Killing Mr. Sunday

by Bill Brooks

  Zane while Zeb rode alone on Karen’s little horse.

  The horses were sweated.

  “You reckon this is it?” Zack said.

  “What the hell you think it is if it ain’t it?” Zeb said,

  his mood still foul in spite of the pleasure he’d taken

  with the woman. Ever since that damn big Indian had

  stolen their horses life had seemed a sour proposition to

  him. It galled him no end that they’d been bamboozled

  by an Indian. It was harder to swallow than a knife.

  Zack shrugged as he slid off the rump of the horse.

  A dog that looked like it was full of mange came

  up and sniffed his heels and he said, “Git, guddamn

  it!” and the dog scooted away but didn’t go very far.

  They heard the laughter coming from the Three Aces

  and Zack said, “We ought to go over to that tavern

  and git us something to drink and something to eat.”

  Zeb already was headed that way. He’d simply left

  the horse standing with the reins dangling free and

  entering the Three Aces, his mind set on liquor, food,

  and maybe a woman; this time a woman who

  wouldn’t fight him like a she cat and scratch his face

  before she gave up the goods.

  Zack fell in line then looked back at Zane and said,

  “Ain’t you coming?”

  “I’ll take care of the horses,” Zane said.

  “Why? They ain’t ours.”

  “Seems only right they get fed and watered.”

  “Hell with ’em.”

  Zane was feeling in a sorry enough state without

  treating poor dumb creatures like they were nothing.

  He rode over and leaned down and took up the reins

  of the little mare and rode down the street until he

  came to a livery. There were a couple of horses in the

  corral and he unsaddled and turned out the two stolen

  horses with them. Then he took up a pitchfork and

  forked them in some hay. It was cold enough that he

  could see them snorting steam. He didn’t figure the

  owner would mind waking up and finding two extra

  horses in his corral. Pay enough for the hay and keep.

  Then without knowing what else to do, he walked

  back up the street and found his brothers in the Three

  Aces leaning against the bar drinking. Zeb was talk-

  ing to a gal looked like she ought to be in school and

  Zack stood conversing with a tall mulatto. Then

  quickly he realized they were the exact same girls they

  had come across on the grasslands two days previ-

  ous—the ones in the broken wagon. He couldn’t re-

  member their names but he didn’t want anything to

  do with them now.

  Zane found a seat in the farthest corner and hoped

  nobody would pay attention to him. He’d been feel-

  ing anti-social ever since the incident at the woman’s

  ranch house.

  It felt like he’d eaten something rotten and it was

  inside his gut just lying there. Even shooting a man

  down in cold blood never left him feeling sick in the

  way he was now. He wondered if maybe he had done

  her a favor by letting her live—if it might not have

  been better for her to let Zeb shoot her. He hated

  himself for even thinking such.

  Ellis Kansas noted them as they came in, thought to

  himself, well look what the cats dragged in. He no-

  ticed the scratches on two of their faces, and wondered

  what sorts of trouble they’d gotten in since last he seen

  them. The two at the bar stood like gun gods the way

  they wore their pistols high on the hip, butt forward.

  Last time he was at their mercy, now they were in his

  place. He figured the marshal might be interested in

  them since he was interested in the other stranger.

  Normally, he was a man who minded his own

  business, but since the marshal had shown no interest

  in getting greased and since these particular hombres

  had taken advantage of him, it might be he could earn

  the lawman’s favor by keeping him informed. He

  drew near to his barkeeper and said in a low voice:

  “Those two who look like they’re brothers, the ones

  with scratched faces, and that one sitting over in the

  corner? Make sure they don’t run out of liquor, and

  tell Baby Doe and Narcissa to give them a cut-rate on

  their price if they’re looking for that sort of action—

  but not to give them nothing free, understood? Oh,

  and do it on the q.t.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Oh, and keep an ear listening to what they have

  to say,” Ellis said. “Why they’re in town and maybe

  where they got them scratches and such and let me

  know if you hear why.”

  Curly nodded and set about doing his boss’s bidding.

  Clara came outside again and said, “He’s sleeping.

  Says the laudanum makes him sleepy most of the

  time.”

  “It will do that.”

  “He wants to buy the house.”

  “What house?”

  “This one.”

  “I’ll go and ask the attorney handling Doc’s trust

  tomorrow,” Jake said.

  Clara said, “It’s a really big house.”

  She said it in a way that caused Jake to smile.

  “It is,” he said. “Can I walk you back home?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  They walked in silence.

  Then Clara said, “You seem like a very sophisti-

  cated man, Marshal.

  “Meaning?”

  “Your manner, the way you talk and think. Not at

  all like the sort of man to enforce things with a gun.”

  “Hardly,” he said.

  “Can we agree to something?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s not lie to each other.”

  “Play it straight,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Okay.”

  “So what did you do before you became the mar-

  shal of Sweet Sorrow?”

  He was tempted to tell her the entire story of how

  he’d been a physician with a good practice and a

  good solid life and a great future until he met and fell

  in love with a married woman who set him up to take

  a murder charge for her husband’s death. He wanted

  to tell someone who might believe him. But instead he

  said, “I was in the banking business.”

  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “Well, that didn’t last very long, did it?”

  He stopped and she did, too.

  “Truth is,” he said. “I can’t tell you what the truth

  is. I’m a little like your father in that respect. The

  more you know about me, the more danger it might

  bring you. Any trouble coming my way I wouldn’t

  want innocents caught in the middle of it.”

  “You’re a bad man, then?” she said.

  “Not as bad as some would say that I am.”

  “Then you’re an enigma.”

  “Yeah, somewhat, I suppose so.”

  They reached her house.

  “Whatever the truth is,” she said, “I don’t care.

  All I know about you is what you’ve shown me and

  my father and that little boy. No bad man in you that


  I can see.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I’m afraid we’ve all got our skeletons in the

  closet, Mr. Horn, you’re certainly not alone in that

  regard.”

  “What are yours?”

  She smiled softly, wearily.

  “Maybe some day we’ll have us a real honest con-

  versation and bring out those old bones and let them

  dance,” she said.

  “Maybe so.”

  Standing off in the shadows Fallon saw her, for the

  first time since she’d left. There she was, his woman.

  But who was that son of a bitch standing there talk-

  ing to her just the two of them this evening? His anger

  raged inside him. Not gone but a few weeks and al-

  ready she was letting other men court her. Well, I’ll

  make sure you won’t be courting him long, he

  thought. Then when she turned and entered the house

  and the man turned, he saw the glint of metal pinned

  to his coat.

  Fucken lawman.

  Well, they shot as easy as anyone else, lawmen did,

  now didn’t they?

  Big Belly squatted on his heels off in the darkness

  watching the lights of the town. They twinkled like

  stars fallen from the sky and he was tempted to take

  his chances of going in because the weather had

  turned damn cold and he wasn’t used to the cold, be-

  ing from down in Texas, though some parts of Texas,

  like up in the canyon country, could get awful cold,

  too. Good thing those stolen horses had bedrolls tied

  on behind the saddles or his bones would be shaking.

  He’d found some beef jerky in the saddle pockets

  of one of the horses and was chewing on one of the

  strips as he watched the lights of the town. They’d

  have whiskey in that town he could warm his insides

  with. But they sure as hell wouldn’t serve no Co-

  manche white-man-killing son of a bitch such as him-

  self whiskey.

  There had been some places down along the big

  river in Texas where an Indian could get himself pretty

  liquored up and fuck those big brown Mexican whores

  if he had some money or something good to trade.

  He’d once traded a chopped-off foot in a glass jar for a

  bottle of pulque and a two-hundred-pound whore had

  a mole on her face looked like a squashed bug. But any

  place north of that river wasn’t one shitting place a In-

  dian could just walk in and get himself a drink like a

  white man could. He licked his lips thinking about it.

  The horses cropped grass while Big Belly thought

  of a way to get into that town without drawing overly

  much attention to himself. It was a mean trick, but

  he’d done a lot harder before. When he listened real

  hard he could hear laughter drifting on the air.

  Jake had turned back up the street when the shot

  banged and something snatched his hat off his head.

  Instinct caused him to whirl around in a semi-crouch

  bringing out one of the Schofields, thumbing back the

  hammer as he did. There was only the darkness. Clara

  opened the door and called out, “What happened?”

  “Get back inside!”

  She did as he ordered as he darted for the shadows

  himself.

  He waited. Nothing. It was impossible to say

  where the shot came from exactly.

  Then he thought he saw movement and fired. A

  man’s voice cursed.

  *

  *

  *

  The bullet caught Fallon in the left forearm, tore out a

  chunk of meat he could stick his thumb in. He felt the

  blood, warm like bathwater, dripping off his fingers

  as he darted back in between the row of houses.

  Lights were being lit inside those houses, voices

  shouting. He kept going, came to an alley and ran

  down it, guessed he was now in the rear of some of

  the main businesses, turned up another alley and

  came out on a wide street, crossed it and back down

  between some more places of business.

  He paused long enough to listen, to see if he heard

  footsteps. He didn’t. Gathered his wits and figured

  out where he’d left his horse and made for it.

  Jake waited as long as he thought he should then

  slipped inside Clara’s and asked for a lamp and went

  back out again and found the blood spots on the

  ground where he thought the man had been. The

  blood trail led in between houses. Easy place to get

  ambushed. Whoever it was, was obviously gone. He

  turned and went back to Clara’s.

  “What happened?” she asked. He could see the

  fear in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But somebody just murdered my

  damn hat.”

  “God!”

  “I think I hit him. I found blood. I figure he’s on

  the run.”

  They were both thinking the same thing: someone

  had come for William Sunday.

  “They probably mistook you for him,” she said.

  “It doesn’t make sense that they would. They’d

  have to put the two of us together. And for that to

  happen, it would have to have been someone who

  knew you were his daughter.”

  “Or they may have trailed him here, seen him

  come here the other night.”

  “I’ll stay here with you tonight,” he said. “Just in

  case.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Mr. Horn.”

  “Yeah, I do, Clara.”

  The single pistol shot traveled out over the flat land

  and reached Big Belly’s ears.

  Somebody’s dead. I hope it’s a damn white man. I

  got three good horses but no whiskey. Son of a bitch.

  28

  Karen awoke and found Toussaint still sleeping in

  the chair next to her bed. He looked old, tired, and

  she felt sad for him. It had been hard between the two

  of them for so many years she hadn’t thought she’d

  ever be able to feel sad or anything else for him. She’d

  been angry so long she didn’t know how to be happy

  anymore. But the assault had done something to her,

  had broken something in her; her will, her spirit, in a

  way nothing else ever had, not even the death of her

  only child, Dex.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  He opened his eyes, looked at her.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I’m hungry.”

  She saw the tension ease out of his face.

  He didn’t say anything, simply got up and went

  out into the kitchen and started fixing breakfast. She

  could hear him out there, knew which pan he was us-

  ing, the sound of the cured ham frying in it, him

  opening the door to go out and pump water for cof-

  fee, lighting a fire in the cookstove. It was like it had

  once been when on certain days he would go and pre-

  pare them breakfast without being asked to and it al-

  ways charmed her when he did.

  She eased herself out of bed and everything hurt

  like hell. She examined her features in a hand mirror

  she took off the top of her bureau and saw the

 
bruises, the swollen places, touched them and winced.

  Jesus, it ain’t as if I was a handsome woman before

  they beat me, she thought.

  She slipped out of the cotton shift and took a fresh

  shirt and pair of trousers from the old trunk that

  stood at the end of the bed and did not feel curious

  about the rest of her body. When she thought about it,

  what they did to her, she felt angry and ashamed. The

  clothes were worn soft from so many washings and

  she was grateful for the comfort they provided against

  her skin. She didn’t bother to put on socks or boots

  but instead, quickly ran a brush through her short

  thick hair and went out into the kitchen.

  Toussaint turned to look at her, said, “You

  shouldn’t be out of bed.”

  “I can’t stand another minute of being in it,” she

  said. She felt slightly light-headed, weak, unbalanced.

  “Sit down there,” he said and when she did he

  brought her a cup of coffee and set it before her. “You

  still take it black, or has your tastes changed over the

  years?”

  She looked at him.

  “No, I take it with sugar now, when I got sugar to

  take it with,” she said.

  He looked around.

  “Up in the shelf, that little brown bowl, same place

  I always kept it, if you remember,” she said. He got it

  down and set it before her and watched her as she

  spooned out two spoons of sugar. The room was

  filled with the smells of breakfast and it somehow

  comforted her to smell them, to have him there in the

  room with her and know she didn’t have to be afraid.

  He fixed her a plate and set it before her, then set

  one for himself and sat down across from her.

  “You need anything else?” he said.

  She simply looked at him for a moment.

  “How come you to come out here the other night?”

  she said.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Just something I

  been wanting to do. We found Martha Dollar and the

  man who took her. The marshal took her on into

  town, my job was finished, I hadn’t nothing better to

  do. Just thought I’d check in on you.”

  “I see,” she said. Knowing him as she did, she

  knew he had more in mind than just to pay a visit.

  “That was it, then, just wanting to check on me?”

  He nodded, didn’t feel like he had much of an ap-

  petite.

  “I guess it’s good you came along when you did,”

  she said. “Or I might have . . .” She saw the way he

  flinched when she implied what might have happened.