by Bill Brooks
The General and his Ruales stood watching, listening, waiting for a mistake to be made. You been doing what I’ve done most of my life, you can tell if a man is full of bad intentions. It wouldn’t take much to start a shooting scrap that would leave the sidewalks bloody and several of us dead. But I had no choice, I was already in it too deep to do anything other than stand my ground.
“Get on the horse, Sam,” I said.
“No.”
“Get on the goddamn horse, boy.”
“Go on,” Billy said again, pushing Sam toward the horse. “Go and tell Ma what happened here. Take care of her, Sam. I’m sorry I got you into all this.”
Sam did a slow shuffle to the horse.
“Hurry it along there, kid,” I said. The air was so thick with men wanting to let blood, you could cut it with a knife.
The Ruales took Billy in hand.
“There, you see,” General Toro said. “We are both men who keep our promises, eh.”
I gave Billy one last glance. He stared at me without a hint of worry in his gaze. I said to Sam without taking my eyes or the double barrels off the General, “Ride up the street that way, and don’t dawdle. Ride fast and I’ll catch up with you. Don’t stop and don’t turn around. And if something bad happens, keep riding till you cross the river and don’t even stop then.”
“Yes sir,” he uttered and kicked his horse into a trot, then a gallop.
It left me, the General, and five of his Ruales–what you call a Mexican showdown, only I wasn’t wanting to turn this into something bloody.
“Then our business is finished,” the General said.
“It’s finished,” I said and backed my horse up far enough, then reined it round quick and spurred it into a full-out gallop.
Nobody took a shot at me. I was a little surprised they hadn’t.
I caught up quickly enough with the little brother, whose horse was a lot less horse than the stud.
“Hold up!” I shouted, and he sawed back on the reins.
“I thought you told me to keep riding?”
“I did. But now I want you to stop a second.”
He looked at me with the confusion of a boy who’d just escaped death and couldn’t understand why.
“What’d they do to you back there in that jail?” I said.
“Beat me like blue blazes…”
“What else?”
“Said they were going to shoot me, made me watch them execute the man who let Billy escape. The brought in the General’s wife and she spit in my face. Kept telling me how my day was coming, how I’d bawl like a woman when it was my turn.”
“That’s if they didn’t get Billy back, right?”
He shook his head.
“Said they’d get Billy and kill us both, and Granddaddy too if he put up a fuss. They wasn’t ever planning on letting me live.”
“You certain that’s what they said?”
“I swear to God, mister.”
“One more question, boy. Did you or your brother have anything to do whatsoever with the death of the General’s girl?”
“No sir. We found her stabbed and Billy and me did the best we could to save her. We had her blood all over us, but it wasn’t because we were trying to hurt her none.”
It was the same story Billy had told. They could have gotten together and made it up, but I doubted it; neither of them seemed that clever.
“You think you can reach the river on your own? You just have to stay on this road and keep going.”
He nodded.
“What about you?” he said.
“I got something I need to do.” I took out Gus’s watch, wallet, and badge and handed them to him along with Gus’s fancy pistol.
“These belonged to your granddaddy,” I said.
“Where’s my granddaddy at?”
“North of here, buried in the ground. He did what he could for you, he just ran out of time.”
“I hardly remember him,” he said.
“You have your mama tell you about him when you get home again. First town you hit that has a train station, you sell that horse and use the money and some of what’s in that wallet and buy you a ticket home. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“And don’t ever come back across that river again—leastways till you’re a man and can make up your own mind.”
“Yes sir.”
I slapped the rump of his horse, shouting, “Git,” and sat until I saw he wasn’t going to stop again. Then I turned the stud back around.
Shit, I was almost forty-six years old and not getting any younger and there was this kid in a jail they were going to shoot over nothing at all.
I just couldn’t ride away from that. Even though I should, I couldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As if it were some sort of Greek tragedy, the kind I’d seen performed in Dodge City when I was a young buckaroo, the sky grew ominously dark again, and raindrops the size of silver dollars splatted down, a few at first, then more, smaller but more intense as I rode back toward the town of Ciudad de Tontos.
But I thought the only fool in this whole business was me.
I rode at a walk, steady, determined, the stock of the shotgun resting against my thigh, both hammers cocked, ready to do some mean business if required, and it surely would be this day before the sun set again beyond those stormy clouds.
The storm had chased everyone indoors, and as I rode past the business establishments I could see faces looking out—clerks, bankers, hardware salesmen, men in the cantina standing in the open doorway under the shelter of a roof, leaning there with their bottles and glasses in their hands. Men in tall sombreros stood under the eaves with the rain dripping off, some of them held glasses of beer like it was a show.
I rode down past the first block of buildings, a stable with a corral with no horses in it; a blacksmith’s whose forge showered sparks as he fired the steel; a gunsmith’s with a CERRADO sign in the window. The old man who been packing his burro stood in the rain, his serape heavy and wet about his shoulders, looked directly into my eyes as if he knew what was about to happen. He turned, untied his burro from the hitching post, and walked the other direction.
I crossed the only intersection in town, Segunda Calle—Second Street—and kept my attention fixed ahead. I saw a kid standing under the eaves in front of a barbershop. He stared at me like I was the devil incarnate, or Jesus Christ himself. He was a kid that would someday, if he was lucky, grow to be a man, maybe even an old man. I reined in and told him to get off the street. He was hesitant to go. I gave him two bits. He ran like hell.
I tied off the stud. The Ruale office was just across the street two doors down. I could see lights on inside. I didn’t want to think what they were doing to Billy.
I had the shotgun and I had a pistol and either I’d get the job done or I wouldn’t.
Rain fell out of the black heavens.
I crossed the street.
I didn’t bother to knock. I just turned the knob and went in fast.
The General and two of his Ruales were sitting there drinking from a bottle of tequila. I leveled the ten-gauge.
They all looked surprised.
“I come to get the kid,” I said.
The General looked at me with a great amount of empathy.
“You already have him,” he said evenly.
“The other one—Billy,” I said.
“Oh, but that is not possible,” he said. I had to admit, the son of a bitch was a cool customer, showed no fear whatsoever. The other two weren’t quite so calm. I could see the fear in their eyes and they had every right to be afraid.
“Yes, it is possible,” I said. “Nobody has to get killed here. That boy didn’t have anything to do with your daughter’s death.”
“So you say, Señor. But you see, my men here, they caught him with her blood on them. And he has confessed to as much. There is no injustice here, no reason for you to act like this. Gus, he would have underst
ood it—what a man must do to remove the stain of dishonor from his family name.”
“I’m saying he’s innocent. Now let’s go and get him out of your goddamn jail.”
Still, the General did not make any move to do as ordered. I looked at one of the two with him—the one who showed the most fear—and said. “You want to live, you son of a bitch?”
I could tell he didn’t understand so I said it again in Spanish so he would understand: “Usted desea vivir usted hijo de una perra?”
“Sí, sí.”
So I told him to get the keys and go get the kid.
He started to but the General ordered him to halt. Told him who did he think his boss was, the General or me? The Ruale looked caught between a rock and a hard place, which is exactly where he was.
I moved a step and put the barrels of the L. C. right against his neck.
“Do it!” I said.
“You think even if we give you the boy we’re going to just let you ride across the river to del Norte?” the General said. “We will hunt you down like rabbits.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He motioned for one of the Ruales to get the keys and he opened a desk drawer, and I told him to come out easy, and he did with a large key on a metal ring. I marched all three to the back of the place where Billy lay on his side on the cot.
“Get up,” I said.
For some reason he didn’t seem surprised to see me. He eased himself up holding his busted shoulder.
“I didn’t think no kind of man who was a friend of my granddaddy would just ride off and let these Mescan sons of bitches murder me,” he said with a whoop as if he’d just won first prize in a pie-eating contest.
I told the Ruale to open the door, intending to put the three of them inside while the kid and me got a jump start on them, but just then three more Ruales came busting through the door with pistols cocked and ready and I didn’t have any choice but to pull the triggers of that L. C., knocking them down like tenpins. The L. C. roared like thunder in that small room, so loud it made your ears ring. But just that quick the General and his two boys were all over me before I could pull my pistol and I knew if they got me to the ground, it was all over.
I slammed an elbow into one face and threw a crushing right-hand fist into the face of the other. But the General had a hard grip on me, his forearm from behind around my throat, trying to choke me out. He was a strong son of a bitch, I’ll give him that, and we fought out into the other room, mostly him choking and me trying to break his grip.
I heard Billy yell something and a struggle still going on inside the cell area, but I had my hands too full to help him. He was on his own now.
My wind cut off, I was starting to lose my strength, which only encouraged the General to choke down that much harder. I had maybe thirty seconds before I’d go under.
I took him out through the plate-glass window with one mighty push, hoping to break his grip.
We crash landed on the wet walk outside and rolled into the muddy street and it momentarily loosened his chokehold on me enough so I could gasp some air. I reached for my pistol, but it wasn’t in the scabbard. I’d lost it somewhere in the struggle.
I heard three sharp reports from inside the office—gunfire!
It was then I looked up and was staring down the barrel of the General’s own pistol—a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson Russian model, like the one the Captain carried, and I wondered stupidly if theirs had been a matched set and where and when and how they’d come by them.
Funny what a man who’s an instant away from death will think. I always heard your life flashed before your eyes and sometimes you saw the presence of loved ones who’d passed before.
But all I saw was a tall man in a muddy uniform standing there with his gun aimed at my face, saw him thumb back the hammer and thought, Jim, you’re going to die here in this muddy goddamn street and not in a nice bed like you’d planned.
Then an explosion caused the General to jerk like someone had snipped all his wires, and he fell face-first into the mud dead as a stone.
Standing there a dozen paces behind where the General lay was the little brother, Sam, holding his granddaddy’s pistol, the one that matched the General’s in every detail.
He did not move or falter.
And when Billy came straggling out of the jail holding one of the federale’s pistols in his good hand, smoke curling from the barrel, I knew then old Gus’s blood had passed on down to those boys in spite of everything else.
We rode north, the three of us, Billy, Sam, and myself.
We did not dally, for to be north of the river was to be safe again.
At least for a little while.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She was there at the house, my house, waiting for me as if she knew I’d come. She was stroking the muzzle of one of the mares, and it pricked its ears at our approach, and the stud whinnied smelling the mare, his muscles rippled, as glad to be home again as I was.
Luz turned and did not move but stood watching, and my heart quickened at the sight of her.
I rode up casual as if I’d been gone on a Sunday ride, but she could see my overall condition was pretty poor, my clothes dusty and mud-caked, my shirt sweat-stained and my boots all run down.
I reined in and stepped down out of the saddle.
She did not speak and I did not speak. I unsaddled the stud and turned him out with the mares.
“You earned it,” I said. Then I turned to Luz and said, “How you been getting on?”
“Fine,” she said. “And yourself.”
“Been better,” I said. “Am better now that I’m home again.”
I saw my chicken coop was rebuilt and the fencing put up and some of the chickens put back inside, and that old red rooster that would wake me up every morning about the time it got light.
“You do that?” I said, pointing toward the chicken coop.
“Who else do you think would trouble themselves to round up your chickens and fence them in again?”
“Nobody I know but you.”
“That’s right, mister, and don’t you forget it.”
I took her in my arms then and gave her a hug and kissed her on the mouth like it was the first time—tenderly and gratefully.
“I’ve got some coffee on,” she said.
“I’d rather just sit out here and have a whiskey with you, and a smoke.”
“That can be arranged,” she said and went into the house and came out with the bottle and two glasses, and we sat in chairs facing off to the west where the sun was setting a passionate red in the sky, throwing off its light up against fingers of clouds. I rolled her a shuck and rolled myself one, and we sat there smoking and sipping our whiskey.
“You want to talk about it?” she said at last.
“No, I don’t reckon,” I said.
“I half thought you’d show up with your friend,” she said.
“I left him down there in that country,” I said.
She didn’t ask which country I meant and I didn’t volunteer it. It was enough to know the Cap’n was at rest now, that his two grandsons were home with their mother, and that what he set out to do got done. It didn’t really matter which of us had done what. A mama had her boys back—that’s what mattered.
“You hungry?” she said. “I can fix you something to eat.”
“I am,” I said.
She started to stand to go into the house.
“But not for food,” I said.
She turned and smiled and sat down on my lap.
“Oh,” she said. “Am I to guess what you’re hungry for?”
“This,” I said.
The sun dropped out of the sky, the heat went with it. The land grew cool and pleasant all around us.
I said, “You know that little lake over yonder the river flows out of?”
“Yes, what about it?”
I don’t think she ever looked as beautiful to me as she did in that moment.
“Let’s go over there and take our clothes off and jump in,” I said.
“Really?” she said, arching her eyebrow.
“Yes, I had this dream while I was gone, about you and me making love in the water, and I’d like to see if it would be as good in reality as it was in that dream I had, because that was about the best old dream I ever had.”
She stood and took me by the hand.
And I followed willingly.
About the Author
BILL BROOKS is the author of nineteen novels of historical and frontier fiction. He lives in North Carolina.
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Books by Bill Brooks
The Journey of Jim Glass
A BULLET FOR BILLY
RIDES A STRANGER
Dakota Lawman
THE BIG GUNDOWN
KILLING MR. SUNDAY
LAST STAND AT SWEET SORROW
Law for Hire
SAVING MASTERSON
DEFENDING CODY
PROTECTING HICKOK
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A BULLET FOR BILLY. Copyright © 2007 by Bill Brooks. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition May 2007 ISBN 9780061739767
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