Роберт Паркер - Robert B. Parker’s Blackjack

“They... they... took my horse,” he said.

“Truitt and Bill got your nose shot off, too,” I said.

He looked at me wide-eyed as tears welled up.

“Fu... fuck them,” he said again, then moaned.

“Where are they?”

He didn’t answer. He lay motionless, staring at the ceiling.

“How about we help you,” I said. “Give you an ounce of satisfaction.”

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

“Wh... what?” he said, then spit another stream of blood. “How the fuck are you gonna give me satisfaction?”

“By you telling us where they took off to,” I said. “That would have to give you some satisfaction.”

He raised his hand up to his face where his nose used to be. Then he shook his head from side to side and spoke through clenched teeth.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Fuck...”

“Yeah, you don’t look so good,” I said. “Don’t imagine you feel too good, either.”

“Seeing how they left you here to fend for yourself,” Virgil said. “And got your nose shot off and took your horse to boot, I think the quicker you let us know where Truitt and Bill went, the better things might go for you.”

“Fuck,” he said.

He looked at the ceiling and shook his head from side to side and mumbled as if he were having a conversation with himself.

“They...” he said.

“They what?” I said.

A bubble of blood swelled up as he exhaled, and then it popped. He gasped, choked on more blood, then coughed and spit. He tried to talk, but blood filled his mouth and he gagged. I pulled a chair from the counter and grabbed him with one hand by the collar and lifted him.

“Up,” I said.

He managed to rise. He leaned over and spit. I slid the chair under him and he sat. He lowered his head as if he were about to black out.

“I got little concern for you,” I said. “Where?”

He looked worse sitting up than he did lying down. In my time fighting the Comanche I’d seen plenty of people live with faces disfigured like this, missing lips and noses and ears and scalps. He lowered his chin to his chest.

“Do not pass out on us,” I said.

“Tell us what you know,” Virgil said.

He lifted his head a little.

“You’re... you’re Hitch... and Cole,” he said.

“Bill knew you’d be after us,” he said. “Knew you was marshals in Appaloosa and that it would not be long until you was on his trail.”

He leaned over and spit blood on the floor.

“Oh... goddamn...”

“Go on,” Virgil said.

He lowered his head again.

“Why’d you shoot at us?” I said.

“He told Truitt and me you’d be coming. Figured you to be a few days back... I figured different. I’m smart like that.”

“Black’s long gone and then you poked that Winchester out that window and killed one of us,” I said. “Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“There is a good man out there dead ’cause of you,” I said. “He was younger than you. You killed him.”

“I’m sorry, goddamn it,” he said.

“You’re sorry?” I said.

It was all I could do not to raise my eight-gauge and blow his disfigured head off, but the idea of Mrs. Opelka having more of a mess to deal with than what was already being left behind by this disregard tempered my resolve.

“Why?” I said.

“Ain’t going back to being locked up. Not now, not ever.”

“What’s your story?” Virgil said.

He looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“What?” I said.

“I broke out a while back.”

Virgil glanced to me, then looked back to the bleeding man.

“Yuma?” Virgil said.

He looked at Virgil for a long bit, then nodded.

“What’s your name?” I said. “Your real name, and don’t lie.”

“Ricky,” he said. “Ravenfield.”

“You’re one of the five that escaped a few months back?” Virgil said.

He stared at Virgil for a long moment, then nodded.

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Went our separate ways. All I know is I ain’t going back there. Not now, not ever... You’ll have to kill me.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Virgil said.

“I was in that goddamn place since I was sixteen,” he said.

“For?” I said.

“Killing a man that tried to kill me.”

He lowered his head and shook it back and forth. Then he looked up to the ceiling and cried.

“Oh, God, I hurt... fuck.”

“How was it you and Truitt come to team up with Black?” Virgil said.

He breathed and breathed, then looked to Virgil with bloodshot eyes. He was having a hard time keeping his head up.

“Truitt... knew him...”

“What were you doing with Bill, for Bill?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Truitt said we’d get a good wage, I... I was trying to stay out of trouble, I was, I swear to God.”

“Good wage for what?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know?” I said.

“They talked with each other and not to me.”

“Why,” I said.

Ricky leaned over in pain and coughed blood.

“Why did you ride to Benson City?”

“Money...”

“What money?”

“We left in a hurry, and Bill knew this lady he could get money from.”

Virgil looked to me, then back to Ricky.

“How’d you know Truitt?”

He spit before he spoke.

“He come to Yuma a spell for thieving. I goddamn protected him and now this shit... Truitt acted all tough in front of Bill, but got jumpy, Truitt got jumpy and shot a goddamn lawman.”

Ricky turned his head to the side and spit again.

“Oh... hell. Oh,” he said, wincing in pain. “The next thing you know we are on the run and... Truitt don’t think shit about me. Said he didn’t need me, said he was the gun hand. Fuck. Then I get sick as hell and now they goddamn leave me.”

“Where we gonna find them?” Virgil said.

He tilted his head a little to look at us. Then he looked to me with a pleading expression.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “If you can do me a favor.”

“You ain’t in a very good position to be asking for favors, Ricky,” Virgil said.

Ricky moaned and tears welled up as his eyes looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Finish me...” he said. “I do not want to live no more.”

Virgil glanced over to me, then looked back to Ricky.

“I don’t got nothing now,” Ricky said. “And all I done was wrong and I’d hate like hell to live like this and I damn sure don’t want my life to be the last life I take... Please?”

Virgil looked to me.

I nodded.

“Sure,” I said. “Talk.”

“They’re headed for Socorro,” he said.

Virgil looked to me.

“Lying, Ricky?” I said.

“I ain’t,” he said.

“They gone to La Verne?” I said.

“No,” he said. “Socorro.”

Ricky lowered his chin again and was still.

“Ricky?” I said.

He did not move.

“Ricky?”

He looked up.

“We know about La Verne,” I said.

Ricky shook his head ever so slightly.

“Socorro,” he said. “That is where you will find Truitt... bet your ass.”

“What makes you so sure?” Virgil said.

“Truitt has a bunch of shitheads he runs with from there,” he said. “His gang, he says.”

Virgil looked at me and shook his head.

“You telling the truth?” I said.

“Mark my words,” Ricky said.

“Why should we believe you, Ricky?” I said.

“Believe what you want.”

Ricky leaned over and moaned.

“We been moving fast,” he said, and then spit some more blood into the patch of blood on the floor in front of the chair. “You can catch the shit. The threat of you or any other law... was... fading from his sight, Bill’s, too.”