The Gun Fight (6 page)

I didn’t mean it, I didn’t—she thought again. She’d only told Robby what she did in order to make him jealous. She’d never even dreamed that he’d take it so seriously, that he’d go looking for Benton to fight him. Robby just wasn’t that kind; he was the quiet, dull kind, not at all like John Benton.

Louisa Harper sat on the edge of the bed, her sobs gradually subsiding, her breathing getting more and more even. She rubbed at the tears with shaking fingers, then stood and got a handkerchief from her bureau drawer.

She sat on the bed again, looking down at the hooked rug her mother had made for her sixteenth birthday.

Now that Aunt Agatha was out of the room, the situation didn’t seem so bad. She knew she really should have told the truth but there was something about her aunt that terrified. She just didn’t dare tell that she’d made up the story; especially now after she’d failed to confess it when she’d had the opportunity.

Besides—her right foot began kicking a little, thumping back against the bed—besides, it would all blow over. It wasn’t
that
serious, no matter what Aunt Agatha said. Robby wouldn’t go any further and certainly John Benton wouldn’t;
he
was a gentleman.

The hint of a smile played on Louisa Harper’s full lips and something stirred in her. There was something strangely exciting about the thought of John Benton fighting over her.

Louisa shuddered, lips parted suddenly.

The two women stood in the downstairs hall. Elizabeth Harper was wringing her hands disconsolately.

“If only my dear husband were alive,” she said miserably.

“Well, he isn’t,” snapped her irate sister, “and we have to fend for ourselves.”

Agatha Winston’s hand closed over her umbrella handle with the grip of a warrior on his battle sword.

“There’s work to be done,” she said, her angry voice threatening in the Kellville house.

“S
top that kicking!”

Jimmy Coles’ right foot stopped thumping against the chair leg and hooked quickly around the back of his left ankle as his eyes lifted in a cautious glance at his father. His fork hovered shakily near his mouth, a piece of meat impaled on its tines.

Then his father’s cup slammed down furiously and made everyone at the table start.

“
Yes, sir,
” demanded Matthew Coles.

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy’s faint voice echoed his father’s outraged prompting.

“You had better learn your manners, young man,” his father said, his voice threatening slow, “or you’ll feel the strap across your legs.”

Jimmy swallowed the suddenly tasteless beef and sat petrified on his chair, blue eyes staring at his father. Mrs. Coles looked toward her younger son with that look of futile despair which, so often, showed on her face.

Now Matthew Coles picked up his fork and dug it ruthlessly into a thick slice of beef. Shearing off a piece with one tense drawing motion of his knife, he shoved the meat into his mouth and sat chewing it with rhythmic, angry movements of his jaw.

“In my day,” he went on as though he had just uttered
his previous comment on the subject, “we valued the honor of our women. We defended it.”

Robby sat picking listlessly at his food, his stomach still queasy from the brief fight. He hadn’t wanted to sit down with his family at supper but his father had insisted.

“You’re not eating, sir,” Matthew Coles told him.

Robby looked up at his father. “I don’t feel well, sir,” he said quietly.

“You shouldn’t feel well,” his father drove home another lance. “Your intended bride is insulted and you do nothing.”

“Matthew, please don’t—” Jane Coles started imploringly.

Her husband directed one of his women-were-not-created-to-speak looks at her and she lowered her head, the sentence unfinished. She had been tensely worried ever since Robby had told his father the reason for the fight with John Benton. She knew her husband; knew his unyielding strength and was afraid of what he might badger Robby into doing.

“This is something which must be spoken of,” Matthew Coles went on firmly. “And it
will
be spoken of. There will be no shrinking from the truth in my house. I hope I shall never see the day when men no longer defend the honor of their women. How would you like it, ma’m, if I refused to defend your honor against insults?”

Mrs. Coles said nothing. She knew that Matthew wanted no reply but preferred the advantage of asking challenging questions which were not answered. She knew it gave him the pleasure of unopposed refuting.

“No, you have no answer,” said Matthew Coles with a tense nodding of his head. “You know as well as I do that when men cease to defend their women and their homes, our society will cease to exist.”

Robby drank a little water and felt it trickle coldly into his near-empty stomach. He hoped his father would
go on ranting at his mother, beleaguering Jimmy—anything except stay on the subject of Louisa and John Benton. He’d been on it all afternoon at the shop where he’d insisted that Robby perform his usual tasks, ill or not.

“That a son of mine,” said Matthew Coles grimly, “should be afraid to stand up for the honor of his intended bride.” He shook his head. “Especially since the poor girl has no family man to speak for her.” He shook his head again. “In
my
day . . .,” he mused solemnly, probing at his beef with fork stabs.

“May I be excused?” Robby asked.

“You may not, sir,” said his father. “The meal is not over.”

“Does your stomach still hurt, dear?” Mrs. Coles asked Robby gently.

An attempted smile twitched at the corners of Robby’s lips. “I feel better, mother,” he said.

“Is there anything I can get for—”

“Don’t coddle the boy!” her husband broke in furiously. “Are we raising daughters or sons? It’s no wonder he’s too cowardly to face John Benton, the way you’ve coddled and protected him!”

“Matthew, he
did
tell John Benton to leave Louisa alone,” she said, the faint spark of re sis tance born of her defending love for Robby.

“Is that what you call defending honor!” shouted Matthew Coles, his face suddenly livid with fury at being contradicted. “Getting hit in the stomach and whining like a dog all day!”

Jane Coles looked disturbedly toward Jimmy who was staring at his father, his slender body unconsciously cringed away from Matthew Coles’ imperious presence.

“Matthew, the—”

“What is this—a house of
women
!” her husband raged on. “Why don’t you teach them how to cook and sew!”

“Matthew, the boy,” his wife pleaded, a break in her tired voice.

“Don’t tell me about the boy! It’s time he learned the place of a man in his society!” His head snapped over and he looked accusingly at Jimmy. “Don’t think you’re going to live your life without fighting,” he said to the white-faced boy. “Don’t think you’re going to get away without defending the honor of your women.”

He leaned forward suddenly, neck cords bulging, dark eyes digging into the young boy.

“Tell me, sir,” he said with thinly disguised calm, “what would you do if a man insulted your mother?”

“Matthew,” his wife begged in anguish, “please . . .”

“Would you just sit by and let the insult pass? Is that what you’d do?” He finished in a sudden burst that made Jimmy’s cheek twitch.

“N-no, sir,” the boy mumbled.

“Speak up, sir, speak up! You’re a man, not a woman, and a man is supposed to be heard!”

“
Yes
, sir.”

“Is that what you’d do; let the insult pass?”

“No, no,” Jimmy said hurriedly.

“No, what?”

“No, I wouldn’t let the—”

“
No, sir.
”

Jimmy bit at his lower lip, a rasping sob shaking in his throat.

“Woman!” cried Matthew Coles. “A house of women!”

“Matthew . . .” His wife’s voice was weak and shaking.

Matthew Coles drew in a deep, wavering breath and sawed savagely at his meat. He crammed it into his mouth and started chewing while his family sat tensely in their places, unable to eat.

“
Stop that sniveling,
” Matthew Coles said in a low, menacing voice. Jimmy caught his breath and hastily brushed aside the tears that welled in his eyes, dripping down across his freckled cheeks.

“Eat your food,” said Matthew Coles. “I don’t buy food to be wasted.”

Jimmy picked up his fork with shaking fingers and tried to retrieve a piece of potato which kept rolling off the tines. He bit his lip to stop the sobbing and stuck the fork into a piece of meat.

“What would you do?” his father asked.

Jimmy looked over, his face twisted again with frightened apprehension. Robby looked up from his plate, his jaw whitening in repressed anger.

“Well, answer me,” Matthew Coles said in a level voice, his fury mollified by the silence of his family. “Would you let some man insult your mother?”

Jane Coles turned her head away abruptly so her sons would not see the mask of sickened anguish it had become.

“N-no, sir,” Jimmy said, his stomach turning, tightening.

“What would you do?” Matthew Coles didn’t look at his son. He ate his beef and potatoes and drank his coffee, all the time staring into space as if the discussion were of no importance to him. But they could all sense the threat of violence beneath the level of his spoken words.

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Don’t
know
, sir?” asked his father, voice rising a little.

“I’d, I’d, I’d—”

“Stop-that-stuttering.”

“I’d
fight
him,” Jimmy blurted out, trying desperately to find the answer that would placate his father.

“Fight him, sir, with your fists?” Matthew Coles stopped chewing a moment and looked pointedly toward his nerve-taut son.

“I, I—”

“With your
fists
?” said his father, loudly.

“I’d get a gun and—”

The hissing catch of breath in his mother’s throat made Jimmy stop suddenly and glance toward her with frightened eyes.

Matthew Coles looked intently at Robby, still addressing his younger son.

“You’d get a gun?” he questioned. “Is that what you said, sir?”

“Matthew, what are you trying to—”

“You’d get a gun, you say?” Matthew Coles’ rising voice cut off the tortured question of his wife. “A gun?”

“Oh, leave him alone!” Robby burst out with sudden nerve-snapped vehemence. “It’s me you’re after, talk to me!”

Matthew Coles’ nostrils flared out and it appeared, for a moment, that he would explode in Robby’s face.

Then a twitching shudder ran down his straight back and he looked down to his food, face graven into a hard, expressionless mold.

“I don’t talk to cowards,” said Matthew Coles.

T
he Reverend Omar Bond was working on the notes for his Sunday sermon when he heard the front doorbell tinkling. He looked up from his desk, a touch of sorrowing martyrdom in his expression. He
had
hoped no one would call tonight; there was so much necessary work to be done on the sermon.

“Oh my,” he muttered to himself as he sat listening to his wife, Clara, come bustling from the kitchen. He heard her nimble footsteps moving down the hall, then the sound of the front door being opened.

“Why, good evening, Miss Winston,” he heard Clara say and his face drew into melancholy lines. Of all his parishioners, Miss Winston was the one who most tried his Christian fortitude. There were times when he would definitely have enjoyed telling her to—

“Ah, Miss Winston,” he said, smiling beneficently as he rose from his chair. “How good of you to drop by.” He ignored the tight sinking in his stomach as being of uncharitable genre. Extending his hand, he approached the grim-faced woman and felt his fingers in her cool, almost manlike grip.

“Reverend,” she said, dipping her head but once.

“Do sit down, Miss Winston,” the Reverend Bond invited, the smile still frozen on his face.

“May I take your shawl?” Clara Bond asked politely and Agatha Winston shook her head.

“I’ll only be a moment,” she said.

The Reverend Omar Bond could not check the heartfelt hallelujah in his mind although he masked it well behind his beaming countenance.

He settled down on the chair across from where Miss Winston sat poised on the couch edge as though ready to spring up at a moment’s provocation. Clara Bond left the room quietly.

“Is this a social visit?” the Reverend Bond inquired pleasantly, knowing it wasn’t.

“No, it is not, Reverend,” said Agatha Winston firmly. “It concerns one of your parishioners.”

Oh, my God, she’s at it again, the Reverend Bond thought with a twinge. Agatha Winston was forever coming to him with stories about his parishioners, nine tenths of which were usually either distorted or completely untrue.

“Oh?” he asked blandly. “Who is that, Miss Winston?”

“
John Benton.
” Agatha Winston rid herself of the given and family names as though they were spiders in her mouth.

“But, I . . .” the Reverend Bond stopped talking, his face mildly shocked. “John Benton?” he said. “Surely not.”

“He has asked my niece, Louisa Harper, to . . .” Miss Winston hesitated, searching for the proper phrase, “. . . to
meet
him.”

Omar Bond raised graying eyebrows, his hands clasped tightly in his lap.

“How do you know this thing?” he asked, a little less amiably now.

“I know it because my niece told me so,” she answered firmly.

The Reverend Bond sat silently a moment, his eyes looking at Miss Winston with emotionless detachment.

“And it’s worse than just that,” Miss Winston went on, quickly. “It would be one thing if the incident were known only to those immediately concerned. But almost the entire
town
knows of it!”

“I’ve heard nothing of it,” said the Reverend, blandly.

“Well . . .” Agatha Winston was not refuted. “Begging your pardon, Reverend, but . . . well, I don’t think anyone would pass along gossip to
you.
”

Someone
would, thought Omar Bond, looking at Miss Winston with an imperceptible sigh.