Ironhorse

54

He staggered as he fumbled with the buttons below the buckle of his gun-belt then positioned himself next to the porch rail and relieved himself. Like the other young man I shot dead in the street, he was wearing his underwear, hat, boots and hip rig. He swayed a bit as he went about his business off the side of the porch. He looked down, watching himself, then jerked his head up, looked about at nothing in particular, and hollered.

“Rex! You fuck!”

He looked back down for a moment. Then he turned a bit, looking about, and took an unsteady step. He stabilized and continued to empty himself.

“... the fuck you go, boy?”

He looked down again, watching himself some more. Then looked up again, looking about.

“Rex!”

He finished relieving himself and put his instrument away. He swayed and leaned on the rail with both of his arms. He looked to his left.

“Rex! The fuck!”

He looked right.

“Boy! Where the fuck you go?”

He took a step back and a step over. He walked down the steps of the porch. He pulled up on his leather rig, snugging it up, and took a few wobbly steps away from the white house and stopped. He turned and turned again.

“Hey! You drunk fucker! Where’d you go!”

He looked toward the watershed.

“He’s gonna come,” Virgil said.

He did just that. He started walking toward the shed. We waited, and after a moment we heard him laugh as he got closer.

“Boy?”

He walked around the shed. I let him get a step past me, and I snatched him. I gathered him up quick and got his arms behind his back. Virgil took his pistol. He tried to resist. Virgil told him to settle, but he didn’t. Virgil slapped him hard a few times, and he went slack in my arms. I pulled him over, propped him up on the back wall of the shed. Virgil lodged his handkerchief into his mouth.

“I’ll get some rope,” I said.

In short order we snugged his hands behind his back, pigged them with a half-hitch strain to his feet, and left him curled up in the shed.

We made sure he was breathing good. Then Virgil and I moved up quick on the white house before Vince and the other bandit could grow curious. They were still singing and playing music as we commenced with our plan.

“I’ll come in the front door,” Virgil said. “Same time you come in from the back room into the parlor.”

We heard loud laughter followed by another tune being kicked up and sawed on a fiddle.

“Watch me,” Virgil said. “Once I’m up front, we count ten.”

“Okay.”

I stood next to the back porch and watched Virgil walk through the narrow opening between the white house and the building next door. When Virgil got to the front he looked back to me. He raised his arm and dropped it, signaling me.

I started counting to myself as I stepped over the railing and entered the back-room door. Thousand one... thousand two... thousand three... thousand four...

I stayed out of view of the half-open door leading into the front parlor... thousand five... thousand six... thousand seven... thousand eight... thousand nine... I pushed open the door and entered the parlor at the exact time Virgil came through the front.

“Nobody move!” Virgil shouted.

A big bald fellow sitting next to a whore at the piano got to his pistol kind of fast, and I shot him. The women screamed. He fumbled with his pistol like he was still trying to get a shot off, and I shot him two more times. He fell back onto the piano keys, making a dull thumping tune, and dropped to the floor between the bench and the piano pedals.

Vince was caught with his left arm around one whore and his right around the other. He jerked his right arm free and froze with his hand on the grip of his Colt.

“Don’t do it, Vince!” Virgil said.

Vince looked back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Quiet!” Virgil yelped to the ladies.

The women stopped whimpering.

“Far as I know, Vince, you’ve not killed anybody,” Virgil said.

Vince kept his hand on the handle of his pistol, looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Serve some time, live to an old age. Talk about the time you lost part of your ear on the rail north of Half Moon Junction, or you can end it right here, getting killed by me, or Everett, or both of us.”

Vince kept looking back and forth between Virgil and me.

“Rex is dead,” Virgil said. “The other hand is bundled up like a bale of alfalfa in the water shed.”

The bandage wrapped around Vince’s head was showing a spot of red.

“Be good to get you to the jailhouse,” Virgil said. “Lock you up. ’Course, it’s your call.”

Vince knew he was done up, and he did not like it. Not one bit. If there was betting going on, I would put money on him doing something stupid, but his cowardliness got the best of him. He removed his hand from his pistol and hung his arm back over the shoulder of the woman on his right. He let his bandaged head go back and rest on the top of the sofa. I moved to him and removed the Colt from his belt. I handed the pistol to Virgil and gathered Vince by the buttons of his long johns and jerked him to his feet.