"Who says?"
"They are small men."
"Small hell. They're fast. I know for a fact Jay and Pulford are, and Cross-eye's mean as sin."
"One deals. One drives a creamery wagon. One rustles cattle. They are small potatoes, and this is the best chance they will ever have to be big. They will show."
"Maybe."
"Now you can do two more things for me."
"Not for you. For the guns."
"Send me a barber in the morning. And shine my boots tonight."
In the moonlight through the windows he squinted at his watch, the watch he had already sold to Steinmetz. It was after one o'clock.
He thought: Today.
He pulled on the lamp, drank from the laudanum bottle, and estimated three fingers remained. It would see him through, although it afforded him only the most fleeting respite now. He had not urinated for thirty-six hours, and he had slept this night, fitfully, in the leather armchair for fear he would be incapable of getting out of bed in the morning.
He took up the Daily Herald for Tuesday, January 22, 1901, the day he had ridden into El Paso. The paper was dry and brittle. He had read everything in this edition, all eight pages, every news story, every advertisement, every joke, every line of filler. For once he had got the whole good out of a newspaper. For lack of anything else to do, he reread an item on the front page in the column centered under the great black headlines:
London, Jan. 22—The Privy Council has drawn up the proclamation announcing the accession of Edward Prince of Wales, to the throne. The royal apartments in Buckingham Palace are being made ready for the reception of the court. Members of Parliament are arranging to meet in special session. The funeral arrangements are planned. The theaters are scheduled to close for at least a week. Dressmakers and ladies' tailors are fairly swamped with orders countermanding colored costumes and ordering mourning gowns. Hatters are laying in a big stock of deep hatbands. Stationers are getting mourning edge stationery. Drapers are being employed, and all are rushed with work. Orders have been prepared prescribing the period of mourning for all the official departments, the diplomatic and consular service, and the army and navy at home and abroad.
He folded the newspaper and placed it on the rack under the library table.
He thought: Well, Victoria, Your Royal Highness, old lady, old girl, we are about to get together. I will not make as big a splash as you did. I do not expect they will sell much drape, but there may be a minute of silence in the saloons. I have never read what a man is supposed to do when he is presented to you. Kiss your hand, I imagine. But you will know a gent when you meet him, you will recognize blood as blue in a way as yours. I will show you my guns, if you like, and we will drink tea and talk. You were the last of your kind, and they say, Dobkins and Thibido, that I am the last of mine, so we have a hell of a lot in common. I see by the paper they have made a smart of money out of you turning up your toes. Well, they are trying to do the same with me. Your life meant considerable, I guess, and mine did not, but maybe my death will. We will see shortly. Maybe we did outlive our time, maybe the both of us did belong in a museum—but we hung onto our pride, we never sold our guns, and they will tell of the two of us that we went out in style. So today, old girl, a hair after four o'clock, at the palace. You be dressed in your best bib and tucker, Vickie, and so will I.
Deciding to drink to his impending audience with the Queen, he groaned himself out of the chair to the closet, opened the bottle, changed his mind, and poured the last of the whiskey into the washbowl. He would let today stand on its own two legs.
As he sat down again, the pain receding, the third line of the poem recited itself to him: "For he on honey-dew hath fed…"
He thought: Oh, I have fed on honey-dew. On wine and whiskey and champagne and the tender white meat of women and fine clothes and the respect of strong men and the fear of weak and the turn of a card and good horses and the crisp of greenbacks and the cool of mornings and all the elbow room that God or man could ask for. I have had high times. But the best times of all were afterward, just afterward, with the gun warm in my hand, the bite of smoke in my nose, the taste of death on my tongue, my heart high in my gullet, the danger past, and then the sweat, suddenly, and the nothingness, and the sweet clean feel of being born.
The barber's name was Gigante.
He nodded, he smiled, he nodded, he smiled, but could not utter a word. He was terrified. When, in the process of shaving, he applied a cold towel rather than a hot, and Books let out an oath, he jumped. Books ordered him to trim his mustache, and the hair in his nose, and the hair in his ears. After shearing the gun man's long hair, Gigante took from the pocket of his white jacket a whisk broom, brushed the clippings from his customer's shoulders to the carpet, got down on hands and knees, brushed the clippings on the carpet into a pile, took a paper sack from another pocket, brushed the pile of clippings into the paper sack, and rising, clutched the sack to his chest.
"How much do I owe you?" Books asked.
Gigante could scarcely speak. "Dollar."
"You owe me ten."
"Ten?"
"For that sack of J. B. Books's hair. You will sell it for twenty. So give me ten."
The barber dropped the sack, gave him ten, picked up the sack.
"Thank you," said Books. "Thank," said Gigante.
It was noon. He would have liked to inspect himself in the mirror to see what the barber had done, but that would mean getting out of the chair and going to the mirror, and he had to hoard himself. Judging that there was enough drug left to put him under till two o'clock, he drained the bottle. He had been unable to take nourishment for a day and a half, and he had told his landlady not to bother with lunch for him. He lay down on the bed.
He heard hoofs, nearing. Leaping from the brush, he leveled a Remington at the rider and ordered him to throw down his wallet. The man was thin and elderly and had a claw hand for a left hand, cocked perpetually at the wrist, the fingers stiff and splayed. Reining up, he reached inside his shirt. Books waggled his gun in warning. "I ain't armed," the rider croaked. "You be careful of that nickel-plate." Slipping a purse from inside his shirt, he tossed it. Books let his eyes follow, and therefore did not see the antiquated cap-and-ball pistol which appeared suddenly in the horseman's good hand, 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 the Remington and fell to his knees.
"My God, you've murdered me!"
"Bring me my purse."
"I can't! My God!"
"Bring it, you young bastard, or I'll put another one through the same hole."
One hand grasping the purse, the other stopping his stomach as though it were a barrel with the bung out, and blubbering, staggering to the horseman, Books handed up the purse.
"Thankee," said the rider, putting away purse and weapon and taking reins.
"You won't leave me here!"
"Won't I?" The old jasper considered him. "I'll do you a favor, though. You've got a bellyache you ain't a-going to get shet of. You can die slow or now. If you hanker, I'll kill you."
"Kill me!"
"If'n I was in your fix, I'd be obliged. I'm a fair shot, as you see, and you look to me as if you've sucked the front tit long enough."
Books 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 Claw Hand, turning as he rode on. "Don't try to hold nobody else up before you die, Sonny. You ain't worth a damn at it."