Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

This time a month passed, late summer edged toward fall, and all was right with our world. Then the phone rang and I answered it. William Bonney was on the other end of the line.

“Took awhile to find you,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want. I want this settled. You ain’t telling the truth in your books. You make the Old West sound mean, cheap. I can’t allow that.”

“Look, I’m busy, and I don’t have time for silly games. Just leave me alone.”

His voice picked up speed. “You had better take me seriously. I mean to have it out with you.”

I said nothing, hung up the phone. It rang again almost before I could turn around. I answered, knowing it would be Bonney again. It was.

“No more fooling around,” he said. “Do you know where Gunsight is?”

“It’s a ghost town about twenty miles south of here.”

“That’s right. Meet me there day after tomorrow, a little before noon. Bring a Colt.”

“What? You are out of your mind. I’m not about to meet you there or anywhere else.”

“You’ll meet me,” he said. “One way or another. Remember, a little before noon.”

He hung up this time, and for a few minutes I stood there, wondering how to handle the situation. Then I talked it over with Mary Kay. “He sounds crazy,” she said. “We have to call the sheriff.”

“I don’t know what he can do.”

“Maybe the sheriff can scare him away, even if he can’t do anything else. Please, Jim, call him.”

I called him. His name was Trace Kerrigan, and he told me pretty much what I’d expected. “I don’t know how much we can do,” he said. “Until he actually makes a move against you it’s pretty tough to charge him with anything serious, and then it might be too late.

“William Bonney, huh? Sounds like a nut who thinks he’s Billy the Kid. Look, I’ll take a deputy and show up in Gunsight at the time you’re supposed to. If he’s there we’ll run him in. It won’t amount to much, but maybe we can frighten him off.”

The next two days seemed to fly by, but the morning I was supposed to meet Bonney the clock crawled toward noon. It was two o’clock when Sheriff Kerrigan called. “He was there,” Kerrigan said. “Armed to the teeth. We arrested him, but we can’t hold him more than seventy-two hours without a charge.

“Oh, I checked his driver’s license. William Bonney is his real name, though he might have had it legally changed. I’m looking into it.”

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Not much. All we can do is hope this scares him away. If it doesn’t, we’ll try something else.”

Sheriff Kerrigan did his part, holding Bonney until the last legal minute. He also threw in a tough warning when he finally had to set him free. Then all we could do was wait and see if the three days in jail had the desired effect.

Two weeks passed with no word from Bonney, and my hopes were high. Then Mary Kay drove into town to go shopping. Town is almost thirty miles away, and the road is a lonely one. Mary Kay never made it.

It was about ten in the morning, and I was watching some silly game show on TV when the phone rang. When I answered it, I heard Mary Kay’s voice. “Don’t come out here,” she said. “Call the police, he’s going—”

Then William Bonney’s voice came on the line. “You shouldn’t have called the sheriff,” he said. “You should have faced me like a man.”

“Let my wife go, you bastard. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“You made me take her. She stays here until you show up. No law this time. I mean it. If you call the sheriff or anyone else, I’ll kill her. They may arrest me, but I’ll kill her first.”

My voice was thick. “I understand. Where do we meet?”

“Same place. Be here before noon. Come alone and bring your gun. I see anyone else and I’ll put a bullet through your wife’s head.”

He hung up. I slumped against the wall, trying to think, hoping there was a way out. There wasn’t. He was just crazy enough to kill Mary Kay if I didn’t follow his instructions to the letter.

I did own a Colt. In fact, I owned almost a dozen.

Mostly I bought them for research purposes, and while I’d fired one enough to be a decent shot, I’d never even tried a fast draw except once, and that was out of curiosity.

It didn’t work. My hand caught the Colt wrong and it flew out of my hand, discharging when it hit the ground. I felt the snap of air as the bullet whistled within inches of my ear. I never again tried a fast draw.

Now I had no choice. I went into my den and took a Model 1873 Colt Peacemaker from the display case, loaded it, slipped it into a holster, and belted it on. It was heavy, but rested well on my hip. Taking the Jeep, I drove south toward Gunsight.

Gunsight isn’t one of the well-known ghost towns. It’s too far off the beaten track, and not very impressive. A hundred years earlier it was a mining town, and a couple of old smelters still stood. So did a dozen wooden, false-front buildings.

I drove slowly down the main street, my eyes searching the buildings. William Bonney showed in the door of a saloon and flagged the Jeep down. “Get out of the Jeep,” he said, “and walk to the middle of the street.”

“Where’s my wife?”

He said something over his shoulder and Mary Kay yelled to me. “I’m all right, Jim. Please, don’t fight him. I saw him practicing. He’ll kill you.”

“Walk to the middle of the street,” he said, “or I’ll kill her right now.”

The sun was hot and the street ankle deep in dust. But I walked to the middle and turned to face Bonney. He walked out of the saloon and into the street, his eyes never leaving mine. My mouth was dry, my heart beating so fast and hard I was afraid it would burst.

We stood in the street, forty feet apart. I was absolutely certain I was about to die. All because of some foolish myth about the code of the West. All because...

I don’t know where the idea came from. Maybe it was from thinking about that damnable code. I didn’t know how good the idea was, but I did know it was my only chance.

“This is the way it was meant to be,” Bonney said. “Just the two of us, facing each other over the barrel of a gun, and the best man wins.

“I’m going to throw a silver dollar as high as I can. When it hits the ground we both draw. Agreed?”

“You’re a liar and a coward,” I said. “If you really wanted a showdown you wouldn’t have brought help.”

His face took on a puzzled expression. “Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came alone.”

Slowly raising my left hand, I pointed over his shoulder.

“Then who the hell is that?” I asked.

He instinctively turned his head to look. I drew the moment his eyes were off me, not trying to be fast, simply lifting the Colt from the holster and thumbing back the hammer as I extended my arm.

At the sound of the Colt being cocked Bonney jerked his head back around. His eyes opened wide and he drew. But I was already squeezing the trigger. The Colt bucked in my hand and I saw the bullet jerk Bonney around. There was blood on his shirt, but he had his own Colt out and was trying to raise it.

I aimed carefully and fired again. The bullet made an ugly whumping sound as it struck him right below the breastbone. The Colt flew out of his hand and he folded, landing on his face in the dust. He rolled over and I walked to him, the Colt still in my hand.

His shirt was covered with blood, and a thin trickle of red ran from the comer of his mouth. But he was still alive, still able to speak. “You... you cheated!” he said. He coughed and more blood stained his lips. “The code. You broke the code of the West. You...”