by John Benteen
Fargo thrust the Colt back in leather, found his cavalry hat.
“No,” he said, breathing hard, feeling reaction. “No, not quite.”
Bonney turned and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Fargo put on the hat, began to reload his guns.
“It’s over here,” he said. “But there’s still Selman.”
Chapter Ten
With Fargo at the reins, Antrim and Nita in the back seat, the surrey rolled up the long drive between the cottonwoods to the mansion in the Rio Grande valley. When they reached the veranda, Fargo pulled up the horses, looked at the coiled gunbelt and holstered .45 on the floor of the vehicle next to his boot.
“Henry,” he said, “are you sure you don’t want to wear your gun?”
“I’m sure,” said Antrim. In neat business suit and Panama hat, he bore scant resemblance now to the man who had fought his way down the main street of Lincoln with a gun in each hand. He jumped out of the surrey, helped Nita down. “Anyhow, you’ve got yours,” he said, as Fargo dismounted.
“That I have,” said Fargo, hitching at the pistol on his hip.
They went up the steps. Fargo brushed aside a wondering Mexican butler and they went through the front door. As they entered the lobby, Miller appeared in the hall. Recognizing the man in the cavalry hat, his eyes widened, his jaw dropped, his face paled. “You!” he whispered.
“Me,” said Fargo, giving him a snarl of a grin. “Your boss at home?”
“He’s in. But … but he’s not seeing anybody. Not well.”
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “If he’s had news from Lincoln County, I reckon he’s plumb sick.” He pushed Miller aside and led the Antrims to the big mahogany door. Without knocking, he shoved it open, strode in.
“Selman,” he said.
The gaunt old man turned in his swivel chair, blinking. “What’s the meaning of—” He broke off. “Fargo,” he whispered.
“That’s right,” Fargo said.
Selman’s face was the color of clay, and the blue veins in his cheeks stood out vividly. “Fargo, for God’s sake, I’ve only got one arm. Besides, I’m a sick man. I never cashed your bank draft.” His single hand scrabbled in the papers on his desk. “Here. Here, take it and—” As he extended it and Fargo took it from weakened fingers, Selman paused. “Who,” he asked, breathing hard and loudly, “is that with you?”
Antrim stepped forward, around Fargo, as Fargo looked down at the draft, and, recognizing his own handwriting, realized that Selman’s nerve was broken, that Selman had been waiting in dread for him. Fargo smiled, pocketed the paper. Then Antrim said, “An old friend, John.”
Selman leaned forward. He was a parody of the man he had been when Fargo had last seen him. He blinked. “No,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be.”
Antrim took off the hat. “Yeah, John, it is. I had my teeth fixed.”
“Billy,” Selman whispered.
“That’s right,” Antrim said. “But you can relax, John. I’m not here to hurt you.” His voice changed tone. “You’re a sick man.”
“I—My heart kicked up when I had the news.”
Antrim said, softly, “I told you in that letter not to tell the papers anything. You haven’t?”
“No. God, no. You think I want to ruin myself?”
“Good,” said Antrim. “Because there won’t ever be anything published about it. Everybody in Lincoln County was mixed up in it one way or another, and everybody there has agreed to be sworn to silence. The war’s over, John. And nobody will ever know that it didn’t end thirty years ago but the people who were in it this time.” He paused, then added: “If you’re smart, you won’t try to start it again.”
Selman seemed to rally. “You killed my men and you think ... ?”
“I know,” Antrim said. “Lincoln County’s sealing up the whole story. The bodies are buried and that’s that.” He stepped back a little. “You’re rich and powerful. You could hire more gunmen if you wanted to, sure. But—” He leaned forward then, and, with a deft motion, unpinned the empty right sleeve.
“But you don’t want to do that,” he finished.
Selman stared at him. “Christ,” he whispered. “Isn’t there any way you can be made to die?”
Antrim said, “I’m still alive. But the Kid is dead. Unless you raise his ghost, John. You do that, there’s no place you can get to, no place to hide, where you’ll be safe. A man can’t hire bodyguards against a phantom.”
“Billy—” Selman rose in his chair, then slumped back. His breath was a loud gasping in the room. “Just leave me alone. Please, leave me alone. You haunt me, I dream about you at night, I—” He passed his hand over his eyes. “Just go away.”
Antrim reached out, took the wrist of that hand. His face clouded. “John, you’d better see a specialist.”
“Leave me,” Selman gasped, not looking up.
“Yes,” said Antrim. “Come on,” he said to Nita and Fargo.
There was nobody in the hall when they went out.
~*~
As the surrey rolled down the drive, Antrim said, almost sadly: “We won’t have to worry about John Selman. His heart’s gone. A few weeks, maybe a month or two … But not enough left for another fight in Lincoln County.”
“I hope I never get that old,” Fargo said.
“The way you live, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. But Selman can’t last much longer.”
“When he goes,” Fargo said, “the son of a bitch will probably leave everything he has to charity and they’ll build a monument to him.”
“Most likely,” Antrim said. He was silent until they had reached the end of the drive and turned westward up the valley toward El Paso. Then he said, “Fargo, how’s Alaska?”
“A big country,” Fargo said.
“They need doctors there, don’t they?”
“All they can get,” said Fargo.
“That’s what I thought,” Antrim said and lapsed into silence.
Nita leaned forward, her voice low, vibrant. “Neal. What about you? Where will you go?”
Fargo did not answer immediately. He had never thought about being tied down to one woman. But something in him now was almost beyond rationality. She was different from any other woman he had ever met. After all, she was the daughter of Billy the Kid …
Before he could answer, Antrim’s voice came coldly from the back of the surrey. “I expect Fargo will run guns to Mexico now, or something like that.”
Fargo said, “Yeah, I thought about that.”
“You could come to Alaska with us,” Nita whispered.
Fargo hesitated. Then the bubble burst within him. No. No, he would not be like Selman, he would not choose the long life and the slow death, not for anything, not even for a woman. He would not go out like a whimpering, injured dog, at the mercy of his heart or any other part of his guts; he was not built that way. When he died, it would be with boots on.
“I’ve seen Alaska,” he said. “And there’s good money in guns in Mexico.”
“Oh ...” Nita’s voice was small.
It touched something within him. He said, “Of course, Mexico’s a hot place. And Alaska’s a good one to cool off in. I expect I’ll be up there from time to time, when Mexico gets too hot for me.”
“I hope you will be,” Nita whispered.
“Who knows?” Fargo said. Then he suddenly reined the horse off the road into an open field. He pulled it up, jumped down. “All right, Antrim,” he said harshly. “Get out.” And he drew his Colt.
Antrim stared. “Fargo, what the hell?”
Fargo grinned coldly. Then he began to jack the shells out of the pistol. They fell gleaming into the grass at his feet. He fished in the boot of the surrey as Antrim climbed down, and his hand came out with the cartridge belt, holster, and .45, which he had insisted Antrim bring in case of trouble, and which the doctor had refused to wear.
“Put that on,” he said.
Antrim blinke
d. “Huh?”
“Goddammit,” said Fargo. “Do you think I could meet up with Billy the Kid and then go through the rest of my life never knowing which one of us was faster?”
Slowly the ice in Antrim’s blue eyes melted. His mouth curled in a grin. Looking up and down the road to make sure no one was coming, he took off his coat and draped it over a wheel.
“All right,” he said. He took the gun belt, cinched it on. Then he withdrew the gun and reamed the ejector through its cylinders, and the fat cartridges fell out, six of them.
He seated the Colt in its holster.
“You’re entitled to that much, I reckon,” he said and backed away a few paces. Stood there loosely, hand dangling at his side, a small, neatly clad figure that somehow seemed much larger than it really was. He showed his white teeth in a smile. “Well. . .”
Fargo stood just as loosely, determined to make this the fastest draw of his life. He would not tense up and he would use every ounce of knowledge, every bit of coordination and inborn speed that he possessed. He watched the eyes of the man who had been Billy the Kid.
Then they changed.
Fargo drew.
He knew, even as his hand flashed down, that everything was just right. That never in his life had he drawn this fast, that maybe he never would again.
The Colt seemed to leap into his palm, level, and he thumbed the hammer and pulled the trigger; and Antrim’s gun was up, too, and when its hammer fell, the dry click mingled with that of Fargo’s gun in a single sound. The two men stood there with empty weapons centered on one another; and if there had been cartridges in the chambers of both Colts, neither would have been alive.
Antrim let out a long breath.
“Next to me, you’re the fastest I ever saw,” he murmured. “I’m glad you didn’t come after me.”
“I’m glad I didn’t, either,” Fargo whispered; and he meant it. Slowly he returned his gun to leather, but not until he had reloaded it.
Antrim took the same instinctive precaution of the gunman, shoving rounds from belt-loops into empty chambers. When his Colt was full, he put it in its scabbard. Then he uncinched his gun belt and coiled it.
He held it out, pistol and all.
“Here,” he said, “Take it.”
Fargo blinked. “What?”
“It’s yours, if you want a little souvenir.” Antrim’s voice was soft. “I wore it through two wars in Lincoln County. I don’t ever want to have to pull the goddamned thing again.”
Fargo took the gun and belt, staring at it. “Billy, I would like to have this. But you’re wrong. A man like you, no matter where you go, you’ll need it.”
“No. Not in Alaska, where nobody has ever seen me.”
“Alaska can be rough, too.”
“Maybe. But not like Lincoln County. Neal, take it.”
Fargo hesitated. “There’s nothing I’d rather have. But—”
“Take the goddamned thing,” Antrim rasped.
“All right, then. I will. But only because you’ve got another one. A rig that fits the other hip. But you can use either hand.”
“No,” Antrim said. “That one I gave to Sue McSween.” Then he turned and got into the surrey.
Fargo looked at him, saw Nita take his hand, clasp it tightly. Then he coiled the gunbelt around the gun of Billy the Kid and stowed it carefully in the boot. He climbed aboard, picked up the reins.
“Well,” he said, “let’s get back to El Paso. If you’re going to Alaska, you’ve got a long way to travel.”
He turned his head, looked at Nita and at Antrim. “One more favor I’ve got to ask.”
“Say it,” Antrim replied.
“I’ve got money to spend now. I’d like to show Nita El Paso before you take off.”
Antrim looked at him with hard eyes full of warning.
Nita squeezed her father’s hand. “Dad, please—”
Antrim relaxed, then. “Only if Fargo minds his manners.”
Fargo grinned. “I aim to do that, believe me,” he said, and meant it.
Nita brightened. Fargo smiled at her and brought the reins down hard on the horse’s back. They rolled on toward El Paso, and he was full of anticipation.
Behind him, the doctor said to Nita, softly, “Don’t be a little fool. One day. By the time you meet again, he’ll have had so many others he won’t remember what you look like. And you will have met a man who may not know one end of a gun from the other, but who will wipe him out of your mind completely.”
“I don’t believe that,” Nita said.
“You don’t have to,” Antrim replied. “But it’s true. I know that breed. He’s good. Good as I ever was. But the hell of it is, there’s always somebody better.”
Fargo did not look around. He only lashed the horse again, harder.
But, in his heart, he knew that everything Antrim said was true.
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