The Gun Fight (3 page)

Robby stood there trembling.

“Listen, Benton,” he said, the anger desperate in his voice, “I’m not afraid of you.”

Benton glanced aside. “Kid,” he said, “go home. Get outta here and we’ll forget what you said. Just don’t hang around.”

“Benton, damn it!” Robby yelled.

Benton turned brusquely, his face hard with restrained temper. “Listen, kid, I’m tellin’ you to—”

He jerked back his head in sudden shock as the white-faced Robby flailed out with his right fist. Flinging up his left arm, he knocked aside the erratic blow.

“What are you—” he started amazedly, then had to ward aside another blow driven at his chest by Robby. His hand shot down and caught Robby’s left wrist in a grip of iron.

“Coles, have you gone plumb—”

But Robby was too far gone now. His lips drawn back in a grimace both furious and terror-stricken, he drove his right fist out again and it thudded off Benton’s broad shoulder. The men at the bar watched in dumbfounded amazement and Pat came hurrying around the foot of the counter.

Benton tried to catch Robby’s right wrist and pin him completely but, before he could, the bunched fist grazed his left cheek, reddening the skin.

“Well, the hell—” he suddenly snapped and drove a short, pulled blow into Robby’s stomach.

Robby doubled over with a breath-sucked grunt and fell against the bar, his mouth jerking open as he tried
to catch in the air. Benton hauled him up by the left arm, glancing over at Pat who had just hurried up to them.

“All right?” Pat asked and Benton nodded silently.

“Come here,” he told the gagging Robby and tried to lead him to one of the tables.

Robby tore away with a whining gasp, then started to buckle and Benton caught him again.

“Come over here with me,” he said, the anger gone from his voice. “Let’s get this figured.”

Again Robby tore away with a sob and backed off, forcing himself to an erect position, hands pressed to his stomach.

“Damn you,” he gasped through shaking, blood-drained lips. “I’ll get you, Benton, I swear I’ll get you.”

Benton stood there silently, hands hanging loosely at his sides as Robby turned and staggered down the length of the saloon floor and shoved through the double doors.

After a moment, he shook his head in slow wonder.

“I’ll be damned,” he said and looked over at the staring men. “I will be damned,” he muttered to himself and returned to his still unfinished drink.

“What was on
his
mind?” Pat asked, behind the bar again.

“You got me,” Benton said. “It’s over my head,
way
over.”

Pat grunted and wiped idly at the dark, glossy wood of the bar counter. Down the way, Bill Fisher and Henry Oliver exchanged glances.

“Who is his girl, anyway?” Benton asked curiously.

Pat shrugged. “Got no notion,” he said. “Some town girl, I reckon.”

Benton made an amused sound and shook his head. “Bothered her,” he said. “I don’t even know who she is.”

“Louisa Harper, that’s his girl,” Joe Sutton said quickly and the two men, glancing aside, saw that Sutton
had edged along the bar in order to join their conversation. Benton’s mouth tightened a little but he didn’t say anything.

“Her mother’s the Widow Harper,” Sutton hurried on, oblivious. “Aunt runs a lady clothes store cross the square.”

Benton and Pat exchanged a glance and the corners of Benton’s mouth twitched, repressing a wry smile. Down the bar, Henry Oliver stretched and told Bill Fisher that he intended going over to Jesse Willmark’s Barber Shop for a haircut.

Benton heard him and nodded to himself. “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “I keep meanin’ to get a haircut myself. Missus Benton keeps askin’ me and it keeps slippin’ my mind.” He picked up his glass and emptied it.

“You want me to find out about Robby Coles?” Sutton asked abruptly. “You want me to check for you, Benton?”

Benton looked aside, patiently.

“Listen, kid,” he said quietly, “just leave it set, hear? Just forget it.”

Sutton looked down gloomily into his drink. “Just wanted to help you,” he said.

“Well, you gotta learn the difference between helpin’ and stickin’ your nose in where it don’t belong, kid,” Benton told him, without rancor.

Sutton’s expression was dully morose. “Didn’t
mean
nothin’,” he muttered.

Benton clapped the young man on the shoulder once with his broad palm. “Okay, kid, let’s forget it. No hard feelin’s.” He put his Stetson on, then dug into his Levi’s pocket for silver.

“Well, I have to drag it,” he said. “Lots o’ work to do.”

The three men at the bar were silent as Benton walked in long, unhurried strides for the doors. They
were still silent as he went out. It was only after they heard the sound of his buckboard rolling away from the saloon hitching rack that they turned to each other and started talking.

J
esse Willmark was sitting in one of his two barber chairs, reading the
Kellville Weekly Bugle.
It was quiet in the small shop, so quiet that the sluggish drone of fat flies could be clearly heard. The only other sound was that of Jesse turning the newspaper pages with idle fingers, his heavyset body slumped lethargically on the black leather cushion.

The wall clock struck eleven with a tinny resonance. Jesse reached into his pocket and checked his watch. He shook his head disgustedly. The wall clock was ten minutes slow again and he’d just had it repaired three years before.

The click of heels near the door made Jesse look up quickly. “
Oh.
” His head dipped once in a nod and he smiled as he pushed up.

“Howdy, Mr. Oliver,” he said and slid quickly from the chair, tossing the newspaper onto one of the wire-backed chairs along the wall. “Set you down and we’ll get right to it.”

Henry Oliver slid out of his waistcoat and hung it carefully on the clothes tree beside his hat. Then, he settled back in the ornate barber chair with a sigh and shifted himself into a comfortable position as Jesse fastened the big cloth around his thick neck.

“Nice day, today,” Jesse said automatically and Henry
Oliver mumbled an assent as Jesse picked up the scissors, clicked the blades together his habitual four times, and began cutting.

“Funny thing at the Zorilla Saloon before,” Henry Oliver said after a few moments of idle conversation had passed.

“Oh?” Jesse said, eyebrows raising in practiced fashion. “What’s that, Mr. Oliver?”

“You know young Robby Coles,” Oliver said and Jesse said, “Mmm-hmm,” cutting and clipping. “Know his father well. Fine man, fine man.”

“Yes. Well . . .” said Henry Oliver, “the boy came charging into the saloon and started a fight. With John Benton.”

Jesse’s mouth gaped for a moment. “
No
,” he said. “
John Benton
? Well, I’ll be . . .”

“Yup.” Henry Oliver’s head nodded vigorously and Jesse held back the scissors until the nodding stopped. “Quite a fight,
quite a fight.
Benton won, of course. Doubled young Robby over with a gut punch.”

“No,” Jesse said incredulously, snipping and running the comb teeth through his customer’s graying hair. “John Benton. Well. What were they fightin’ over?”

Henry Oliver crossed his dark-trousered legs. “That’s what I don’t figure,” he said, vaguely mysterious. “The boy accused Benton of—” He looked around carefully. “Of playing around with his girl.”

“No! You me—” Jesse’s voice broke off, startedly. “Louisa Harper? Playin’ around?” His voice rose and fell in jagged peaks and valleys of expression. “I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “Strangest thing I ever heard. John Benton. Huh.” His nervous right hand clicked the scissor blades in the air and he went on cutting. “Be damned,” he said.

“Well you could have knocked me down with your finger,” Henry Oliver said. “Surprised the life out of me, naturally.”

“Well, naturally,” Jesse said, shaking his head, an intent look on his thick-featured face.

“And I wasn’t the only one there,” said Henry Oliver. “Bill Fisher was there. And young Joe Sutton. And Pat heard too, yes, Pat heard it all. Strange, all right.”

Jesse kept shaking his head. “You . . . think it’s true?” he asked.

“Well . . .” Henry Oliver’s brow tightened. “I couldn’t say,” he ventured solemnly. “Offhand, I’d say no but . . . well, you can’t tell, you just can’t tell about those things. I know I wouldn’t want to be the one to start a story like that. John Benton’s too big a man around here to . . .” His voice drifted off and the shop was still except for the clicking scissor blades.

“Yes, he’s admired, all right,” Jesse said then as if there had been no lapse in the conversation. “Always thought he’s been overrated but . . . well, that’s nothing to do with this.” He shook his head, cutting absorbedly. “Louisa Harper, huh?” he said. “Now ain’t that somethin’.”

“Oh,” Henry Oliver said, almost grudgingly, his thick shoulders shrugging slightly, “it might be a mistake, of course.”

“Sure. Sure, that’s right, it could be a mistake,” Jesse said, agreeing with a customer.

Twenty minutes later, Henry Oliver walked out of the shop and Jesse sat down again to look at his paper. But he didn’t read it, he just sat there staring at the blurred print and thinking about what Mr. Oliver had said.

“Sure,” he muttered to himself. “Sure. I can see it; him a hero and all.” He licked his fat lips. “Louisa Harper, huh? I wouldn’t mind—”

He broke off abruptly as another customer entered. There was the taking off of the coat, the sitting down in the gilded metal and black leather chair, the tying of the cloth, the comment on the weather, the assent, the
plucking up of the long scissors, the tentative clicking of blades.

“Heard about the big fight?” Jesse asked his customer.

“No. When was this?” the man asked casually.

“Just a while ago,” said Jesse. “In the Zorilla Saloon. Robby Coles and John Benton.”

“No.” The man looked up interestedly. “Benton?”

“Yup.” Jesse’s head nodded in short, decisive arcs as he worked, purse-lipped, on the man’s hair. “Had a fight over Robby Cole’s girl, Louisa Harper.”

“You don’t tell me,” the man said, face strained with interest.

“That’s right,” Jesse said calmly. “That’s right.” His small eyes narrowed. “ ’Course it might be a mistake but it
seems
. . . there’s been somethin’ between Benton and the girl.”

The customer’s eyes rose to the mirror on the wall and he and Jesse looked at each other with the half-repressed fascination of little boys who believe they have unearthed something of unique prurience.

“
Well
,” the man said.

As they went on talking, the sound of their conversation drifted out the door into the air of Kellville.

M
atthew Coles was never on any horse but his chestnut gelding. He did not ride well and was a man who would not let himself be observed doing anything less than perfectly. The chestnut was a mild animal, easily seated, but one which managed to give the appearance of being excitably alert. It was a combination well suited to Matthew Coles who preferred his triumphs to appear hard-won. Thus, satisfyingly, was the gelding added to his list of conquests, which list included also his acquaintances, business associates, wife, and children. Matthew Coles was a man who kept a taut, unyielding rein on every aspect of his life.

It was just ten minutes past noon when he came riding slowly down Armitas Street. At the twelfth stroke of noon, he had risen from the bench of his gunsmith shop, donned his coat and hat, and locked up the shop, leaving in the door window the thumb-worn sign which read simply
DINNER
. He had mounted the docile chestnut and started for his house where, by God, Jane had better have dinner immediately ready to eat. Precision and efficiency—Matthew Coles was especially guided by these coupled verities.

Mr. Coles was in a particularly sour humor that afternoon. His elder son, Robby, had not appeared at the
shop promptly at eight thirty as he was supposed to; as a matter of fact, Robby had not shown up at all. That was an added reason why Matthew Coles rode stiffly, his back a ramrod of irked authority, his face set with dominance defied. He wore black, as always, for it made his five foot ten inches appear taller and, he fancied, made him look unusually handsome for a man in his middle fifties.

As he rode into the alleyway beside the house, he saw his son’s roan tied up in back and his mouth twitched angrily. The horse hadn’t been rubbed down, it was streaked over with dry sweat. Beneath taut lips, Matthew Coles’ false teeth clamped vice-like. Fool!—he raged within. Robby didn’t deserve a horse and, by God, if he didn’t take better care of it, he wouldn’t
have
a horse!

The gelding stopped. Matthew Coles eased his right leg over its croup and let himself down with a grunt. Then he led the horse into the small stable and tied it up near the water trough.

He crossed the backyard with vengeful strides, then clumped loudly up the wooden porch steps, removing his hat as he ascended.

The kitchen door thudded shut behind him and his wife Jane straightened up over the chair in which Robby sat slumped.

“Good afternoon, dear,” she said hastily. “I’ll get you your—”

“What is the meaning of leaving your mount untended?” Coles asked loudly, ignoring his mouse-haired wife.

Robby looked up, his drained features tensed with nausea. “I was sick,” he muttered. “I—”

“Speak up, sir. I can’t hear you when you mumble like a child.” Mr. Coles hung up his hat with one authoritative motion.

Robby swallowed, grimacing with pain, his hands pressed over the waist of his belt-loosened trousers.

“Matthew, he’s ill.”

Matthew Coles impaled his small-framed wife with an imperious glare. “Is my dinner ready?” he challenged.

“I was—”

“I’ve been working,” her husband explained with the carefully measured articulation of a harried father addressing his idiot daughter. “I’m hungry. Are you going to stand there gaping at me or are you going to make my dinner?”

Mrs. Coles tried to look agreeable but could not summon the long-lost ability to smile. She turned away and hurried toward the stove.