The Gun Fight

Chapter Five

Alittle after twelve, the spotted hound raced to the Dutch door and reared up excitedly, its blunt claws scratching at the wood, its hoarse barking echoing in the kitchen. Julia Benton looked up from her pea shelling with a quick smile that drove the tense absorption from her face.

Five minutes later the buckboard came creaking across the yard and braked up in back of the house.

Julia walked over to the door and opened the top half. She saw her tall husband reaching over the iron railing for one of the baskets in the buckboard. “Hush now,” she told the baying hound.

“Hello, ma,” John said, grinning as he came struggling toward the door with his heavy load.

“Hello, dear.” Julia pulled open the bottom half of the door and the wriggling hound rushed out, its long tail blade whipping at its flanks. “Howdy, mutt,” Benton said as he entered the kitchen, heeled by the excited dog.

Benton set the basket down heavily on the table and straightened up with a quickly exhaled breath. “Am I late?” he said.

Julia nodded, smiling. “The boys finished half hour ago. Sit down and I’ll warm you what’s left.”

“Right. I’ll get the rest of the chuck first, though.” Benton left the kitchen, the dog prancing and growling happily at his boots. “Easy there, Jughead,” Julia heard her husband tell the hound.

A minute later, Benton sat at the table, checking the supply list while Julia warmed his dinner.

“Twenty pounds Arbuckle’s,” he said, laying down the coffee sack. “Canned cow. Salt. Flour.”

“Molasses?” she said.

He nodded with a grunt. “Yup,” he said, “black strap.” He checked off the item. “Oh, I forgot,” he said, “I got you canned peaches. Maxwell just got some in from the east.”

“Oh,” she said, happily surprised, “that’s nice. We’ll have them Sunday morning.”

Benton smiled to himself and worked on the list until Julia put his dinner on the table. Then he washed up and sat down. By the stove, the hound was going back to twitching sleep again.

“John?” Julia asked him while he ate.

“What?”

“What did Robby Coles want to see you about?”

He looked up from his plate in surprise. “How did you know about that?” he asked.

“He rode here first looking for you.”

“He did, eh?” Benton sipped a little hot coffee from the mug. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, shaking his head.

“You saw him in town then,” she said.

Benton nodded. “Yeah. Funny thing too,” he said. “He was all horns and rattles. Came into the Zorilla Saloon and threw a fist at me.”

She stood by the table looking concerned. “But why?” she asked.

He shrugged, food in his mouth, then swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s the part that don’t make sense. He told me to stop botherin’ his girl.”

She looked at him silently a moment. “His girl?” she said.

“That’s right. Came up to me blowin’ a storm and tells me to leave his girl alone. Then he throws a punch at me. What do you think o’ that?”

Julia shook her head slowly. “But . . . why should he say such a thing to you?” she asked.

“Don’t ask me, ma. I didn’t even know who the girl was until the Sutton kid told me.”

“Who is she?”

“Louisa Harper, Sutton said. Who’s she?”

“Louisa Harper.” Julia put two fingers against her cheek and stared into space, trying to place the name. “I don’t think I ever—”

Suddenly her mouth opened a second in surprised realization. “I think I know,” she said.

“What?” he said, still eating.

“You know the girl I keep telling you about; the one who stares at you in church?”

“You tell me there’s a girl who stares. I never saw one.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t notice,” she said with the affectionate scorn of a wife. “But she does stare at you. And . . . yes, come to think of it,” she went on, nodding to herself, “I think I’ve seen her walking with Robby Coles after church.”

“So,” he said. “Any more coffee?”

She poured the heavy black coffee into his mug. “You know what I think?” she asked him.

“What’s that?”

“I think she told Robby Coles that you pestered her.”

“That’s right, that’s what I said,” he answered, nodding. “That’s what Coles told me she said.”

“Well, of course,” she said.

Benton looked up at his pretty wife with a grin. “Of course what, ma?” he asked.

“Louisa Harper is in love with you.”

He stared at her, speechless. “She—”

“In love with you.” Julia nodded with a confident smile. “Of course she is. All the girls in Kellville are in love with you. You’re their big hero.”

“Oh . . .” Benton waved a disgusted hand, “. . . that’s hogwash.”

She smiled at him.

“That’s nonsense, Julia,” he insisted.

“No, it isn’t,” she said with a laugh. “Ever since we moved here everyone’s looked up to you. The boys look at you as if you were a god. The girls look at you as if—”

“Why should they?” John said, embarrassed.

“Because you’re a hero to them, dear,” she said. “You’re John Benton, the fearless Ranger, the quick-shooting lawman.”

He peered at her until the mock-serious expression on her face broke into an impish grin. “Ha, ha,” he said flatly.

“It’s true,” she said. “To them you’re Hardin and Longley and . . . and Hickok all rolled into one.”

“That’s nonsense,” he said. “I haven’t worn a gun in town the whole two years we’ve been here.”

“Yes, but they know what you did in the Rangers.”

“Oh, that’s silly,” he mumbled and reached for his coffee mug.

She sat down with her peas again. “Yes, I expect that’s what it is,” she said. “She’s in love with you and she probably dreamed out loud in front of Robby.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” he said in disgust. “If it’s true, that is. What’s the matter with the girl, doesn’t she know any better than that? She has that Coles kid thinkin’ I’m a . . . a gallivantin’ dude or somethin’.”

Julia laughed. “He’ll get over it,” she said, “as soon as he knows it isn’t true.”

“How do you know it isn’t true?” Benton said, forcing down the grin with effort.

Julia looked up at her husband with soft eyes for a moment, then back to her moving fingers.

“I know,” she said, gently.