Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack

I rested Skinny Jack’s hat across his face, then moved toward the bush at the edge of the large rock that separated me from the way station. I got flat on the ground with my Winchester and leveled it through the scrub bush toward the station window. I rested the rifle’s barrel through the bush on a solid piece of branch in front of me, giving me a steady bead, and flipped up my back sight.

I figured I was about a hundred and twenty-five yards out, and for some reason, besides being very angry, I was feeling lucky.

I aimed my Winchester at the center of the window and waited. Then I waited some more. With my cheek to the stock and my eye looking down the barrel, I was waiting and ready.

“Come on, you no-good sonofabitch,” I said quietly to myself. “Surely you’re not done. Show yourself; show your no-good goddamn sonofabitch coward self. Just show me a piece, the smallest piece, and...”

There he was. I squeezed off one shot. Then I heard screaming from inside, followed by a woman running out the front door.

She ran across the road and up a slight embankment. She was a short, heavy woman wearing a dark dress that she held up as she ran. She slipped trying to get up the embankment but kept churning and churning her feet until she was upright, over the rise and running away from the way station.

I cocked the rifle and waited for another shot, but there was no movement and no more sound from within the way station.

I looked over to Virgil. He was making his way back to his horse.

I watched the window for a moment longer, then pulled my rifle from the bush, got to my feet, and made my way back to my horse.

I mounted up but did not move out onto the road. I rode off farther from the road and angled my way toward the direction in which the woman was running.

I rode a ways and then I saw her. She was in the bottom of a dry wash, no longer running, but was bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

She looked up as I rode closer. Her round face was tearstained and her chest was heaving as she continued to try to catch her breath.

I dismounted and walked toward her.

She was frightened and tried to back away.

I showed her my badge.

“I’m Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch, ma’am,” I said. “I’m here now. You’ll be okay.”

She looked at me, chest still heaving, and dropped to her knees.

I moved to her. She looked up at me and shook her head.

“Who are you?” I said.

“This... here,” she said, trying to breathe and shaking her head, “is... our place. Me... and my husband, Ray.”

She started crying.

“What’s happened here?”

“He’s dead,” she said. “Big Ray is dead.”

“Just try and tell me what we’re dealing with here.”

“Three men come here,” she said.

She dropped to her bottom and leaned back to the side of the wash, shaking her head slowly.

“Me and Ray been out here eighteen years. Never had a problem, raised two boys here, now he’s dead, just like that. He’s lying out there in the field behind the house, dead.”

“What about the three men?”

“Two of them left. They left the third man and he shot and killed my Ray this morning. He would have killed me, too, but I took care of him, I pulled two of his teeth. Then you come riding up and shot him. Thank God in Heaven. Thank God.”

“What caused him to shoot your husband?”

“I do not think that man needs a reason. Besides being a goddamn miscreant,” she said. “He’s completely out of his mind, delirious and sick with the fever.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I sure hope so... oh, God, I hope so. He screamed and fell back, holding his bloody face. Then I got up, opened the door, and ran.”

“The other two men, when did they leave?”

“This morning,” she said. “While the other fella was asleep. He woke up mad as hell and with no horse. Them other two took his horse. Wished my boys would had been here. This would have never have happened.”

“Where are they,” I said. “Your boys.”

“They made a supply run and took all the horses to get re-shod over in Pilgrim’s Corner,” she said. “Be back anytime. Ray told the sonofabitch to wait and he’d have a fresh horse, but no, he was angry and... Oh, God, I don’t know, this is, oh, God...”

“How many of them, your boys?”

“Two boys. Ray Junior and Carl.”

She lowered her head and sobbed.

“Stay right here,” I said. “Don’t move.”

I moved to tie off my horse as Virgil came riding up the wash with his Winchester in hand.

“What do we got?” he said.

“Shot him,” I said. “Not sure if he’s dead or alive. Neither is she.

“This woman, this is her place here, hers and her husband. She said her husband was killed this morning by the one man that was left here, the sick one. Guess Truitt and Black left him here, left him to his damnable fate.”

“Who else here, besides her?”

“Nobody. She said her two sons were expected back here soon.”

“Ray told him he could have a horse just as soon as my boys returned,” she said. “But he shot Ray anyway.”

Virgil nodded, then dismounted.

I exchanged my Winchester for my eight-gauge, and once Virgil got tied off we moved off, following the wash south.

Virgil and I followed the rock-bottom wash for about a hundred yards, and then it curved back toward the road. We crossed the road out of sight of the way station. Then we made our way back toward the building. Once we had it in sight we cut back to the west, walked another couple hundred yards, and came up on the depot from the back side.

We split up and moved up on opposite sides of the living quarters. After a time of waiting, hearing nothing and not seeing movement, we crossed swiftly up to the back of the way station.

The back door was cracked open, and Virgil moved up to one side of the door and I positioned myself on the other side.

I pushed on the door with the barrel of my eight-gauge and it swung open. There were no shots fired. I took off my hat and moved it just past the doorjamb, soliciting fire, but again there was nothing, and within an instant I moved in and Virgil followed.

The interior was a simple storeroom with supplies for sale and a kitchen with a counter for eating and drinking.

Lying flat on his back in the center of the room was the man with the dark scraggly beard we’d heard about. It was obvious by his size and shape he was young, but how young exactly was hard to tell because his face was covered with blood. He was very much alive and it was clear to see the result of my single shot was at least for the moment not fatal, but the bullet had clipped off his nose. The combination of his missing nose and swollen jaw from where Mrs. Opelka removed two teeth made for a grotesque image.

He turned his head ever so slightly, looking blankly at Virgil and me, and then looked back up at the ceiling. Every labored breath he took made a bubble of blood where his nose used to be.

The rifle he killed Skinny Jack with was lying in front of the north window where he dropped it when I shot him. He made no effort to go for the rifle or the pistol he had on his hip.

I moved to him and removed the pistol from his hip and snugged it behind my belt.

“Where are the other two?” Virgil said.

He choked on his blood, then spit.

“Fuck them,” he said. “They... they left me here...”

His voice was muffled and muted from a swollen mouth and a missing nose. He turned his head a little and spit a large gob of blood across the floor, and when he did we could see the bullet not only took off his nose but took a hunk of flesh from his cheek as well.