He backhands her so hard, she goes flying into the prospectors’ table. Drinks clatter and crash. Cards fly up like snowflakes. The men take one look at the whore’s welted cheek and then they’re jumping to their feet.
My mark draws his gun first. The prospectors freeze solid. The uniforms next to me tense. A stillness spreads through the saloon like a wave of heat rolling over plains, and alls this while I’m stoic at the bar, pretending to be interested in nothing but the glass clutched in my palm.
Keeping the men in his sights, the murderous son of a bitch hobbles toward the door. He don’t take his eyes off the men, and they don’t dare draw their guns. It ain’t too early for drinking, but a shootout’s a different matter.
My mark slips onto the street. Soon as the doors swing closed behind him, time unsticks. The whore stands. The prospectors right their table.
I toss some coins onto the bar and follow the bastard.
“Take care, kid,” says the bartender.
I shove out the saloon without a word back.
The heat’s pressing down like it’s fixing to suffocate, and the pale dirt street gleams up almost moonlike. Stirrups and rigging rings wink at me from the saddled horses lining Whiskey Row. Like they know. Like they’re urging me on.
I trail the son of a bitch round the corner, where he stumbles for an outhouse and ducks inside.
It’s quiet back here. Not even a breeze.
I walk cautious, step nearer. Till I’m so close, I can see every last grain in the flimsy outhouse door. Till I swear I can smell the sweat and blood coming off the wretch on the other side.
My revolver hums on my hip.
I’ll kill him for you, Pa. I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him.
I draw the pistol with my right hand, grip the door with my left.
One deep breath and I yank it open, sighting the man before the door bangs to a stop ’gainst my shoulder. He’s sitting there on the pot, but his pants ain’t lowered. He’s checking the wound, shirt hanging open, fingers prodding flesh. Alls I can make out is a bloody mess ’long his left side that’s starting to soak the top of his trousers.
He goes for his gun but sees mine’s already on him and that he ain’t got a chance. He freezes, showing me his palms. There’s blood covering ’em, and I wonder how much of it’s Pa’s.
“Reach down real slow-like,” I says, “and unhook that pistol belt.”
His lip twitches, but he does right in the end. The belt clatters onto the wooden seat the pot’s set into. I grab it and toss it onto the dirt behind me.
“Who were you riding with?”
He grunts.
“I said, who the devil were you riding with?”
Still nothing.
I stare into his dark eyes and don’t see an ounce of remorse. My father died alone. Alone and cornered and in an unfair fight—a gang ’gainst one. This man could be the very same who slipped the rope over his head, heaved him high, and left him swinging. Blood’s pounding in my ears.
“Why’d you do it?” I says. “You didn’t take nothing but his pistol. You just killed him and rode on, and for what?”
“You don’t know?” The son of a bitch actually laughs. “A man lives with a secret like that his whole life and never tells his own son? Oh, that shines!”
“Yer friends,” I says through a snarl, praying I look like I know whatever secret he’s on ’bout. “Where are they headed?”
“You’ll never catch ’em, and if you do”—he grins up at me, flashing dark teeth—“they’ll string you up just like yer Pa.”
I kick him right in his bleeding side and he howls.
It weren’t a random raid. It were a hunt, with Pa being the target.
“How did you find us?” I says.
The bastard grunts.
“I ain’t asking it twice.”
“A clerk at Goldwaters,” he says. “Real cordial fellow. He pointed us to yer pa with a smile.”
Morris.
“Seems you ain’t the only boy ignorant of what’s walking round yer town,” the bastard says. He’s still grinning at me with those tarred teeth, and I wanna knock every last one loose.
“Now you listen, and you listen good,” I says. “I’m going to Goldwaters, and I’m gonna get what you ain’t giving up. Then I’m gonna ride after yer friends and do to them exactly what’s in store for you—what’s in store for every yellow-bellied coward who goes round stringing up innocent men.”
“That sounds real nice, boy,” he says. “Now for the love of God, lower that damn pistol.”
“All right,” I says.
And I do.
Right after I shoot him through the skull.