Robert Parker - Gunman's Rhapsody

Wyatt took the big flat-nosed.45 bullets from the cylinder and put them one at a time into the ammunition loops on his belt.

“It was one thing in Tombstone,” Doc said. “You were a lawman. And Frank Stilwell was threatening your brothers in Tucson. But Indian Charlie… back there… that didn’t have anything to do with the law.”

Wyatt ran an oily cloth patch down the barrel of the Colt.

“The law had its chance,” Wyatt said.

Doc took a pull of whiskey and swallowed and put his head back and laughed.

“Now it’s your law,” Doc said.

Wyatt didn’t say anything. Texas Jack spread the fried salt pork over an inverted pot to drain, and dropped sourdough in small spoonfuls into the hot salt-pork fat.

“And,” Doc took another drink, “here’s the thing, parson. It’s the same goddamned law as my law.”

Wyatt carefully ran the patch through each of the six chambers in the cylinder. Then he carefully balled up the oily patch and put it in the fire.

“No, Doc. It’s not. We got different reasons for what we do.”

Wyatt put a dry patch on the short cleaning rod and ran it down the gun barrel.

“You’ll shoot a man for spilling his drink,” Wyatt said.

“Maybe so,” Doc said. “Maybe so.”

Doc passed the whiskey bottle to McMasters and leaned back against his saddle. Wyatt discarded the second patch into the fire, put his thumbnail on the muzzle and examined the barrel in the reflected firelight.

“But you won’t be able to come back from this,” Doc said. “Maybe we’re as different as you say. But you’re on my side of the line now, and there’s no way to get back.”

Wyatt was satisfied with the condition of the Colt. He took the bullets from his cartridge belt again, one at a time, and stood them on a rock near him, nose up. Texas Jack put some fried pork and biscuits on a tin plate and handed it to Doc.

He said, “Eat something, Doc. It’ll make you stop talking for a while.”

Doc took the plate and ate with his fingers. Texas Jack dished out for the others. Everyone except Wyatt ate in silence for a time. Wyatt put his plate aside until he finished with the Colt. He was running another clean patch through the barrel. Doc finished chewing. He took a drink of whiskey.

“I’m right, though,” he said, “and Wyatt knows it.”

Wyatt picked up the fat.45 bullets one at a time from the rock where they stood and fed them, one at a time, into the cylinder. Then he snapped the cylinder shut, put the gun back in his belt, and picked up his plate.

“I like fried biscuits,” he said.

For breakfast they had coffee and the last night’s leftover biscuits, and Wyatt sent Warren back to wait for Dick Wright again.

“How come I got to go?” Warren said. “Wright already brought the money.”

“We need to know what’s happening in town,” Wyatt said. “Need to know if the cowboys are there or somewhere else.”

“I don’t want to miss no action,” Warren said.

“You’re twenty-five,” Wyatt said. “You got plenty of time for action.”

Warren was a little sullen as he rode away, but Wyatt knew he’d do what he was told.

“Outta harm’s way?” Doc said as they rode down toward the watering hole.

“I lost all the brothers I’m ready to lose,” Wyatt said.

The horses smelled the water and quickened their pace. The roan got there first. As the roan started to drink, Wyatt swung down from the saddle to wash up. He loosened his gun belt. From across the spring, there was gunfire.

The other riders spun their horses and headed for cover in the cottonwoods that grew around the spring. Wyatt held the reins in his left hand. The loosened gun belt slid down over his thighs and hampered his movements as Wyatt tried to pull his Winchester from the saddle scabbard.

For Christ sake. Am I going to get shot because my gun belt fell down?

He managed to fumble the shotgun off the near side of his saddle as the roan tossed his head and twisted against the reins. Wyatt couldn’t get the Winchester out. Instead he fumbled the 10-gauge Wells Fargo shotgun from the near side of the saddle and cocked it and tried to aim over the tossing back of his horse. Across the water hole, clear as day, and slowed down like everything always did in a shooting, he could see Curley Bill aiming at him with another shotgun. There were other cowboys firing. Bullets tugged at his clothing. But Wyatt saw Curley Bill as if through crystal. He could see the Wells Fargo medallion in the stock of the shotgun. Just like the one he held.

Like mine. Bill took it off a stage.

Wyatt gently eased the front sight down on the middle of Curley Bill’s mass. Bill fired and the shot sang around him. A shotgun wasn’t so good at this range. But it was what they had. As Curley Bill broke the shotgun to reload, Wyatt squeezed off one barrel, then the other. Curley Bill seemed to shrink in on himself. Wyatt could see the blood suddenly brighten Bill’s shirt, then he sank from sight into the low growth under the trees along the water. Behind him Wyatt heard the loud sharp sound that Winchesters make coming from the cover of the cottonwoods behind him. He could hear Doc’s voice mixed in with the rifle fire.

“Wyatt, get the fuck out of there.”

Covered by the rifle fire, Wyatt dropped the shotgun, hitched up his gun belt, got hold of the roan’s mane, and heaved himself up onto the frantic horse. Something hammered the heel of his right boot. His leg went numb. He yanked the roan’s head around and rammed him into the trees on a dead run. In the shelter of the trees he dismounted, hitched the still-panicky roan to a tree, and, crouching, moved back toward the water with a Colt in his hand. His posse was on the ground, spread out, each with a Winchester. The levered shells scattered brightly on the leaf mold around them. The gunfire stopped. There was uncertain movement across the water, then the sound of horses, and then silence and the reek of spent ammunition. The silence seemed to spiral around them. Wyatt could hear Doc’s breathing.

“They’ve scooted,” Texas Jack said.

His voice was hoarse. So was Sherman McMasters’s.

“You see who it was?” McMasters said.

“Curley Bill was one of them,” Wyatt said.

“You hit anyone?” Doc said.

“Curley Bill, straight on in the chest,” Wyatt said. “Both barrels.”

“Curley Bill’s dead?”

“Be surprised if he wasn’t,” Wyatt said.

“Shit!” Turkey Creek Jack Johnson said. “I always kind of liked Bill.”

“Fuck him,” Doc said. “Let’s take a look.”

“You and I’ll look, Doc,” Wyatt said. “The rest of you boys stay ready in case they didn’t all scoot.”

Doc and Wyatt walked around the water hole. The cowboys were gone, including Curley Bill. At the spot where Wyatt estimated that he had dropped Curley Bill, there was blood on the ground, and some splattered on the leaves near the spot.

“You think the sonova bitch is alive?” Doc said.

“No. He took both barrels. They must have hauled him off to bury him.”

They were quiet under the trees, near the still water of the spring. Doc looked thoughtfully at Wyatt.

“When they opened fire on us,” Doc said, “you rode right in on them, ’stead of taking cover.”

“I saw Curley Bill,” Wyatt said.

“I done that, you’d have said I was a drunken fool,” Doc said.

“Curley Bill shot my brother,” Wyatt said.

“And you don’t drink,” Doc said.

Hooker’s ranch was in the Sulfur Springs Valley near the San Simon River. There was a central fortified house and outbuildings, and grazing land spread out around the house to the horizon.