“Speaking of problems,” I said.
“I embarrassed him at the can shoot.”
“You were trying to warn him,” I said.
Virgil shrugged.
“Now he gotta prove something,” Virgil said. “To me, to himself, to his friends. Maybe all of that.”
“Could be we’ll have to kill him,” I said.
“Probably will,” Virgil said.
We drank coffee. The cook had sweetened it already.
“Maybe we should fold it up here, Virgil,” I said. “And go to Texas.”
He shook his head.
“Why?” I said. “What do you care. You’re just helping me out.”
Virgil shook his head again. I looked at him for a moment.
“You want to see it through,” I said.
“Might as well,” he said.
I looked at him some more.
“You’re figuring yourself out,” I said.
Virgil shrugged.
"Instead of enforcing the law,” I said, “you’re helping out your friend.”
“Might be,” he said.
“Rules of friendship instead of the rules of law.”
“I guess,” Virgil said.
“You slick sonovabitch,” I said. “You’re using this fight to see what you are when you’re not a lawman.”
“Useful to know,” Virgil said.
“And after that,” I said, “we’ll go to Texas.”
“Sure,” Virgil said.
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, “Friendship’s real.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“Wouldn’t work if it wasn’t,” Virgil said.
I nodded.
“Know that, too,” I said.
29.
Between engagements, Billie liked to stand by the street door and keep an eye out for clients. It was early in the evening, still light outside, and Billie at the door, when there were a couple of shots fired in the street.
“Everett,” Billie shouted. “There’s trouble outside.”
“Not my problem,” I said.
“No, but you might want to watch,” she said. “Fancy Guns Boyle just put a couple bullets through the front window at the Excelsior.”
“My goodness,” I said, and got down from my chair and walked over and stood.
In the street was Henry Boyle, obviously drunk, with four more of our army, also obviously drunk. He was waving his gun at the saloon.
“Fuck the Excelsior,” Boyle hollered. “Fuck O’Malley and the Excelsior.”
He had some trouble saying “Excelsior.” While he was struggling with it, Frank Rose came out of the Excelsior, and Cato Tillson behind him. Rose moved right a few steps, Cato left.
“You doing the shooting?” Rose said.
“You bet your ass,” Boyle said. “Me, Henry Hackworth Boyle.”
Rose looked amused, and without taking his eyes off Boyle, he said to Cato, “Hackworth.”
Cato nodded.
Virgil Cole had come up to stand with us. Virgil rarely made any noise when he walked.
“Well, well,” he said.
“Maybe we won’t have to kill him after all,” I said.
“How come you shooting holes in our window,” Rose said.
His voice was amused, as if he was having some fun with a mischievous boy.
“’Cause O’Malley owns it, and I’m with Wolfson.”
Rose nodded.
“He’s with Wolfson,” Rose said to Cato.
Cato didn’t speak.
“Lucky Wolfson,” Rose said, and smiled.
Boyle misunderstood Rose’s pleasantness. The mild tone made him feel even braver.
“So you fellas gonna do something about it?” he said.
Rose grinned.
“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Hackworth, we are.”
The drunks around Boyle began to move away from him. Boyle looked like he was trying to focus.
“What are you gonna do?” he said.
“We’re probably gonna shoot you, Hackworth,” Rose said.
“I got my gun right out,” Boyle said, and waved it at them. “What if I shoot you first?”
“Don’t make much difference, Hackworth,” Rose said. “Don’t figure, drunk as you are, you can hit either one of us, assuming you got the balls to actually try.”
“I got the balls,” Boyle said. “I got the balls. Don’t you think I don’t.”
Rose nodded indulgently.
“Maybe you do. And maybe you even hit one of us,” Rose said, smiling faintly, “the other one kills you.”
Boyle’s support moved farther away from him. Boyle frowned as if he was trying to concentrate. Rose stepped down off the porch of the Excelsior and began to walk toward Boyle.
“It occurs to me, Cato,” Rose said as he walked toward Boyle, “whoever shoots Hackworth got to go in later and clean the weapon.”
Cato nodded.
Boyle began slowly to back away as Rose walked toward him. He seemed not to know that he was doing it.
“I hate to clean a weapon,” Rose said. “Don’t you, Cato?”
Cato nodded again.
Rose reached Boyle, and suddenly his gun was in his hand and he brought it down hard across Boyle’s forearm. Boyle yelped, and his gun spun into the street. The fading remnants of Boyle’s supporters departed.
Rose’s gun was back in its holster. Boyle was hunched over, nursing his forearm against him. Rose took hold of Boyle’s shoulders, turned him, and kicked him in the backside.
“Go home, Hackworth,” he said.
“If I was sober,” Boyle muttered.
“You was sober,” Rose said, “you’d be dead. Me and Cato don’t take much pleasure shooting drunks, ’less we have to.”
Boyle looked at his gun lying in the street.
“Leave it,” Rose said.
“What am I supposed to do without a gun?” Boyle said.
His voice was petulant.
“Far as I can see,” Rose said, “whether you got a gun or not don’t make much difference.”
Still holding his bruised arm, Boyle looked for a moment longer at the gun. Rose took hold of his shirt collar in the back and shoved him toward the hotel. Boyle stumbled a couple of steps and slowed and got himself organized, and walked clumsily across the street toward the Blackfoot Hotel.
Rose looked over at the Blackfoot Saloon and saw us and smiled and made a thumbs-up gesture. I nodded. Then he went back up onto the porch, and he and Cato went back into the Excelsior.
“Too bad,” Virgil said to me. “Somebody’s gonna have to kill him. Woulda been convenient if it was them.”
30.
Her last client had left, and Billie’s evening was over. She sat with me and Virgil in the back of the Blackfoot and drank some whiskey thinned with water.
“How come that fool did that,” Billie said.
“Henry Boyle?” I said.
“Yes. How come he tried to go up against Cato and Rose.”
“Drunk,” I said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Scared,” he said.
“Scared and drunk,” I said.
Virgil nodded.
“Probably a connection,” he said.
"But if he was sacred,” Billie said, “why did he start trouble?”
“Seen a lot of kids like that,” Virgil said. “Killed some. They grow up scared and they think if they had a gun maybe they wouldn’t be scared. So they get a gun and they half learn to use it, and maybe they shoot a couple of drunks more scared than they are, and they think they are gunmen. They ain’t. What they are is still scared.”
“If I could shoot like you,” Billie said, “either one of you, I would never be scared of nothin’.”
Virgil grinned.
“I wasn’t scared ’fore I ever had a gun,” he said.
It startled me. Not the business about being scared and not scared. I understood that. It was just that I couldn’t imagine Virgil without a gun. As long as I’d known him, Virgil had been exactly what he was. Which was Virgil Cole. I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.
“I bet I’d feel a lot safer with a gun,” Billie said.
“And you’d have reason to,” Virgil said. “But you ain’t brave without a gun, you ain’t brave.”
“But Henry Boyle don’t know that,” I said to Billie. “You make a living doing gun work, you got to accept the possibility somebody gonna shoot you dead.”