Blackjack

21

“Why should we believe you, Ricky?” I said.

“Believe what you want.”

Ricky leaned over and moaned.

“We been moving fast,” he said, and then spit some more blood into the patch of blood on the floor in front of the chair. “You can catch the shit. The threat of you or any other law... was... fading from his sight, Bill’s, too.”

“Didn’t fade from yours,” I said.

He grimaced and shook his swollen head a little.

“They ain’t as smart as me,” he said. “They ain’t spent half their born days locked up in no prison. And they weren’t left behind in the middle of the night, neither.”

He leaned forward with his elbows to his knees and spit more blood on the floor, then looked back up at us.

“All he fucking talked about,” he said. “Once he’s down Socorro way, that any law better look out.”

Virgil looked at me, then back to him.

“And Black?” Virgil said.

“Fucking left with him,” he said.

“Where in Socorro?” I said.

He shook his head.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find... There’s a cantina in the square there, north side of the plaza, a lively place with pretty whores. Saturday night, the place is famous for good times and there is nothing that would make me happier than to see the two of you spoil his good times.”

Virgil stared at Ricky.

“It’s his birthday,” Ricky said with a bloody smile.

Virgil looked to me, then back to Ricky.

“No bullshit,” he said. “Swear on Grandma Ravenfield’s Bible. You get there by Saturday night, that’s where he’ll be, with all of his no good friends.”

“You know something about Black you ain’t telling us?” Virgil said.

“I don’t,” he said. “I’d fucking tell you if I did, ’cause I don’t give a rat’s ass about him. He never really said shit to me about nothing.”

Virgil stared at Ricky for a bit.

“All Truitt talked about for fucking days now. Truitt’s got two cousins there, too, big boys, Walt and Douglas. Assholes, the both of ’em. They think they are tough shit. Truitt and his fucking bullshit. He’s just full of shit. Even Bill told him to shut the fuck up.”

“What else ain’t you telling us?” I said.

“Nothing, not a fucking thing...”

Ricky leaned over and spit again.

“Don’t think Black would be party to a party,” Virgil said.

“Hard to say about him,” Ricky said. “I think he’s planning to get as far away as he can.”

Virgil looked at me and shook his head a little.

“Goddamn all I know. When you find Truitt, and Bill, for that matter, you can tell them it was me, Ricky fucking Ravenfield, that sent you.”

Ricky leaned his head back and looked to the ceiling. A bubble of blood swelled again, then popped.

“All I know,” he said quietly.

“Why’d you kill the fella here that run this station?”

Ricky tilted his head a little, making his neck pop.

“He was gonna warn you, when you come,” he said. “I could not let him do that, you see.”

Ricky leveled a look at me as more tears welled up in his eyes. He lowered his chin to his chest.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Virgil looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. He looked to Ricky for a second, but Ricky didn’t meet his eye and Virgil walked out the front door.

I collected the Winchester Ricky dropped by the window, then removed his pistol I’d snugged behind my belt.

“Ricky,” I said. “I am most comfortable with one of a few choices that will decide your fate.”

“What?” he said.

“Take you with us back to Appaloosa where you can face a judge, who will decide your fate for all that you have done and will not continue to do.”

“You said you’d finish me.”

“I changed my mind.”

I removed all but one bullet from his revolver and placed the wood-handled pistol on the counter near the front door. I looked back to Ricky. He looked at the pistol, then at me.

I left out the front door, walked across the road and up the embankment toward our horses, and when I got to the other side of the rise I heard the report of Ricky’s pistol from inside the way station.

I stopped for a moment and looked back toward the building. I could only see the roof of the place and the thin trickle of smoke coming from the chimney of the wood-burning stove inside.

I thought about Ricky and what he’d been through, his time in prison and his broken life. Then I thought about Skinny Jack and all he’d been through. He was as good-hearted as they come and all I could readily allow was how some people just have a better shot than others.