“Don’t . . .” he started to repeat her words, then broke off shakily.
“Please, Mister Benton, please. I’m begging you as his mother. Don’t hurt him! He’s just a boy. He doesn’t know anything about g-guns or-or fighting. He’s just a boy, Mister Benton, just a boy!”
Benton’s lips twitched as he sought for proper words but couldn’t find them.
“Mister Benton, I beg of you,” Jane Coles went on brokenly and Julia shuddered, hearing in the older woman’s voice a repetition of her own words to Mrs. Coles’ husband a little over an hour before.
“Missus Coles, I . . .” Benton said nervously. “I . . . I didn’t ask for this fight. I didn’t—”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Jane Coles said miserably. “All I know is I love my boy and I’ll die if anything happens to him.”
“But Missus Coles, I just told you I—”
“Oh, please, Mister Benton, please.” There were tears now, running down the small woman’s cheeks, and her hands were shaking helplessly before her.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked her quietly as if he really thought she could give him an answer.
She sobbed helplessly, staring at him, unable to see any part of the situation but the threat to her boy.
“Missus Coles, what do you want me to do?” Benton asked again, his voice rising. “Just wait for your son to kill me?”
“He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t!” she sobbed. “He’s a good boy, there’s nothing mean in him. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, Mister Benton, not anyone!”
“Missus Coles, your own husband told me to be in town by three o’clock or Robby would come after me. What choice does that give me?”
She had no answer, only frightened looks and sobs.
“Missus Coles, I don’t want this thing any more than you do. I have a life too, you know. I have my wife and I have this ranch. I’m happy here, Missus Coles, I don’t want to die any more than Robby does. But I’m being forced into this, can’t you see that?”
“Don’t hurt him, Mister Benton,” she pleaded. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt my boy.”
Benton started to say something, then, abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked away from her. At the door to the inner hall, he turned.
“You’d better go home and talk to your husband, Missus Coles,” he said grimly. “He’s the only one that can stop this fight now. I’m sorry but my hands are tied.”
“Mister Benton!”
But he was gone. Julia moved quickly to the trembling woman and put an arm around her.
“You’ve got to stop him, Missus Benton,” Jane Coles begged. “You’ve got to stop him from hurting my boy.”
Julia looked at her with a hopeless expression on her face. Then she sighed and spoke.
“You’d better go see your husband, Missus Coles,” she said softly. “He is the only one who can stop it now. I’m . . . I’m sorry.” She fought down the sob. “You . . . don’t know how sorry I am.”
“But he won’t listen to me,” Mrs. Coles sobbed. “He just won’t listen to me.”
Julia closed her eyes and turned away.
“Please go,” she muttered thickly. “That’s all there is. Believe me, that’s all there is.”
When Jane Coles had climbed into her rig like a dying woman and driven away, Julia walked slowly into the silence of the bedroom. John was sitting on the bed, his head slumped forward, his hands hanging loosely and motionlessly between his legs. On the bedside table his coffee stood cold and untouched.
He didn’t even look up as she came into the room. Only when she sat down beside him did he turn his head slowly and meet her glance. His eyes were lifeless.
Then his head dropped forward again and his voice, as he spoke, was husky and without strength.
“I’m tired, ma,” he said. “I’m awful tired.”
Slowly, her arm moved around his back and she pressed her face into his shoulder.
“I know,” she murmured. Her eyes closed and she felt warm tears running slowly down her cheeks. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
He tried to sit down and rest but there seemed to be a spring in him that coiled tight every time he sat down. First the tension would affect his hands and feet, making them twitch. Then his shoulders would twist with a tortured restlessness, his hands would close into white-knuckled fists, and the turbulence in him would show in his eyes as a haunted flickering.
Then, abruptly, he’d be on his feet again, pacing back and forth on the sitting room rug, the fist of one hand pounding slowly and methodically into the palm of the other. His gaze would flit about the room from one object to another as though he had lost something and was making a rapid, futile search for it. His boots scuffed and thudded on the thick rug and there was no rest in him.
Robby dropped down onto the couch for the twenty-seventh time and sat there feeling the coils drawing in again. His chest rose and fell with quick, agitated breaths as he stared at his hands.
On the bottom step in the hall, his brother sat peering between the bannisters, the freckles on his face standing out like cinnamon sprinkled on milk. He watched Robby start to his feet again and begin pacing.
“When you gonna fight him?” he asked.
Robby didn’t answer. He breathed as if there were an obstruction in his throat.
“Robby?”
“Three o’clock. L-eave me alone.”
“Where, Robby? Are ya goin’ out to his ranch?”
Robby’s teeth gritted together as he stopped and looked out the window at the street.
This was Armitas Street, Kellville, Texas. It was his town, it had dozens of houses and hundreds of people and stores and stables and horses and life and future. Yet in—how long?; he glanced nervously at the hall clock and saw that it was five minutes after two.
In less than an hour it might all be taken from him.
Might be? What question was there? He couldn’t draw a gun like John Benton, he couldn’t fire half as quickly or accurately. He’d never even gotten the hang of cocking the hammer after each shot; he’d always fumbled at it.
He jammed his teeth together to stop the chattering. Oh, good God, he was going to die! The thought impaled him on a spear of frozen terror. He jammed his eyes shut and felt a violent shudder run down his back.
“Robby, where are ya gonna?”
“I said, leave me alone,” Robby muttered.
“What did you say, Robby?”
“I said—! Oh . . . never mind. Shut up, will ya?”
“But where are ya gonna fight him?”
“In the square! Now will ya leave me alone!”
Jimmy sat staring at his pacing brother. He wished he was big enough to fight somebody with a gun like Robby. Maybe he could fight his father.
The vision crossed his mind with a pleasant tread—him and his father facing each other in the square, guns buckled to their waists. Awright pa, fill yer hand! Sudden drawing, the blast of pistol fire, his father clutching at his chest, him re-holstering his pistol and running to his mother. It’s all right now, ma, it’s all right. I killed him. He’s dead now and he can’t hurt us no more.
His eyes focused on Robby who was on the couch again. He looked over at the clock.
“There isn’t much time,” he said, helpfully.
Robby forced his lips together, eyes staring at the floor.
“Robby, there isn’t much time.”
Robby stood up with a lurching movement and went to the window again. He stood there tensely, punching slowly at his cupped palm. Jimmy sat there listening to the dead smacking sound of the fist hitting the palm.
“Robby, there isn’t much—”
“Will you shut up!” Robby screamed at him, whirling, his face contorted with rage. Jimmy felt a sudden jolting in his stomach and drew back from the bannister quickly.
“I was only—”
“Get out of here!” his brother yelled. “I’m sick of lookin’ at ya!”
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Jimmy sat there rigidly, thinking how much Robby looked like his father when he was mad.
Robby started for him. “I said—get outta here,” he warned, his voice a strange, unnatural sound.
Jimmy pushed up to his feet and ran up the steps, a sudden dryness in his mouth. At the head of the stairs, he stopped and glanced back. Robby hadn’t come out into the hall; he could hear him down in the sitting room, pacing again.
Slowly, he settled on the top step and looked down the staircase. He wished he could wear a gun like Robby.
In the sitting room, Robby jumped up from the couch as a thudding of horses’ hooves sounded outside. It’s him—the words exploded in his mind as he ran for the window, his heart like a frenziedly beaten drum. He felt his legs almost buckle as he moved and he grunted in shock as he caught his balance.
There was no horse in the street. Robby drew back from the window with a frightened sucking in of breath. Did Benton ride into the backyard, was he going to trap him? Robby dashed for the table and, with nerveless fingers, jerked the Colt from its holster and backed away, his eyes wide with apprehension.
The back door slammed shut and there was a heavy clumping of boots in the kitchen. No, it couldn’t be Benton, he wouldn’t come in like that. It was his father, it had to be his father. He mustn’t let his father see him like this, shivering, standing here with his pistol out-thrust and shaking in his hand. But what if it was Benton? Oh God, oh God, I can’t!—he thought, choking on a repressed sob.
“Where are you, sir?” he heard his father’s voice then and, hastily, he put the pistol down on the table and sat down.
“I’m, I’m . . .” he began, then braced himself. “Here, father,” he said, not realizing how loudly his voice rang out in the house.
Matthew Coles entered the room, carrying a box with him.
“Where is your mother?” he asked.
“I . . . I don’t know,” Robby said, still sitting there, feeling as if a great weight were settling on him.
“Well, did she go out?”
“Y-yes,” Robby faltered. “She . . . she just went out in the . . . rig.”
“In the rig?” Matthew Coles said in displeased surprise. Robby didn’t reply. He watched his father put the box on the table.
“Well, we’ll settle that later,” Matthew Coles said grimly. “There are more important things to be discussed now.”
He opened the box and took out the pistol in it.
“I’ve brought you that new Colt,” he told Robby. “Since you seem to have some difficulty with hammering. The double action in this model should take care of that. I don’t believe you’ll need more than two shots, will you.”
The last sentence was not spoken as a question.
Robby watched as his father broke open the cylinder and spun it. He heard his father’s grunt and then watched him break open the seal on a new box of cartridges. Carefully, Matthew Coles inserted a cartridge into each chamber, then spun the cylinder again. He looked into the barrel from the back, then grunted again, satisfied. Jerking his hand, he snapped the barrel back into place and spun the cylinder with one thumb.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that will do fine.”
He slid the Colt into Robby’s holster and forgot about it. Pulling out a chair, he sat across from his son.
“Now,” he said, “as to Benton’s mode of fighting. I’ve spoken to several men who claim to have seen him fight once in Trinity City. According to them, he wears his pistol—a Colt-Walker single action, I might add—wears it on his left hip, stock forward, using a cross draw. Furthermore,” he went on, “there is reason to believe he’s very much out of practice. After all, he’s been away from it a long time.”
I’ve never been near it—the words moved across Robby’s brain but he didn’t speak them. He sat staring at his father, his eyes unblinking, his entire body feeling numbed and dead.
“These men further claim that Benton never fires at a distance of less than thirty feet. So that, I believe you may be able to seize an advantage over him by drawing your weapon at a greater distance. Your accuracy is good enough for that; especially with the better rifling in this—” he gesture toward the gun in the holster, “—weapon.”
Robby swallowed the heavy lump in his throat. No, I’m sorry, he thought, I’m not going to do it. But, again, he said nothing. He sat stiffly, listening to his father plan his life away while, under the table, his nails dug into his palms without him feeling it.
“I believe you’ll find much less in this battle than you expect, sir,” Matthew Coles went on confidently. “John Benton has been away from gunplay a long while. Furthermore, I think we’ve seen ample evidence that he’s lost his nerve. In particular, his attempts to back out of this meeting. Then, of course, there was the time he refused, point-blank, to aid the men of our town in that posse. Yes—” Matthew Coles nodded once, “—it’s clear that the man is no longer what he once was.”
Robby’s throat was petrifying. It came slowly, starting at the bottom and rising as if someone poured cement in his mouth and he kept swallowing it. He shuddered, his hands twitching in his lap.
“As to having the issue settled in the town rather than out of it, well, I believe you can understand that. This entire matter can be settled only when the people of the town see that you are willing to defend the honor of your intended bride. They must see it; for the sake of all concerned.”
Silence a moment. Matthew Coles drew out his watch and pressed in the catch. The thinly wrought gold cover sprang open and he looked calmly down at the face. His head nodded once with a curt motion and he closed the watch and put it back into his pocket.
“It’s time,” he said, looking at his son with a sort of pride. “Shall we go, sir?”
Robby didn’t answer. There was something cold and terrible crawling in his stomach as he stared at his father.
“Sir?” asked Matthew Coles.
“I—”
His father stood up with one, unhesitant motion. “Are you ready, sir?” he asked like a general asking his troops if they were ready for suicidal battle.
Robby found himself standing up even though he didn’t want to. He started for the door on numbed legs.
“Your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, his voice slightly acidulous.
“Father, I—”
“Put on your weapon, sir,” Matthew Coles said, calmly.
I’ve got to tell you!—Robby thought in agony of speechless terror. But he found himself moving back to the table on legs that felt like blocks of stone, he saw his hands reaching for the belt.
It weighed a hundred pounds; his shaking hands could hardly lift it.
“Come, sir, there’s no time to waste. We want to be there before three.”
Robby put the gunbelt around his back and fumbled at the buckle. As he did, he stared down at the butt of the new Colt and thought about drawing it against Benton. He thought of walking across the square toward the tall ex-Ranger, of trying to outdraw a man who had killed thirteen outlaws; thirteen men who, themselves, could have outdrawn Robby without trying.
Thirteen!
He couldn’t help it. His fingers went limp suddenly and the unfastened belt and holster thumped loudly on the rug.
“Be careful, will you, a—”
Matthew Coles broke off suddenly his mouth gaping as he stood there staring with incredulous eyes at the tears that were scattering across Robby’s cheeks and listening to the hoarse, shaking sobs his son was trying, in vain, to control.
“What is the meaning of . . . ?” Again, he couldn’t finish. His head moved forward on his shoulders and he peered intently into the twisted face of his son, staring at the trembling lips, the wide, glistening eyes, the quivering chin.
“What is the meaning of this, sir?” he asked, heatedly. “Explain yourself this very—”
“I-I-I c-can’t, I can’t, father! Please, p-lease. I can’t. I . . . j-j-just can’t.”
“What?” The word
came slowly from Matthew Coles’ lips, rising with anger.
“I can’t, I c-can’t. He’ll kill me, he’ll k-ill me, father. I’m a-f-fraid.” Robby didn’t even try to brush away the tears that laced across his cheeks and dripped from his chin and jaw.
“Can’t, sir?” Matthew Coles was having trouble adjusting to this. “Can’t? What are you saying to me? There is no question of—”
“I won’t do it!” Robby cried suddenly, his voice cracking. “I won’t! I’m not gonna die f-for nothing!”
His father seemed to swell up before him and Robby stepped back, nervously, a rasping sob in his throat. Matthew Coles looked at him with terrible eyes, his hands twitching at his sides.
“Pick up your weapon, sir,” he said in a slow, menacing voice.
“No . . . n-no,” Robby muttered fearfully, his chest jerking with uncontrolled breaths.
“Pick up your weapon.”
“No. No, I can’t, father, I can’t !”
“You have given your word, sir,” Matthew Coles said, his voice quivering as he repressed the volcano of fury within himself. “You have promised to defend the honor of your intended bride. Everyone is waiting, sir, everyone expects it. Pick up your weapon and we’ll say no more of this.”
Robby backed away another step, shaking his head with little, twitching movements. “No,” he muttered. “No, I . . .”
“Pick up your weapon!” his father shouted, his face growing purple with released fury. He took two quick steps across the rug and clamped his rigid fingers on Robby’s arm. Robby winced as the fingers dug into his flesh. He stood there staring at his father, his head still jerking back and forth, his lips moving as if he were trying to speak but couldn’t.
“You cannot back out of this! This is something you have to do, do you understand! It’s a matter of honor! If you do this thing to me, there will be no place in this house for you! Do you understand that!”
“F-f-father, I—”
“Are you going to pick up that gun and come with me!”
Robby tried to answer, to explain but terror welled over him again and he started to cry harder, his shoulders twitching helplessly, his throat clutched with breathless sobs.