Robert Parker - Ironhorse

“Stop,” I said.

When he saw me he raised his pistol at me, and I shot him.

He staggered and tried to shoot again, and I shot him again. He dropped his gun, walked a half-circle, and fell to his knees. He stayed on his knees for a moment, looking around. He moaned and toppled over onto his side. I moved quickly up to the boardwalk and into the shadows. I reloaded and with my back to the boards of a dry-goods store moved toward the opening where the young man had come running out to the street. I looked around the corner of the dry-goods store and could not see anything but dark.

“That you, Everett?” Virgil called from the alley.

“It is.”

“You shoot the fellow in his undergarments?”

“I did.”

“Coming to ya!” Virgil said.

I stepped off the boardwalk, looking down the dark alley. A sharp, short, high-pitched whistle rang out, followed by a “Get up,” and looming out of the dark came Virgil, riding Cortez at a quick pace toward me. He had my bony dark-headed roan and two other horses in tow.

“You’re cinched, swing up!” Virgil said.

“Where are the others?” I said as I swung up on the back of the roan.

“Drunk,” Virgil said. “Commingling with a wild bunch of whores, but if they heard the shots, they’re getting their wits about ’em... this way.”

Virgil and I took off south at a clip. Virgil rode fast, pulling one horse, and I was behind him, pulling the other. We quickly skirted around and came up on the backside of the west end of town. Virgil slowed and pulled up short behind an outbuilding and dismounted. He pointed to the backside of a white house.

“That house there,” Virgil said. “They’re in the front parlor, don’t appear they heard nothing.”

I dismounted. We tied the horses behind the outbuilding and moved closer on foot.

“I came to the end of the street,” Virgil said. “Heard music. I stayed in the dark, got up on the porch and looked inside. They were dancing, singing. One of the women was sawing on a fiddle, another beating a piano. The windows were fogged over. Men singing, but all I could see was the whores doing the music and dancing about naked.”

“Just like we figured,” I said.

“Is,” Virgil said. “Didn’t see men, though. Then I got a glimpse of the back of a man sitting on a sofa between two whores. He had a white bandage wrapped around his head.”

“Vince.”

“Damn straight Vince; not anybody else wrapped up like that.”

“You didn’t see any others?”

Virgil shook his head.

“Just Vince, but I heard the others. They are in there,” Virgil said. “I got off the porch, walked to the back of the building, but I did not see the horses. I thought, like we talked about, they must have hobbled, or picketed somewhere. Then I heard a horse flapping his lips. I followed the sound, walked around that water shed there, and on the backside found the horses. They were saddled, loose cinches, and had their bridles hanging over their saddles.”

“You figured you’d just get them.”

“I did. I could hardly hear the music from there, but they were still carrying on. I figured since it was dark and them boys being occupied with the whores, I’d move off with the horses.”

A big wagon pulled by six mules passed behind us. We watched until it moved on past us.

“I gathered up the horses,” Virgil said, “walked off, back that way. I was halfway down the alley, headed toward the street, but was interrupted by the bandito in his undergarments with his quick-draw rig strapped on his hip.”

“He followed you?”

“No. He was there in the alley, retching up a gullet of turned whiskey. He looked up as I was walking by, wiping his mouth. He looked at the horses. It took him a moment to figure out one of the horses was a horse he’d previously been riding. He stepped back, quick-like, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was taking my horse, taking my deputy’s horse, too, and while I was at it, taking his horse and one other to boot. He told me if I took another step he’d have to shoot me. I took another step. He pulled, and I shot him in the collarbone. He took off like a pheasant. I was between him and the whores’ place, so he went through the alley there toward where you were. I would have shot him again, but I had my hands full with the horses. He shot two wild shots at me as he was on the run down the alley. A moment or two later, you shot him.”

We moved up near the clothesline behind the whorehouse, where the horses had been picketed. We found a secure place and kept watch on the backside of the whorehouse.

“Don’t see anybody,” I said.

“Front parlor is where they are.”

“Maybe they’re putting the pieces together,” I said. “Just moving slow.”

“Might be. The undergarment fellow was firmly liquored up. No doubt they’re all a flush lot.”

“They can’t see where the horses were picketed from where they are in the house there,” I said.

“No, they can’t.”

“Dumb of them.”

“It was,” Virgil said.

“Pussy will do that to a man.”

“It will.”

“Make a man do dumb things.”

“It does.”

“Like what they have done here tonight.”

“Yep,” Virgil said.

“Mix it with sour mash and whatever smidgen of smarts they had left, slips sideways, right out of the saddle.”

“Lookie here?” Virgil pointed.

A door opened from the front parlor. There was now light spilling into the back room. We could hear the music from the parlor and could see someone moving inside.

“Sounds like they’re still at it,” I said.

“Does.”

“They didn’t hear the shots.”

“Don’t seem so,” Virgil said.

“They got no idea.”

“Nope.”

“Unless it’s a trap.”

Virgil shook his head.

“No,” Virgil said. “They got no seesaw for that.”

The back door opened.

“Here we go,” Virgil said.

A strong-looking, smaller man stepped out onto the porch.

He staggered as he fumbled with the buttons below the buckle of his gun-belt then positioned himself next to the porch rail and relieved himself. Like the other young man I shot dead in the street, he was wearing his underwear, hat, boots and hip rig. He swayed a bit as he went about his business off the side of the porch. He looked down, watching himself, then jerked his head up, looked about at nothing in particular, and hollered.

“Rex! You fuck!”

He looked back down for a moment. Then he turned a bit, looking about, and took an unsteady step. He stabilized and continued to empty himself.

“... the fuck you go, boy?”

He looked down again, watching himself some more. Then looked up again, looking about.

“Rex!”

He finished relieving himself and put his instrument away. He swayed and leaned on the rail with both of his arms. He looked to his left.

“Rex! The fuck!”

He looked right.

“Boy! Where the fuck you go?”

He took a step back and a step over. He walked down the steps of the porch. He pulled up on his leather rig, snugging it up, and took a few wobbly steps away from the white house and stopped. He turned and turned again.

“Hey! You drunk fucker! Where’d you go!”

He looked toward the watershed.

“He’s gonna come,” Virgil said.

He did just that. He started walking toward the shed. We waited, and after a moment we heard him laugh as he got closer.

“Boy?”

He walked around the shed. I let him get a step past me, and I snatched him. I gathered him up quick and got his arms behind his back. Virgil took his pistol. He tried to resist. Virgil told him to settle, but he didn’t. Virgil slapped him hard a few times, and he went slack in my arms. I pulled him over, propped him up on the back wall of the shed. Virgil lodged his handkerchief into his mouth.