Richard Matheson - The Gun Fight

Benton’s horse was one of the two cutting horses in the ranch’s small remuda, a bridle-wise gelding that Benton had spent over a year in training. Cutting was a ticklish and difficult job, the most exacting duty any horse could be called upon to perform. It demanded of the mount an apex of physical and mental control plus a calm dispatch that would not panic the animal being cut from the herd. A cutting horse had to spin and turn as quickly as the cow, always edging the reluctant animal away from the herd without frightening it. This twisting and turning entailed much good riding too and, although Benton had ridden since he was eight, the process of sitting a cutting horse had taken all the ability he had.

Benton knew he rode Socks on jobs that any ordinary cow horse could manage. But he was extremely fond of the bay and never demanded a great deal of it outside of its cutting duties. Riding fence was no effort for the bay. It enjoyed the ambling walk with its master in the warm, sunlight-brimming air. Benton would pat the bay’s neck as they rode.

“Hammerhead,” he’d tell the horse, “someday we’ll all be rich and ride to town in low-necked clothes and have thirty hands workin’ for us.”

The bay would snort its reply and Benton would pat it again and say, “You’re all right, fuzz tail.”

When Benton rode the range, he wore a converted Colt-Walker .44 at his left side, butt forward. Sometimes it seemed as if it even worried Julia for him to wear a gun around the ranch.

“Honey, you want a snake to kill me?” he’d say with a grin.

“I don’t want any thing to kill you,” she’d answer grimly. “Or any body. ”

That day, while riding fence, Benton reached across his waist and drew out the pistol with an easy movement. He held it loosely in his hand and looked at its smooth metal finish, the notches of the cylinder, the curved trigger in its heavy guard.

He often found himself looking at the Colt; it was the only thing he had that really reminded him of the old days. He’d killed nine men with this pistol in the line of Ranger duty. There was Jack Kramer in Trinity City, Max Foster outside of Comanche, Rebel Dean, Johnny Ostrock, Bob Melton, Sam and Barney Dobie, Aaran Graham’s two sons; nine men lying in their graves because of the mechanism in this four-pound piece of apparatus.

Benton hefted the pistol in his palm, wondering if he missed the old days, wondering if violence had become a part of him. He slipped his finger into the guard and spun the pistol around backward and forward in the old way, then shoved it back into its holster with a quick, blurred movement of his hand. Miss it, hell. He was alive, he had a good little layout, a wonderful wife; one day there would be children—that was enough for any man.

He was grateful the percentages had passed over him. By Ranger standards he had outlived himself at least five times. Another month in the service, another year maybe and he would have died like the others, like the many others. As horrible as it had been, the incident with Graham and his sons had spared him that.

Benton threw back his shoulders and took a deep breath of the clean air. Life, he thought, that’s what counts; killing is for animals.

He found the trapped calf near the spring. It was stuck under the fence where it had tried to wriggle through a gap caused by water erosion. Benton could hear the loud quaver of its bawling a half mile away. He nudged his flower rowels across the bay’s flanks and the horse broke into an easy trot down the trail.

The calf looked up at Benton’s approach, its big, dark eyes wild with fright. Its back hooves kicked futilely at the earth, spraying dirt over the long grass.

Benton jumped down from the bay, grounded the reins, and started for the calf, a grin on his face.

“Hello, you old acorn,” he said. “Runnin’ off to the city again?”

The calf bawled loudly and kicked again at the scoured ground.

“All right, little girl,” Benton said, drawing on the gloves he’d pulled from his back Levi’s pocket, “take it easy now. Poppa will get you out.”

He hunkered down beside the fence and the calf complained loudly as Benton grabbed the wire that held it pinned down, the sharp barbs embedded deeply in its skin and flesh.

“Easy now, deacon,” Benton spoke soothingly as he tried to draw out the barbs so he could raise the taut wire. He grimaced slightly as the calf squalled loudly, blood oozing across its spotted back. “ Ea -sy now, little girl, we’ll get you out in no time.”

Fifteen minutes later, the bay was moving across the range, leading the roped yearling. Benton glanced back and grinned at the tugging calf.

“Gotta get your wounds fixed, runty,” he told the yearling, then turned back with a shake of his head. The calf’s mother had died the previous winter and the calf had been more trouble than it was worth since then, having to be fed because water and grass were still too heavy a fare for its young stomach and, invariably, wandering from the herd and getting lost.

“We’re goin’ to sell you for boot leather, acorn,” Benton said lightly, not even looking back. “That’s what we’re goin’ to sell you for.”

The calf dragged along behind, sulky and complaining.

Back at the ranch, Benton led the calf into the barn and salved up its back, then turned it loose in the corral.

The rig was standing in front of the house as he walked toward it. It looked familiar but he wasn’t sure where he’d seen it before. He moved in long strides across the yard and went into the kitchen. He was getting a drink of cool water from the dipper when Julia came in.

“Who’s visitin’?” he asked.

“The Reverend Bond,” she said.

“Oh? What’s he want?”

“He came to see you.”

Benton looked at Julia curiously. “What for?” he asked.

Julia shook her head once. “He won’t tell me,” she said. “But I think I know.”

“What?”

Julia turned to the stove. “Well, from the way he avoided the subject, I’d say that story.”

“What story?”

“About Louisa Harper and you.”

A look of disgust crossed Benton’s face. “Oh, no,” he said in a pained voice. “ More? ”

He shook his head and groaned softly to himself as he took off the bull-hide chaps and tossed them on a chair by the door. “Oh . . . blast,” he said. “What’s goin’ on in town anyway?”

At the door, he turned to her. “Aren’t you comin’ in?” he asked.

“You think I should?” she asked. “The Reverend doesn’t seem to think it’s anything for me to hear.”

He came back to her, his brow lined with curious surprise. “What is it?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re startin’ to believe this thing?”

Julia swallowed nervously. “Of course not,” she said. “It’s just that . . .”

He hooked his arm in hers. “Come on, ma,” he said amusedly. “In we go.”

In the hallway, he pinched her and she whispered, “Stop that!” But the tenseness was gone from her face.

As they entered the small sitting room, the Reverend Omar Bond stood up and extended his hand to Benton with a smile.

“Mr. Benton,” he said.

“Reverend.” Benton nodded. “Excuse the hand. I been out ridin’.”

Bond smiled. “Not at all,” he said.

“Sit down, Reverend,” Benton said, putting Julia on a chair. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, sir,” the Reverend Bond said, “I think that . . .” He hesitated and glanced at Julia.

“That’s all right, Reverend,” Benton said, smiling guardedly. “My wife knows all about it. Who’s been tellin’ you stories now? Louisa Harper?”