“I appreciate that, Larkin. I really do,” said Bob. “I hope that, going forward, if you still intend to stick around you don’t feel like you have to walk on eggshells and report every little thing to me. Whether you know it or not, you’ve got a lot of friends in this town. A lot of folks think you got a bad shake four years ago and want to see you make out better this time around. I wasn’t here to know all the particulars from back then, but I find myself sort of leaning that same way. I believe you when you say you didn’t come back to make trouble. I hope you don’t prove me or the others who believe in you wrong.”
“I don’t intend to, Marshal.” Larkin stood up again. “Oh, just so you know, there’s been a couple other changes with me, too. I’m no longer staying with Earl Hines. I got me a job swamping out the bar at the Shirley House Hotel. It don’t pay much, but it comes with a sleeping cot in the back of the storeroom. There might be some other odd jobs I can do for extra money as well.”
“I thought that other fella, that Sweeney who also plays accordion at Bullock’s, was doing that job,” said Bob.
“He was. But he lit out on short notice, decided to head up into the Prophecies in search of gold instead. I heard about the opening and spoke up for it right away.” Larkin made a catchall gesture. “Like I said, it ain’t much but it’s something. Earl’s been great to me, but I feel like too much of a mooch the way things are. I don’t want to take advantage of him. This way, I can earn a little money at the hotel and also do some part-time work for him if and when he needs a hand. I’ll make out okay and I can start paying him back for everything he’s already done to help me. Eventually, if I decide to stick around for good, something better will come along.”
“Good luck with that,” Bob told him. “Thanks for stopping by and keeping me up to date on things.”
CHAPTER 34
After Larkin left his office, Bob leaned back in his chair and thought about the visit. He wasn’t, by nature, a cynical person. Yet his dealings with corrupt power back in Texas and his run-ins with crooks and slicksters of various types since donning a badge had nevertheless implanted in him a layer of skepticism through which he tended to filter most situations he encountered. This left him questioning the exact purpose behind Larkin stopping in the way he had.
Had his visitor truly been interested in just staying “square” with the marshal and showing concern for his parole status? Or had it all been a play to influence Bob’s perception of the encounters that had already taken place and maybe cast Larkin in an improved light for the sake of others he might be planning in the future? Bob didn’t want it to be the latter—he was finding the former convict likable, too, just like so many others. But neither did he want to end up getting the wool pulled over his eyes. Since he wasn’t doing a very good job of concentrating on the paperwork before him anyway, he decided a way to help quell the questions nagging him would be to go over to Krepdorf’s General Store and talk with Rudy while the confrontation between Larkin and Mrs. Poppe was still fresh in his mind.
The activity up and down Front Street had tapered off considerably from earlier. There was hardly any foot traffic on the boardwalks though the street itself still had a number of wagons and horsemen moving to and fro.
Krepdorf’s was two and a half blocks up from the jail, on the opposite side. Bob had drawn nearly level with the store and was waiting for a wagon to roll by, headed down toward the rail depot, so he could cross over.
That’s when a commotion in front of Bullock’s Saloon, another block beyond the general store and on the same side, suddenly reached a level of volume and intensity that drew Bob’s attention.
The figure of a man strode somewhat unsteadily out into the middle of the street, waving his arms and shouting loudly. As Bob watched, the man wheeled about and faced back toward the saloon he had just exited.
The man hollered something, but the clatter of the just-passed wagon made it indistinguishable to Bob. The marshal stepped out into the street, too, angling now more toward the shouting man rather than the store directly across the way. Bob continued to advance, reaching down to slip the keeper thong off the hammer of his Colt.
The man up ahead shouted again, and this time his words were very clear. “Get out here, you yellow-livered, scum-sucking puke! You called down the thunder, now come and face what you asked for!”
Mike Bullock pushed through the batwings of his saloon and stood on the boardwalk, feet planted wide. He addressed the man in the street, saying, “You’re the one who needs to get out of here, you damn drunken troublemaker. Go somewhere and cool off before somebody gets hurt!”
“That’s the general idea, you thickheaded Irish fool,” responded the man in the street. “I aim to hurt Curly Joe real bad and real permanent. He belittled me and dressed me down in front of all the boys. I take that from no man! He said my gun work was a joke, so I’m gonna give him a chance to have hisself a big laugh by tryin’ to prove it!”
“He didn’t mean nothing by it,” Bullock said, trying to reason. “He’s drunk, just like you, Billy, and he was only hoorahing you some. But he knows he ain’t good enough to go gun to gun against you. He’s ready to apologize if you’ll just—”
“To hell with that!” the man in the street barked. “The time for him to be sorry was before he ran his jackass mouth! It’s too late to apologize now. That only proves what a yellow, belly-draggin’ dog he is!”
Bob was close enough to recognize the belligerent now. It was Billy Clairmont, the cocky young would-be gunny from Carlos Vandez’s V-Slash crew. As Bob continued to move closer, walking slow and easy, he saw by a flick of Bullock’s eyes that the saloonkeeper had taken note of his approach. Billy hadn’t yet, though.
So as not to alarm the already agitated kid and possibly cause him to overreact by grabbing for one of his guns, Bob drawled nice and low, “Afternoon, Billy . . . What seems to be the trouble?”
Billy twisted in a half turn, both hands dropping to the guns riding low in tied-down holsters on each hip. But he had enough presence of mind to hold off from drawing either of them. Bob’s own hand was poised above his Colt, but he’d purposely kept from closing on the grips so as not to stoke Billy’s reaction any hotter.
“You!” Billy exclaimed, his eyes locking on Bob and then quickly narrowing.
Bob nodded. “That’s right. Me, the marshal.”
“So what? That badge don’t give you no right to horn in on this,” Billy sneered. “I’m callin’ out a dirty bastard who insulted me. All I’m lookin’ for is a fair fight to stand up for my honor.”
“There won’t be nothing fair about it, Marshal,” said Bullock. “Curly Joe Hatch ain’t no gunman, not by any stretch. This pup is just looking to make a rep for himself by throwing down a challenge he knows is bound to give him a quick, easy kill.”
Billy’s nostrils flared. “You’d best watch your own mouth, Mr. Saloon Man, or I might have to save a bullet for you . . . even though you’re obviously too chickenshit to go around heeled.”
“No, I don’t think you’re gonna do anything like that,” Bob said, coming to a halt about ten yards short of where Billy stood.
“Who’s gonna stop me?” Billy demanded to know. “I told you this ain’t no concern of yours, law dog.”
“You’re wrong about that, too,” said Bob. “In my town, anybody threatening to shoot another person—especially a friend of mine—is damn sure my concern.”
“Aw, I’d never shoot an unheeled fella,” Billy scoffed. “I just said that to keep ol’ Bullock from stickin’ his nose in my business.”
“You started this ruckus in my saloon with one of my customers, so I say that makes it my business, too,” Bullock huffed. “What’s more, take off those guns of yours and I’ll do more than stick my nose in what you think is your business—I’ll stick my fist elbow-deep down your gob!”
“If you think you’re helping any, Mike, you’re not,” Bob told him. “I’d appreciate it if you just stood clear and le
t me handle this.”
“Oh, that’s rich!” Billy proclaimed. “He threatens me and you ask him to pretty-please back off. But what you call a threat when I want to give what’s comin’ to a lowdown insultin’ skunk, that you try and stop me from doing!”
Bob gave an almost imperceptible wag of his head. “Not just try to stop you, Billy. I’m telling you flat that you won’t be using those guns on anybody here in town today. Show some sense. Shuck that gunbelt and come with me to the jail where you can cool off. After you’ve done that, I’ll give you your guns back and you can return home to the V-Slash. There is where you need to be ready to use your guns. Remember? To help protect the Vandez brand in case of trouble from the Rocking W.”
Billy stood very still, eyeing Bob as he digested the words. For several clock ticks Bob thought he’d succeeded, thought Billy looked like he was ready to waver.
But then, abruptly, a shudder seemed to run through the kid, as if he was physically shaking off the urge to give in. His eyes went wide for a moment and then narrowed again.
“No. No, I ain’t shuckin’ my guns. And I sure as hell ain’t lettin’ you haul me to no jail.”
Bob felt the muscles tighten across his shoulders, and his mouth pulled into a thin, straight line. “That wasn’t an invitation that included you having a choice in the matter. Now you’ve run your mouth, put on a show out here in the middle of the street, and maybe even impressed one or two people with how tough you can talk. That’s enough. The show’s over, and it’s time for you to stand down.”
“To hell with that. You want me stood down, you’re gonna have to make me.” Billy cocked his head slightly to one side and eyed the marshal with added intensity. “I remember now how you and your fat deputy gave me a little ribbin’ earlier, sayin’s how if I was so good with my guns, then why did nobody ever hear of me. Yeah, the two of you thought you was mighty smug, didn’t you?”
Bob said nothing, let his flinty gaze do the talking for him.
“Maybe this is even better. Maybe this is like fate,” Billy went on. “Instead of settlin’ the score with Curly Joe and his insults, it looks like it’s in the cards for me to settle with you. Yeah, that’s better yet. I hear tell you’re supposed to be pretty hot stuff with that ol’ .44, Sundown Bob. I drop you in the dirt, folks will damn sure start talkin’ up my name.”
“Don’t be insane,” Bullock said from the saloon doorway. “You go up against Bob Hatfield, the only place your name will end up is on a tombstone.”
Bob started walking slowly forward. “I don’t want it to come to that, Billy. I really don’t. But if you leave me no choice, that’s the way it will have to go. Unbuckle that gunbelt and hand it over. Slow. Your hands reach for those guns instead of the buckle, you’ll be forcing me to kill you.”
But Billy was beyond being reasoned with. He was too drunk, too stubborn, and he’d put on too much of a show not to try.
His hands streaked downward for the guns in their tied-down holsters. He truly was fast, faster than Bob would have guessed. But even at that, his guns were only starting to clear leather when the marshal’s Colt spoke and a bullet smashed into Billy’s right shoulder. That’s where Bob had been aiming, never intending to actually go for a kill shot in spite of his warnings.
If Billy had been packing only one gun, that would have been the end of it. His shoulder was ruined, so he’d ceased being a threat with the gun hand on that side. But he was a tough, determined little bastard and as he twisted away to his right, his left hand came up with the gun that had been holstered on that side and he squeezed off a round. The shot came close to its target, sizzling only a finger’s width from the side of Bob’s face. The marshal jerked his head away reflexively and, because Billy’s gun was still raised and aiming in his direction, he had no choice but to return fire with another shot—this one more hastily triggered and therefore not as carefully aimed. The bullet drilled into the side of Billy’s neck, just below the hinge of his jaw. The impact caused the young man’s head to flop over onto his right shoulder, and then his whole body pitched in that direction and collapsed onto the ground. His guns clattered to the dusty street on either side of where he fell.
CHAPTER 35
“It was the last thing I wanted. I tried my best to back him down, but he wasn’t having any. Wasn’t nothing else for it but to slap leather against him. I pulled my first shot, aimed for his shoulder . . . But he had two guns and there was no quit in him . . . When he damn near blew my head off, even after he was wounded, I had no choice but to return fire . . .”
Marshal Bob Hatfield spoke these words somberly from the back of his horse, reined up close before the front door of Carlos Vandez’s sprawling ranch house. Fidgeting beside him, its own reins gripped in Bob’s left fist as they had been all during the ride out from town, was Billy Clairmont’s pinto gelding. The pinto’s saddle was empty except for Billy’s gunbelt lashed to the pommel.
In the doorway of his house, backlit by the soft glow of lanterns from within, Vandez’s shadowy face hung heavy in response to the words he was hearing. When Bob paused in the telling, Vandez said quietly, “So the boy is . . . dead?”
Inside the house, somewhere close behind Vandez, a woman choked out a ragged sob.
In response to the question put to him, Bob set his mouth grimly and gave a single nod. Dusk was settling over the V-Slash ranch headquarters and the surrounding prairie. It was as if the long, grotesque shadows cast out from various objects had been summoned to fit the gloomy news the marshal carried with him.
Vandez spoke again, his voice a sandpapery whisper. “The body?”
“It’s back in town, at the undertaker’s,” Bob said. “I didn’t know if you’d want it buried in the cemetery there, or if you had a place out here.”
Vandez’s eyes cut involuntarily toward a hill in the near distance, rising up just beyond a low shed and some cattle pens. Following his gaze, Bob saw a half dozen or so crosses on the crest, silhouetted against the graying sky.
Vandez said, “Yes, we have our own plot. Billy’s parents are there. He should rest with them.”
“I can have O’Malley, our undertaker, prepare the body and bring it out to you,” Bob offered. “Or you can go ahead and make your own arrangements.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Vandez continued to gaze up at the hill dotted with crosses. “I guess what I didn’t take care of very well was keeping my word to Billy’s father. When he knew he was dying, he asked me to look after the boy, finish getting him matured and settled. There were already signs, once Billy discovered he had a knack for handling a gun, that he might take a wild turn one day if not held in check.”
“Certain young men are like certain wild stallions. Sometimes there’s a streak in ’em you just can’t break.”
“Perhaps it is so.” Vandez sighed. He pulled his gaze away from the hill and brought it to rest on Billy’s horse and the gunbelt draped over its saddle. “My greatest fear was that one day he would ride off and end up facedown in the dusty street of a faraway town where he would be dumped in an empty hole by strangers and none of us would never know his fate . . . This, I guess, is somewhat better than that. At least he will rest for eternity beside his family.”
Bob had nothing to say to that.
Now Vandez’s gaze swung to him. “But for you, it is not better. I see guilt written on your face.”
“No you don’t,” Bob replied in a low, flat tone. “I regret what happened. Regret it deeply. But I feel no guilt, because he gave me no choice but to do what I did.”
Vandez continued to regard him. “You are a hard man . . . yet still a decent one. The mark of that is you bringing word of what happened yourself, rather than sending another. For that I am obliged.”
“It was the least I could do,” Bob said, holding out the reins of the pinto for Vandez to take.
Then he wheeled his own horse and rode away, back toward town.
* * *
Bob, Consuela, and B
ucky sat talking at the kitchen table.
It was late, full dark outside. A softly burning lantern sat in the middle of the table, and another wall-mounted one cast an added warm glow from the adjoining room.
During the time it took Bob to make his visit to the Vandez ranch, Consuela and Buck had gone ahead and had their supper. The plate Consuela prepared and put aside for Bob now sat only half eaten on the table before him.
“You’ve had to shoot men before, Pa—as recent as only a few nights ago with Mr. Morrison, the federal marshal. I don’t understand why this one is bothering you so much.” Bucky’s earnest expression as he said this was almost a match for Bob’s somber one.
“It never hasn’t bothered me when I’ve taken a life, son. Don’t ever think that,” Bob told him. “But there are degrees to how you feel about certain things. You understand what I mean by that?”
“Sorta . . . I think.”
“Those men the other night were hardened, mean-spirited criminals with little or nothing to redeem them,” Bob tried to explain better. “They were out to kill Marshal Morrison—and me—with no more thought or regret to it than you or I might swat a mosquito . . . Men like that, it’s hard to have any charitable feelings toward. Therefore, having to kill their kind—especially in self-defense—don’t leave you with a lot of remorse.
“But this fella today, he was so doggone young for starters. Not too many years older than you. He was cocky and wrongheaded and fueled by damn whiskey he couldn’t handle . . . But he wasn’t lowdown and mean spirited like those other men. Not yet, anyway. He still had some youth and innocence to him. Maybe he was on his way to become just like those other skunks one day, or maybe he would’ve got his head on straight and turned out okay . . . Only now nobody will ever know. Because I had to kill him.”
Bob pressed his palms flat down on the table and peered intently at his son. “Do you see the difference? Do you see why having to shoot one kind bothers me more than the other? That’s what I meant by different degrees. But either way, it’s never something to take lightly.”
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