The Magic Wagon

Eventually he got the chair shook off and made the end of the bar and stood there. He and Billy Bob were about fifteen or twenty paces apart. Jack had his left hand on the bar, his right was high at his side, pointing slightly inward toward the pistol at his middle. I seen that the hand on the bar was fluttering slightly, about as much as Billy Bob's legs were shaking.

"You handled that chair real well," Billy Bob said, and he let his lips pull up into a little smile.

"You should have been like your pa," Jack said, his voice cracking a little, "taken your insult and gone on. Live a lot longer that way."

"Ha!" Billy Bob said. "What's for me to back from. You didn't never back down Wild Bill Hickok, and you know it, and you won't back me neither."

"You sure?" Jack asked, almost politely.

Billy Bob nodded.

Somebody in the saloon chickened out. I heard him go through the bat wings, and when I turned to look they were swinging shut, and Ski

I looked back at Billy Bob and Jack. Silence was so heavy, had someone coughed about then, there'd have been shooting. I wanted to say something to Billy Bob, something that would make this whole thing stop, but nothing came to mind. And I sure as hell didn't want to draw attention to myself lest he and Jack decide to start in on me first.

It was Jack that finally spoke, and he'd gotten the iron back in his voice. "Can I have your nigger when you're dead?"

"You can have that damn boy too," Billy Bob said. "But you got to get me dead first."

Jack took his hand off the bar and shrugged his shoulders. He said evenly, "You want to do this, kid?"

"You started it," Billy Bob said.

"What if you say you're sorry."

"Nope. You say you are."

"Nope. You know how many men I've killed, kid?"

"Ain't none of them me."

"That's the way you feel about it then?"

"Yep."

Jack stretched his neck, like his collar had gotten too tight. "Guess this is it, huh, boy?"

"Reckon so," Billy Bob said rolling his shoulders.

And Jack went for his gun.

He wasn't fast at all. I could have beaten him. Anyone could have. He was washed up, plain and simple.

But Billy Bob… well, try and picture this. One moment Billy Bob had his hands by his sides, the next they were full of pistols and the pistols fired and the left side of Jack's face jumped off in a spray of blood and bone and went all over the bar. Billy Bob cocked and fired both pistols again, and before Jack could so much as wobble, he caught two more bullets in his chest, and when they hit a spray of blood squirted out of his back and covered the wall behind him. I tell you, it was enough to make a billy goat lose his chow.

It couldn't have been long, but it seemed like Jack stood there for a week, this surprised look on the side of his face that wasn't blowed off and finally he folded up like a cheap pocketknife and flopped backwards to the floor, hitting his head so hard it sounded like thunder.

The saloon froze and the smoke from the pistols froze and no one breathed, until from the background someone said softly, "I'll be a sonofabitch," and that was what let the mortar loose. The world started to move again, the gun smoke twined upwards to the ceiling and Billy Bob put the pistols in his sash and let out a heavy sigh that was a cross somewhere between happiness and relief.

The chatter started again, louder and edgier than before, churning out fast and snappy like the loads from a Hotchkiss gun, and the crowd moved toward Billy Bob, and it was like little toads moving toward the king frog so he could croak loud and long for us, show us how it was done.

Riley, who had been peeping around the edge of the back door, came on out, tiptoeing and smiling. He leaned over the bar and looked at Jack, then he went around and bent over him.

"Dead," Riley said.

"You don't say?" Billy Bob said. "You mean splashing some beer on him won't bring him around."

Blue Hat came forward then, and things got quiet. We'd sort of forgotten him in all the excitement. He turned and looked at Billy Bob, then he walked over and looked at Jack. He bent down like Riley had done, and when he stood, he had Jack's pistol in his hand, which, by the way, Jack hadn't even managed to clear from his holster.

Blue Hat turned, holding the pistol loosely by the grip with a thumb and forefinger. He looked at Billy Bob. "I don't want no trouble," he said.

"That's good," Billy Bob said, but he sounded disappointed.

Blue Hat dropped the gun on the bar.

Riley, quick as a snake, sidled up to it, smiled at Billy Bob and said, "I'd like that as a souvenir."

"I was going to ask that," Blue Hat said to Billy Bob. "Jack said you was just a trick shooter, not a gunman."

Billy Bob glanced down at Jack's body. A messy, dark puddle was forming under it. "He ain't saying much of anything now, is he?"

"I ain't never seen shooting like that," Blue Hat said.

"And you won't again, unless it's me you see. You want that pistol, boy, take it. But unload it first. It would make me a mite more comfortable."

Blue Hat unloaded the pistol.

Riley watched him doing it, looking like a dog that had been kicked.

"You take them bullets," Billy Bob said to Riley.

"Yes sir," Riley said, just like it was the happiest thing he'd ever done. He scooped up the bullets, put them under the counter about where the Mexicans pistol was.

"And throw that ugly old liar out of here," Billy Bob said. "And mop up that blood, it's stinking up the place."

"Yes sir," Riley said. He ducked his hand behind the bar and got that same old rag he'd had the other day, went about mopping the counter off. The rag filled up quick, and I felt my stomach going. I tried to go for the door, but I couldn't make it. I put a hand on the bar and threw up on top of one of the stools,

When I lifted my eyes I seen Ski

"Hold there," Billy Bob yelled. "Mind who you're kicking. He works for me."

I turned slightly and seen Billy Bob looking at me and Riley, and he was smiling. He looked ready to draw them pistols again. It didn't take much to know he was liking all this power. Wasn't no other reason he'd have stopped Riley from kicking me out. Any other time he'd have kicked me out his ownself.

"I'm sorry Mr…" Riley stuttered.

"Daniels," Billy Bob said. "Wild Bill Daniels. And you go back to doing what you was doing. Get that trash out of here. Then clean up Buster's mess. He's been sick. Buster, come on over here."

I went. I didn't know what else to do. I hadn't managed to stop the fight, and I didn't know if I was glad Billy Bob was the one who won or not.

Billy Bob put his arm around me. "What'd you think of that, boy?" he said nodding at the spot where Jack still lay. Riley was getting hold of the body under the arms and was fixing to drag it out the back way.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Billy Bob didn't seem to notice. He slapped me on the back. "Barkeep. A whisky for my friend here. Whisky on the house."

That got a cheer from folks, and they started gathering around me and Billy Bob, and suddenly it was hot, real hot, and when I looked around me, it struck me how nobody looked like a person anymore. Their faces had changed. They had the same looks, you see, but there was something about the way they were smiling and the way their eyes looked that made me think that the souls had gone out of them.