It was ended.
The roar of gunfire receded, died. Suspended from the ceiling on their stems, the blades of the four fans rotated, stirring the caldron of black smoke. The sound they made, however, the only sound in the room, was no longer that of breathing, of soft and rhythmic respiration. They sighed. They seemed to sigh an endless, electrical dirge for the repose of the dead below.
Books stood at the bar, weapon in hand, looking down at Koopmann's body.
Behind him the barkeep, Murray, stepped through the archway from the gambling room, sized the situation, put a double-barreled 10-gauge Parker shotgun to his shoulder, aimed, and fired one barrel, then the other, into Books's back.
The shootist was blown away from the bar, blown over, blown down, falling into the walkway between bar and lockers.
Shotgun shells were loaded with a heavy powder charge. And in this case they contained No. 4 bird shot, which spread into a pattern the diameter of a plate and were intended to maim a man, even at close range, rather than to kill. They penetrated Books's coat, vest, shirt, underwear, and skin, they lacerated much muscle, a few pellets entered the chest cavity, and there was some external bleeding, but the wounds were scarcely fatal.
Knowing this, the barkeep stepped immediately back through the archway into the gambling room again, out of sight, to reload.
Books lay on his belly. Drawing up his legs, he pushed with his feet against the bar and switched himself so that he lay prone again, facing the opposite direction, facing the archway. There was still no feeling in his left arm. With his right he pulled at the left, bending it at the elbow, placing the forearm before him, and settling his chin upon the wrist. Then, clawing in broken glass with his good hand, he located the Remington he had just fired and, extending his right arm on the slatting, pointed the revolver at the archway.
He was not surprised that he had been shot from the rear, but he did not know who had done it. He had killed the men he wanted to. But someone was still trying to kill him, and even in a state of total shock, instinct required him to defend himself.
Gun in hand, bleeding moderately from the wounds in his left shoulder and back, he waited.
In a minute or two Murray poked his head around the molding of the archway to have a look.
Books fired, and missed.
Astonished that the gun man still had fight in him, the barkeep ducked away again, out of sight.
He thought: All of them needed killing, and it is done. I have hurt like this before. That one in the gut, over in Bisbee. I have hurt worse than that, though, but till now I disremembered it. Once, when we were kids, the four of us, we got into some real mischief. It was over in San Saba County. One day my mother hooked a yoke of oxen up to a wagon and went to a neighbor's and told us to be good and left us alone,
Em and Clara, my sisters, and my little brother Joe and me. I have not seen them since I was sixteen. I wish I knew what has become of them, if they are well and happy, for they were dear to me. God bless them. Well, no sooner was she gone than we went to it. There was a barrel of homemade molasses in the kitchen, but no bread, so we got a caddy of tobacco from under my pa's bed. A caddy held twenty-five plugs, as I recollect. We would take a plug of tobacco and dip it in the molasses and then lick the molasses off the tobacco. After enough licks, we took powerfully sick. We had bellyaches as big as Texas. How we howled and carried on till Ma came home. We thought we were about to die and would just as soon. So I have hurt like this before. I have not seen them since I was sixteen. God bless them.
Gillom Rogers inched through the doors of the Constantinople. Eyes watering from the smoke, he gaped at Jay Cobb and Serrano and Koopmann, and at Jack Pulford, seated against the wall.
Skirting the three bodies near the bar, avoiding the blood and brains as best he could, he looked over the bar, then scuffed in wonder through the carnage of glass behind it. A dollar bill stopped him. He put it in the pants pocket which held the other money. A black-handled Remington lay in the walkway. He picked it up and holding his breath approached the prone man, who seemed small to him now, even puny.
"Mister Books?"
He saw the torn coat and the blood on it and the right arm extended stiffly, gun aimed. He moved slowly to Books's side, bending.
"It's me, Gillom," he said.
He got down on his knees. Books was incapable of speech. His chin was clamped upon his left wrist. Gillom did not care to look into the face, but the eyes arrested him. They considered. They considered not only the archway, as though something implacable waited on the other side, but something transcendent beyond that as well, far beyond.
"Mister Books, it's me, Gillom."
The mouth opened. Nothing audible issued from it, but the lips formed two words: "kill" and "me."
"Kill you?"
Gillom chewed his lips.
"Sure thing," he said, then stood, moved behind the man, straddled him, and put the muzzle of the revolver he had picked up to the back of the head. He turned his own head away; shut his eyes tight; gritted his teeth; pulled the trigger.
The hammer clicked.
"Shit," he groaned.
He despaired, aware on the rim of his consciousness of the smoke and the reek of the air and the solemnity of the fans. He got down on his knees again beside the prone man and worked at the fingers clenching the pearl handle of the second Remington, prying them free until he possessed that weapon too.
He stood again, straddled the prone man, and put the muzzle of the revolver to the back of John Bernard Books's head a second time, into the hair. He turned his own head away; shut his eyes tight; gritted his teeth; and pulled the trigger.
He walked out of the Constantinople into chaste air. A crowd of men and boys had gathered across the street. Waiting for a buggy to pass, then a buckboard, he crossed the street to the crowd.
"What happened in there?"
At least six asked.
"They're all dead," said Gillom.
"Who?"
"J. B. Books. Jay Cobb. Jack Pulford. A Mex name of Serrano, a rustler. And some guy I don't know who. A big guy. He killed 'em all."
"Who?"
"Books."
Someone had counted. "Five! Whooeee!"
"Jesus Christ, boys, he killed every hard case around!" someone exulted. "Jesus, boys, we fin'ly got us a clean town!"
"Oughta put up a statue of the murderin' bastard!" someone enthused.
"These are his guns." Gillom held them up for all to covet. "He gave 'em to me before he died."
"Look at that!"
"Short barrel, no sight, specials by God—hey, kid, want to sell 'em?"
"Hell, no," said Gillom. He grinned and waved at the Constantinople. "O.K., folks, step right over and see the show! Drinks on the house!"
As the crowd tided across the street, Gillom Rogers strode away down it, swinging a gun in each hand. An alchemy of false spring sunlight turned the nickel of the Remingtons to silver. He strode head up, shoulders back, taller to himself, having sensations he had never known before. One gun was still warm in his hand, the bite of smoke was in his nose and the taste of death on his tongue. His heart was high in his gullet, the danger past—and now the sweat, suddenly, and the nothingness, and the sweet clean feel of being born.