Richard Matheson - The Gun Fight

His eyes focused on Robby who was on the couch again. He looked over at the clock.

“There isn’t much time,” he said, helpfully.

Robby forced his lips together, eyes staring at the floor.

“Robby, there isn’t much time.”

Robby stood up with a lurching movement and went to the window again. He stood there tensely, punching slowly at his cupped palm. Jimmy sat there listening to the dead smacking sound of the fist hitting the palm.

“Robby, there isn’t much—”

“Will you shut up !” Robby screamed at him, whirling, his face contorted with rage. Jimmy felt a sudden jolting in his stomach and drew back from the bannister quickly.

“I was only—”

“Get out of here!” his brother yelled. “I’m sick of lookin’ at ya!”

Jimmy sat there rigidly, thinking how much Robby looked like his father when he was mad.

Robby started for him. “I said—get outta here,” he warned, his voice a strange, unnatural sound.

Jimmy pushed up to his feet and ran up the steps, a sudden dryness in his mouth. At the head of the stairs, he stopped and glanced back. Robby hadn’t come out into the hall; he could hear him down in the sitting room, pacing again.

Slowly, he settled on the top step and looked down the staircase. He wished he could wear a gun like Robby.

In the sitting room, Robby jumped up from the couch as a thudding of horses’ hooves sounded outside. It’s him —the words exploded in his mind as he ran for the window, his heart like a frenziedly beaten drum. He felt his legs almost buckle as he moved and he grunted in shock as he caught his balance.

There was no horse in the street. Robby drew back from the window with a frightened sucking in of breath. Did Benton ride into the backyard, was he going to trap him? Robby dashed for the table and, with nerveless fingers, jerked the Colt from its holster and backed away, his eyes wide with apprehension.

The back door slammed shut and there was a heavy clumping of boots in the kitchen. No, it couldn’t be Benton, he wouldn’t come in like that. It was his father, it had to be his father. He mustn’t let his father see him like this, shivering, standing here with his pistol out-thrust and shaking in his hand. But what if it was Benton? Oh God, oh God, I can’t !—he thought, choking on a repressed sob.

“Where are you, sir?” he heard his father’s voice then and, hastily, he put the pistol down on the table and sat down.

“I’m, I’m . . .” he began, then braced himself. “ Here , father,” he said, not realizing how loudly his voice rang out in the house.

Matthew Coles entered the room, carrying a box with him.

“Where is your mother?” he asked.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Robby said, still sitting there, feeling as if a great weight were settling on him.

“Well, did she go out?”

“Y-yes,” Robby faltered. “She . . . she just went out in the . . . rig.”

“In the rig?” Matthew Coles said in displeased surprise. Robby didn’t reply. He watched his father put the box on the table.

“Well, we’ll settle that later,” Matthew Coles said grimly. “There are more important things to be discussed now.”

He opened the box and took out the pistol in it.

“I’ve brought you that new Colt,” he told Robby. “Since you seem to have some difficulty with hammering. The double action in this model should take care of that. I don’t believe you’ll need more than two shots, will you.”

The last sentence was not spoken as a question.

Robby watched as his father broke open the cylinder and spun it. He heard his father’s grunt and then watched him break open the seal on a new box of cartridges. Carefully, Matthew Coles inserted a cartridge into each chamber, then spun the cylinder again. He looked into the barrel from the back, then grunted again, satisfied. Jerking his hand, he snapped the barrel back into place and spun the cylinder with one thumb.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that will do fine.”

He slid the Colt into Robby’s holster and forgot about it. Pulling out a chair, he sat across from his son.

“Now,” he said, “as to Benton’s mode of fighting. I’ve spoken to several men who claim to have seen him fight once in Trinity City. According to them, he wears his pistol—a Colt-Walker single action, I might add—wears it on his left hip, stock forward, using a cross draw. Furthermore,” he went on, “there is reason to believe he’s very much out of practice. After all, he’s been away from it a long time.”

I’ve never been near it—the words moved across Robby’s brain but he didn’t speak them. He sat staring at his father, his eyes unblinking, his entire body feeling numbed and dead.

“These men further claim that Benton never fires at a distance of less than thirty feet. So that, I believe you may be able to seize an advantage over him by drawing your weapon at a greater distance. Your accuracy is good enough for that; especially with the better rifling in this—” he gesture toward the gun in the holster, “—weapon.”

Robby swallowed the heavy lump in his throat. No, I’m sorry, he thought, I’m not going to do it. But, again, he said nothing. He sat stiffly, listening to his father plan his life away while, under the table, his nails dug into his palms without him feeling it.

“I believe you’ll find much less in this battle than you expect, sir,” Matthew Coles went on confidently. “John Benton has been away from gunplay a long while. Furthermore, I think we’ve seen ample evidence that he’s lost his nerve. In particular, his attempts to back out of this meeting. Then, of course, there was the time he refused, point-blank, to aid the men of our town in that posse. Yes—” Matthew Coles nodded once, “—it’s clear that the man is no longer what he once was.”

Robby’s throat was petrifying. It came slowly, starting at the bottom and rising as if someone poured cement in his mouth and he kept swallowing it. He shuddered, his hands twitching in his lap.

“As to having the issue settled in the town rather than out of it, well, I believe you can understand that. This entire matter can be settled only when the people of the town see that you are willing to defend the honor of your intended bride. They must see it; for the sake of all concerned.”

Silence a moment. Matthew Coles drew out his watch and pressed in the catch. The thinly wrought gold cover sprang open and he looked calmly down at the face. His head nodded once with a curt motion and he closed the watch and put it back into his pocket.

“It’s time,” he said, looking at his son with a sort of pride. “Shall we go, sir?”

Robby didn’t answer. There was something cold and terrible crawling in his stomach as he stared at his father.

“Sir?” asked Matthew Coles.

“I—”

His father stood up with one, unhesitant motion. “Are you ready, sir?” he asked like a general asking his troops if they were ready for suicidal battle.

Robby found himself standing up even though he didn’t want to. He started for the door on numbed legs.

“Your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, his voice slightly acidulous.

“Father, I—”

“Put on your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, calmly.

I’ve got to tell you!—Robby thought in agony of speechless terror. But he found himself moving back to the table on legs that felt like blocks of stone, he saw his hands reaching for the belt.

It weighed a hundred pounds; his shaking hands could hardly lift it.

“Come, sir, there’s no time to waste. We want to be there before three.”

Robby put the gunbelt around his back and fumbled at the buckle. As he did, he stared down at the butt of the new Colt and thought about drawing it against Benton. He thought of walking across the square toward the tall ex-Ranger, of trying to outdraw a man who had killed thirteen outlaws; thirteen men who, themselves, could have outdrawn Robby without trying.