‘Count it out, goddamnit,’ said the trapper.
‘We will put that on your tombstone,’ Charlie said, and he loudly cracked his fingers. ‘Count three, brother. Slow and even.’
‘You are both ready, now?’ I asked.
‘I am ready,’ said the trapper.
‘Ready,’ Charlie said.
‘One,’ I said—and Charlie and I both let loose with our pistols, four bullets fired simultaneously, with each finding its target, skull shots every one. The trappers dropped to the ground from which none of them would rise again. It was an immaculate bit of killing, the slickest and most efficient I could recall, and no sooner had they fallen than Charlie began laughing, as did I, though more out of relief than anything, whereas Charlie I believe was genuinely tickled. It isn’t enough to be lucky, I thought. A man has to be balanced in his mind, to remain calm, when your average man is anything but. The trapper with the blue-black beard was still gasping, and I crossed over to look upon him. He was confused, his eyes darting every which way.
‘What was that noise?’ he asked.
‘That was a bullet going into you.’
‘A bullet going into me where?’
‘Into your head.’
‘I can’t feel it. And I can’t hardly hear anything. Where’s the others?’
‘They’re lying next to you. Their heads have bullets, also.’
‘They do? Are they talking? I can’t hear them.’
‘No, they’re dead.’
‘But I’m not dead?’
‘Not yet you’re not.’
‘Ch,’ he said. His eyes closed and his head became still. I was stepping away when he shuddered and opened his eyes. ‘Jim was the one who wanted to come after you two. I didn’t want to.’
‘Okay.’
‘He thinks because he’s big, he’s got to do big things.’
‘He’s dead, now.’
‘He was talking about it all night. They would write books about us, he said. He didn’t like you all making fun of our clothes, was what it was.’
‘It doesn’t matter, now. Close your eyes.’
‘Hello?’ said the trapper. ‘Hello?’ He was looking at me but I do not think he could see me.
‘Close your eyes. It’s all right.’
‘I didn’t want to do this,’ he complained. ‘Jim thought he could lick you boys, and that he’d be able to tell everyone about it.’
‘You should close your eyes and rest,’ I said.
‘Ch. Ch, ch.’ Then the life hopped out of him and he died, and I returned to Tub, and the saddle. This ‘counting to three’ business was an old trick of ours. It was something we were neither ashamed nor proud of; suffice to say it was only employed in the direst situations, and it saved our lives more than once.
Charlie and I were set to leave when we heard a boot scrape in the loft above us. The hand had not left, but hidden away to witness the fight; sadly for him he had also witnessed our numbers trick, and we climbed the ladder to find him. This took some time as there were many tall towers of stacked hay bales in the loft, which made for excellent covering. ‘Come out, boy,’ I called. ‘We are all through here, and we promise not to hurt you.’ A pause, and we heard a scurrying in the far corner. I fired at the sound but the bales swallowed the bullet. Another pause, and more scurrying. Charlie said, ‘Boy, come out here. We’re going to kill you, and there is no chance for escape. Let’s be sensible about it.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo,’ said the hand.
‘You are only wasting our time. And we have no more time to waste.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo.’
Chapter 34
After we dispatched the hand we visited with Mayfield in his parlor. He was shocked when he found us knocking on his door, to the point that he could not speak or move for a time; I ushered him to his couch, where he sat awaiting his nameless fate. To Charlie I said, ‘He is different from last night.’
‘This is the true man,’ Charlie told me. ‘I knew it the moment I saw him.’ Addressing Mayfield, he said, ‘As you may have guessed, we have cut down your help, all four of them, plus the stable boy, which was unfortunate, and unplanned. I am quick to point out that this is entirely your doing, as we brought you the red pelt in good faith and had nothing to do with its disappearance. Thusly, the deaths of your men and the boy should rest on your conscience alone, not ours. I do not ask that you agree with this necessarily, only that you recognize I have said as much. Are we understood?’
Mayfield did not answer. His eyes were pinpointed to a spot on the wall behind me. I turned to see what he was staring at and discovered it to be: Nothing. When I looked back at him he was rubbing his face with his palms, as though he were washing.
‘All right,’ Charlie continued. ‘This next part you will not like, but here is the price to pay for the impositions you hefted upon my brother and myself. Are you listening to me, Mayfield? Yes, I want you to tell us, now. Where do you keep your safe?’
Mayfield was quiet for such a time I did not think he heard the question. Charlie was opening his mouth to repeat himself when Mayfield answered, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, ‘I will not tell you.’ Charlie walked over to him. ‘Tell me where the safe is or I will hit you on the head with my pistol.’ Mayfield said nothing and Charlie removed his gun from the holster, gripping it at the barrel. He paused, then clipped Mayfield on the very top of his skull with the walnut butt. Mayfield fell back onto the couch, covering his head and making restrained pain sounds, a kind of squealing through gritted teeth that I found most undignified. He began at once to bleed, and Charlie pressed a hanky into his fist as he sat the man up. Mayfield did not ball this into a bunch and hold it over his wound as anyone else might have, but laid the square of cotton flat over his head like a tablecloth; as he was bald on top, the blood fixed the hanky to his head quite handily. Whatever possessed him to do this? Was this a thoughtless inspiration, or something he had learned somewhere? Mayfield sat looking at us with a sulky expression on his face. He had only one boot on, and I noticed his bare foot was red and swollen at the toes. I pointed and said, ‘Touch of chilblains, Mayfield?’
‘What’s chilblains?’
‘It looks like that’s what’s wrong with your foot.’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with it.’
‘I think it’s chilblains,’ I said.
Charlie snapped his fingers, both to quiet me and to regain Mayfield’s attention. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘if you do not answer me, I will hit you twice.’
‘I won’t let you have it all,’ Mayfield said.
‘Where is the safe?’
‘I worked for that money. It is not yours to take.’
‘Right.’ He hit Mayfield twice with the butt and the man once again doubled over on the couch to wail and complain. Charlie had not removed the hanky to strike him and the blows were unpleasantly wet sounding. When he propped Mayfield upright, the man was tensing his jaws and panting and his entire head was slick with blood—the hanky itself was dripping. He stuck out his lower lip and was attempting a show of bravery, but he looked ridiculous, like something in a butcher’s display, blood running down his chin and neck, soaking into his collar. Charlie said, ‘Let’s get something clear between us, now. Your money is gone. This is a simple truth, a point of fact, and if you struggle against it we will kill you, then we’ll find your safe. I want you to ponder this: Why should you receive abuse and death for something that is already forfeit? Think on it. There is no sense in your attitude.’
‘You are going to kill me one way or the other.’
‘That is not necessarily the truth,’ I said.