Her last client had left, and Billie’s evening was over. She sat with me and Virgil in the back of the Blackfoot and drank some whiskey thinned with water.
“How come that fool did that,” Billie said.
“Henry Boyle?” I said.
“Yes. How come he tried to go up against Cato and Rose.”
“Drunk,” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Scared,” he said.
“Scared and drunk,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Probably a connection,” he said.
"But if he was sacred,” Billie said, “why did he start trouble?”
“Seen a lot of kids like that,” Virgil said. “Killed some. They grow up scared and they think if they had a gun maybe they wouldn’t be scared. So they get a gun and they half learn to use it, and maybe they shoot a couple of drunks more scared than they are, and they think they are gunmen. They ain’t. What they are is still scared.”
“If I could shoot like you,” Billie said, “either one of you, I would never be scared of nothin’.”
Virgil grinned.
“I wasn’t scared ’fore I ever had a gun,” he said.
It startled me. Not the business about being scared and not scared. I understood that. It was just that I couldn’t imagine Virgil without a gun. As long as I’d known him, Virgil had been exactly what he was. Which was Virgil Cole. I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.
“I bet I’d feel a lot safer with a gun,” Billie said.
“And you’d have reason to,” Virgil said. “But you ain’t brave without a gun, you ain’t brave.”
“But Henry Boyle don’t know that,” I said to Billie. “You make a living doing gun work, you got to accept the possibility somebody gonna shoot you dead.”
“No matter how good you are?” Billie said.
“No matter how good,” I said.
Billie nodded.
“So you have to be brave anyway,” she said.
Virgil and I both nodded.
“Or at least calm,” Virgil said. “Calm’s probably better than quick, and scared don’t make you calm.”
“Henry can shoot a lot better than most,” I said. “’Cause most can’t shoot at all. But it’s not enough for him. Unless he can be the best, he has no peace of mind.”
“And he’s not the best,” Billie said.
“Nowhere near,” I said. “And if he ain’t the best, then he ain’t safe. Somebody might kill him.”
“He got embarrassed at target practice the other day. So he got drunk and went off on Frank Rose and Cato Tillson. It coulda got him killed. But instead it got him humiliated again. Now he’ll have to do something else, ’cause he can’t stand feeling the way he does.”
“Why?” Billie said.
“Don’t know,” Virgil said.
“Most of the people start trouble like that are scared,” I said. “Wickman was scared.”
“It’s funny, you know? If you boys are right, then the way you know a guy’s not scared is if he don’t start trouble. And the way you know he is is if he does.”
“Some truth to it,” Virgil said. “You know what you can do, and you know that you’re willing to do it, and you don’t have to show anybody anything. It’s kind of calming.”
“I don’t know, though,” Billie said. “I’m scared. I get humiliated. I don’t start a lot of trouble.”
“Maybe you ain’t as scared as you think,” Virgil said.
“And you ain’t a man,” I said.
“I wasn’t sure you knew that,” Billie said.
"Being a man in these parts can pressure you some,” Virgil said.