazement of a child. She lay there with her back to him watching the crimson bird, and he was glad that they had not made love the night before, for he would have felt ruinous now, as though he’d stolen something.
He remembered waking sometime in the night and finding her there in his arms, her breathing like the purr of a cat, and she seemed so frail and vulnerable to him. Now she lay looking at the bird in simple amazement, her skin sallow in that early light, her body warm against his, her hair soft, and he thought about her dying sooner than seemed fair.
“What did the doctors say about your consumption?” he said.
For a moment she lay silent. The bird flew away, the windowsill became empty again, this place less beautiful again.
She shrugged slightly but did not turn her face to him.
“There are good doctors back East,” he said.
“I could not afford to travel East,” she said.
“I could get the money.”
“No. The air in New Mexico should help.”
“The farther west you go, the less the chance of—”
She turned suddenly and placed her fingers to his lips, and he kissed them gently. Then she brought her mouth to his, and he kissed it gently too.
“It is too late for any of that,” she whispered. “I’ll live my life as I must, I’ll take care of my son as I must, and God Himself can do with me what He will.”
He held her for a long time in that morning light as it came farther into the room and fell across the bed and climbed the opposite wall.
“I must get up and fix the morning meal,” she said.
“I don’t want to let you go so soon, Kathleen.”
She gazed at him, their faces inches apart, and he thought that if he stared long enough into her eyes, he could immerse himself in the sea that crashed upon the shores of Ireland, the country of her beginnings.
She kissed him again and rolled away, and together they dressed. He tried very hard not to look at her as she dressed, but his desire for her wouldn’t let him divert his eyes from her completely. She was thin with small round breasts, whose tips were the color of pale rose petals. But beyond her beauty showed her illness—the ladder of her ribs, the ridge of her backbone as she bent. She caught him looking and did not try and hide herself from his eyes, and he felt a bit of shame flush his cheeks.
“I’ll go out first and you follow in a few moments,” she said. “I’d hate for the boarders to talk.”
“What does it matter?” he said.
“A woman’s reputation means everything to her…”
“I just meant that you’ll be leaving here shortly.”
“I’d not want to have them think of me as a whore,” she said.
He started to protest but saw the look in her eyes and finished buttoning his shirt instead and waited for her to go out, then followed moments later.
He could hear Bill snoring through the door, and remembered what Charley had said about Bill not being a morning man and so went instead to the jail to see William.
There was a dark-eyed man of short square stature talking to Jeff Carr when Teddy entered the office. Both men turned and looked at him.
“I’m here to see my client,” Teddy said.
“You know the way back,” Carr said.
Teddy started to the rear of the jail when Carr said, “Wait a minute.” He came around the corner of his desk. “You armed?”
Teddy drew back his coat to show the sheriff the shoulder rig with the Colt Lightning in it.
“Put it on my desk.”
This he did.
“Five minutes, Blue, same as before.”
The kid was sitting on his cot eating from a tray some mush, a biscuit, and a cup of black coffee. He had crumbs on his lips that he wiped away with the cuff of his shirtsleeve when Teddy stepped up to the bars.
“How they treating you?”
“They like to talk rough, threaten, but I ain’t afraid of none of ’em.”
“I’m going to find out when they’re going to convene a court and arraign you. The judge might set bail. If so, we can probably bail you out until the trial.”
“How’s my mother?”
“She’s worried about you.”
“That all you got to tell me about her?”
“Don’t push it, kid.”
“I could use a smoke.”
“It’s not a habit of mine, but I’ll see you get some makings.”
“They make me piss with my hands cuffed.”
“It could be worse. You want to go over your story about that night one more time?”
Teddy learned from Jeff Carr the name of the circuit judge before he left the jail with the same story in his head the kid had told him the first time. The judge wouldn’t be in town for another two days. Teddy went to find Lilly. She was still asleep, and he woke her and asked her to tell him what she knew about that night.
She shook a little inside the blanket wrapped around her as she said, “I wasn’t there. I just know what Billy told me. He said Henry caught him and threatened to kill him if he came around me again. He said he got the gun free from Henry, mostly because Henry was blind drunk, and shot him because he was scared. I believed him…”
“Would you testify to this in court?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Jeff Carr would run me out of town.”
“That might not be the worst thing that could happen to you.”
“What would you know about the worst thing that could happen to me?”
“I don’t.”
“I’ve got a life here…and a few friends. I don’t got a life or any friends in other places. Look at me. I am only sixteen but I look forty. I’m about worn-out. What would I do in other places I can’t already do here?”
“I understand, Lilly. Thanks anyway.”
Lilly wouldn’t be of any help, and Teddy knew that no matter how they presented William’s story, there probably wasn’t a jury in town that would buy William’s version put up against one of Jeff Carr’s kin. The kid would end up in the Wyoming State Penitentiary breaking rocks.
Teddy walked to the post office and asked the clerk if any mail had been sent to him General Delivery. No, nothing had been sent. He then went to the telegraph office and inquired as to the same, and the clerk gave him a telegram.
WIRE EXCHANGE ARRANGED WITH LOCAL BANK—WYOMING SAVINGS & TRUST. ALL FUTURE MONEY REQUESTS THROUGH THEM. FORWARD ON EXPENSE SHEET VIA EARLIEST MAIL. I TRUST H. IS IN THE NEST SAFE AND SOUND. G. BANGS.
He went to the bank and withdrew the money, decided it would never be enough to accomplish everything he had in mind, and returned to the telegraph office. This time the telegram he sent was to his mother, the libertine:
CAN YOU MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO SEND $1000.00 IN TRANSFER TO WYOMING SAVINGS & TRUST, CHEYENNE, WT? WOULDN’T ASK IF I DIDN’T NEED IT. DO YOU STILL PLAN TO GO TO EUROPE WITH THE POET? WILL BE HERE FOR A WEEK OR TWO MORE. AFFECTIONATELY, THEODORE.
Coming out of the telegrapher’s he had it in mind to walk back to the boardinghouse, but his plans were set aside when he saw Hank Rain crossing the street, heading straight toward him.
Christ, he thought.
It was the unsteady way the gunman moved that troubled him most. He held a half-empty bottle of liquor in one hand and a black rope of hair in the other. He was drunk. He began to shout curses.
“You honey-faced little son of a bitch!”
The lessons old John Sears had taught him spilled through his mind:
Take your time. Pick a spot you want to hit—torso’s easier, head’s a sure thing. Turn yourself sideways to make a smaller target of yourself, keep to the shadows if you can, let ’em get close enough you can’t miss, but not so close they can’t either. Tell yourself you onl
y got one shot, because that’s probably all you really got.
Teddy held up a hand.
“You stop where you are.”
Hank Rain laughed at the gesture.
“What the fuck, you think we’re schoolkids in the play yard!”
A crowd was quickly forming there, on the edges of the invisible circle that encompassed the kill zone.
“I don’t want trouble from you, but I won’t run.”
Hank Rain snorted his derision.
“Shit, boy. I’m going to kill you easy as a rabbit.”
Teddy could see Jeff Carr coming down the walk from across the way—a napkin flapping at the top of his shirt, his double barrel swinging in one fist.
Teddy eased himself sideways, never taking his eyes off Hank Rain, nor stepping into the sunlit street where the gunman stood now, maybe because instinct told him he’d gotten close enough to become cautious in spite of his bravado.
He’d just reach up under his coat and pull free the Lightning, aim and cock it in one motion. Take your time.
Maybe if he could stall for another few seconds Jeff Carr would break it up and nobody would have to get shot this day. The sheriff was still coming down the street, coming slow, deliberate, a man who knew not to rush into unnecessary danger until he figured out the situation, because he’d done it early on in his career and learned from it.
Jeff Carr’s progress proved too slow.
Hank Rain let loose of the hair, jerked a Colt Peacemaker from his hip-high holster and took aim, the barrel wavering because the whiskey running through his blood was doing its job.
Teddy’s fingers had encircled the Lightning’s grips and brought it free without so much as conscious will. His concentration was such that he could see the gun that Hank Rain gripped had a seven-inch blue barrel; he could see the nubs of the cartridge points in its cylinder; he could see the slow turn of that cylinder as Hank thumbed back the hammer. He could see the hair rope falling.
He wasn’t sure he even heard the shot from Hank Rain’s pistol.
He had Hank lined up down the front sight—the blade just there in the middle of his fat head. Don’t jerk the trigger, old son, it’ll throw off your aim, and missing ’em by an inch is as good as missing ’em by a mile.