The Shootist

He thought: When I get there nobody will believe I could have managed a ride like this and neither by God will I.

It was noon of a bodeful day. The sun was an eye bloodshot by dust. His horse was fistulowed. Some friction between saddle and hide, of thorn or stone or knot of thread, had created an abscess on the withers, deep and festering, the cure for which he knew was to cauterize and let the air heal by staying off the animal, but he could not stop. If the horse had suffered, he had suffered more. This was the ninth day of his ride, and the last.

He wore a gray Stetson, a black Prince Albert coat, gray vest and trousers, white shirt, gray bow tie, and boots of black lizard.

Between his backside and the saddle throat was stuffed a soft pillow of crimson velvet trimmed with golden tassels. He could not have endured the journey without the pillow. He had stolen it in Creede, Colorado, from a whorehouse.

He rode below the Organs, a bleak range trending south and east, over sand flats wrinkled with dry washes. Tied on behind his saddle were a black valise and a porcelain coffeepot. The lid of the pot had clanked monotonously all morning. He stopped and, turning slowly, untied the coffeepot, turned again, and hurled it as high into the air as he was able. He meant to draw and fire and riddle it before it hit the ground, but the effort of hurling roused such pain in his groins that he could not draw. He slumped, gripping the pommel, as the pot hit the ground and tumbled down the side of a dry wash, clanking, clanking.

There were many bosques, or thickets, now and he detoured them. But the trail required him to pass between two, and as he did, a man jumped from the brush and leveled an antiquated cap-and-ball pistol and croaked at him to throw down his wallet. The man was thin and elderly and reminded the horseman of his grandfather, who had been driven occasionally to desperate undertakings. He had a claw hand for a left hand, cocked perpetually at the wrist, the fingers stiff and splayed. Reining up, the rider reached inside his coat. Claw Hand waggled his gun in warning. "I am not armed," the rider assured him. "You be careful of that cannon." Slipping the wallet from inside his coat, he tossed it. The old man let his eyes follow and therefore did not see the weapon which appeared in the rider's hand as suddenly as blown sand, nor did he hear the explosion because the bullet exploded in his abdomen, crazed through the vitals, was deflected by the spine, and lodged, spent, in the socket of his left hip. He dropped his gun and fell to his knees and squealed like a stuck pig.

"Gawdamighty, you've murdered me!"

"Bring me the wallet."

"I cain't! Gawdamighty!"

"Bring it, you old bastard, or I will put another one through the same hole."

The man's claw pecked at it, his good hand stopped his stomach as though it were a barrel with the bung out, and blubbering, staggering to the horseman, he handed up the wallet.

"Thanks," said the rider, putting away wallet and weapon and taking reins.

"You ain't a-going to leave me here!"

"I am." The rider considered him. "I will do you a favor, though. You have got a bellyache you are not going to get over. You can die slow or now. If you like, I will kill you."

"Kill me!"

"If I was in your fix, I would be obliged. I am a fair shot, and you are old enough, and you don't look as if life has treated you very sporting."

Claw Hand backed off and sank to his knees again and began to wail like a child. His mouth hung open in shock. Saliva dripped from his chin.

"Suit yourself," said the man on the crimson pillow, turning as he rode on. "Don't try to hold up anybody else before you die, Granddad. You are not worth a damn at it."

In another hour under the sun obscured and irritated by dust he reached a ridge which overlooked the pass, and there before him were the town and the Rio Grande and, on the far side, Ciudad Juárez and more mountains and Old Mexico. A chill wind urged him down the ridge into the pass. He had not been in El Paso for years, and they had developed it considerably since then, he'd heard, along the lines of sin and salvation. They had churches and a Republican or two and a smart of banks and a symphony orchestra and five railroads and a lumberyard and the makings of a library. So much for sin. On the side of salvation they had ninety-some saloons, just shy of one for every hundred citizens, although municipal goodyism had moved the gambling rooms out back or upstairs. They had a "Line" on Utah Street with some of the fanciest parlor houses and flossiest girls in Christendom. Champagne went for five dollars a bottle and the girls went for drives in carriages on Sunday. In El Paso, they said, it was "day all day in the daytime and daytime all night, too."

He thought: If Hostetler is here, and he says I am O.K., and he had better after I have come three hundred miles to see him, I will be thirty years old again in thirty seconds. I will take the best room in the Grand Central or the Orndorff Hotel. I will dine on oysters and palomitas and wash them down with white wine. Then I will go to the Acme or Keating's or the Big Gold Bar and sit down and draw my cards and fill an inside straight and win myself a thousand dollars. Then I will go to the Red Light or the Monte Carlo and dance the floor afire. Then I will go to a parlor house and have them top up a bathtub with French champagne and I will strip and dive into it with a bare-assed blonde and a redhead and an octoroon and the four of us will get completely presoginated and laugh and let long bubbly farts at hell and baptize each other in the name of the Trick, the Prick, and the Piper-Heidsick.

On that prospect he clucked the roan into a trot, sharpening the anguish in his groins, and cursed himself for thinking thirty and putting the cart before the horse.

He entered El Paso sideways, from the west, avoiding Santa Fe Street and the plaza like the plague. It would not do to be recognized yet, not until Hostetler gave him the good news. He turned south on Chihuahua Street and was beset by wagons, gigs, and buckboards. He could scarcely identify the town. Most of the hospitable old adobes had been replaced by two-story buildings with brick fronts and false cornices. At intervals were tall poles strung with lines which he gradually understood to be poles and lines for telephones and electric lights. The next thing, he expected, would be herds of horseless carriages. At this rate El Paso would soon be as citified as Denver, far too highfalutin for a man who liked to let the badger loose now and then. The streets, however, were still the same chuckhole sand and gravel.

At the corner of Chihuahua and Overland a newsboy yawped. He reined up and flipped a nickel and glanced at the front page to find out what was going on in the world. It was the El Paso Daily Herald for Tuesday, January 22, 1901. There were two enormous headlines: Queen Victoria Is Dead and Long Live the King. He read the lead item:

London, Jan. 22—Queen Victoria has just died. Her last moments were free from pain. She had been in a comatose condition for some time. Her deathbed was surrounded by members of the royal family, who stood silently as the most famous monarch of the century passed into the great beyond. Preparations began at once to convey the news officially to the Prince of Wales and crown him Edward VII.

Folding the paper, he pushed it into a pocket and turned east onto Overland Street, looking left and right. Several houses had "Board and Room" signs, but one, a new two-story brick with a front porch, a wooden sidewalk, and a picket fence, displayed a smaller sign which said "Lodging." The simplicity appealed to him. It had class. He reined up and wondered if now, after nine days, he could get off the train by himself.

He eased the pillow from under him. Lifting his right leg over and down caused him such agony that after he had his left boot clear of the stirrup he had to lean for a moment, forehead resting against the cantle, sweating. He tucked the pillow under an arm then, tied the roan to the picket fence, and walked on unreliable legs up the steps and knocked at the door of the house, a double door with stained glass insert panels.

A woman opened it. He wanted board and room for a day or two. She said she preferred more permanent lodgers. He persisted, saying he had ridden nine days and was too tired to scout around. She let him in to see the room. It was at a rear corner, downstairs, through an entry after a parlor on one side, a dining room on the other. It had a south window and a west and a washbowl with running water. The bathroom, she said, was down the hall, and the rate would be two dollars a day.

"That bed is not ticky, is it?"

"It certainly is not."

"I will take my meals in here."

"I serve in the dining room."

"I will give you three dollars a day."

She hesitated. "Oh, very well. Since you're only staying a day or two."

"Can anyone around here run errands?"

"I have a son. Gillom."

"Have him take my horse to a livery. And bring in my valise first. Then look up a doctor named Hostetler and have him come see me."

"You can telephone the doctor. We have a telephone."

"I don't know how. And I do not feel up to learning today. You do it."

"You sound like a man accustomed to giving orders."

"No, ma'am. To doing as I please."

"I see."

She left him. Opening the taps at the bowl, he washed his face and hands, then placed the crimson pillow in a leather armchair, sat down gingerly, elongated his legs, and closed his eyes.

In a few minutes she brought the valise. "On the bed," he said, eyes closed.

"I called Dr. Hostetler. He'll stop by soon. He wanted to know your name."

"Who else rooms here?"

"I have three regulars. Two railroad men and a schoolteacher, a woman. They're upstairs. I am Mrs. Rogers. I don't know your name."

"Is it necessary?"

"For anyone living under my roof, it is."

He opened his eyes and considered her. She was forty, he supposed, with a decent face and a strong body and white collar and cuffs and a husband, he supposed, who wore an eyeshade and sleeve garters and sat at a desk and made love to her once a week, in the dark after a bath. The West was filling up with women like her, and he would not give a pinch of dried owl shit for the lot of them. "Hickok," he said. "William Hickok."

"Where do you hail from, Mr. Hickok?"

"Abilene, Kansas."

"I've heard that's a wild and woolly town."

"It is."

"What do you do there?"

"I am the U. S. Marshal."

"Oh. That's nice."

"No, it isn't."

She bit her lip. "I'm glad you're not staying long, Mr. Hickok. I don't believe I like you."

"Not many do, Mrs. Rogers," he said. She backed toward the door. "But I am widely respected," he assured her.

From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the chiffonier, then hung his Prince Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out, revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, double-action .44 Remingtons, obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the other of pearl.

Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen, and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in the corner room was no stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze stories to know that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner.

He had taken a bottle of whiskey from his valise and set it on the closet shelf. Now he had a pull at the bottle and sat down on his crimson pillow and unfolded the El Paso Daily Herald he had bought. He skimmed the pages, waiting. He read a social item:

Mrs. Harry Carpenter gave a most delightful party Monday night at Mrs. Holm's in honor of her guest Miss Johnson. High five was the game played and after a number of games it was found that Miss Anne Martin had won the ladies' prize, a beautiful hand-painted tray. The gentlemen's prize, a lovely ebony clothes brush mounted in silver, was captured by Frank Coles. About eleven o'clock the guests were shown into the spacious dining room where delicious refreshments were served. After supper Miss Martin and Miss Trumbull delighted the audience with their beautiful singing.

He read an advertisement:

Dr. Ng Che Hok Graduate Chinese Physician Over 20 years' experience in treating all diseases of men and women. He guarantees to cure Blood Poison, Lost Manhood, Skin diseases, Dropsy, Hernia, Gonorrhoea, Scrofula, Paralysis, Rheumatism, Diseases of Brain, Heart, Lung, Kidneys, Liver, Bladder, and all Female Complaints. All diseases cured exclusively by herbs without surgical operations. Consultations Free.

Someone knocked at the door.

"I am Charles Hostetler."

"Doctor." He did not rise. "Have a seat." He indicated a straight chair. "Do you know me?"

"I don't think so."

"You took a bullet out of me in Bisbee, Arizona, eight years ago."

The doctor put down his bag and seated himself. "Bisbee. Let me see." He leaned forward. "Books."

"That's right."

"John Bernard Books."

"That's right."

"You've changed."

"None of us gets any younger."

"Though I must say you look better than you did that night."

"I expect so. That was quite a fracas."

"You killed two men."

"They nearly did me in. The only time I was ever hit. I took one in the belly, in a restaurant, around midnight. Damned lucky for me you were handy."

"I remember. A close thing. I don't know to this day how you pulled through."

"Are you sorry?"

"Sorry?"

"You don't approve of me."

"I'm a physician."

Books smiled. "How did I?"

"What?"

"Pull through. Tell me what you did."

"In detail?"

"In detail."

Charles Hostetler removed his spectacles and polished the lenses. "Well, as I recall, you were hemorrhaging internally. Bleeding. Entry of the bullet was on the median line of the epigastric region, and it emerged about three inches above the crest of the ilium. We laid you out on a table in the restaurant and some miners held lamps. A barber friend of mine administered anesthesia. I carbolized everything—my hands, instruments, sponges, even the table. I opened the abdominal cavity and flushed it out with two gallons of hot water, which stopped the hemorrhaging. I sutured up the liver and repaired the gastric perforations and sewed you up again. Simple as that."

"Simple hell."

"I was sure shock would kill you, but it didn't. You must have the constitution of an ox."

"We'll see. That's why I am here."

"Oh?" The doctor put on his spectacles.

Books made a church of his fingers. "Ten days ago I was in Creede, Colorado. I hadn't been feeling up to snuff for a month or so. I went to a doc there and was examined. The next day I got on my horse and started for El Paso. I heard you were practicing here."

"What did my colleague in Creede say?"

"I won't tell you. I want you to examine me and tell me. Then I'll tell you."

"You don't trust me."

"You saved my life."

"Then you don't trust my profession."

"Doc, if I went around trusting, I'd be dead many times over."

Hostetler smiled. "All right. I'll examine you. But if I'm to know what to look for, you'll have to tell me what bothers you."

"Fair enough. I hurt. I hurt like sin. Here, in the crotch." Books pointed at the pillow under him. "I've been hurting for two months, and it gets worse. At first I thought it might be an old dose of clap, raring up on me again, but I was cured of that. Also I have trouble with my waterworks. It hurts to piddle, and I am slow as Job's goat at it."

The doctor listened. "Pain in the lumbar spine?"

"Lumbar?"

"Lower."

"Yes."

"Noticed any loss of weight?"

"I might be a bit puny."

Hostetler nodded, thinking. "All right. Take off your clothes."

Books began to do so, and while he did, the doctor removed his coat, rolled up his right shirt sleeve, washed his hands at the bowl, dried them, opened his bag, took out a jar of petroleum jelly, and lubricated his right index finger.

Books faced him, in longjohns.

"Kneel on the bed, hind end to me," Hostetler ordered. "Trapdoor down."

"You may dress now," said Hostetler.

Books dressed, and the doctor washed his hands, dried them, closed his bag, rolled down his sleeve, buttoned the cuff, donned his coat again, and seated himself. Books stood, an elbow on the chiffonier.

"Well?"

The doctor cleared his throat. "Books, every few days I have to tell a man or a woman something I don't want to. I'm not very good at it. I have practiced medicine for twenty-nine years, and I still don't know how to do it well."

"Call a spade a spade."

"How old are you?"

"Fifty-one."

"All right." Hostetler crossed his legs. "You have a carcinoma of the prostate."

"Carcinoma?"

"Cancer. That's the general term. In your case there has been considerable metastasis—spreading. When I examine you rectally I find a hard, rocklike mass spreading laterally from the prostate gland to the base of the bladder to the rectum. Is this what the man in Creede told you?"

"Yes."

"You didn't believe him?"

"No."

"Do you believe me?"

"Can't you cut it out?"

"It's too far advanced. I'd have to gut you like a fish."

"What can you do?"

"Very little. Palliation. Keep you warm and comfortable as possible. See that you eat as well as you can as long as you can. Give you drugs for the pain."

Books looked at him intently. "What you're saying is, I am a dying man."

"I am."

Books strode to the leather chair, threw the crimson pillow at a wall, and sat down, making a strange, twisted face. "I will be God damned."

"I'm sorry," said Hostetler.

"No, you're not. I said, you don't approve of me."

"That's neither here nor there. You're a human being and my patient. Therefore I'm sorry."

Books stared out a window. "I never expected to go this way."

"I'm sure you didn't."

"If I'd known this was coming."

"If it's any consolation, no one does."

"How long have I got?"

"There's no way to tell. You must be in a lot of pain already. For the life of me, I don't know how you rode down from Colorado in your condition. That, by the way, may have done you damage. Hurried matters along, I mean. Excitation of the cells."

"You said I am strong as an ox."

"Even an ox dies."

"Put it this way. If you were a betting man, how long would you say?"

"Two months. Three months. Six weeks."

"You betting wind or money?"

"Money."

"Will it be a hard death?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Can I go out? Can I have a drink? Can I play cards? Can I make love to a woman?"

"For a while. Later on you won't want to. Or be able to."

"How much later?"

The doctor shrugged. "You'll know when."

"God damn it."

"Books, I am sorry."

"So am I."

Charles Hostetler looked at the watch in his vest. "I must go. Another call to make, a pregnancy, any day now. That's the way it goes. I'll stop by tomorrow with something for you to take. For the pain. Oh, and I'll bring a book along, so you can read up on carcinoma. If you care to."

"I care to."

The doctor rose, picked up his bag.

"You can do me a favor," Books said. "Keep it to yourself I am in town."

"I surely will."

"I guess you won't mention I am a goner."

"I won't. That's your privilege." The doctor went to the door. "See you tomorrow."

There was no answer.

He sat for some time after Hostetler had gone, a man of stone. He was exhausted. The wind which had trailed him to El Paso continued to blow outside, begging round the corners of the house to be let in, and though the windows were closed, over the wind he heard, once, a high ringing sound, iron on iron, like that of clapper on bell.

He thought: Well. I am not going to the Orndorff, or the Big Gold Bar, or the Red Light, or a parlor house. So long, bare-assed blonde. Good-by, redhead. Farewell, octoroon. I am going to hole up in this room and die like some animal. In two months, three months, six weeks. And a hard death to boot. That will pleasure hell out of a lot of people. But I will not think about it now. I will have a drink and read the paper.

He stood up, took the whiskey bottle from the closet shelf and had a long pull, replaced his pillow in the armchair seat, picked up his paper, and sat down again.

He thought: This is the last newspaper I will ever read. I won't buy another. I have skimmed newspapers all my life and never got the whole good out of one. Well, I will read every word in this one and when done I will know for a fact what was going on in the world on the twenty-second day of January in the year 1901. It is a damned important day to me. For a sizable part of it, I did not know I was about to die, so in a way it was my last one alive. From now on, however many days I am allowed, they will all be downhill.

The first item which caught his attention was on the front page:

Cowes, Isle of Wight, Jan. 22—The death mask of the queen will be made by Mr. Theed, the famous sculptor. He was summoned to Osborne House on Sunday to be in readiness for the work. Artists and sculptors the world over are interested in Mr. Theed's important mission.

He thought: I will not break. I won't tell anybody what a tight I am in. I will keep my pride. And my guns loaded to the last.