Richard Matheson - The Gun Fight

Julia shook her head slowly. “But . . . why should he say such a thing to you?” she asked.

“Don’t ask me, ma. I didn’t even know who the girl was until the Sutton kid told me.”

“Who is she?”

“Louisa Harper, Sutton said. Who’s she?”

“Louisa Harper.” Julia put two fingers against her cheek and stared into space, trying to place the name. “I don’t think I ever—”

Suddenly her mouth opened a second in surprised realization. “I think I know,” she said.

“What?” he said, still eating.

“You know the girl I keep telling you about; the one who stares at you in church?”

“You tell me there’s a girl who stares. I never saw one.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t notice,” she said with the affectionate scorn of a wife. “But she does stare at you. And . . . yes, come to think of it,” she went on, nodding to herself, “I think I’ve seen her walking with Robby Coles after church.”

“So,” he said. “Any more coffee?”

She poured the heavy black coffee into his mug. “You know what I think?” she asked him.

“What’s that?”

“I think she told Robby Coles that you pestered her.”

“That’s right, that’s what I said,” he answered, nodding. “That’s what Coles told me she said.”

“Well, of course,” she said.

Benton looked up at his pretty wife with a grin. “Of course what , ma?” he asked.

“Louisa Harper is in love with you.”

He stared at her, speechless. “She—”

“In love with you.” Julia nodded with a confident smile. “Of course she is. All the girls in Kellville are in love with you. You’re their big hero.”

“Oh . . .” Benton waved a disgusted hand, “. . . that’s hogwash.”

She smiled at him.

“That’s nonsense, Julia,” he insisted.

“No, it isn’t,” she said with a laugh. “Ever since we moved here everyone’s looked up to you. The boys look at you as if you were a god. The girls look at you as if—”

“Why should they?” John said, embarrassed.

“Because you’re a hero to them, dear,” she said. “You’re John Benton, the fearless Ranger, the quick-shooting lawman.”

He peered at her until the mock-serious expression on her face broke into an impish grin. “Ha, ha,” he said flatly.

“It’s true,” she said. “To them you’re Hardin and Longley and . . . and Hickok all rolled into one.”

“That’s nonsense,” he said. “I haven’t worn a gun in town the whole two years we’ve been here.”

“Yes, but they know what you did in the Rangers.”

“Oh, that’s silly,” he mumbled and reached for his coffee mug.

She sat down with her peas again. “Yes, I expect that’s what it is,” she said. “She’s in love with you and she probably dreamed out loud in front of Robby.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” he said in disgust. “If it’s true, that is. What’s the matter with the girl, doesn’t she know any better than that? She has that Coles kid thinkin’ I’m a . . . a gallivantin’ dude or somethin’.”

Julia laughed. “He’ll get over it,” she said, “as soon as he knows it isn’t true.”

“How do you know it isn’t true?” Benton said, forcing down the grin with effort.

Julia looked up at her husband with soft eyes for a moment, then back to her moving fingers.

“I know,” she said, gently.

Chapter Six

Agatha Winston walked down Davis Street in the late afternoon, her thin legs whipping like reeds against the heavy blackness of her skirt and the half dozen petticoats beneath. She was a tall, gaunt woman with eyes of jade, and features molded in sharp angles and pinches. She was a hidebound churchgoer who used her self-styled Christianity as a bludgeon on all those not in the accredited fold.

Right now Agatha Winston was on a crusade.

Like a dark bird of vengeance, she swooped down on the small house of her sister, umbrella stem clicking on the plank sidewalk, skirts a vindictive rustle. Mouth a gash, she shoved in the gate and kicked it shut behind her as she clumped and swished toward the porch steps.

Inside the house, the bell tinkled reactively to the wrathful tugging of Agatha Winston’s clawlike fingers. She stood tensely before the door, one black and pointed shoe-tip tapping steadily at the porch, the other pressing down a corner of the welcome mat.

There was a stirring in the house. From its depths, Miss Winston heard the voice of her sister calling, “I’ll be right there,” and then the light sound of her sister’s shoes across an inside floor. Through the gauzy haze of freshly laundered curtains, Miss Winston saw her sister’s approach.

The door opened. “Agatha,” said the widow Harper in surprise.

“Elizabeth,” Miss Winston replied with a concise moving of lips.

“Come in, my dear, please,” Elizabeth Harper said, stepping aside, her soft, pink face wrinkled in a welcoming smile. “My, what a lovely surprise.”

“That’s as it may be,” declared Agatha Winston. “You may not think so when you find out why I’m here.”

The widow Harper looked confused as she shut the door quietly, then turned back to her sister who was driving her black umbrella into the stand like a mariner harpooning a whale. She stood smiling pleasantly while Agatha removed her bonnet with quick, agitated motions.

Agatha Winston lifted a piercing glance up the stairwell. “Where is Louisa?” she asked in a guarded tone.

“Why . . . up in her room, Agatha,” Elizabeth Harper said, looking curiously at her sister. “Why do you—”

Miss Winston took her sister’s arm with firm fingers and led her into the quiet, sun-flecked sitting room.

“Sit down,” she said curtly and the widow Harper settled like a diffident butterfly on the couch edge, one hand plucking at the grey-threaded auburn of her curls. She was forty-four, a gentle woman, helpless in all things.

Agatha Winston looked down grimly at the rose-petal cheeks of her sister.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard,” she said.

“Heard?” The widow Harper swallowed nervously. She had always been somewhat afraid of her elder sister.

“It’s shocking,” Miss Winston said in sudden anger. “It’s just shocking.”

Elizabeth Harper looked dismayed. Her hands stirred restlessly in the lap of her yellow patterned calico, then twined frail fingers.

“What . . . is, Agatha?” she asked, uneasily.

“The terrible gossip that’s going around town,” Agatha Winston said. “The shameful story . . . about Louisa.”

Alarm flared up suddenly in the widow Harper’s face as she heard mentioned her only child. “Louisa?” she said hastily. “What about her, Agatha?”

Agatha Winston sat down on the couch with one sure motion, legs and back making a perfect right angle, face stern with righ teous indignation.

“She’s told you nothing?” she asked her sister.

The widow Harper’s lower lip trembled. “Told me about what?” she asked, eyes almost frantic.

Miss Winston drew in a harsh breath. “I think we had better ask Louisa about that,” she said. “I don’t even want to speak of it until I hear what she has to say.” She stood, a bleak wraith of resolution. “Come,” she said.

Elizabeth Harper fluttered up. “Agatha, please. What is it?” she begged.

Agatha Winston clasped gaunt hands before her breast.

“What do you know of Mister John Benton?” she asked bluntly.

Her sister stared back without comprehension. “John Benton?” she repeated the name. “What—”

“Early this afternoon—about two o’clock I’ll allow—Mrs. Van Dekker came into the shop.” Agatha Winston’s dark eyes probed at her sister’s. “She told me something that made me shudder . . . positively shudder, Elizabeth.”