Appaloosa

Cole shrugged and drank coffee.

“The man who runs the hotel told me that the Shelton brothers were famous gunmen.”

“Got to get things back in balance,” Cole said.

“If you’ll take me back to Appaloosa with you, I’ll love you all my life. I’ll never make you mad. I’ll never do anything you don’t like.”

“That’ll be fine, Allie,” Cole said. “Soon’s Everett and me get things straightened out with Ring.”

“And Mackie,” I said, “and Russell and Bragg.”

“Sure,” Cole said.

“If they kill you, what’ll happen to me?” Allie said.

“Ring’ll look out for you,” Cole said.

Allie put her face in her hands and hunched over the table.

“Oh, God,” she said, and began to cry into her hands. “Oh, my dear God.”

43

At ten minutes past two o’clock, we went up to our rooms and got ready. I put on a jacket so I could use the pockets. I slipped a five-shot, .32, hammerless pocket pistol in the left-hand pocket. I put twenty eight-gauge shells in the right. I wore a Colt .45 on my gun belt. I checked the load in the shotgun. Cole wore two Colts on belts with cartridge loops. The Colt on his left side was butt-forward. He carried a .45 Winchester. He checked both Colts and made sure there was a round in the chamber of the Winchester. He left the Winchester cocked. It was 2:25. We both put on our hats. “Remember,” Cole said. “We walked through this already.”

“It’ll be just the same,” I said. “ ’Cept for them trying to shoot us.”

“I’m hopin’ to shoot them first,” Cole said.

“Me, too.”

“But remember,” Cole said. “Steady’s more important than fast.”

“Virgil,” I said, “you’ve told me that before every fight we ever had.”

“Anything you want to go over?” Cole said.

“Nope.”

Cole nodded and looked at his watch.

“Don’t want to get there too soon,” he said. “Want to have sort of a flow, you understand, some kind of rhythm, like dancing or something. Just walk down there and arrive on time and start shooting without never breaking stride.”

I nodded like I hadn’t heard it before. I could feel the feeling begi

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Here we go.”

The rain that I had tasted earlier had arrived. It was hard and slanted by the wind. The street was muddy with it. I yanked my hat down tighter.

“Distance we’re shooting at,” Cole said, “wind won’t be an issue.”

It was behind us as we walked, which meant at the end of the walk, if it didn’t shift, the rain would be blowing at them.

“Won’t do no harm to keep an eye out for Bragg,” Cole said. “I think he’ll stick with Ring. I don’t think he’s got the stuff to go it alone, but if he does, he’s a certain sure back shooter.”

We passed the bank. There was no one on the street. Everything was buttoned up against the rain. I thought about Allie’s questions.

“You feel it?” I said to Cole.

“Dry mouth? Thing in the stomach? Not enough air?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, I feel it. You don’t feel nothing, there’s not much point in doing a thing.”

“You like the feeling?” I said.

Cole didn’t speak for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to. He, too, had his hat yanked down low over his forehead to keep it on. We slogged through the thickening mud toward the stock pens.

“After,” Cole said.

“And if you didn’t have the feeling before, the feeling after wouldn’t be so good,” I said.

“I guess,” Cole said.

44

They were where Cole said they’d be. Four of them, Bragg closest to the shed. The wind was at our backs, blowing the rain hard at them. The steers huddled together in the pens.

“We pass that corner,” Cole said. “We start shooting and go fast, straight at them.”

I didn’t say anything. My mouth was dry. Most of the shootouts we’d been in had sort of erupted, and you didn’t have much time to think about it. This one had moved forward for days with the formality of a procession. And now here it was, in the blowing rain.

We turned the corner, and Cole shot Ring Shelton in the chest, and everyone else started shooting at the same time. Something slammed into my left side and tried to knock me down as I cut loose with the eight-gauge. Both barrels. It knocked Mackie Shelton over backward. To my left, Cole was down. Another bullet hit me in my right leg, and I felt it give under me. Cole squirmed sideways in the mud, working the lever on the Winchester. He fired three times, pumping the lever as fast as he fired. Russell staggered and took two steps forward to right himself and raised his Colt and fell face-forward into the mud. I dropped the eight-gauge as I went down and jerked the Colt. Sitting in the mud, I looked for Bragg. He was gone. With Cole on his stomach and me on my backside, we kept our aim on the shed. After a minute or so, we heard the sound of a horse ru

It was over.

I tried to stand. I couldn’t. One shot had broken some ribs on my left side. The other had got me in the top of the right thigh. The thigh was bleeding steadily. The ribs made it painful to move, but I knew I had to cut down on the bleeding. I took my jacket off, and my shirt, and folded the shirt and got the belt off my pants and made a big, clumsy pressure bandage on the thigh.

“Virgil?” I said.

Cole still lay on his stomach in the mud, his rifle cocked, looking at the men strewn in front of us in the mud.

“Both legs,” he said. “The right one’s broke.”

“Took about a minute,” I said.

“Everybody could shoot,” Cole said.

His voice sounded strained. So did mine. The clerk from the train station came out and looked at us from the edge of the station. The two stockyard hands stood with him. I yelled to them.

“There a doctor in town?”

“Railroad doc,” the clerk shouted. “Lives at the hotel.”

“Get him,” I said.

Hollering made my ribs hurt. So did breathing. The clerk spoke to one of the stock hands, and he set off at a run toward the hotel. I clenched my teeth and let myself fall backward onto the cold mud. The rain came down cold and steady on my face. I felt hot. I breathed as shallowly as I could.

“Virgil?” I said.

“I’m still here,” Virgil said.

“Well,” I said. “Doctor’ll either save us or he won’t.”

And I closed my eyes and let the rain fall on me, and the feel of it began to dwindle and then it was gone and I didn’t know anything else.