The Gun Fight

Chapter Three

Jesse Willmark was sitting in one of his two barber chairs, reading the Kellville Weekly Bugle. It was quiet in the small shop, so quiet that the sluggish drone of fat flies could be clearly heard. The only other sound was that of Jesse turning the newspaper pages with idle fingers, his heavyset body slumped lethargically on the black leather cushion.

The wall clock struck eleven with a tinny resonance. Jesse reached into his pocket and checked his watch. He shook his head disgustedly. The wall clock was ten minutes slow again and he’d just had it repaired three years before.

The click of heels near the door made Jesse look up quickly. “Oh.” His head dipped once in a nod and he smiled as he pushed up.

“Howdy, Mr. Oliver,” he said and slid quickly from the chair, tossing the newspaper onto one of the wire-backed chairs along the wall. “Set you down and we’ll get right to it.”

Henry Oliver slid out of his waistcoat and hung it carefully on the clothes tree beside his hat. Then, he settled back in the ornate barber chair with a sigh and shifted himself into a comfortable position as Jesse fastened the big cloth around his thick neck.

“Nice day, today,” Jesse said automatically and Henry Oliver mumbled an assent as Jesse picked up the scissors, clicked the blades together his habitual four times, and began cutting.

“Funny thing at the Zorilla Saloon before,” Henry Oliver said after a few moments of idle conversation had passed.

“Oh?” Jesse said, eyebrows raising in practiced fashion. “What’s that, Mr. Oliver?”

“You know young Robby Coles,” Oliver said and Jesse said, “Mmm-hmm,” cutting and clipping. “Know his father well. Fine man, fine man.”

“Yes. Well . . .” said Henry Oliver, “the boy came charging into the saloon and started a fight. With John Benton.”

Jesse’s mouth gaped for a moment. “No,” he said. “John Benton? Well, I’ll be . . .”

“Yup.” Henry Oliver’s head nodded vigorously and Jesse held back the scissors until the nodding stopped. “Quite a fight, quite a fight. Benton won, of course. Doubled young Robby over with a gut punch.”

“No,” Jesse said incredulously, snipping and running the comb teeth through his customer’s graying hair. “John Benton. Well. What were they fightin’ over?”

Henry Oliver crossed his dark-trousered legs. “That’s what I don’t figure,” he said, vaguely mysterious. “The boy accused Benton of—” He looked around carefully. “Of playing around with his girl.”

“No! You me—” Jesse’s voice broke off, startedly. “Louisa Harper? Playin’ around?” His voice rose and fell in jagged peaks and valleys of expression. “I can’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “Strangest thing I ever heard. John Benton. Huh.” His nervous right hand clicked the scissor blades in the air and he went on cutting. “Be damned,” he said.

“Well you could have knocked me down with your finger,” Henry Oliver said. “Surprised the life out of me, naturally.”

“Well, naturally,” Jesse said, shaking his head, an intent look on his thick-featured face.

“And I wasn’t the only one there,” said Henry Oliver. “Bill Fisher was there. And young Joe Sutton. And Pat heard too, yes, Pat heard it all. Strange, all right.”

Jesse kept shaking his head. “You . . . think it’s true?” he asked.

“Well . . .” Henry Oliver’s brow tightened. “I couldn’t say,” he ventured solemnly. “Offhand, I’d say no but . . . well, you can’t tell, you just can’t tell about those things. I know I wouldn’t want to be the one to start a story like that. John Benton’s too big a man around here to . . .” His voice drifted off and the shop was still except for the clicking scissor blades.

“Yes, he’s admired, all right,” Jesse said then as if there had been no lapse in the conversation. “Always thought he’s been overrated but . . . well, that’s nothing to do with this.” He shook his head, cutting absorbedly. “Louisa Harper, huh?” he said. “Now ain’t that somethin’.”

“Oh,” Henry Oliver said, almost grudgingly, his thick shoulders shrugging slightly, “it might be a mistake, of course.”

“Sure. Sure, that’s right, it could be a mistake,” Jesse said, agreeing with a customer.

Twenty minutes later, Henry Oliver walked out of the shop and Jesse sat down again to look at his paper. But he didn’t read it, he just sat there staring at the blurred print and thinking about what Mr. Oliver had said.

“Sure,” he muttered to himself. “Sure. I can see it; him a hero and all.” He licked his fat lips. “Louisa Harper, huh? I wouldn’t mind—”

He broke off abruptly as another customer entered. There was the taking off of the coat, the sitting down in the gilded metal and black leather chair, the tying of the cloth, the comment on the weather, the assent, the plucking up of the long scissors, the tentative clicking of blades.

“Heard about the big fight?” Jesse asked his customer.

“No. When was this?” the man asked casually.

“Just a while ago,” said Jesse. “In the Zorilla Saloon. Robby Coles and John Benton.”

“No.” The man looked up interestedly. “Benton?”

“Yup.” Jesse’s head nodded in short, decisive arcs as he worked, purse-lipped, on the man’s hair. “Had a fight over Robby Cole’s girl, Louisa Harper.”

“You don’t tell me,” the man said, face strained with interest.

“That’s right,” Jesse said calmly. “That’s right.” His small eyes narrowed. “ ’Course it might be a mistake but it seems . . . there’s been somethin’ between Benton and the girl.”

The customer’s eyes rose to the mirror on the wall and he and Jesse looked at each other with the half-repressed fascination of little boys who believe they have unearthed something of unique prurience.

“Well,” the man said.

As they went on talking, the sound of their conversation drifted out the door into the air of Kellville.