Robert B. Parker's Blackjack (7 page)

M
ore gunshots followed, one after another, after another. The shots appeared to all come from one rifle, from the north-facing window.

Virgil moved off the road quick to the right. I turned in the opposite direction. The shooter was focused, aiming on me as I moved quickly. The shots were coming in close, but I managed to get behind an outcropping of low rock near the side of the road.

I slid from my horse and tied off on a thick juniper and pulled my Winchester from the scabbard.

From where I was positioned, I could see Virgil; he was still riding off at a fast pace behind a rise that separated him from direct sight of the way station. When he dropped to the other side he pulled up and dismounted.

I stayed low to the ground, where I had protection from low boulders and brush, as I inched back out toward the road and Skinny Jack. I could see the way station’s window through the brush, and for a moment the shooting subsided.

Skinny Jack lay facedown, motionless in the middle of the rutted thoroughfare, with both of his arms under his body.

“Skinny Jack,” I said.

Skinny Jack moaned.

“Where are you hit?”

“Everett?”

“I’m here.”

He moaned again but did not move.

“Everett?”

“Just stay put, I’m coming to get you.”

He moaned again.

“Where are you hit?”

There was no reply.

“Skinny Jack?” I said.

Again, there was no reply.

I turned my focus back to the way station’s window and saw movement and a hint of light reflect from the barrel of the rifle in the window. Then it was gone.

I looked over and could see Virgil. He was crouched low to the ground and moving up the rise in front of him with his rifle.

“Virgil,” I called out.

He looked in my direction.

I pointed to Skinny Jack down in the road, then pointed to myself and back to Skinny Jack.

Virgil nodded.

“Coming to get you, Skinny Jack,” I said.

Virgil positioned himself with his rifle ready.

“Just hang on, Skinny Jack. Hang on.”

Virgil held up his hand, and when he dropped it he began firing on the way station’s window.

I crawled out quickly and pulled Skinny Jack off to the side of the
road and behind the rocks. Once Virgil saw we were off the road he quit firing, sat back, and reloaded.

I turned Skinny Jack over. He was staring up at me. He grabbed my arm and squeezed. He looked down to his chest, where there was blood.

I took out my knife and split open the front of his shirt and found the bullet had entered just to the side of his heart.

“Everett?”

“I’m here.”

“Everett?”

“Yes, Skinny Jack.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just hold on, Skinny Jack, hold on . . .”

He looked down at the blood, then laid his head back, looking up at me. He lifted his head off the ground.

“Everett?” he said.

“Yeah, Skinny Jack?”

He spit blood and then squeezed my arm.

“Do me a favor.”

“Sure.”

“Kill the sonofabitch that killed me.”

His head dropped back in the dirt, and he breathed in his last breath and died staring up at me.

I looked up at Virgil across the road and he was looking at me. I shook my head.

Virgil lowered his chin to his chest.

I closed Skinny Jack’s eyes and sat back on my boots and looked at his young face for a long moment.

“Goddamn it . . .” I said. “Goddamn it.”

I rested Skinny Jack’s hat across his face, then moved toward the bush at the edge of the large rock that separated me from the way
station. I got flat on the ground with my Winchester and leveled it through the scrub bush toward the station window. I rested the rifle’s barrel through the bush on a solid piece of branch in front of me, giving me a steady bead, and flipped up my back sight.

I figured I was about a hundred and twenty-five yards out, and for some reason, besides being very angry, I was feeling lucky.

I
aimed my Winchester at the center of the window and waited. Then I waited some more. With my cheek to the stock and my eye looking down the barrel, I was waiting and ready.

“Come on, you no-good sonofabitch,” I said quietly to myself. “Surely you’re not done. Show yourself; show your no-good goddamn sonofabitch coward self. Just show me a piece, the smallest piece, and . . .”

There he was. I squeezed off one shot. Then I heard screaming from inside, followed by a woman running out the front door.

She ran across the road and up a slight embankment. She was a short, heavy woman wearing a dark dress that she held up as she ran. She slipped trying to get up the embankment but kept churning and churning her feet until she was upright, over the rise and running away from the way station.

I cocked the rifle and waited for another shot, but there was no movement and no more sound from within the way station.

I looked over to Virgil. He was making his way back to his horse.

I watched the window for a moment longer, then pulled my rifle from the bush, got to my feet, and made my way back to my horse.

I mounted up but did not move out onto the road. I rode off farther from the road and angled my way toward the direction in which the woman was running.

I rode a ways and then I saw her. She was in the bottom of a dry wash, no longer running, but was bent over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

She looked up as I rode closer. Her round face was tearstained and her chest was heaving as she continued to try to catch her breath.

I dismounted and walked toward her.

She was frightened and tried to back away.

I showed her my badge.

“I’m Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch, ma’am,” I said. “I’m here now. You’ll be okay.”

She looked at me, chest still heaving, and dropped to her knees.

I moved to her. She looked up at me and shook her head.

“Who are you?” I said.

“This . . . here,” she said, trying to breathe and shaking her head, “is . . . our place. Me . . . and my husband, Ray.”

She started crying.

“What’s happened here?”

“He’s dead,” she said. “Big Ray is dead.”

“Just try and tell me what we’re dealing with here.”

“Three men come here,” she said.

She dropped to her bottom and leaned back to the side of the wash, shaking her head slowly.

“Me and Ray been out here eighteen years. Never had a problem, raised two boys here, now he’s dead, just like that. He’s lying out there in the field behind the house, dead.”

“What about the three men?”

“Two of them left. They left the third man and he shot and killed my Ray this morning. He would have killed me, too, but I took care of him, I pulled two of his teeth. Then you come riding up and shot him. Thank God in Heaven. Thank God.”

“What caused him to shoot your husband?”

“I do not think that man needs a reason. Besides being a goddamn miscreant,” she said. “He’s completely out of his mind, delirious and sick with the fever.”

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I sure hope so . . . oh, God, I hope so. He screamed and fell back, holding his bloody face. Then I got up, opened the door, and ran.”

“The other two men, when did they leave?”

“This morning,” she said. “While the other fella was asleep. He woke up mad as hell and with no horse. Them other two took his horse. Wished my boys would had been here. This would have never have happened.”

“Where are they,” I said. “Your boys.”

“They made a supply run and took all the horses to get re-shod over in Pilgrim’s Corner,” she said. “Be back anytime. Ray told the sonofabitch to wait and he’d have a fresh horse, but no, he was angry and . . . Oh, God, I don’t know, this is, oh, God . . .”

“How many of them, your boys?”

“Two boys. Ray Junior and Carl.”

She lowered her head and sobbed.

“Stay right here,” I said. “Don’t move.”

I moved to tie off my horse as Virgil came riding up the wash with his Winchester in hand.

“What do we got?” he said.

“Shot him,” I said. “Not sure if he’s dead or alive. Neither is she.

“This woman, this is her place here, hers and her husband. She
said her husband was killed this morning by the one man that was left here, the sick one. Guess Truitt and Black left him here, left him to his damnable fate.”

“Who else here, besides her?”

“Nobody. She said her two sons were expected back here soon.”

“Ray told him he could have a horse just as soon as my boys returned,” she said. “But he shot Ray anyway.”

Virgil nodded, then dismounted.

I exchanged my Winchester for my eight-gauge, and once Virgil got tied off we moved off, following the wash south.

V
irgil and I followed the rock-bottom wash for about a hundred yards, and then it curved back toward the road. We crossed the road out of sight of the way station. Then we made our way back toward the building. Once we had it in sight we cut back to the west, walked another couple hundred yards, and came up on the depot from the back side.

We split up and moved up on opposite sides of the living quarters. After a time of waiting, hearing nothing and not seeing movement, we crossed swiftly up to the back of the way station.

The back door was cracked open, and Virgil moved up to one side of the door and I positioned myself on the other side.

I pushed on the door with the barrel of my eight-gauge and it swung open. There were no shots fired. I took off my hat and moved it just past the doorjamb, soliciting fire, but again there was nothing, and within an instant I moved in and Virgil followed.

The interior was a simple storeroom with supplies for sale and a kitchen with a counter for eating and drinking.

Lying flat on his back in the center of the room was the man with the dark scraggly beard we’d heard about. It was obvious by his size and shape he was young, but how young exactly was hard to tell because his face was covered with blood. He was very much alive and it was clear to see the result of my single shot was at least for the moment not fatal, but the bullet had clipped off his nose. The combination of his missing nose and swollen jaw from where Mrs. Opelka removed two teeth made for a grotesque image.

He turned his head ever so slightly, looking blankly at Virgil and me, and then looked back up at the ceiling. Every labored breath he took made a bubble of blood where his nose used to be.

The rifle he killed Skinny Jack with was lying in front of the north window where he dropped it when I shot him. He made no effort to go for the rifle or the pistol he had on his hip.

I moved to him and removed the pistol from his hip and snugged it behind my belt.

“Where are the other two?” Virgil said.

He choked on his blood, then spit.

“Fuck them,” he said. “They . . . they left me here . . .”

His voice was muffled and muted from a swollen mouth and a missing nose. He turned his head a little and spit a large gob of blood across the floor, and when he did we could see the bullet not only took off his nose but took a hunk of flesh from his cheek as well.

“They . . . they . . . took my horse,” he said.

“Truitt and Bill got your nose shot off, too,” I said.

He looked at me wide-eyed as tears welled up.

“Fu . . . fuck them,” he said again, then moaned.

“Where are they?”

He didn’t answer. He lay motionless, staring at the ceiling.

“How about we help you,” I said. “Give you an ounce of satisfaction.”

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

“Wh . . . what?” he said, then spit another stream of blood. “How the fuck are you gonna give me satisfaction?”

“By you telling us where they took off to,” I said. “That would have to give you some satisfaction.”

He raised his hand up to his face where his nose used to be. Then he shook his head from side to side and spoke through clenched teeth.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Fuck . . .”

“Yeah, you don’t look so good,” I said. “Don’t imagine you feel too good, either.”

“Seeing how they left you here to fend for yourself,” Virgil said. “And got your nose shot off and took your horse to boot, I think the quicker you let us know where Truitt and Bill went, the better things might go for you.”

“Fuck,” he said.

He looked at the ceiling and shook his head from side to side and mumbled as if he were having a conversation with himself.

“They . . .” he said.

“They what?” I said.

A bubble of blood swelled up as he exhaled, and then it popped. He gasped, choked on more blood, then coughed and spit. He tried to talk, but blood filled his mouth and he gagged. I pulled a chair from the counter and grabbed him with one hand by the collar and lifted him.

“Up,” I said.

He managed to rise. He leaned over and spit. I slid the chair under him and he sat. He lowered his head as if he were about to black out.

“I got little concern for you,” I said. “Where?”

He looked worse sitting up than he did lying down. In my time fighting the Comanche I’d seen plenty of people live with faces
disfigured like this, missing lips and noses and ears and scalps. He lowered his chin to his chest.

“Do not pass out on us,” I said.

“Tell us what you know,” Virgil said.

He lifted his head a little.

“You’re . . . you’re Hitch . . . and Cole,” he said.

B
ill knew you’d be after us,” he said. “Knew you was marshals in Appaloosa and that it would not be long until you was on his trail.”

He leaned over and spit blood on the floor.

“Oh . . . goddamn . . .”

“Go on,” Virgil said.

He lowered his head again.

“Why’d you shoot at us?” I said.

“He told Truitt and me you’d be coming. Figured you to be a few days back . . . I figured different. I’m smart like that.”

“Black’s long gone and then you poked that Winchester out that window and killed one of us,” I said. “Why?”

He didn’t answer.

“There is a good man out there dead ’cause of you,” I said. “He was younger than you. You killed him.”

“I’m sorry, goddamn it,” he said.

“You’re sorry?” I said.

It was all I could do not to raise my eight-gauge and blow his
disfigured head off, but the idea of Mrs. Opelka having more of a mess to deal with than what was already being left behind by this disregard tempered my resolve.

“Why?” I said.

“Ain’t going back to being locked up. Not now, not ever.”

“What’s your story?” Virgil said.

He looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“What?” I said.

“I broke out a while back.”

Virgil glanced to me, then looked back to the bleeding man.

“Yuma?” Virgil said.

He looked at Virgil for a long bit, then nodded.

“What’s your name?” I said. “Your real name, and don’t lie.”

“Ricky,” he said. “Ravenfield.”

“You’re one of the five that escaped a few months back?” Virgil said.

He stared at Virgil for a long moment, then nodded.

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Went our separate ways. All I know is I ain’t going back there. Not now, not ever . . . You’ll have to kill me.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Virgil said.

“I was in that goddamn place since I was sixteen,” he said.

“For?” I said.

“Killing a man that tried to kill me.”

He lowered his head and shook it back and forth. Then he looked up to the ceiling and cried.

“Oh, God, I hurt . . . fuck.”

“How was it you and Truitt come to team up with Black?” Virgil said.

He breathed and breathed, then looked to Virgil with bloodshot eyes. He was having a hard time keeping his head up.

“Truitt . . . knew him . . .”

“What were you doing with Bill, for Bill?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Truitt said we’d get a good wage, I . . . I was trying to stay out of trouble, I was, I swear to God.”

“Good wage for what?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t know?” I said.

“They talked with each other and not to me.”

“Why,” I said.

Ricky leaned over in pain and coughed blood.

“Why did you ride to Benson City?”

“Money . . .”

“What money?”

“We left in a hurry, and Bill knew this lady he could get money from.”

Virgil looked to me, then back to Ricky.

“How’d you know Truitt?”

He spit before he spoke.

“He come to Yuma a spell for thieving. I goddamn protected him and now this shit . . . Truitt acted all tough in front of Bill, but got jumpy, Truitt got jumpy and shot a goddamn lawman.”

Ricky turned his head to the side and spit again.

“Oh . . . hell. Oh,” he said, wincing in pain. “The next thing you know we are on the run and . . . Truitt don’t think shit about me. Said he didn’t need me, said he was the gun hand. Fuck. Then I get sick as hell and now they goddamn leave me.”

“Where we gonna find them?” Virgil said.

He tilted his head a little to look at us. Then he looked to me with a pleading expression.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “If you can do me a favor.”

“You ain’t in a very good position to be asking for favors, Ricky,” Virgil said.

Ricky moaned and tears welled up as his eyes looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Finish me . . .” he said. “I do not want to live no more.”

Virgil glanced over to me, then looked back to Ricky.

“I don’t got nothing now,” Ricky said. “And all I done was wrong and I’d hate like hell to live like this and I damn sure don’t want my life to be the last life I take . . . Please?”

Virgil looked to me.

I nodded.

“Sure,” I said. “Talk.”

“They’re headed for Socorro,” he said.

Virgil looked to me.

“Lying, Ricky?” I said.

“I ain’t,” he said.

“They gone to La Verne?” I said.

“No,” he said. “Socorro.”

Ricky lowered his chin again and was still.

“Ricky?” I said.

He did not move.

“Ricky?”

He looked up.

“We know about La Verne,” I said.

Ricky shook his head ever so slightly.

“Socorro,” he said. “That is where you will find Truitt . . . bet your ass.”

“What makes you so sure?” Virgil said.

“Truitt has a bunch of shitheads he runs with from there,” he said. “His gang, he says.”

Virgil looked at me and shook his head.

“You telling the truth?” I said.

“Mark my words,” Ricky said.