The Magic Wagon

CHAPTER 7

We hadn't been back at the wagon for more than an hour, I reckon, just in some dry clothes, when there came a hammering on the door and I took my hands from over the top of the lantern where I was warming them, and opened it.

It was Billy Bob. His hat had washed down over his face, and there in the glow of the lantern he looked like a crazy man. He smelled like a drunk. Which is what he was. He shot out a hand, grabbed me by the shirtfront, and tugged me out of the wagon into the mud and rain.

"And you nigger," Billy Bob yelled, "come out of there. And what's that idiot doing in here? Ain't them my clothes?"

"Only dry ones that would fit him," Albert said. "Mine are too big, Buster's too small."

I got up out of the mud, raked some of it off.

Billy Bob hadn't bothered to turn and look at me, and I'll tell you, the back of his head looked real inviting. I wanted to pick something up and brain him with it. But I didn't. I was scared.

"I don't care whose clothes are too big, and whose are too small," Billy Bob said. "You got no calls to put my clothes on him."

Skinny was wearing one of Billy Bob's old, fringed outfits and some thick, wool socks. He was a hell of a sight. A sort of fool's version of Billy Bob, provided you could actually get more foolish than Billy Bob.

"Come out," Billy Bob raved. "And bring that simple head with you. I'm going to give him a thrashing,"

Skinny's eyes darted ever which way. He was used to being in trouble for things he didn't understand, and he was used to looking for a way out. With the wagon wall back up in place there wasn't but one way to go, and that was out that door, right into Billy Bob's arms.

"Tell you what," Albert said easing toward the door. "You give me that thrashing, nephew."

"Don't call me that," Billy Bob said.

"That's what you come here for, ain't it? Ain't that what you told them? That you was going to come back here and give your nigger a thrashing?"

Albert stepped out into the rain, closed the door behind him.

Billy Bob stepped back. He said something, but I didn't catch it because thunder rumbled real loud. Whatever it was, you can bet it was a mouthful of sin.

"Thrash me," Albert said, and he took a step forward. "Get your nigger in line. Thrash me."

Billy Bob stepped back. "You forgot whose wagon this is?" Billy Bob said.

"I ain't never forgot whose wagon this is," Albert said.

"You got no call to come over to the saloon like that, talk that way in front of my friends."

"Friends? You call that mess friends? You just a circus passing through to them, nephew."

"Don't call me that no more, don't never call me that no more, never, never, hear? It ain't right for a nigger to… Don't do it, you hear?"

Albert stepped right up to him. "I hear, nephew."

Billy Bob went for his pistols, and even drunk he was fast. But it didn't do him no good. When Albert had stepped close, he put his hands just above Billy Bob's pistol butts, and Billy Bob's hands pushed Albert's down on the guns.

Albert drew the pistols out of Billy Bob's sash, stepped back and held them loosely. "Darky trick," he said.

Albert put one of the pistols under his arm and began unloading the other, letting the shells drop in the mud.

"Now don't do that, Albert," Billy Bob said. "That ain't right."

Albert began unloading the other pistol. He stepped over to Rot Toe's cage, threw back the tarp, and tossed both pistols between the bars. Rot Toe waddled over, picked one of them up, and smelled of it.

"You… you tell your grandpa to hand those out," Billy Bob said.

Albert stepped toward Billy Bob quickly, and Billy Bob swung.

Albert didn't even try to block or duck. Billy Bob's fist caught him on the side of the head, but Albert's head barely I moved. Albert grabbed Billy Bob by the shirt collar with one huge hand, used the other to slap Billy Bob. He did that three or four times, real quick, then he shoved Billy Bob into the mud.

Before Billy Bob could scramble up, Albert had him by the back of the collar and the seat of the pants, and he lifted and drove Billy Bob's head into the mud a few times, sucking the hat off his head, filling his mouth and eyes with muck.

Rot Toe was hopping up and down in his cage, chattering wildly, banging one of the pistols against the bar. He was like a drunk at a girlie show.

Now Albert had Billy Bob upright again, and had gone back to slapping. Every time he'd slap, mud would fly out of Billy Bob's hair and his knees would droop. When Albert got tired, he just let Billy Bob fall back on his butt in the mud.

About that time, Skinny opened the door of the Magic Wagon and looked out. He saw Billy Bob sitting in the mud, the rain washing streams of the same out of his hair and down onto his face. Skinny let out with a strange laugh. It sounded a lot like a cow bawling. He jerked both fingers at Billy Bob, said, "Bang."

Shivering more from anger than the cold rain, Billy Bob stood up. He looked first at Albert, then Skinny, then me, and when he did I felt weak. There was pure murder in his eyes.

He picked up his muddy hat and shook the mud off of it and put it on. He pointed a finger at Albert. When he spoke he sounded almost winded, but it was just plain mad, is what it was. "You make that monkey hand over my pistols now. You hear?"

"You make him," Albert said.

Billy Bob took a deep breath, cut Albert to pieces with a look, and went over to the cage. "You give me those," he said to Rot Toe, and he shot a hand out and grabbed at the one Rot Toe was holding.

Rot Toe grabbed Billy Bob's wrist, jerked him forward until Billy Bob slammed against the bars. Using the pistol in his other hand, Rot Toe reached through the bars and slammed the butt against Billy Bob's noggin. It was such a hard lick it creased Billy Bob's hat to his skull and sent him dropping to his knees. Had Rot Toe not been holding him by the wrist he'd have fallen over. Rot Toe reached through the bars and whacked Billy Bob a couple more times with the pistol, and was just really starting to enjoy himself when Albert said, "Let him go, old man."

Rot Toe looked at Albert. For a moment, I didn't think he was going to do it, but he let go. He waddled back to the center of the cage and sat down, huffed up like a kid that's had a toy taken from him.

Albert went over and pulled the tarp down on the cage. He pulled Billy Bob up and pushed him back against it. He slapped Billy Bob on the face lightly a few times. One of Billy Bob's eyes opened, then the other. Albert let go and stepped back. Billy Bob managed not to fall down. He shook his head, took some long breaths, and staggered away from the cage toward the street. "You'll pay. All of you," he said. "You can't do this to the son of Wild Bill Hickok."

He stepped into the street and squished across the mud and over into the woods. We heard him crashing around out there for a while, then Albert said, "Let's go inside," and we did.

If my suit wasn't ruined, it was darn close. Except for Skinny, who was still high and dry, we were soaked to the bone. Albert and I took off our clothes and strung them on a line across the wagon, then we wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat on the stoop. I didn't feel so good. I had a slight fever and sniffles.

When we were as warm as we could get, Albert said, "Little Buster, I think it's time I told you some things so you'll understand. I'd like you to just sit quiet until I'm finished."

"When I was a boy, Little Buster, I was the son of an ex-slave during the worst time you can imagine, next to slave days themselves. It was called Reconstruction, and I know you've heard of it. We coloreds was supposed to be freemen that could work for our living, just like whites, but wasn't too many folks would hire us, not for any kind of work. Most of them had gotten used to getting it from us for free, and wasn't in the mood to start paying for it. Part of it was the Yankee government. They was telling folks they was supposed to hire us cause the Yankee president said so, and people didn't cotton to that much.

"Lot of whites blamed us coloreds for their misery, cause ^; of the way the Yankees was pushing on them. And to tell it true, Little Buster, them Yankees hurt us all in the long run cause they turned their winning into such a mean thing.

"Well now, I heard tell that the Army was hiring coloreds, and I heard too that they paid and you got to wear a pretty uniform. I heard they treated you near good as whites, and that some coloreds had even made sergeant, which was as far as they'd let a dark man go. Sounded like the life to me. I went out West and joined the Cavalry, was out there for years.

"I'll tell you, Little Buster, the Army wasn't no paradise, fighting Indians and all. And we coloreds fought more Indians than damn near anybody, but you don't hear tell of that. Or if you do, you just hear it was the Army done it, and they don't mention it was a colored troop what was the ones doing all the shindigging.

"Still, being a man in the Army was a whole sight better than being a nigger out of it, and sometimes I figure I should have stayed there. But I didn't. I quit and joined up with a fellow named Doc Madonna, and Madonna was a fine man. Didn't see no colors at all. He just saw a man. He made me a partner after a time, and we traveled the country selling medicine, not claiming it could do more than it could do, and we did some juggling and such. Wasn't bad at all.

"But Doc died and the wagon was left to me. For a while I done what we'd been doing, but it just wasn't the same without him. I got tired of it and went back to East Texas, looked up my family.

"When I got there I found that my daddy had died some time back, and wasn't long after my mama had taken up with a white man on account of she needed the money he paid her, and this white man gave her a child, and that child was thirteen when I come home. Her name was Jasmine. She was what you call a high yeller. Pretty thing.

"Well, I figure Mama done the best she could and all, having all them mouths to feed, so I didn't judge her none. And besides, that white man was long-gone and all the kids except Jasmine had grown enough to go off on their own, get a little farm work and such, start their own poor families.

"I got me some work fixing things here and there, working some in the blacksmith shop. Little farm work from time to time. Anything to turn a dollar.

"Well now, to make a long story short, Little Buster, Mama died three years later, and Jasmine, she got in with this white boy and she got with child. That white boy got tired of her real quicklike, and he didn't come around no more. She didn't never tell me who he was, and it was a good thing, or maybe I'd have had to turn his head around on his shoulders some, and that wouldn't have done me or nobody no good.

"This baby was born, and him being the son of a white man and a high yeller, he come out looking white as you. Only thing he had that was like the family was the little red star birthmark low on his back. Jasmine had it. I have it, though you can't see it as good on me cause of me being a colored. But on her and on this boy it showed up good.

"Now there didn't seem a thing for her to do but to put this child on a white's doorstep. For Jasmine to have a white baby would have meant she and that child would have been treated worse than slaves, but she figured she could pass him for white and get him in with a good family and all, and he'd grow up having a chance. She picked this family, the Daniels, cause they had money and seemed like pretty good folks. She left the baby on the doorstep, and sure enough they took him in and they raised him white, as they didn't know that he wasn't.

"This boy they named Billy Bob and he grew up not wanting a thing. He had coloreds at his feet cleaning the floors, dusting the house, and he never knowed he was one of them.

"Jasmine got her a job working for the Daniels as a maid, and that way she got so she could keep an eye on him. And it didn't make her happy. He treated her and all the coloreds like dirt, cause the Daniels may have been good in their way, but they figured a nigger was just some kind of animal that you could teach to clean furniture, and wasn't good for much else, and Billy Bob, he was just like them.

"There was this buggy accident, and the Daniels, the ones that had become Billy Bobs mama and daddy, was killed in it, and when that happened, the children started scrambling to get the inheritance. Billy Bob being just a took in child, and there not being no will, didn't end up with nothing but his name. They put him out of the house and on his own.

"Jasmine should have just let it end there, let him go on and live as a white man, but I figure it was eating her inside, being his mama but not getting to tell him. And maybe she thought if he knowed he'd come from black folks well as white, he'd straighten some, not be so hateful toward coloreds, grow up to be a better man.

"Well, she told him. Proved it with that red star on her back, and he went darn near crazy, knocked her down and run off. Jasmine come and got me and I went to get him, had about half a mind to beat him to death, but I found him drunk in a ditch and took him home to Jasmine.

"He wasn't no count even sober, and took to cussing his mama, saying it wasn't so, that he wasn't no nigger, and I don't have to tell you how bad it distressed her, Little Buster. But he was still her boy and she loved him. I reckon I felt for him too. He was my nephew and he didn't ask to be part white and part colored, but I couldn't help but think that boy just had him a bad streak, and knowing what he knew now was just making it wider.

"He didn't go into town no more, he was so ashamed, though there wasn't nobody knowed the truth but him and us. Still, it gnawed at him. He'd eat at the house, cut a little firewood, but most of the time he just stayed wandered off in the woods.

"Wasn't long before Jasmine took the chest cold bad, and I think some of the reason she was so sick was worry over that boy. Well, she up and died. But before she did, she made me promise I'd take care of that boy, see to it that he got some kind of trade and such. He could already read, write, and cipher, so she thought if I could just get him on the right road, he'd grow up and be a good boy. Mama talk, you know?

"I buried her the same day I made the promise, cause she didn't last long after I'd give her my word, and Billy Bob, he didn't even come watch the burying. He couldn't get out of his head that she was the same woman who'd cleaned his messes in the Daniels house, and a part of him-the biggest part-seen her as nothing more than a nigger.

"Like I said, he was my nephew and I made a promise to Jasmine, and I guess I figured there had to be some good in him, being partly of her blood, so I took to caring for him.

"That old wagon I'd gotten from Doc Madonna was parked out back of my shack, which was a thing I'd throwed up next to Jasmines place, and it come to me I could teach Billy Bob the medicine show business, as it was the only thing I really knowed about. Sort of let him run the show, you see. Him looking full white could make it a whole sight easier than me doing it by myself and being a colored.

"That must have been where I messed up. Or maybe it just added to things. But him becoming boss and playing like he was full white just made him more that way in his head. Wasn't long before I'd have to come down on him hard when he got to playing it all too well.

"Still, it wasn't bad for a time. Then he took to reading them dime novels, thinking about them gunfighters and how they was all so handsome-looking and brave-and white-and he was just looking for some reason not to accept being of colored blood, so he'd go off in these dream worlds, and wasn't long before he was pretty much believing them.

"He took up the gun too. Started learning to trick shoot. And it was like he was born to it. The better he got with that gun, worse things between us got. Then you came along and the secret had to be hidden all the harder. Then we got that body in the box, and that stuff he'd been saying about being the son of Wild Bill Hickok really went to his head. Well, you know that part. And there's that curse, and this town… and I'll tell you, Little Buster, I haven't done so good by the promise I made Jasmine. So you can see why I can't just go off and leave him. He's family. He's blood."

I sat there when Albert was finished, kind of dazed. Like someone had bent a fire iron over my turnip.

"But… what can you do, Albert? You've done all there is to do. He ain't worth it."

"I still got to try, Little Buster. You see now why I got to. A deathbed promise is a sacred thing."

We didn't say much else. Just found places to lie down. And though I wasn't in the mood for sleep, I was tuckered, and that fever of mine had gotten worse.

The fever sent me down in a deep well of sleep, and down there were the waters of a dream. It was the one I'd had before, the one about Mama in the house, flying away to

Oz, her red hair flapping like flames. I hadn't had it in some time. The fever I guess. That and the storm blowing, building outside the wagon until it shook and the roof rattled I with rain like a dozen men with hammers beating it with all their might, fast as they could go.

So I was deep into this dream when there came a sound that wasn't part of it. Not thunder or lightning. Just a sharp crack, and it took me a long, deep moment before I realized it was a gunshot.

I got up. I was dizzy and as hot as if I had been bedded in coals. I turned the lantern up, seen that Albert was gone, and Skinny was stirring.

Pulling on my wet pants, I went outside. Albert, wearing nothing but a blanket, was standing by Rot Toe's cage. The tarp was off the cage and the door was open. It looked to have been pried with a bar. Rot Toe was gone and so were the pistols. When I got over close, I seen there was a puddle of blood on the bottom of the cage, mixing with the wooden floor and the rain.

"Billy Bob?" I asked.

"Had to be," Albert said. "I should never have left them pistols in there. Should have known Billy Bob would come for them. Come on, Little Buster, Rot Toe's hurt. We got to find him."

We got dressed in our wet clothes, and Skinny came with us. We looked high and low for sign, but the rain had washed most of it away. We did find a few cracked limbs across the way, a tuft of Rot Toe's hair on a limb, but when we got in the woods and started looking, we didn't see another sign of him.

Those woods were giving me the shakes, and I don't mind telling you. It was like this whole little section of the world, the woods, this damned town, had been given over to the devil as some kind of playground.

Finally we had to give it up, go on back to the wagon. When we got there, we found the back door open and flapping in the wind. And Wild Bill Hickok and his box were gone.

"We was suckered," Albert said. "Suckered to the bone."

About that time, our thoughts were taken from what had happened by cussing. This wasn't your plain old cussing, this was the stuff of a real professional. A fella that had had some practice at it and knew it wasn't just a matter of words but a way of life.

It had just gone light, so we got a good look at what was coming, and it was a sight. Down that muddy street there came a team of six mules. They were pulling a long, flat sled, which looked to have been thrown together in a hurry, and standing at the front of it was a tall, skinny fella with a washed-down hat and a face so thickly overgrown with hair, it looked like a badger's butt. He was cussing now and then to keep rhythm, but the real cussing, the good stuff, was coming from another man.

There was a horseless carriage on the sled, and sitting on the seat, the rain beating down on him, was an old fella with white hair sticking out from under his hat, and a white mustache that darn near covered his whole mouth. He had his arms crossed, was looking straight ahead, and he was cussing every breath, letting it roll out like a poem. Though, unlike a poem, it wasn't embarrassing and didn't make you want to look the other way.

The horseless carriage's wheels and underbottom were all caked with mud, and I figured it had gotten stuck bad and he'd had to get this fella with the mules and the sled to haul him out, and he wasn't happy about it.

Far as I was concerned, he got what was coming to him there. Those fangled noisemakers weren't never going to catch on. They couldn't travel the country the way a horse could, and you couldn't grow feed for them. They were ugly too.

They cussed on down the street, and we watched after them. When they got past the saloon, I lost interest and turned away. But Albert didn't.

"Uh oh," he said.

I turned to look again. A crowd was coming out of the saloon, Billy Bob in the lead. They were walking toward the sled. The sled had stopped and the man sitting in the horseless carriage got down and stepped into the street. He turned toward the crowd, to figure what was going on, and when he did, the sun winked off of his badge and I knew who he was.

We started running.

When we got close I heard Billy Bob yell, "You won't take me alive, sheriff."

And the sheriff said, "What's that?"

"Draw if you got the guts," Billy Bob said.

"What's that?" the sheriff said again.

And Billy Bob pulled both of his revolvers and shot him.

When he did, the fella who owned the mules, thinking that it might be open season, jumped off the sled on the other side and went facedown in the mud.

The sheriff took a careful step forward, and sat down, his butt coming to rest on the edge of the sled.

Billy Bob turned and watched Albert and me come up. He smiled.

I went over to the sheriff, bent down beside him. His face was as white as a china plate. He looked at me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "We wanted to stop him."

"What's that?" he said.

"I'm sorry."

"Can't hear so good," the sheriff," said. He looked back at Billy Bob, who was still smiling, pushing his pistols into their sash.

"Who in tarnation was that?" the sheriff said. "And what in hell have I done to him?"

"It don't take a thing," I said.

The sheriff's head rolled, his hat fell off, and he sagged against me. I put his hat back on, pulled him onto the sled.

When I had him laid out, I seen that he'd been hit twice in the chest, about a hand's span apart. It looked as if his shirt were decorated with two big, wet buttons, and they were still growing.

I turned to Billy Bob. "He didn't hear a word you said. He was darn near deaf."

"That ain't so," Riley offered, helpfullike, pushing up to the front of the crowd. "Homer, he had a built-in instink for them things. He knew Billy Bob was going to draw, he just wasn't fast enough to match him."

"He didn't even know what it was all about," I said.

"Just saved me having to explain about Jack before I shot him," Billy Bob said, and he got his laugh from the crowd. And some crowd it was. Those folks were right flexible. If Homer had drawn on and beat Billy Bob, they'd have been standing next to him, patting him on the back, telling him what a great sheriff and gunfighter he was. They were nothing more than a kind of vulture, feeding themselves off the pride of whoever was riding high at the time.

Billy Bob's head floated to his left and his eyes narrowed. When I looked, I seen he was staring at Skinny. I'd forgotten about him. He'd followed along behind Albert and me like a puppy, anxious to see what was going on. Way he was smiling, you figured he thought this whole mess had been put together for his amusement.

"Hey, dummy," Billy Bob said, "you're still wearing my duds."

Skinny smiled big and nodded.

"I don't like that none," Billy Bob said.

Blue Hat, who had been standing next to Billy Bob, said, "Make him take them off."

Billy Bob smiled. "That's an idea. Take off them clothes, idiot."

Skinny looked confused. He looked to me, then to Albert.

"Leave him alone," Albert said to Billy Bob.

"You ain't got no say-so at all in this matter, nigger," Billy Bob said.

Albert walked slowly over to Billy Bob. "I said, leave him alone."

Maybe Billy Bob would have shot Albert, I don't know. What happened was Blue Hat, who was standing a little to the side, jerked Jack's old pistol, and hit Albert a lick upside the head.

Albert wheeled, grabbed Blue Hat, and jerked him into the muddy street. Before Blue Hat hit the mud, Billy Bob had drawn his pistols, and, whipping the barrels from left to right, he hit Albert about six times. He was real quick.

Still, Albert didn't go down right then. It was when the crowd joined in, hitting and kicking, that he went down.

I tried to get over there, but as I went I ran past where Blue Hat was getting up, and about the same time I stepped on his hat, he grabbed my ankle and pulled it out from under me. I went down in the mud and my head hit the edge of the boardwalk and I went on a short, dark trip.

When I came out of it, I could hear Billy Bob saying to Skinny, "Take off them clothes, idiot, or I'm going to start shooting them off of you."

I raised up some, looked to my left and seen Albert lying in the mud. Blue Hat had gotten up now, had his hat in one hand, and was kicking Albert in the head as hard as he could and as many times as he could.

I tried to say, "Stop it," but a hunk of mud fell out of my mouth, and by then he'd quit kicking.

I heard a pistol shot, and I rolled on my side and seen Skinny standing there, startled, holding his hand out to his side. He turned slowly and looked at it. His left little finger was gone. Billy Bob had shot it off.

"Take off the clothes, dummy," Billy Bob said. "Or the next one's in your head."

"Go ahead and shoot him," I heard Blue Hat say. "He ain't good for nothing. Ain't got nobody but this nigger and that fool."

"Take the clothes off." I croaked at Skinny.

Blue Hat kicked me in the back of the head and I rolled forward some, got to a knee and said it again, "Take them off, for Heaven's sake, Skinny, take them off."

Blue Hat must have come up behind me and clubbed me with his pistol then. I don't know, but I went down in the mud again.

"Take off the clothes, dummy. Take off the clothes, dummy. Take off the clothes, dummy," echoed again and again, and when I looked up, I knew why. It was Skinny, mocking Billy Bob perfect.

"You stop that," Billy Bob said.

But Skinny was smiling again. He was still holding his hand out to his side, and it was dripping blood, but he wasn't paying it any mind. He had a new game to play. "Take off the clothes, dummy," he said, and started to wave his right hand around like he had a pistol in it.

"You hear me?" Billy Bob yelled. "You stop that."

"You hear me?" Skinny said. "You stop that."

"Damn you," Billy Bob said, and he shot Skinny right through the heart.

I don't remember seeing Skinny fall. I must have passed out again about then. It was the fever, the beating, and the gal-darned sorriness of it all did me in, I reckon.

Next thing I knew my head was floating up from the mud and there was light in my eye.

When the light got so it wasn't hurting, and everything around me quit spinning, a voice said, "You dead, boy?"

It was the fella that had been driving the sled, and my head wasn't floating. He was holding my head out of the mud by the hair.

"I'm peachy," I said.

"You don't look peachy." He got his arms under mine and got me to my feet. When I was standing, I wobbled over to Albert, fell down on my knees beside him. "Albert," I said. "Albert, you with us?"

His hand fluttered and I took hold of it. "God, Albert. Say you're okay."

"Most of them licks he got was in the head," Sled Driver said. "Nigger has a hard head. That idiot fella's dead as a rock."

"Albert," I said again.

"Here… Little Buster. Here."

"Help me," I said, looking up at the fella.

Sled Driver got an arm, I got the other, and we pulled Albert over to the boardwalk and propped his back against the general store wall.

"I'm going to be okay," Albert said. "Things has quit spinning around. I don't think I'm busted inside."

"Cause you got most of it in the head," Sled Driver said kindly. "You people can take a lick to the head."

Albert turned his swollen face slowly upwards, looked at the man with the badger's butt for a face. I thought maybe he was going to try and get up and smash the man's head, but he didn't. He said, "You take a message to the saloon for me?"

"Hell no," the sled driver said. "That crazy fella and his circus is over to the saloon."

"We'll pay you," Albert said.

"What message?" I said.

"How much?" Sled Driver said.

Albert pushed a hand in his pants and fumbled out six bits.

Sled Driver looked at the six bits in Albert's palm. "No way. Not chancing getting myself made into a lead sandwich for no six bits."

Albert turned his head to me.

"I got some," I said. I dug out all I had. Together it was about four dollars.

"That enough?" Albert asked.

"Well now," Sled Driver said. "Four dollars is four dollars."

"Just asking you to take a little message. You let me and Buster here get back down to that wagon at the end of the street, then you tell him this. His uncle, Private Albert C. Moses, United States Cavalry, is coming to see him. And I ain't bringing presents. Tell him I ain't coming for no fast draw. I'm coming to do a bit of business."

"That don't make no sense," Sled Driver said.

"It will to him," Albert said. "Little Buster. Get me on my feet."

I did.

"Is he going to shoot me?" Sled Driver asked.

"Not if you tell him that dumb, crazy nigger he beat up sent the message. Then you can cuss me some. He likes that."

"Well," Sled Driver said looking at the money in his hand, "four dollars is four dollars."

We carried Skinny back to the wagon and put him on Billy Bob's stoop. Albert pulled the rack of Cure-All aside, and underneath it was a trap door.

"Madonna and I built this in here," Albert said. "Billy Bob didn't never know about it."

He opened the trap. Inside was a crate. He took the crate out and opened it. There was an old Army uniform, a cap, a. 45, an old. 44, and a Springfield rifle, some shells for all of them.

"Now," Albert said, "I got this thing to do. You ain't no part of it. You go over to the livery, get the mules, hitch them up, and get out of here."

"What about you and Rot Toe?"

"I'll come on to the next town later. Hang around a day or so here and see if I can find Rot Toe. I don't come, you just keep on without me."

"I can't do that."

"You're a good boy, Little Buster, but you don't know a thing about fighting men. I used to make a living at it."

"You can't go after him alone. He'll have Blue Hat with him. Maybe someone else. This ain't no dime novel, Albert."

"I don't plan to have no straight draw with him, Little Buster. I'm just going to kill him. I owe that much to Jasmine. I said I'd watch after her boy, and I done all I could. This is the last thing I got to do for her. Get him out of the way. He can't carry on her blood and be the way he is. Ain't right."

"Can't let you go alone, Albert."

"You got no choice. You look plumb sick anyway, Little Buster. You ain't up to it."

"I'm up to it. I'll just follow you if you don't let me go."

Albert sighed. "All right," he said.

He put on the soldier suit. It was a little tight, but still fit him. He stuck the. 44 in his belt, put the extra shells for it and the Springfield in a pocket. He gave me the. 45. "That kicks," he said. "Use two hands. And remember. You're just the backup, so stay out of it best you can."

I nodded.

We went out of there down the street, and the woods, the buildings, even the sky, seemed to be pushing down on me. It was the fever made it seem that way, I guess. Even the. 45 in my hand seemed unreal. The barrel two yards long, the hammer as big as a cucumber. I kept blinking until I brought things into focus, but it didn't stop the throbbing and rushing in my head.

The storm had turned something fierce, and my cap brim had gone soggy and was slapping in my face like the flap on a union suit.

When we got to the saloon, Albert sent me around back. I hoped the door wasn't locked. I wondered if Albert had sent me back there just to get me out of the way.

Jack was still out back. They hadn't gotten around to burying him yet. Even in the wind and rain he had him an aroma. He was all swollen up too. So big, in fact, his shirt had rolled up under his arms and his pale belly looked like a polished, white boulder. Ants and such had been at him. Maybe a stray dog.

I stepped over Jack, put a hand to the door and eased it open. There wasn't a sound in there. No one took a shot at me.

I pushed it open some more and stepped inside, and then I seen why it was so quiet.

Albert had already come in, big as a brass band, the rifle over his left shoulder, the. 44 in his right hand.

Everyone was just staring, not quite believing it.

"Nice day, ain't it?" Albert said.

"You got a lot of sand, nigger," Riley said, easing to the middle of the bar.

I stepped in where everyone could see me and said, "You stay away from under there, Mr. Riley," I said. "That Mex's pistol will just get you killed. In fact, you just take it by the barrel and put it up easy on the bar, slide it down to the far end out of the way."

He did.

Albert had the rifle level now, waving it toward Riley and the pistol toward the crowd at the tables. They were all looking very friendly, and every hand was in plain sight, least there he a mistake.

"Where's Billy Bob?" Albert asked.

"Gone to church," Riley said. "He didn't trust no nigger to come here and fight fair. He said to meet him there."

"Anybody with him?"

"Just the kid, Noel. Billy Bob figured you'd bring your boy here. He wanted to even things up."

"Guess that means you had to give Noel back them bullets, huh?" I said.

Riley didn't look at me.

Albert grinned at Riley. "We'll have a whisky, Riley. Set us up a bottle."

"I don't serve niggers. Ain't never. Ain't going to."

Albert whipped the Springfield around and fired. The shot hit the sign that said: WE DONT SERVE NIGGERS, FREED OR OTHERWISE, and knocked it off the wall.

The crowd found places under tables and Riley turned several shades of white, including one that matched Texas Jack's belly.

Riley swallowed, turned, got a bottle and two glasses, put them on the bar, and stepped back.

"No, you pour, Riley," Albert said. "In fact, get you a glass and have one with us."

Riley's face did all manner of tricks, but he got another glass and put it on the bar. Albert went over to the bar and motioned to me. Riley poured us all a drink.

I needed that shot of whisky like I needed a railroad spike in the head, but I drank it. Albert lifted his with Riley, making sure it went down about the same time as the bar-keep's.

"Now wasn't that good?" Albert said. "Me and my old friend, Riley, taking a drink together. We'll do it again, won't we?"

Riley's lip jumped a little.

"Well, it's been fun, but we got to go shoot us some boys," Albert said. He went down the bar, got the Mex's gun, put it in his belt.

We backed out of the bar and through the bat wings, stood out on the boardwalk looking at the storm and the street. Across the way I could see Sled Driver. He'd given the message and got out of there. He was leaning against a building looking at us. I reckon he wanted to see how it all came out, and still be a distance from it. When he seen I was looking at him, he gave me a little wave from the hip, like maybe I ought to be glad to see him.

Why not? He did help me out of the mud. I waved back.

"Well," said Albert, "it's going to take the edge off things if we have to go back in there and ask where the church is."

"I know where it is," I said.

We didn't talk as we walked down the boardwalk. In fact, it was about all I could do to stand. I felt like someone was building a brush fire inside me.

Across the way, pacing us step for step, was Sled Driver. Once I looked back and seen that the crowd from the saloon was following us.

Albert pulled the Mexican's pistol out of his belt and shot at the boardwalk in front of them a few times, and they disappeared down it, and into the saloon like rabbits being chased by a hound.

"They just like to watch," Albert said. "They ain't so much for getting shot at."

"Me neither," I said.

We passed the sled with the horseless carriage on it. The mules had been taken away, but the sheriff was still there, though someone had gone to the effort to set him in the seat of his rig. His head was slumped, and he just looked like he was resting in the rain.

By the time we come to the end of the boardwalk and the overhang, there wasn't nothing but rain and wind and darkness, and that big yellow lightning cutting now and then, and once when it flashed bright we saw the church.

We were almost on top of it. It was small with a cross on the steeple, shutter doors at the top, and a white picket fence around it. At the gate, holding two pistols, was a man.

Albert pushed me away with his elbow, out of the line of them pistols, and the Springfield fell off his shoulder and into his hands, neat as you please, and he fired.

The shot hit the man in the head, and the head went to pieces, like a sack full of straw. It caught on the wind and was whirled away.

The headless man did not fall.

We eased over there, and seen what we should have known. It was Wild Bill Hickok. Billy Bob had tricked us. We had announced ourselves and come into pistol range.

The shutters at the top of the church flung open, and there was Blue Hat. I seen him good in the lightning flash, just before everything went dark, and in that instant he fired, and I jerked my pistol up and fired at where I thought he was.

Blue Hats shot was a good one. It hit Albert in the shoulder and he dropped the Springfield and went to his knees with a groan.

When lightning flashed again, I seen that I had missed Blue Hat. I probably hadn't even hit the church.

I tried to fire again, but before I could, Albert had pulled that Mex's pistol and took a shot.

Blue Hats head popped back, his hat tossed off, then he rocked forward out the window, his pants legs catching on the sill, keeping him hanging until they ripped and he dropped on his head with a sound like a washer-woman slapping out wet laundry on a rock.

The wide, double doors were kicked open then, and there was Billy Bob, looking just like one of them jaspers in a dime novel. He had a pistol in either hand and he was blazing.

Albert had just got back on his feet, and now he was hit a bunch of times. He went backwards, dancing on one foot before he fell in the mud. As he fell, the pistol flew out of his hand and hit me in the side of the head,

I did a little crawfish shuffle, and it was like that lick woke me up, made me crazy.

When lightning flashed again and I seen Billy Bob, I yelled, "Wild Bill," and jerked a shot at him.

Then things went dark again. I stood there with my pistol pointing it where he had been, waiting, and when there was another flash, I seen him. He was lying on the ground. Somehow, I'd hit him.

He got up on his knees and started screaming at me, something about the head of his father and death to all niggers.

Then, before it could go dark again, there came a cut of lightning so thick and long, it was darn near bright as high noon.

I shot at him again.

And missed.

But he didn't.

He fired twice, and had he not been hurt, I don't figure they'd have been wounds but kill hits. One shot tore my right shoulder and the other hit me low and in the left side. I sort of melted to the ground,

That long chain of lightning finally played out, and while it was dark, I wallowed around in the mud, trying to get turned back toward the church, and trying to find my pistol or the one Albert had tossed.

Then there was lightning again.

Billy Bob wobbled to his feet, staggered for the gate. He was coming to finish me at close range. It seemed just as well to me right then. I hurt something awful.

The storm turned wilder and the lightning did like before, only really noisy this time, sizzling like bacon in a hot pan, and it was so bright it hurt my eyes.

And then there was someone beside Billy Bob. I didn't see where he came from, probably out of the woods and leaped the gate, but I thought at first it was a man in a buffalo coat. But it was Rot Toe.

Rot Toe hooted and slapped his chest with both hands, stretching tall as he could. Billy Bob stepped back, shot the ape in the chest.

Rot Toe didn't even slow down. He ran at Billy Bob and grabbed him in a hug, pinning Billy Bobs arms and pistols to his sides.

Finally the light went away, and it was dark for some time before it flashed again, and now it came in short bursts, one right after the other.

Rot Toe had Billy Bob by the back of the collar now, and was dragging him. He reached the vine-covered latticework beside the door and started up it, dragging Billy Bob with him.

Wild Bill Daniels still had his pistols, and he was trying to turn and get a shot at Rot Toe, but the way the ape was holding him, he couldn't get twisted for it.

When the ape had him halfway up the church, Billy Bob finally managed to get turned enough to shoot Rot Toe in the foot.

Rot Toe went wild, scuttled on up the latticework, some of it cracking beneath him, then he jumped for the open loft doors, hit with one foot on the sill, and caught the roof with his other hand. He never let go of Billy Bob with the other, and Billy Bob never let go of them damn pistols.

Rot Toe swung hard and up onto the roof, cranking Billy Bob up after him. When Billy Bob's boots touched the roof, he tried to get them under him, but he couldn't. Rot Toe, using one arm and his feet, started climbing the steeple.

They reached the top, and hanging by one hand to the cross. Rot Toe began to flap Billy Bob against the steeple with all his might, screeching all the while. The wind was so high, I reckoned it would blow them off, but Rot Toe held.

The sky got full of lightning again, that long-lasting, sizzling kind, and the wind howled louder than Rot Toe could screech.

Billy Bob's head slipped down inside his shirt, and it looked like he was going to drop out of it. I could just see the top of his head and his eyes.

Trying for a shot, Billy Bob arched his back against the steeple, pressed the soles of his boots against it, and pointed his pistols over his shoulders.

They clicked empty.

Billy Bob cussed.

And a long, ugly streak of lightning reached out of the sky and hit those pistols, turned them silver, lit up Rot Toe and Billy Bob bright as a harvest moon.

Then it was over. The smoking meat that had been Rot Toe and Billy Bob fell to the churchyard.

That was all for Wild Bill Daniels and Rot Toe the wrestling chimpanzee, and when I closed my feverish eyelids and heard the sound of thunder in my head, smelled the sulpher of lightning, I reckoned that it was all for me too.