“We’ll go into the phone. Dial my number. Then let me talk to Lucy.”
Windy nodded gravely, moved to comply. When Lucy answered Colby continued to cover Windy with the gun. “Sweetheart? I’m at Windy’s. Dress and come here as fast as you can, and bring my gun... don’t ARGUE with me... I’ve got his gun and I’ll kill him this instant if you... Windy, you tell her!” He pushed the handset at him.
“He means it! He’s got me covered. Do as he says.”
Colby replaced the handset, pointed to the small desk.
“Sit down. Get paper and pen. We’re both going to write suicide notes. Then we’re going to Tarleton Park. A gun for each of us. I don’t want you on my conscience the rest of my life. I haven’t the guts to just blow your brains out. You’ll have an equal chance to blow mine out.”
“A duel? You mean a duel?”
“Something like that?”
He saw the flicker of hope... and slyness... in Windy’s expression. “I knew you were a gentleman, Vin. This is the gentleman’s way. I know just the place, secluded. We stand back to back, walk ten paces, turn and fire.”
Colby nodded. “The only thing lacking will be seconds. We’ll be alone. Not even Lucy will be there.”
Windy sat at the desk and wrote the suicide note. Colby read it, nodded.
“Now you stand there, back to me, your hands up on the wall, while I write my note. Remember, I’ve still got the only gun.”
“Of course.”
Windy could scarcely conceal the lifting of his spirits. No fear of death in him now, Colby noted. Windy imagined that Colby was going to be the proper gentleman and march ten paces with his back turned, and Windy was counting on that turned back. If he hadn’t counted on it he would never have written the suicide note.
Colby finished his own note, let Windy read it. Then they sat across from each other, waiting for Lucy.
When she arrived he got rid of her as quickly as possibly.
Forty minutes later he and Windy got out of Windy’s car, and headed on foot to the isolated little green. Reaching it Colby emptied each gun of all but one cartridge.
“What’re you doing?”
“There’ll be a slight change in procedure. I wouldn’t want you to worry, Windy, that when you walked ten paces with your back turned I might turn and shoot you in the back.”
“You’re a cute son-of-a-gun, aren’t you?” Windy raged.
“Very. Now, you take my gun, I’ll take yours. I’ll put your gun to your temple, you’ll put my gun to mine. Then we’ll pull triggers... until one of the bullets comes under one of the hammers.”
Colby spun the chambers several times on each gun. He solemnly handed Windy his gun. Windy seized it and began to pull the trigger wildly as fast as he could, before Colby got the gun in his own hand up to Windy’s head. Windy ducked away from the feel of the muzzle the instant Colby placed the gun at his temple, and he struck out, trying to throw Colby off balance. There was an explosion that almost deafened him... Windy’s one bullet had gone wild. Windy yelled and fell, scrambling to get away, and Colby, with infinite patience, followed him down, holding the gun near his head, and pulling the trigger one, two, three, four... the revolver tugged at his arm as the bullet fired...
He crouched after awhile to make certain Windy was dead. Then he wiped Windy’s gun, tossed it down, pried his own gun free of Windy’s death grip and walked away.
The Sight of Blood
by C. B. Gilford
He had a phobia about blood — fainted at the sight of it. So how could anyone suspect him of the bloody murder of his uncle?
“Damned nonsense,” Miles Ramey’s Uncle David said irritably. He still knelt there in the grass where he’d been pruning the rose bush. The pruning shears were in his right hand. And on the ball of the thumb of his left hand, where a thorn had pricked him, was a tiny bubble of fresh blood.
But his irritation wasn’t directed at the slight wound. At his nephew rather. Miles Ramey had been standing watching his uncle and dutifully listening to his discussion of horticulture. But now Miles’ face had gone suddenly a greenish white, a clammy sweat sprang to his forehead, and he clung to the rose trellis for support. He rolled his eyes and glanced away. He looked as if he were sick.
“What’s the matter with you?” Uncle David insisted upon knowing, although he knew quite well.
“Would you excuse me a minute?” Miles pleaded and tried to walk away.
But there was a devil in the old man that day. He had a grouch on, which was not unusual for him. But he was peskier today than even he had a habit of being. He struggled up from his knees, dropping the shears, and grabbed Miles’ arm before the latter could escape.
“Don’t like the sight of blood, is that it?” Uncle David could be almost gleeful about other people’s infirmities.
“You know I don’t,” Miles said, grimacing. “Let me go please.”
But the old man hung on. “Lot of damned nonsense,” was the judgment he rendered again. “You better cure yourself of that, sonny. Nobody minded when you were little, but it’s damned foolishness in a grown man. What you need is a shock, like seeing a lot of blood at one time. Too bad you never got in a war. Or seen a nice juicy highway accident. Bet something like that would cure you once and for all.”
Miles’ head felt dizzily empty except for the great gory visions his uncle had put there. He was weaker than Uncle David now, too weak to pull away and run.
“Too bad,” the old man said, “that we haven’t got a war or an accident handy. But we’ll try this...”
He dropped Miles’ arm and thrust his wounded thumb into Miles’ face. Somehow Miles couldn’t close his eyes. He had to look. The gnarled old brown thumb with its glistening red bead ornament, like one tiny sphere balanced precariously on a larger one, was just inches from him and filled his vision. Then as he watched in horror, Uncle David reached up with his other hand and squeezed that thumb. The blood welled, burst from its tiny spherical shape, and trickled down the skin.
To Miles it seemed like a vast, rushing, drowning torrent. He screamed.
And screaming seemed to summon strength back into his body. He wrestled out of Uncle David’s grip and ran. Like a man running away from death, and with the devil behind him. He ran the length of the path, and around to the front of the house. But he didn’t stop there. He ran down the slope, through bushes and over grass, past the low scrub trees that whipped their branches in his face. He ran out onto the dock to the far end. There, alone and gasping for breath, he threw himself down on the boards, put his head over the edge, and surrendered to his nausea.
Then he lay for a long time resting, listening to the lake water lapping against the piles, letting the fresh air seep into his throat like balm. Slowly the ugly thing seemed to wash out of him, out of his insides and out of his mind. But he still trembled from the memory, like a frozen man who cannot stop shivering even in front of a fire.
I hate him, he thought.
And his other thoughts were tumbled and incoherent for a while. Till finally, in a sudden burst of light within his brain, they all arranged themselves. He had long wanted what part of Uncle David’s estate he would inherit. And he had hated the old man for just as long. Today wasn’t the first time the old man had been impossibly overbearing, insensibly cruel. Today was somehow only the worst.