Ralph Compton - Blood and Gold

Later I helped Lila prepare a meal of corn pone and sowbelly, and although she accepted my assistance, we worked in silence, things said and unsaid standing like a barbed wire fence between us.

All this time, I was aware of Ezra’s black eyes on me, following my every move. The gunman’s suspicions were aroused and I knew he wouldn’t let it go until he remembered where he’d seen me.

After we’d eaten and the day died around us, the sickle moon rose in a pale blue sky and a rising wind set the flames of the fire to dancing.

Wingo rose and stepped to his blanket roll, reached inside and found cigars and a bottle of whiskey. The man had an odd smile on his face, cruel and calculating, and I felt uneasy, wondering what was to come next.

I didn’t have long to wait.

Wingo squatted by the fire, the bottle held loosely in his hand. He turned and winked at Ezra, then said across the fire to the intently watching Ned, “Hey, Pops, you like whiskey?”

Ned Tryon ran his tongue over his dry lips, fascinated, his eyes on the bottle like a man watches a rattlesnake. He rubbed the back of his mouth with a trembling hand and finally said: “Sure I like whiskey.”

Wingo nodded. “Thought you did.”

The gunman had read all the signs and pegged Ned for a drunk, and now, his eyes glittering scarlet in the firelight, he asked: “You care for a swig or two?”

Unable to speak, all Ned could do was nod.

“My pa doesn’t want your whiskey,” Lila flared at Wingo. She rose and placed a protective arm around her father’s shoulders. “He’s unwell. Leave him alone.”

Wingo smiled, his face sadistic. “That right, Pops? You gonna take orders from your daughter and make me drink this here bottle all by my ownself?”

“Let him be, Wingo,” I said.

The gunman snapped his head around. “Puncher, you keep the hell out of this.”

“The man has a problem with whiskey,” I said. “You’ll do him no favor.”

“Seems to me, Ned,” Ezra said, his voice smooth, “that if a man wants a sup of whiskey, why, that’s his own business.”

Ned nodded, reckless eyes fixed on the bottle. “My own business, that’s right,” he mumbled. Ned turned his head to Lila. “Just one sup, daughter. It will steady me.”

“Of course it will,” Wingo said. “Make a new man of you. Ain’t that right, Ezra?”

“Sure enough,” Ezra agreed. “Nothing like a drink of good whiskey to steady a man down, make him see things in a better light.”

Wingo held up the bottle and shook it, the amber contents sloshing. “Come an’ get it, Pops.”

Despite Lila’s anguished cry of protest, Ned rose unsteadily to his feet. He rubbed his mouth again with an unsteady fist and stepped toward Wingo.

The gunman held up a warning hand. “Not so fast, Pops.” He smiled, his yellow wolf’s teeth shining like wet piano keys. “You don’t think you’re gonna get this fine Kentucky whiskey for free, do you?”

Ned stopped. “What do you want?”

“Want? Why, I don’t want much.”

“Name your price,” Ned said.

Wingo turned to Ezra. “Well, this man said it straight up, all honest and true blue as could be. He said, name your price. What should I charge him, Ezra?”

The dark gunman’s smile was thin, without humor. “Can you sing, Pops?”

Startled, Ned shook his head.

“He can’t sing, Lafe,” Ezra said, pretending deep disappointment.

“Well, maybe he can dance.” Wingo looked up at Ned. “Well, how about it, Pops? Can you dance? Maybe one of them Missouri jigs I’ve heard so much about.”

Dumbly, Ned Tryon nodded, looking impossibly old and wearied in the revealing firelight.

I’d seen enough. I sprang to my feet, rage simmering in me. “Wingo, give him the bottle or don’t, but leave the man his dignity.”

Wingo’s draw when it came was a blinding blur of motion and I suddenly found myself staring into the business end of a Colt that looked as big as a railroad tunnel.

“Boy”—Wingo smiled, his voice level and conversational—“you got two simple choices: Sit down or die right where you stand.”

Ezra was studying me closely. He hadn’t drawn his gun, but he was coiled and ready and I knew when it came his draw would be as fast as a striking snake.

Now wasn’t the time.

I gulped down my touchy, eighteen-year-old pride like a dry chicken bone and sat, humiliation burning in my cheeks. I caught Lila looking at me and saw something in her eyes, sympathy maybe, and something else . . . contempt? Disappointment? I could not tell.

Wingo holstered his Colt. “Excellent choice, boy.”

He turned his attention to Ned. “Now, Pops, where was I afore I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yeah, now I recollect. Let’s see that Missouri sodbuster’s jig.”

“You’ll give me whiskey?” Ned asked, pleading words rustling quiet from his lips like falling leaves.

“Sure,” Wingo said. “Hell, that’s what whiskey is for, ain’t it? To be drunk.” Wingo laughed and began to clap his hands, and Ezra joined in with him. Over by the fire, even Hank, hurting and dying slow like he was, grinned.

Ned put his hands on his hips and began to dance. He kicked his feet in a dreadful parody of a country jig, the desperation in his eyes awful to see. Ned Tryon knew how complete was his humiliation, but the lure of whiskey drove him on and his jig became more and more frenzied, his booted feet pounding again and again into the dusty earth, stomping out a demented, detestable dance of the damned.

Wingo and Ezra grinned and clapped faster, quickening the pace, and Ned tried to keep up, sweat beading his forehead, drenching his shirt, his mouth hanging open and slack as he gasped for breath.

“Heee-haaa!” Wingo yelled, clapping even faster, his hands blurring.

Ned danced for five terrible minutes before he faltered to a halt and fell flat on his face. The man lay there for a long while before he looked over to the grinning Wingo. “Whiskey,” he pleaded.

The gunman put the bottle to his mouth and drank deeply, then passed it to Ezra. “Nah,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re a rotten dancer an’ you don’t deserve no whiskey.”

“Please,” Ned begged. “Whiskey. For the love of God man, you promised. Give me my whiskey.”

Ezra grinned and passed the bottle back to Wingo and the big gunman stood. He stepped beside Ned and said: “You want whiskey, Pops? Here, go get it.”

Wingo tilted the bottle and poured its contents into the sand a few inches from Ned’s face. Ned tried to intercept the gushing amber cascade with his open mouth, but Wingo grinned and pushed him roughly away with his foot.

When the bottle was empty, Wingo kicked at the damp sand. “There, Pops. There’s your whiskey.”

Ned made a strangled sound deep in his throat and dived on the wet patch, stuffing the sand into his mouth, sucking at it. His mouth and beard covered in sand, he finally gave up and lay there, sobbing, his thin shoulders heaving.

The whole affair had been set up by Wingo to be a cold, calculated act of cruelty and as I watched Lila lie beside her father, whispering softly to him, my hatred for the gunman grew into a livid fire, consuming me.

I rose to my feet and stepped beside Lila and her pa. Gently I lifted Lila off her father, then raised Ned into a sitting position. The man’s eyes were wide-open, but he saw nothing as he stared into the fire like someone already dead.

Beside me, Wingo stretched and yawned. “Well, I’ve had enough fun for one night. Now it’s time for my blankets.” He reached down, grabbed Lila by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. He held the girl close to him, looking down at her tearstained face, his eyes hungry. “Come on, little lady, I don’t plan on sleeping alone.”