by Bill Crider
“You gonna leave me my horse?” Ben said.
“Well, now, that’s something to be thinking about,” O’Grady said. He looked at Ben’s horse speculatively.
“I left Jink’s horse for him.”
“That was fine of you, wasn’t it? But maybe I’m not quite as big a man as you are, after all.”
O’Grady mounted his own horse and reached over to untie Ben’s reins from the tree branch. He nudged his horse forward with his knees and led Ben’s horse away.
“You son of a bitch,” Ben yelled after him.
O’Grady smiled, but he didn’t look back.
Jonathan’s plan was simple. He would go around the ridge in one direction, while Ellie would go the other way. They would catch the gunman in the middle.
If the gunman hadn’t already moved out.
Jonathan didn’t think that had happened. He hadn’t heard a horse, though a man could have gotten away on foot to a horse that had been hidden elsewhere.
He just hoped that the man hadn’t gone around the end where Ellie was headed.
He peered into the cedars in front of him. They surrounded the far end of the ridge, and he’d first thought about sending Ellie that way because of the cover they would provide for her. But then he’d thought better of it. If someone were waiting on them, that’s where he’d be waiting. Jonathan thought it would be better if he went that way.
He wouldn’t mind meeting up with one of those fellas in the least.
He had his pistol drawn, and when he heard a noise in the cedars, he lifted it and pointed it in the general direction of the sound.
The trees were dark, but he saw the branches rustling in one of them. Then he saw the moonlight glint off metal, and he fired at the glint.
The bullet slashed through the cedar branches well above Jink’s head, missing him by a good three feet. Under ordinary circumstances, such a miss wouldn’t have caused Jink to turn a hair, but Jink was not ordinarily half delirious.
Almost as soon as the shot was fired, Jink came thrashing out of the tree, waving his arms to clear the way.
Jonathan didn’t recognize him, but he knew he wasn’t a friend. He snapped off another shot at him, missing again by a wide margin. Then he followed Jink.
Jink was yelling something about dead people and running away like a cringing animal, flinging looks at Jonathan over his shoulder.
Ellie rounded the bottom of the ridge at the opposite end. She was holding the shotgun as if she meant to use it as soon as Jink got close enough.
Jink stopped looking back just in time to get a glimpse of Ellie as she raised the shotgun. He screamed even louder and stopped dead, his head swiveling from Ellie to Jonathan and back again.
Strings of saliva hung from his lips and whipped around his face as he jerked his head back and forth. In the moonlight, the two people at the ends of the ridge looked more dead than ever, the pale light silvering their faces and the slight breeze rippling their clothing like ghostly vestments.
Ellie knew who the man was, though she couldn’t see his face. His size was enough. She was not frightened of him, however, and she didn’t want to kill him. Her strongest emotion was pity.
Nevertheless, she did not lower the shotgun, though she was not sure she would be able to pull the trigger, not even if the man got closer.
“Over here,” Jonathan called. “You come on thisaway, fella.”
He stood there waiting. He had lowered his pistol again and seemed relaxed, as if he were waiting for something far different from a man with a gun.
Jink looked at him, and then he looked at Ellie, who was still holding the shotgun ready.
Jonathan must have looked like the better bet, and Jink turned back toward him. He staggered two steps in that direction; then he raised his pistol, steadied it as best he could, and fired.
The bullet plowed up the dirt at Jonathan’s feet. Jonathan didn’t even move. He just stood there, still waiting.
Jink’s hand was shaking as if he were palsied, but he managed to get off another shot.
It chinged off a rock near Jonathan’s right boot, but the old man still didn’t move.
Ellie watched all this with puzzlement at first, and then with growing horror. She started running toward Jink. She knew that she had to shoot him now, no matter what she had thought at first. Otherwise, he was going to kill Jonathan. The fact that Jonathan seemed to want to die didn’t mean she shouldn’t try to prevent it.
“Stop it!” she said. “Stop it!”
Jink whirled to face her. He was clearly terrified, his eyes and mouth wide with fear.
“Go away!” he yelled. “You’re dead! You’re dead!”
He was trying to aim his pistol as he yelled. Jonathan was afraid to shoot him, afraid that he might hit Ellie. His aim was by no means as certain as it had once been.
He tried yelling to distract Jink, but Jink’s attention was now riveted on Ellie.
“Shoot him, Ellie,” Jonathan said, hoping that she would do it before it was too late. “Do it now.”
Ellie heard him, and her finger tightened on the trigger. She didn’t think that she would be able to do it, but the thought of how Burt looked in the coffin flashed into her head, and she remembered exactly how hard her head had hit the bed of the wagon when Jink had struck her. She remembered with sudden clarity the sound that it had made.
The hammers of the shotgun were already cocked.
She pulled the trigger.
EIGHTEEN
O’Grady was a happy man. He was free of Ben and Jink, he had his bag of money, and there was no one on his trail. The moon was a golden yellow in a clear black sky, and if there were no further interruptions of his journey, he would be in Mexico before he knew it.
His ankle was hurting him, true, but he was sure that it was only twisted, not broken; he’d get over that soon enough. His shirt was ripped, and the places where the bullet and rocks had scraped off his skin were stinging a bit for the sweat of his recent exertions, but the night was cooling rapidly and the sweat was drying. There was no real pain, and what there was hardly bothered him at all.
He was a little sorry about leaving Ben like that. They’d been what passed for friends when they’d been in prison. But the truth of the matter was that Ben would have killed him in a minute. Hell, he’d tried to kill him. Whatever happened to Ben, Ben deserved it.
It was too bad about Jink, too, but Jink was bound to die from the blood poisoning. From the way he’d looked that morning, O’Grady would be surprised if he were still alive. Maybe a doctor could have done something for him, but there weren’t any doctors out there in the scrub country, and even if there had been, it would be too late now. Going back to look for Jink never entered O’Grady’s mind.
O’Grady clucked to his horse to urge it forward and began to whistle a little jig. Life was good again.
Ben was not suffering badly. Just as O’Grady had exaggerated his problems with his ankle to fool Ben, Ben had exaggerated the pain of his wound to mislead O’Grady.
The bullet had passed through the meaty part of Ben’s shoulder, and it was causing him a certain amount of suffering, but he was not completely impaired.
It took him a while, but he managed to tear apart his shirt and rig a bandage of sorts, not a very clean one, but better than nothing. He was able to get it tied tight enough to stop the bleeding. O’Grady had left him his pistol, so he wasn’t going to be unprotected.
The question was, what was he going to do? Go back to where he had left Jink, or go after O’Grady?
Ben wasn’t very good at thinking things through, but it occurred to him that he would never have a chance if he went after O’Grady on foot. He would never catch up with him.
And he sure as hell couldn’t do Jink any good. On the other hand, there was some good that Jink might do for Ben. Jink had a horse that he wouldn’t be needing anymore. In fact, by the time Ben got back to where the horse was waiting, Jink would almost certainly be dead.
Ben sta
rted walking back in the direction he’d come from earlier. He didn’t have any idea how long it would take him to get to Jink on foot, especially at night, but it didn’t make any difference. He had to get there. Getting to that horse was the only chance he’d have to catch O’Grady.
O’Grady was going to have quite a head start, but the Irishman would be cocky, never dreaming that Ben was still after him. Sooner or later Ben would catch up with him. And then he’d kill O’Grady and get the money.
Thinking about it made Ben feel a little better. Walking wasn’t going to help his wound much, but he couldn’t just sit where he was. He’d need to eat sooner or later, and he needed water now. That son of a bitch O’Grady had taken his canteen along with his horse.
Well, he’d left some water with Jink, if Jink hadn’t drunk it all. Maybe he’d died before he could drink it. Ben sort of hoped so.
When the shotgun roared, Jink’s mind suddenly cleared.
He knew with a terrible certainty that the woman he was looking at was not the Indian woman from Oklahoma after all.
It was that other woman, the one from the wagon only the day before.
He wanted to tell her that he knew her and to beg her not to shoot him, but of course he didn’t have the time.
He wanted to tell her that it hadn’t been his idea. He’d never have touched her if it hadn’t been for his partner. He didn’t have the time to tell her that, either.
And he wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to kill him. She’d already done that when she got her spit in the cut on his finger, sure as if she’d shot him in the gut. He was as good as dead already; shooting him was just going to get rid of him a little bit faster.
All those things went through Jink’s mind in the fraction of an instant between the crash of the gun and the time the buckshot ripped right on through him, blasting apart the right side of his chest and leaving his right arm attached to the shoulder by nothing more than a sinew.
He took a sort of hopping step backward and fell heavily on his ruined side.
He lay very still. There was nothing left for him to say, and no way left for him to say it.
The shotgun slammed against Ellie’s shoulder. She steadied herself and held the shotgun in the crook of her left arm. She reached up with her right hand to push a strand of hair out of her face. Then she just stood where she was for a minute, smelling the burned powder that drifted in the air and looking at what was left of Jink.
Jonathan walked over and looked down at the body. “That one of ’em?” he said.
Ellie joined him. Jink’s face in profile was virtually untouched by the shot except for two places on his cheek.
“That’s one of them,” she said. “He was the second one.”
“Well, looks like you don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Jonathan said.
“No,” Ellie said. “I don’t guess I do.”
Maybe that should have made her feel better about herself or about Burt, but it didn’t. It didn’t make her feel much of anything, unless it was a little angry and ashamed of herself for what she’d done.
“Don’t fret about it,” Jonathan said. “He deserved it.”
“Maybe he did,” Ellie said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“You didn’t have much of a choice,” Jonathan said. “He was gonna shoot you. He would’ve done it if he could.”
“That’s just it. I’m not sure that he could. He didn’t do so well with you.”
“I was just lucky, or he was just unlucky. He was tryin’ hard enough.”
“You weren’t, though,” Ellie said. “Were you?”
Jonathan didn’t look up from the body, didn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” Ellie’s face was stiff with anger, but her anger was directed at Jonathan rather than herself. “You were just standing there, waiting for one of those bullets. You didn’t even try to shoot. You wanted that man to kill you.”
“I shot at him,” Jonathan said. “You must’ve heard me shootin’.”
“I heard the shots, all right, but I don’t think you were shooting at him.” Ellie brushed her hand across her eyes. “I think you were just trying to get him to shoot at you. Even at the end there you were calling him, trying to get him to turn around and shoot at you again.”
“Well, I sure didn’t want him shootin’ at you.”
“I’m sure that’s true. You wanted him to shoot you.” Ellie turned and started to walk away.
“Wait,” Jonathan said.
Ellie turned back. “Well?” she said.
“Maybe you’re right. It wasn’t anything I planned on when we started, though. The idea just kinda grew on me as we were ridin’ along. You can see how it was.”
Ellie shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
Jonathan walked over beside her. “You could if you were in my boots. I haven’t said this to anybody, but I’ve been in a lot of pain lately, the kind where it’s like something’s squeezin’ you so hard that it’s like to break ever’ bone in your body.”
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “I should have thought—”
“It’s not the pain I’ve had,” Jonathan said. “I’ve stood it so far, but today it let up on me for the first time in weeks. I feel a whole hell of a lot better. You’d think that was good, but feelin’ better makes me realize how much I was hurtin’. It won’t be long before the hurtin’ comes back. I don’t want it to come back.”
“Isn’t there something they can give you to make the hurting stop?”
“Not anymore. The doc gave me somethin’, and it worked for a while. Now it don’t work.”
“But you seem fine now. You might look a little weak, but you don’t seem too sick.”
“That won’t last,” Jonathan said. “I’ve seen somethin’ like it happen before. It’s gonna come back, and it might carry me off right quick. That’d be fine. But it might not. So I thought I’d let that fella over there do the job. Quick and easy.”
“You don’t seem to me like the kind of man who’d want to do things the easy way,” Ellie said.
“I didn’t use to be. Things get different when you get old, though.”
“You’re not old.”
“Don’t fool yourself, ma’am. I’m just about dead, and that’s as old as you can get.”
Ellie started walking away from him again. “I’m not going to listen to that kind of talk.”
Jonathan trailed after her. “I’ll stop it, then. We ain’t got time to argue anyhow. There’s still those two other fellas we got to find.”
Ellie didn’t stop to wait for him. “I don’t think so. Not me, at least. I think I’ll just go on back to Blanco and let the law take care of things.”
Jonathan caught up with her and reached out, taking hold of her arm. “You’re gonna leave it up to Shag Tillman? He’s the one that’ll be the law in Blanco now. I don’t think you can count on him to do much good.”
Ellie shook off his hand. “Well, what if he doesn’t? What good did I do, killing that man back there?”
She thought about the way Jink looked as he lay in the dirt, his right side torn away. She had made him look almost like Burt had, but there was no feeling of satisfaction in having done it.
“Well,” Jonathan said, “for one thing he won’t be killin’ anybody else’s husband or rapin’ any more women. You can’t say that about the one that’s runnin’ loose.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to go after him.”
“I do.”
“Why? So you can try to get yourself killed again? Well, you can do it without me. I’m going back to Blanco.”
“You can do that if you want to. You want me to tell you why you ought not to?”
“I don’t think you can.”
“Well, let me try.” Jonathan pushed his hat back on his head. “Look at it this way. There’s two of those robbers still on the loose. One of ’em’s maybe not quite as bad as the other’n, but if we
don’t stop ’em, nobody else will. Shag Tillman sure won’t.”
Ellie knew he was right. She thought again about the way she’d felt in the wagon bed. For herself, it didn’t matter any longer. She had back what she needed, and killing one of the men who’d taken it had not made her feel any better. It had made her feel worse, if anything. But what about some other woman? Ellie had learned self-sufficiency early in life. Would another woman be the same way? And even if she was, why should that man have a chance at her?
“If we went after him,” she said, “would you try to get yourself killed again?”
“No,” Jonathan said.
“You’ll have to promise.”
Jonathan grinned. “I promise.”
“All right, then. We’ll go on.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Jonathan said. “This time, I’ll help you.” If I last that long, he thought. “Now, we better see if we can find that fella’s horse. You never can tell. We might be needin’ it.”
Ellie looked back to where Jink lay. He was nothing more than a darker shadow on the ground now.
“Should we...do anything for him?” she said.
“I don’t think there’s much of anything we can do,” Jonathan said. “He wouldn’t appreciate it, anyhow.”
“No,” Ellie said. “I don’t guess he would.”
Ben was a little confused about directions, but he thought he was headed the right way. He was really tired, though, and the wound was beginning to pain him considerably. He was beginning to wonder if he was going to make it back to where Jink was. Damn that O’Grady for taking the horse.
A few thick clouds had come up from somewhere, and occasionally they obscured the moon, making Ben’s progress even slower. He had stumbled and fallen once, opening the wound slightly and making it bleed again.
With every step, he cursed O’Grady and Gerald Crossland. At least Gerald Crossland was dead. There was a bit of pleasure in that part of it.
Ben judged that it was a little after midnight, though he couldn’t be sure, when he heard a horse whicker, a sound that was answered by another horse.