The Legend of Winstone Blackhat (10 page)

THE KID’S BACK
hit the wall. His back hit the wall and the timbers juddered and dust circled in the stabs of light and the breath shuddered out of the Kid displaced by the stranger’s fist in his stomach. The Kid slid sideways and ducked the next blow and the stranger’s fist slammed into the boards and his knuckles split and he swore and the Kid forced new air into his guts and came up swinging because he knew how to fight and he had no fear of sinking his knuckles into another man’s flesh or breaking his hands on another’s bones. The Kid’s punch caught the stranger square on the jaw and it landed with a noise clean and sweet as a ball in a glove and the stranger staggered backwards and fell to one knee but arms grabbed the Kid from all sides and they dragged him back and pinned him to the wall.

The Kid looked down at the stranger crouched on the floor in the banded light and the man was dark as the shadows and slow to move as the drifting chaff but while the Kid watched the man raised his head and set his hat straight and rubbed a bloodied hand over the stubble of his jaw.

There was blood running on the Kid’s lip too and he tasted it there but he wasn’t afraid because he knew what he was made of. He heard the barn door open. Behind the stranger easing himself to his feet a widening stripe of the day fell in across the dirt floor and it struck the Kid in the face. He turned his head and narrowed his eyes to see what stood in the glare and there was a high white slice of the yard and the town and the morning outside and stamped out upon it the shape of a man and preceding the man and the morning and bigger than both the black stretch of the man’s shadow.

The sun burned on the silver rowels of spurs and the heels of the man’s black boots stepped through the dust and moved without haste down the path of his own darkness. The man’s shadow came on eating up the light and it overtook the stranger who stood opening and closing his hand in front of the Kid and as it did so the stranger moved aside without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

The man stopped in front of the Kid and the sideways light coming in between the boards of the barn raked his folded face from the dark and caught in his eye.

So, the man said. Where you come from kid?

Who’s askin? said the Kid. He didn’t see whose fist it was but it swung his cheek to the wall and when he looked back the man had a little gleam in his eye like he was telling a joke and about to deliver the punchline.

You don’t know who I am, he said. You got no idea in the world.

No mister I don’t.

Well, the man said. I reckon you hit the nail on the head. That’s the crux of your problem right there.

He took a step forward and tipped up the brim of his hat and there in the grainy light the Kid recognised the man in black as Mary Ellen’s father.

Now I’ll ask you again, Mary Ellen’s father said. Where you from?

Nowhere particular.

The Kid saw the punch coming this time and it landed him in the stomach.

A kid out of nowhere, Mary Ellen’s father said. That’s pretty much what I thought.

His face disappeared below the brim of his hat and he popped a match on his coat and looked up at the Kid again and took the
burning cigarette from his mouth and exhaled and his smoke turned and tumbled in the shadows.

Well I guess they don’t teach much in the way of manners down there, he said. In these parts a boy asks before he goes puttin his hand to a man’s daughter.

The Kid licked the blood from his lip.

But some kid from nowhere, Mary Ellen’s father said. He just rides on in and takes what he wants.

I walked her to the dance, the Kid said. That’s all.

You walked a step too far, Mary Ellen’s father said. You oughter have stopped before ever you crossed the street to her house. Hell boy. He shook his head and dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his heel. You oughter have stopped at the town limits.

Behind him something stirred the light. The Kid’s head was all shaken up and he squinted past Mary Ellen’s father into the churn of shadow and sun and he saw a star.

Mornin Eli.

Mary Ellen’s father didn’t take his eyes off the Kid but inclined his head to the sound and smiled. Mornin Roy, he said.

Sheriff, said the man with the broken hand and he stood away from the Kid and touched his good hand to his hat. Two voices echoed him to left and right of the Kid at either shoulder.

Boys, said the sheriff.

Mary Ellen’s father ran his eyes up and down the Kid one last time as if an accurate guess at the length and breadth and weight of the Kid might be required of him at some future date and when he was good and done he stood aside.

The sheriff stopped in front of the Kid.

This him?

That’s him.

Okay, the sheriff said. Okay. You boys there get his hands tied.

The floor of the barn came up at the Kid. Boots trod the hay. The rope wound around his wrists and doubled back and hitched him up neat as a mule.

You’re takin me in? he said. For what? For dancin?

Check his saddle roll, said Mary Ellen’s father.

In the sun coming down from the high window the two gold candlesticks glowed as if they were still holding flames. Between the bars of his cell the Kid looked at the pair of them there on the sheriff’s desk.

He put em there, the Kid said. You know he did.

Behind the candlesticks the sheriff raised his boots to the edge of the desk and set one on top of the other. Here’s what I know, he said. Somebody put them things in your saddle roll. He says it was you and you say it was him. Trouble is, son, I’ve known Judge Givens these thirty years. You and I are just gettin acquainted.

Judge?

That’s right son.

It don’t even make no sense, the Kid said. Say I did take em. I didn’t take em but say I did. What kind of damn fool would I be to leave em there in the barn?

Some kind, the sheriff said. Some kind. Same kind maybe as thinks no harm’s gonna come from takin Mary Ellen Givens dancin.

The Kid pushed himself back from the bars. He turned and took three steps and sat on the edge of the cot and after that he had nowhere to go. He looked at the yellow candlesticks again. They had some kind of flowers in a twist at the top and their stems were ridged like the chamber of a gun.

They solid gold?

The sheriff raised his head from his notebook and looked at the candlesticks too. Reckon so, he said.

They sure are pretty things.

That they are.

Can I touch one?

The sheriff looked at the Kid.

I’m gonna be payin for em long enough aint I, said the Kid. I reckon I ought to put a hand on one at least.

The sheriff dropped his feet to the floor. He looked at the Kid again. His hand closed around the shaft of the candlestick closest to him and hefted it and the Kid could see the work of it in his neck and arm but he shifted his grip and carried the candlestick casually and without haste towards the cell and the Kid got up from the cot and put his forehead against the bars and watched the candlestick coming.

The sheriff stopped just out of arm’s reach. You wouldn’t be fixin to hit me over the head with this thing and take my keys now would you son?

Nossir.

You sure about that?

I swear it.

Okay then. Here you are.

He swung the candlestick towards the Kid and the Kid caught the other end of the shaft and it dragged his shoulder down and he blew out his breath through his teeth.

Solid gold, he said. Well I guess there’s good money in judgin folks.

There’s most everthin in it, the sheriff said, dependin on how you go about it.

The Kid turned the candlestick on its side and balanced it across his palms. How much you reckon they weigh?

Between the two of em, son? The sheriff shook his head. I’d say just about enough to hang you.

No, said Alicia. Leave it. Go home. Bad dogs.

Her voice came louder through the gap in the rocks.

Kitty kitty kitty?

The dogs from the Green Camo Hut weren’t the brightest dogs in the world or they would have found their way in from the other side of the rocks by now but they still weren’t going away and neither was Alicia. There were sounds of a scuffle below and the volume of whining and panting and scrabbling fell and when Alicia’s voice came again it was further away and she sounded short of breath.

It’s okay, she said. You can come out now. You’ll be safe. I’ve got them.

Winstone thought about coming out. With his hands up maybe. He wondered what he’d say to Alicia and what she’d say back and what they’d do after that. He thought of them standing there face to face. Close up. He thought that maybe he could be from a hut on the other side of the dam and maybe Alicia would like to play cowboys with him but he knew she wouldn’t because she was too old for that. He wondered how long it had been since he’d talked to another kid or anybody at all and then he remembered exactly when it had been and he thought about Todd and Debbie and the last things they’d said and he stayed right where he was.

One of the dogs got sick of whining and started to bark. It was a crazy high-pitched kind of yap and Winstone listened to it echo over the range.

Come on, Alicia said and she sounded like she was working hard, I’m going to take you home. The kitty’s never going to come out with you two here.

What’s going on?

It was a man’s voice and it sounded rough as Bic’s the Sunday morning after a Saturday night and about as pleased to be conscious.

Nothing, Alicia said. She sounded nervous. I was just playing, she said.

The man whistled the dogs, which meant Alicia had to let go of them, and sure enough in a few seconds more the dogs were back in their original spot at the base of the rocks looking up at Winstone. It also meant that the man was the man from the Green Camo Hut and Alicia was right to be nervous.

They got a rabbit in there, said the man from the Green Camo Hut.

Alicia didn’t say anything. So she knew about feral cats then.

You should leave them to it, said the man from the Green Camo Hut. They’re doing their job.

The dogs scrabbled some more. They seemed even keener now.

Are you going to shoot it? Alicia said.

If they flush it out, said the man from the Green Camo Hut. Place is crawling with rabbits, he said.

Don’t, Alicia said. Please.

For a while there was just the noise of the dogs.

What if it isn’t a rabbit? Alicia said.

Look, said the man from the Green Camo Hut, why don’t you go play somewhere else.

Winstone waited but nobody said anything more. He waited for a while. He thought that Alicia must have gone away and he wished he could see what was going on but it seemed like asking for trouble to move. The man from the Green Camo Hut was a pretty good shot. Winstone was almost sure he wouldn’t fire into the rocks because of the ricochets and the dogs but the first thing to show clear of them was going to be in trouble.

Winstone was only a little bit scared. He’d played this scene so many times he felt almost at home holed up in the rocks with Sheriff Pat Garrett and deputies staking him out, and although Garrett’s gun wasn’t usually real on the upside this Garrett didn’t know he had Billy in there and maybe didn’t know even who Billy was or the price on his head and had never heard that name. He was just huntin rabbits.
Varmints
, that’s what some crazy old man in a hat would have said. And the man from the Green Camo Hut was right, the place was crawling with those. He wasn’t going to wait all morning to shoot one.

The dogs were starting to quieten down and some time soon the man from the Green Camo Hut would move off and the only problem would be how to tell when he had and also the little bit of Winstone that was scared was making him want to pee quite badly.

Some time passed. It passed with only the sound of the wind and Winstone tried counting heartbeats but they seemed an unreliable guide so he tapped out seconds, one index finger against each cheek, and got to sixty and started again until he lost track of how many times he’d done it. It occurred to him that if he peed down through the rocks he’d soon find out if the dogs were still there but the man from the Green Camo Hut would most likely be too far away to see it and anyway it was getting so he didn’t have much of a choice. Winstone started to move.

Jacko, somebody called out.

Gidday Ron, said the man from the Green Camo Hut who by the sounds of things was right under Winstone’s rock. What’s up?

There was a bark and then the dogs got back from wherever they’d been and Winstone heard them fussing about and no doubt jumping all over Ron.

Looks like it might cut up rough later on, Ron said.

Yeah, said Jacko the man from the Green Camo Hut, meaning what the hell do you want.

Mate, said Ron, could you help me out? All hell’s broken loose at my place. My granddaughter’s bawling her eyes out because she thinks you’re going to shoot a kitten.

A kitten, said Jacko.

She thinks there’s one hiding in there, Ron said. She thinks she saw it run in.

Nah, Jacko said. It would’ve been a rabbit. Baby one probably.