The Lawless West (23 page)

Olga had the Bar M, and her uncle to run it for her, and nobody would be making any trouble for Canaval. There was nothing for me to do but to go back home.

My horse was standing at the rail and I walked out to him and lifted the stirrup leather to tighten the cinch. But I did not hurry. Olga was standing there in front of the restaurant, and the one thing I wanted most was to talk to her. When I looked up, she was standing there alone.

“You’re going back to the Two Bar?” Her voice was hesitant.

“Where else? After all, it’s my home now.”

“Have…have you done much to the house yet?”

“Some.” I tightened the cinch, then unfastened the bridle reins. “Even a killer has to have a home.” It was rough, and I meant it that way.

She flushed. “You’re not holding that against me?”

“What else can I do? You said what you thought, didn’t you?”

She stood there, looking at me, uncertain of what to say, and I let her stand there.

She watched me put my foot in the stirrup and swing into the saddle. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but she did not. Yet, when I looked down at her, she was more like a little girl who had been spanked than anything else I could think of.

Suddenly I was doing the talking. “Ever start that trousseau I mentioned?”

She looked up quickly. “Yes,” she admitted, “but…but I’m afraid I didn’t get very far with it. You see, there was…”

“Forget it.” I was brusque. “We’ll do without it. I was going to ride out of here and let you stay, but I’ll be double damned if I will. I told you I was going to marry you, and I am. Now, listen, trousseau or not, you be ready by tomorrow noon, understand?”

“Yes. All right. I mean…I will.”

Suddenly we were both laughing like fools and I was off that horse and kissing her, and all the town of Hattan’s Point could see us. It was right there in front of the café, and I could see people coming from the saloons and standing along the boardwalks, all grinning.

Then I let go of her and stepped back, and said: “Tomorrow noon. I’ll meet you here.” And with that I wheeled my horse and lit out for the ranch.

Ever feel so good it looks as if the whole world is your big apple? That was the way I felt. I had all I ever wanted. Grass, water, cattle, and with a home and wife of my own. The trail back to the Two Bar swung around a huge mesa and opened out on a wide desert flat, and far beyond it I could see the suggestion of the stones and pinnacles of badlands beyond Dry Mesa. A rabbit burst from the brush and sprinted off across the sage, and then the road dipped down into a hollow. There, in the middle of the road, was Bodie Miller.

He was standing with his hands on his hips laughing and there was a devil in his eyes. Off to one side of the road was Red, holding their horses and grinning, too.

“Too bad!” Bodie said. “Too bad to cut down the big man just when he’s ridin’ highest, but I’ll enjoy it.”

This horse I rode was skittish and unacquainted with me. I’d no idea how he’d stand for shooting, and I wanted on the ground. Suddenly I slapped spurs to that gelding, and, when the startled animal lunged toward the gunman, I went off the other side. Hitting the ground running, I spun on one heel and saw Bodie’s hands blur as they dove for their guns, and then I felt my own gun buck in my hand. Our bullets crossed each other, but mine was a fraction the fastest despite that instant of hesitation when I made sure it would count.

His slug ripped a furrow across my shoulder that stung like a thousand needles, but my own bullet caught him in the chest and he staggered back, his eyes wide and agonized. Then I started forward and suddenly the devil was up in me. I was mad, mad as I had never been before. I opened up with both guns. “What’s the matter?” I was yelling. “Don’t
you like it, gun slick? You asked for it, now come and get it! Fast, are you? Why you cheap, two-bit gunman, I’ll…!”

But he was finished. He stood there, a slighter man than I was, with blood turning his shirtfront crimson, and with his mouth ripped by another bullet. He was white as death, even his lips were gray, and against that whiteness was the splash of blood. In his eyes now there was another look. The killing lust was gone, and in its place was an awful terror, for Bodie Miller had killed, and enjoyed it with a kind of sadistic bitterness that was in him—but now he knew he was being killed and the horror of death was surging through him.

“Now you know how they felt, Bodie,” I said bitterly. “It’s an ugly thing to die with a slug in you because some punk wants to prove he’s tough. And you aren’t tough, Bodie, just mean.”

He stared at me, but he didn’t say anything. He was gone, and I could see it. Something kept him upright, standing in that white hot sun, staring at me, the last face he would ever look upon.

“You asked for it, Bodie, but I’m sorry for it. Why didn’t you stay to punching cows?”

Bodie backed up another step, and his gun slid from his fingers. He tried to speak, and then his knees buckled, and he went down. Standing over him, I looked at Red.

“I’m ridin’,” Red said huskily. “Just give me a chance.” He swung into the saddle, then looked down at Bodie. “He wasn’t so tough, was he?”

“Nobody is,” I told him. “Nobody’s tough with a slug in his belly.”

He rode off, and I stood there in the trail with Bodie dead at my feet. Slowly I holstered my guns,
then led my horse off the trail to the shade where Bodie’s horse still stood.

Lying there in the dusty trail, Bodie Miller no longer looked mean or even tough, he looked like a kid that had tackled a job that was too big for him.

There was a small gully off the trail. It looked like a grave, and I used it that way. Rolling him into it, I shoved the banks in on top of him, and then piled on some stones. Then I made a cross for him and wrote his name on it, and the words:
HE PLAYED OUT HIS HAND.
Then I hung his guns on the cross and his hat.

It was not much of an end for a man, not any way you looked at it, but I wanted no more reputation as a killer—mine had already grown too big.

Maybe Red would tell the story, and maybe in time somebody would see the grave, but if Red’s story was told, it would be somewhere far away and long after, and that suited me.

A stinging in my own shoulder reminded me of my own wound, but when I opened my shirt and checked my shoulder, I found it a mere scratch.

Ahead of me the serrated ridges of the wild lands were stark and lonely along the sky, and the sun behind me was picking out the very tips of the peaks to touch them with gold. Somehow the afternoon was gone, and now I was riding home to my own ranch, and tomorrow was my wedding day.

A LEISURE BOOK®

October 2007

Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.

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