"Mine too," said Books.
They drank the coffee Mrs. Rogers had brought them. It was six o'clock in the morning. Several of Thibido's deputies had arrived with him and removed the bodies. The landlady had stripped the bed and, taking the sheets and blankets into the back yard, burned them, but the stink lingered in the room.
"Goddam fools," Thibido reflected.
"Who?"
"Shoup, Norton. All they had to do was hold their face and hands and you'd be in a wooden box and they'd of had the last laugh. How long now, Books?"
"I don't know."
"What's the doc say?"
"He doesn't."
Thibido smiled. "How you feeling? A little more poorly every day?"
"That's damned unkind of you."
"It was damned unkind of you to come to El Paso to kick the bucket." Walter Thibido tilted his chair and made himself comfortable. "I blame myself for this hash. I should of badged some good men and tied your legs under a burro and hurrahed you out of town the day you showed—but I didn't. I shed a tear, I sweet-talked Mrs. Rogers into letting you stay, I guaranteed her you wouldn't be here long. I'm sorry for her. Well, what I'll do, I'll post a man outside the house nights from now on. That'll cost the town three dollars a day. And ten dollars apiece to plant Shoup and Norton out of the taxpayers' pockets. Death and taxes, Books—what I just said. Keeping you alive long enough to die natural is costing us a pretty penny."
"I don't need a man outside."
"No? You may not, but I do. Things like last night make me look bad. Hell, there's already a crowd of loafers out front on Overland, gabbing and pointing. Maybe the Council could charge admission and get back a little." His wit pleased him. He elaborated. "We'll put up a sign—'See the Famous Killer, Ten Cents! Ten Cents More to See Him Draw!"
"Not three minutes ago," commented Books, "you said in your profession you'd learned to keep your mouth shut."
The marshal stiffened, but his response to the slur on this visit was milder than it had been on the first. That had been a dress-up occasion; he had never before been face to face with a reasonable facsimile of J. B. Books; he had come prepared to lay down his life for the law if necessary. Now he condescended to an invalid, a man with one foot, one leg in fact, in the grave, and the other going, and he could afford to be at ease. He knew where the Remingtons were now, and he had every advantage of time and proximity. He rose, set his cup and saucer on the chiffonier, reseated himself, and crossed his legs.
"I'll speak my mind, Books. And I'll post a man starting tonight. We're not going to turn a decent woman's home into a shooting gallery. Shoup and Norton may be out of the way, but this town's full of hard cases who'd sell their souls to put your name on the wall. I'll see it don't happen."
Books was interested. "Who?"
"Jack Pulford for one. Runs the faro layout at Keating's."
"Gamblers. All bluff and no balls."
"Not this one. Straightest shot I've ever seen, and cool as a cucumber. Couple years back he got off one round here, under fire, through the heart, and they measured. Eighty-four feet. Through the heart."
"Who else?"
"Oh, a Mex name of Serrano. El Tuerto, they call him, 'Cross-eye.' He'll rustle a bunch of cattle over the river, sell 'em on this side, then rustle 'em back and sell 'em to the same outfit he rustled 'em from in the first place. A real cutthroat. I wouldn't turn my back on him in church."
"Who else?"
Thibido rubbed his chin. "Well, I've got a kid in my hoosegow now—Jay Cobb. His dad runs a creamery. Cobb's only twenty or so, but I'll hang him before he's thirty, or somebody will. Gun crazy—been toting one since he was big enough to lift it. I've got him in for thirty days on assault—broke a salesman's jaw with a butt. Oh, he's a wild kid. About like you were his age, I expect."
"Who else?"
"They'll do. Any of that three would prize to do you in. Any time you'd like to put 'em under, and clean up this town, yourself included, Council'll pay for the lead and four first-class wakes. How about it, Books? Do a good deed for once in your life."
Books examined a fingernail. "You'd miss us when we were gone Thibido."
"Miss you? Sure, like the piles." He became grim. "I've already had run-ins with Serrano and Cobb. Pulford'll kill somebody else someday. They all need killing, and so do you." He pointed a finger. "You haven't looked at a calendar lately, Books. This is nineteen-ought-one. The old days are dead and gone and you don't even know it. You think this town's just another place to raise hell. Hell it is. Sure, we've still got the saloons and the girls and the tables, but we've also got a waterworks and a gashouse and telephones and lights and an opera house, we'll have our streetcars electrified by next year, and there's talk about paving the streets. They killed the last rattler on El Paso Street two years ago, in a vacant lot. First National Bank's there now. We had the President of the United States in the plaza yesterday. Why, you can have ice delivered right to your door! Oh, we've still got some weeding to do, but once we're rid of the Pulfords and Cobbs and Serranos we'll have a goddam Garden of Eden here." The marshal's civic satisfaction was almost palpable. "Which leaves you, J. B. Books. Where do you fit into the progress? You don't. You belong in a museum. To put it in a nutshell, Books, you've plain, plumb outlived your time."
"A nutshell?" Books set his cup and saucer on the splintered library table. "You couldn't put it in a barrel with no bottom. You are the longest-winded bastard I ever listened to."
Thibido bristled. "Is that so? Well, I may be windy, but I'm not contrary! When my time comes to die I will, I won't drag it out! Why the hell don't you?"
Books smiled. "I'm sticking around for your sake. When I am gone, how will you earn your pay? Checking door locks? Finding the lost cats for old ladies? You need me, Thibido. A man like me keeps you frisky. When I pull out, you'll go to grass."
"Horseshit!"
Books sobered. He was tired. He looked away, out a window, at the sunlight of another day. "You better mull one thing. When I die, part of you dies too. Maybe the best part."
Marshal Walter Thibido jumped to his feet. "I've heard about enough!" he rasped. "Kill two men before breakfast and scare the daylights out of law-abiding citizens—I won't take any Sunday school lessons from a low-life like you! Three dollars a night to guard a nickel-plate pistolero who's on his way anyway—you're not worth it, Books! Your whole rotten life hasn't been worth three cents!" Emboldened by his own oratory, he put a hand around the butt of his everyday Colt's. "Sympathy shit. What I should do is put you out of your misery," he threatened.
Deliberately, using both arms of the leather chair, Books pushed himself erect. As though there were no one else in the room, he stepped to the closet, pulled the curtain aside, and leaned against the wall. He faced the marshal, one hand at idle rest on the jamb near which hung his coat and vest.
"You've worn out your welcome, Thibido," he said. "Now scat."
"Don't give me orders, Mr. Man-killer." The marshal removed his hand from his gun butt, however. "I'll go when I'm ready. You'll go when you have to. Just do it soon. Get a move on. Die as damn fast as you can. It'll be a blessing."
"Want to see my specials again?" Books inquired.
Walter Thibido backed toward the door. "I don't scare any more, Books. Maybe you had me buffaloed the last time, but not now. Not in the shape you're in. So don't ride me. I don't scare."
"Neither did Shoup and Norton."
It had gone too far. Thibido knew it, but did not know how to extricate himself gracefully.
"You wouldn't gun down a peace officer," he claimed, without much assurance.
"Wouldn't I? What in hell would stop me? Fear of hanging?"
Bond Rogers sewed up the bullet holes in the mattress, remade the bed, and cleaned the mirror and washbowl. She did not speak to Books, nor he to her. Not until she was on her hands and knees, scrubbing dried blood out of the Wilton carpet under the south window, did he acknowledge her presence.
"
Thibido says there's a crowd out in front of the house."
"There is."
He adjusted the crimson pillow under him. "I have to say I am sorry again. I assure you I am. Their names were Shoup and Norton. I have never heard of them in my life, or seen them before that I know of."
"But they're dead."
He raised his newspaper and pretended again to read. She continued to scrub. He lowered the paper.
"Not long ago you told me I am a vicious, notorious individual utterly lacking in character or decency. If it will satisfy you, I will say amen to that. But I remind you. They came here to kill me. I did not have one damned thing against them."
She did not respond. He raised the paper, and after a minute lowered it again.
"I defended myself, that was all. As any man worth his salt would do."
"My roomers are gone," she said. "The first thing this morning. Now I have no income except from you. Thanks to you, I am dependent on a dying man, and his guns. I have already lost my son. Now there's every possibility I will lose my home."
He reflected. "We are both in a tight," he admitted. He frowned. "I will make it up to you, ma'am. I swear on a stack of Bibles."
He waited, but she would not speak. When finished, she picked up her bucket and studied the carpet.
"Does the livery have a telephone?" he asked.
"I think so."
"Will you telephone them for me? Tarrant, that's his name. Tell him to come over here. I want to see him. Today."
"I am Books. How much of a bill have I run up at your establishment?" Moses Tarrant could only stare. "How much do I owe you?"
"Seven-fifty for the horse. So far."
"How much for the hire of the phaeton?"
"Ten dollars."
"Ten dollars!"
"Includes the team."
"It better. So, seventeen-fifty. All right, I want to sell the horse."
Moses Tarrant had a cold. With each breath he snuffled. From a pocket he drew a damp, dirty bandanna, unwadded it to locate an area as yet unused, located one, wrapped the bandanna about his nose, blew loudly, examined the area to see what he had blown, wadded the bandanna, and returned it to his pocket.
"Mr. Books, you joshing me?"
"I am not."
"You already sold that horse."
"The hell I have."
"You did so. This morning. Mrs. Rogers' boy, what's-his-name, come down and told me you wanted to sell. I give him a hundred dollars for it."
Books hauled himself from his chair. "What in hell did you do that for? It isn't his horse, it's mine!"
"He told me! Just like he did about that phaeton! He told me you told him—"
"Tarrant, you have lost a hundred dollars."
His meaning did not immediately penetrate. When it did, a look of tragedy too real to be four-flush gripped Moses Tarrant's features. Perhaps he tried, in order to estimate the dimensions of his loss, to calculate how many nickel beers a hundred dollars would obtain. A fit of coughing overtook him. In dire straits he scanned the carpet and the corners of the room for a place to spit and finding none, took out his bandanna and employed it for the purpose.
"But he told me, that kid—"
"I don't give a damn what he told you. It's my animal, not his. Do you still want to buy it?"
"Reckon I might."
"I thought as much. I will have two hundred more for him."
"Two hunderd!" Tarrant hawked. "He's fistulowed!"
"Of course he is. And you should have him cured by now—you know how. Cauterize and the air will heal it. Otherwise he's in good condition."
"I might go a hundred."
Books glared at the liveryman. "You cheap snotnose. You know damn well you will sell him for a lot more because he belonged to John Bernard Books. Two hundred, and I will throw in my saddle. Cash."
"A hundred fifty?"
"Two hundred. Do you want to argue with me?"
"What about my bill?"
"You throw that in."
"That's three hundred seventeen-fifty! I ain't made of money!"
Books considered him. To avoid the consideration, the liveryman used his bandanna for lack of anything better to do. He snuffled; he blew. He coughed; he spat. But when done, when his respiratory problems had been temporarily solved, his pecuniary remained, and he was still the center of attention.
"Robbery," he insisted.
"So was stealing him from a kid for a hundred dollars."
Tarrant accepted the inevitable. Reaching into a pocket, he extracted a long leather snap-top purse which bulged, fished out a roll of bills and, wetting his thumb, peeled off two hundred dollars.
Books handled the bills with care, by the corners, and spread them on the library table to disinfect. "Now you take damned good care of that horse."
"Robbery."
"And on your way out, ask Mrs. Rogers and her son to come in here."
When they appeared, after several minutes, Books stood behind the armchair, arms folded across his chest, his attitude controlled but temperish.
"Boy," he said without preamble, "you sold my horse to Tarrant this morning. You kept the money."
"Gillom!" his mother gasped. "You didn't!"
"Speak up," Books ordered.
"What if I did? How much'll you be riding from now on?"
"That's theft, or something kin to it. You got a hundred dollars for him. Where is it?"
Gillom chewed a sullen lip.
"I don't know what to say," Bond Rogers appealed. "Gillom, you make me ashamed of you. I can't—"
"Stay out of this," Books interrupted. "All right, son, produce that money or I will turn you upside down."
Gillom produced, and unfolded, two fifty-dollar bills.
"Give it to your mother."
"But it's yours," she protested to Books.
"It will pay for the bedding," he said. "And some of the inconvenience. Take it."
With a small bow and a smirk, Gillom placed it in her hand.
"Now I wish you'd leave us, ma'am. I want a few words with him."
It was an injunction. She started to say something about prerogative, then deferred to the male and left them, closing the door behind her.
"Now then, son," Books said. "You account to me."
"I told you. The name's Gillom."
"The name's 'thief' as I see it. And you'd better account to somebody."
"I don't have to. You got your money."
Books moved from behind the armchair. "You know, I started to take a liking to you. You are making it mighty hard for me, though. The more I learn about you, the less I approve. Catching you spying on me. Quitting school to smart-aleck around Utah Street. And now this, selling my horse out from under me. As I understand it, you are a sorrow to your mother."
"So are you."
They were chin to chin. They were like two cottonwoods, but the ditch between them was deep, not shallow, and the water in it tainted.
"What did you plan on doing with the money?" Books asked.
"I planned to get the hell out of here."
"And do what?"
"Buy a gun and some fancy clothes. Kill a few barflies and get me a reputation."
"Don't get cute with me," Books warned.
"Don't you bullyrag me."
"If this house had a woodshed, we would do some business you wouldn't get over in a month of Sundays."
"Well, it don't. And you're not my father."
"No, thank God."
"Even if you would like to go to bed with my mother."
Books slapped him.
Gillom lunged, half in anger, half in fear, throwing one arm about the man's neck, the other about his waist. They grappled. And suddenly, to his amazement, almost to his dismay, the boy found his strength superior. They wrestled into the chiffonier. Gillom braced himself against it and, as the man seemed to give way, to collapse, with a shove threw him backward onto the bed.
J. B. Books lay on his back, breathing hard, shield
ing his face and his helplessness with a forearm. Gillom Rogers bent over him, triumphant.
"Haven't I learned a lot, though?" he gloated. "I'm as good with a gun as you. And you can't fight for sour apples, not any more you can't. So you just remember, Mister Blowhard —I've got my own laws now, just like you, and I live by 'em. I won't be laid a hand on either, or showed up. And I won't be treated like a kid, ever again."
Books groaned. "You sneaking little bastard."
Gillom laughed softly. "Hah. You dying old son of a bitch."
East of El Paso several miles the Rio Grande in its meanderings had divided, and by division formed between its halves an island. Consisting of some twenty acres of sand and brush, it was inhabited by snakes and insects, by bilingual cattle being rustled to and fro between Texas and Mexico, and by humans of two disreputable sorts: those commercially interested in the transit of the cattle and those preoccupied with their own transit between the jails of one country and the wide-open spaces of the other.
Six of the former indulged themselves this morning in a recreation known colloquially as "The Stretcher." Two were cowmen, older and wiser and more brutal than their employees, four cowboys. After relieving him of a pistol and a pair of knives, the six had thrown a seventh man to the ground, on his back, and, holding him down, had removed his shirt and boots. Above each of his wrists and ankles they tied a rope and, leading up four of their horses, attached the loose ends securely to the horns of the saddles. While the cowmen sat upon the victim, the cowboys mounted up and clucked the four horses slowly away from him, taking up slack. The lines went taut. The horses walked, step by step, until the victim's arms and legs were extended to the full. The two cowmen got off him. Another step, and another, by the obedient animals, and the struggling man was lifted from the ground, higher and higher, step by step. The horses were halted. The unfortunate captive now hung five feet above the ground, his joints stretched to the limit of physical tolerance by rope and the weight of the four ponies. Suppose now that the cowboys had slapped hats across the withers of the horses, causing them to catapult away. The ropes were stout enough to hold a steer. What must have occurred was the separation of arms and legs from sockets, then the ripping loose of limbs from the body—a literal dismemberment. But the cowboys dismounted instead and, sauntering back, grinning, joined their employers to squat and pass a bottle and to toast their skills.
The Shootist Page 7