Richard Matheson - The Gun Fight

“Yes?” he said.

There was silence for a terrible moment, a silence that seemed, suddenly, as if it would be permanent, holding them all fast in it.

But then Mrs. Coles’ faint voice spoke. “I . . . came about . . . about the fight,” she said, nervously.

Benton tightened a little but still he didn’t understand. He looked down at her with confused eyes. “I . . .” he started and then waited.

“My boy is . . .” Mrs. Coles started and then suddenly it all came rushing out. “Oh, Mister Benton, don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt my boy!”

Benton jerked back the upper part of his body as if someone had struck him across the face; his expression was one of stunned shock.

“Don’t . . .” he started to repeat her words, then broke off shakily.

“Please, Mister Benton, please. I’m begging you as his mother. Don’t hurt him! He’s just a boy. He doesn’t know anything about g-guns or-or fighting. He’s just a boy, Mister Benton, just a boy!”

Benton’s lips twitched as he sought for proper words but couldn’t find them.

“Mister Benton, I beg of you,” Jane Coles went on brokenly and Julia shuddered, hearing in the older woman’s voice a repetition of her own words to Mrs. Coles’ husband a little over an hour before.

“Missus Coles, I . . .” Benton said nervously. “I . . . I didn’t ask for this fight. I didn’t—”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Jane Coles said miserably. “All I know is I love my boy and I’ll die if anything happens to him.”

“But Missus Coles, I just told you I—”

“Oh, please, Mister Benton, please. ” There were tears now, running down the small woman’s cheeks, and her hands were shaking helplessly before her.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked her quietly as if he really thought she could give him an answer.

She sobbed helplessly, staring at him, unable to see any part of the situation but the threat to her boy.

“Missus Coles, what do you want me to do ?” Benton asked again, his voice rising. “Just wait for your son to kill me?”

“He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t!” she sobbed. “He’s a good boy, there’s nothing mean in him. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, Mister Benton, not anyone!”

“Missus Coles, your own husband told me to be in town by three o’clock or Robby would come after me. What choice does that give me?”

She had no answer, only frightened looks and sobs.

“Missus Coles, I don’t want this thing any more than you do. I have a life too, you know. I have my wife and I have this ranch. I’m happy here, Missus Coles, I don’t want to die any more than Robby does. But I’m being forced into this, can’t you see that?”

“Don’t hurt him, Mister Benton,” she pleaded. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt my boy.”

Benton started to say something, then, abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked away from her. At the door to the inner hall, he turned.

“You’d better go home and talk to your husband, Missus Coles,” he said grimly. “He’s the only one that can stop this fight now. I’m sorry but my hands are tied.”

“Mister Benton!”

But he was gone. Julia moved quickly to the trembling woman and put an arm around her.

“You’ve got to stop him, Missus Benton,” Jane Coles begged. “You’ve got to stop him from hurting my boy.”

Julia looked at her with a hopeless expression on her face. Then she sighed and spoke.

“You’d better go see your husband, Missus Coles,” she said softly. “He is the only one who can stop it now. I’m . . . I’m sorry.” She fought down the sob. “You . . . don’t know how sorry I am.”

“But he won’t listen to me,” Mrs. Coles sobbed. “He just won’t listen to me.”

Julia closed her eyes and turned away.

“Please go,” she muttered thickly. “That’s all there is. Believe me, that’s all there is.”

When Jane Coles had climbed into her rig like a dying woman and driven away, Julia walked slowly into the silence of the bedroom. John was sitting on the bed, his head slumped forward, his hands hanging loosely and motionlessly between his legs. On the bedside table his coffee stood cold and untouched.

He didn’t even look up as she came into the room. Only when she sat down beside him did he turn his head slowly and meet her glance. His eyes were lifeless.

Then his head dropped forward again and his voice, as he spoke, was husky and without strength.

“I’m tired, ma,” he said. “I’m awful tired.”

Slowly, her arm moved around his back and she pressed her face into his shoulder.

“I know,” she murmured. Her eyes closed and she felt warm tears running slowly down her cheeks. “I know.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

He tried to sit down and rest but there seemed to be a spring in him that coiled tight every time he sat down. First the tension would affect his hands and feet, making them twitch. Then his shoulders would twist with a tortured restlessness, his hands would close into white-knuckled fists, and the turbulence in him would show in his eyes as a haunted flickering.

Then, abruptly, he’d be on his feet again, pacing back and forth on the sitting room rug, the fist of one hand pounding slowly and methodically into the palm of the other. His gaze would flit about the room from one object to another as though he had lost something and was making a rapid, futile search for it. His boots scuffed and thudded on the thick rug and there was no rest in him.

Robby dropped down onto the couch for the twenty-seventh time and sat there feeling the coils drawing in again. His chest rose and fell with quick, agitated breaths as he stared at his hands.

On the bottom step in the hall, his brother sat peering between the bannisters, the freckles on his face standing out like cinnamon sprinkled on milk. He watched Robby start to his feet again and begin pacing.

“When you gonna fight him?” he asked.

Robby didn’t answer. He breathed as if there were an obstruction in his throat.

“Robby?”

“Three o’clock. L-eave me alone.”

“Where, Robby? Are ya goin’ out to his ranch?”

Robby’s teeth gritted together as he stopped and looked out the window at the street.

This was Armitas Street, Kellville, Texas. It was his town, it had dozens of houses and hundreds of people and stores and stables and horses and life and future. Yet in—how long?; he glanced nervously at the hall clock and saw that it was five minutes after two.

In less than an hour it might all be taken from him.

Might be? What question was there? He couldn’t draw a gun like John Benton, he couldn’t fire half as quickly or accurately. He’d never even gotten the hang of cocking the hammer after each shot; he’d always fumbled at it.

He jammed his teeth together to stop the chattering. Oh, good God, he was going to die! The thought impaled him on a spear of frozen terror. He jammed his eyes shut and felt a violent shudder run down his back.

“Robby, where are ya gonna?”

“I said, leave me alone,” Robby muttered.

“What did you say, Robby?”

“I said—! Oh . . . never mind. Shut up, will ya?”

“But where are ya gonna fight him?”

“In the square! Now will ya leave me alone!”

Jimmy sat staring at his pacing brother. He wished he was big enough to fight somebody with a gun like Robby. Maybe he could fight his father.

The vision crossed his mind with a pleasant tread—him and his father facing each other in the square, guns buckled to their waists. Awright pa, fill yer hand ! Sudden drawing, the blast of pistol fire, his father clutching at his chest, him re-holstering his pistol and running to his mother. It’s all right now, ma, it’s all right. I killed him. He’s dead now and he can’t hurt us no more.