Robert Parker - Resolution

“Hello, Mr. Cole,” Billie said.

Virgil tipped his hat.

“You take what I tell you back to Wolfson.”

“He tole me you should write it down,” Billie said.

“Ain’t got a pencil,” Virgil said. “I’ll tell you simple. You’ll remember.”

Billie nodded.

“Tomorrow morning. An hour after sunup,” Virgil said. “He brings Lujack and Swann with him. Nobody else. They ride up here, stop out of rifle range. I’ll see them and ride down.”

“That’s all?” Billie said.

“Say it back to me,” Virgil said.

Billie repeated what Virgil had said.

“You’ll remember it just that way,” Virgil said.

“Yessir.”

“Okay, Billie,” Virgil said. “Ride on down and tell him.”

“You’re gonna meet them three by yourself,” she said.

“I am,” Virgil said. “Now go tell him.”

“Yessir,” Billie said.

She dragged the horse’s head around and headed back down the hill. Virgil and I walked back in behind the rocks and sat down.

“You hear the plan?” I said to Cato and Rose.

“We could hear,” Rose said.

“Wanna explain it to me a little?” I said to Virgil.

“I’m gonna kill ’em,” he said.

“All three,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Alone,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Swann’s a pretty fair gun hand,” Rose said.

“So I hear,” Virgil said.

“Why not bring us with you?” I said.

“’Cause they won’t come,” Virgil said. “Or they’ll come with all their troops.”

“True,” I said.

“It’s our chance,” Virgil said, “to get them out in the open.”

“You think they’ll do it?” I said.

“They’ll do it, long as it’s three of them and just me,” Virgil said.

“They’ll have the rest of the outfit out of sight someplace, ” Rose said.

“Probably will,” Virgil said. “But the closest cover is a fair piece. I figure I kill them and head up the hill, I’ll be close enough for you to cover me before the rest can get there.”

“They’ll pull up,” Cato said, “first one we knock down.”

“And once they understand that it’s over, they won’t stick around,” Virgil said.

“No,” I said. “They won’t. They got no stake in this.”

“For crissake,” Rose said. “They won’t even be getting paid anymore.”

“Swann wouldn’t stick around,” Virgil said, “Wolfson and Lujack were dead. But I gotta kill him first so’s he won’t get that chance.”

“You pull this off,” I said, “and we got the town.”

“I don’t,” Virgil said, “and we’re no worse off than we were.”

“’Cept for you bein’ dead,” I said.

“’Cept for that,” Virgil said.

It was a bright, hot day. The sky was very high. And it was very still, with no wind, the stillness made more intense by the hum of insects. I watched the three riders come out of town and head toward the slope in front of us. They were walking their horses. No one was with them. At the foot of the slope they stopped.

“It’s them,” I said to Virgil. “Swann’s on your right. West end of the line.”

Virgil nodded and clucked to his horse and rode out around the stone outcropping, and started at a slow walk down the long slope. Through the glass, I scanned the area. No sign of deputies. If they were around, they were probably behind the higher ground to the east, where I couldn’t see them. As Virgil rode down the slope, Cato and Rose lay in the rocks on either side of me with rifles. I had one, too, propped in the rocks in front of me while I was spy-glassing.

“You know what’s making that sound?” Rose said. “I been hearing it all my life. I never seen the bug that makes it.”

“I dunno,” I said. “Locust, maybe?”

“Cicadas,” Cato said.

Rose and I looked at each other.

“They make it with their hind legs,” I said.

“What I heard,” Rose said. “Rub ’em together.”

“They make it with their belly,” Cato said.

Rose and I nodded.

“See the funny-looking little bush there, where Virgil is now?” I said.

They did.

“I can hit that with a rifle,” I said. “I tried it last night.”

“I heard you,” Cato said.

Must have been the excitement of the moment, for Cato, he was positively babbling.

“Okay,” Rose said. “So if Virgil makes it back to there, he’s in rifle range, and we can cover him.”

It was long enough after sunrise so that there should have been activity in the lumber camp, but I didn’t hear anything there, either. I don’t know if the camp was laying low, holding its breath, or if I was just so locked on what was going on down the hill that I didn’t hear anything. I noticed that the cicada sound no longer registered, either, so it probably had to do with concentrating.

“Virgil beats Swann,” Cato said. “He may pull it off. I don’t know ’bout Lujack, but Wolfson pretty sure ain’t much.”

“Nobody, far as I know, ever beat Virgil,” I said.

“If they had, he wouldn’t be here,” Rose said.

“True,” I said.

“Swann’s still here, too,” Cato said.

“Also true,” I said.

“So we’ll see,” Cato said.

“And pretty quick,” I said.

Virgil reached the foot of the slope and stopped his horse maybe twenty feet in front of the three men. I looked at Swann through the glass. He was perfectly still on his horse, relaxed, looking at Virgil. Virgil had the same stillness in a fight. He had it now.

I put the glass away so I could see the whole scene.

Apparently, Wolfson said something and Virgil answered. Swann’s gaze never wavered from Virgil. Then it seemed as if nobody said anything, as if everything stopped. Then, with no visible hurry, Virgil drew. Swann was good, he had cleared his holster when Virgil shot him and turned quietly and shot Lujack, as Lujack was still fumbling with his holster. Wolfson didn’t draw. Instead, he raised both hands over his head as high as he could reach. Virgil shot him. There was almost a rhythm to it. As if something in Virgil’s head was counting time. Swann. Lujack. Wolfson. Orderly. Graceful. One bullet each. And three men dead.

Then, with the three men on the ground and their riderless horses starting to browse the short grass, Virgil opened the cylinder, took out the three spent shells, inserted three fresh ones, closed the cylinder, holstered his gun, turned his horse, and headed back up the hill at a dead gallop.

“Swann started things, ’stead of Virgil,” Cato said, “he mighta won.”

“But he didn’t,” I said.

The deputies came boiling up over the hill where they figured to be, and rode hard after Virgil. There might have been ten. They were bunched, and at the distance and speed, it was hard to count for sure. When they came to the dead men, they reined in. Some of their horses were a little spooked about the corpses and shied and danced a little. Some didn’t seem to notice that anything had happened. The horses of the dead men had paid very little attention, and were now eating grass a few feet from the bodies. I guess shooting bothered some horses and not others. Horses were hard to figure. Like people.

The deputies gathered, milling around the deceased as they discussed what to do. Nobody got down and checked on the dead men. They’d all seen it enough to recognize death when they saw it.

Virgil was well up the hill now, past the bush that marked rifle range. The deputies still milled. Virgil’s horse pounded up to the rock outcropping and around it. His hooves clattered where some of the ledge was exposed underfoot, and then he was behind the rocks, breathing in big huffs. Virgil slid off him, took a loop around a tree with the reins, and joined us in the rocks.