A Pair of Aces

by Joe R. Lansdale

  And it was like he was born to it. The better he got with that gun, worse things between us got. Then you came along and the secret had to be hidden all the harder. Then we got that body in the box, and that stuff he'd been saying about being the son of Wild Bill Hickok really went to his head. Well, you know that part. And there's that curse, and this town . . . and I'll tell you, Little Buster, I haven't done so good by the promise I made Jasmine. So you can see why I can't just go off and leave him. He's family. He's blood."

  I sat there when Albert was finished, kind of dazed. Like someone had bent 'a fire iron over my turnip.

  "But . . . what can you do, Albert? You've done all there is to do. He ain't worth it. "

  "I still got to try, Little Buster. You see now why I got to. A deathbed promise is a sacred thing."

  We didn't say much else. Just found places to lie down. And though I wasn't in the mood for sleep, I was tuckered, and that fever of mine had gotten worse.

  The fever sent me down in a deep well of sleep, and down there were the waters of a dream. It was the one I'd had before, the one about Mama in the house, flying away to Oz, her red hair flapping like flames. I hadn't had it in some time. The fever I guess. That and the storm blowing, building outside the wagon until it shook and the roof rattled with rain like a dozen men with hammers beating it with all their might, fast as they could go.

  So I was deep into this dream when there came a sound that wasn't part of it. Not thunder or lightning. Just a sharp crack, and it took me a long, deep moment before I realized it was a gunshot.

  I got up. I was dizzy and as hot as if had been bedded in coals. I turned the lantern up, seen that Albert was gone, and Skinny was stirring.

  Pulling on my wet pants, I went outside. Albert, wearing nothing but a blanket, was standing by Rot Toe's cage. The tarp was off the cage and the door was open. It looked to have been pried with a bar. Rot Toe was gone and so were the pistols. When I got over close, I seen there was a puddle of blood on the bottom of the cage, mixing with the wooden floor and the rain.

  "Billy Bob?" I asked.

  "Had to be," Albert said. "I should never have left them pistols in there. Should have known Billy Bob would come for them. Come on, Little Buster, Rot Toe's hurt. We got to find him."

  We got dressed in our wet clothes, and Skinny came with us. We looked high and low for sign, but the rain had washed most of it away. We did find a few cracked limbs across the way, a tuft of Rot Toe's hair on a limb, but when we got in the woods and started looking, we didn't see another sign of him.

  Those woods were giving me the shakes, and I don't mind telling you. It was like this whole little section of the world, the woods, this damned town, had been given over to the devil as some kind of playground.

  Finally we had to give it up, go on back to the wagon. When we got there, we found the back door open and flapping in the wind. And Wild Bill Hickok and his box were gone.

  "We was suckered," Albert said. "Suckered to the bone."

  About that time, our thoughts were taken from what had happened by cussing. This wasn't your plain old cussing, this was the stuff of a real professional. A fella that had had some practice at it and knew it wasn't just a matter of words but a way of life.

  It had just gone light, so we got a good look at what was coming, and it was a sight. Down that muddy street there came a team of six mules. They were pulling a long, flat sled, which looked to have been thrown together in a hurry, and standing at the front of it was a tall, skinny fella with a washed-down hat and a face so thickly overgrown with hair, it looked like a badger's butt. He was cussing now and then to keep rhythm, but the real cussing, the good stuff, was coming from another man.

  There was a horseless carriage on the sled, and sitting on the seat, the rain beating down on him, was an old fella with white hair sticking out from under his hat, and a white mustache that darn near covered his whole mouth. He had his arms crossed, was looking straight ahead, and he was cussing every breath, letting it roll out like a poem. Though, unlike a poem, it wasn't embarrassing and didn't make you want to look the other way.

  The horseless carriage's wheels and underbottom were all caked with mud, and I figured it had gotten stuck bad and he'd had to get this fella with the mules and the sled to haul him out, and he wasn't happy about it.

  Far as I was concerned, he got what was coming to him there. Those fangled noisemakers weren't never going to catch on. They couldn't travel the country the way a horse could, and you couldn't grow feed for them. They were ugly too.

  They cussed on down the street, and we watched after them. When they got past the saloon, I lost interest and turned away. But Albert didn't.

  "Uh oh," he said.

  I turned to look again. A crowd was coming out of the saloon, Billy Bob in the lead. They were walking toward the sled. The sled had stopped and the man sitting in the horseless carriage got down and stepped into the street. He turned toward the crowd, to figure what was going on, and when he did, the sun winked off of his badge and I knew who he was.

  We started running.

  When we got close I heard Billy Bob yell, "You won't take me alive, sheriff"

  And the sheriff said, "What's that?"

  "Draw if you got the guts," Billy Bob said.

  "What's that?" the sheriff said again.

  And Billy Bob pulled both of his revolvers and shot him.

  When he did, the fella who owned the mules, thinking that it might be open season, jumped off the sled on the other side and went facedown in the mud.

  The sheriff took a careful step forward, and sat down, his butt coming to rest on the edge of the sled.

  Billy Bob turned and watched Albert and me come up. He smiled.

  I went over to the sheriff and bent down beside him. His face was as white as a china plate. He looked at me.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "We wanted to stop him."

  "What's that?" he said.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Can't hear so good," the sheriff said. He looked back at Billy Bob, who was still smiling, pushing his pistols into their sash.

  "Who in tarnation was that?" the sheriff said. "And what in hell have I done to him?"

  "It don't take a thing," I said.

  The sheriff's head rolled, his hat fell off, and he sagged against me. I put his hat back on, pulled him onto the sled.

  When I had him laid out, I seen that he'd been hit twice in the chest, about a hand's span apart. It looked as if his shirt were decorated with two big, wet buttons, and they were still growing.

  I turned to Billy Bob. "He didn't hear a word you said. He was darn near deaf."

  "That ain't so," Riley offered, helpfullike, pushing up to the front of the crowd. "Homer, he had a built-in instink for them things. He knew Billy Bob was going to draw, he just wasn't fast enough to match him. "

  "He didn't even know what it was all about," I said.

  "Just saved me having to explain about Jack before I shot him," Billy Bob said, and he got his laugh from the crowd. And some crowd it was. Those folks were right flexible. If Homer had drawn on and beat Billy Bob, they'd have been standing next to him, patting him on the back, telling him what a great sheriff and gunfighter he was. They were nothing more than a kind of vulture, feeding themselves off the pride of whoever was riding high at the time.

  Billy Bob's head floated to his left and his eyes narrowed. When I looked, I seen he was staring at Skinny. I'd forgotten about him. He'd followed along behind Albert and me like a puppy, anxious to see what was going on Way he was smiling, you figured he thought this whole mess had been put together for his amusement.

  "Hey, dummy," Billy Bob said, "you're still wearing my duds."

  Skinny smiled big and nodded.

  "I don't like that none," Billy Bob said.

  Blue Hat, who had been standing next to Billy Bob, said, "Make him take them off.

  Billy Bob smiled. "That's an idea. Take off them clothes, idiot."

  Skinny looked
confused. He looked to me, then to Albert.

  "Leave him alone," Albert said to Billy Bob.

  "You ain't got no say-so at all in this matter, nigger," Billy Bob said.

  Albert walked slowly over to Billy Bob. "I said, leave him alone."

  Maybe Billy Bob would have shot Albert, I don't know. What happened was Blue Hat, who was standing a little to the side, jerked Jack's old pistol, and hit Albert a lick upside the head.

  Albert wheeled, grabbed Blue Hat, and jerked him into the muddy street. Before Blue Hat hit the mud, Billy Bob had drawn his pistols, and, whipping the barrels from left to right, he hit Albert about six times. He was real quick.

  Still, Albert didn't go down right then. It was when the crowd joined in, hitting and kicking, that he went down.

  I tried to get over there, but as I went I ran past where Blue Hat was getting up, and about the same time I stepped on his hat, he grabbed my ankle and pulled it out from under me. I went down in the mud and my head hit the edge of the boardwalk and I went on a short, dark trip.

  When I came out of it, I could hear Billy Bob saying to Skinny, "Take off them clothes, idiot, or I'm going to start shooting them off of you."

  I raised up some, looked to my left and seen Albert lying in the mud. Blue Hat had gotten up now, had his hat in one hand, and was kicking Albert in the head as hard as he could and as many times as he could.

  I tried to say, "Stop it," but a hunk of mud fell out of my mouth, and by then he'd quit kicking.

  I heard a pistol shot, and I rolled on my side and seen Skinny standing there, startled, holding his hand out to his side. He turned slowly and looked at it. His left little finger was gone. Billy Bob had shot it off.

  "Take off the clothes, dummy," Billy Bob said. "Or the next one's in your head."

  "Go ahead and shoot him," I heard Blue Hat say. "He ain't good for nothing. Ain't got nobody but this nigger and that fool."

  "Take the clothes oft" I croaked at Skinny.

  Blue Hat kicked me in the back of the head and I rolled forward some, got to a knee and said it again, "Take them off, for Heaven's sake, Skinny, take them off."

  Blue Hat must have come up behind me and clubbed me with his pistol then. I don't know, but I went down in the mud again.

  "Take off the clothes, dummy. Take off the clothes, dummy. Take off the clothes, dummy," echoed again and again, and when I looked up, I knew why. It was Skinny, mocking Billy Bob perfect.

  "You stop that," Billy Bob said.

  But Skinny was smiling again. He was still holding his hand out to his side, and it was dripping blood, but he wasn't paying it any mind. He had a new game to play. "Take off the clothes, dummy," he said, and started to wave his right hand around like he had a pistol in it.

  "You hear me?" Billy Bob yelled. "You stop that."

  "You hear me?" Skinny said. "You stop that."

  "Damn you," Billy Bob said, and he shot Skinny right through the heart.

  I don't remember seeing Skinny fall. I must have passed out again about then. It was the fever, the beating, and the gal-darned sorriness of it all did me in, I reckon.

  Next thing I knew my head was floating up from the mud and there was light in my eye.

  When the light got so it wasn't hurting, and everything around me quit spinning, a voice said, "You dead, boy?"

  It was the fella that had been driving the sled, and my head wasn't floating. He was holding my head out of the mud by the hair.

  "I'm peachy," I said.

  "You don't look peachy." He got his arms under mine and got me to my feet. When I was standing, I wobbled over to Albert, fell down on my knees beside him. "Albert," I said. "Albert, you with us?"

  His hand fluttered and I took hold of it. "God, Albert. Say you're okay. "

  "Most of them licks he got was in the head," Sled Driver said. "Nigger has a hard head. That idiot fella's dead as a rock."

  "Albert," I said again.

  "Here . . . Little Buster. Here."

  "Help me," I said, looking up at the fella.

  Sled Driver got an arm, I got the other, and we pulled Albert over to the boardwalk and propped his back against the general store wall.

  "I'm going to be okay," Albert said. "Things has quit spinning around. I don't think I'm busted inside."

  "'Cause you got most of it in the head," Sled Driver said kindly. "You people can take a lick to the head."

  Albert turned his swollen face slowly upwards, looked at the man with the badger's butt for a face. I thought maybe he was going to try and get up and smash the man's head, but he didn't. He said, "You take a message to the saloon for me?"

  "Hell no," the sled driver said. "That crazy fella and his circus is over to the saloon."

  "We'll pay you,"' Albert said.

  "What message?" I said.

  "How much?" Sled Driver said.

  Albert pushed a hand in his pants and fumbled out six bits.

  Sled Driver looked at the six bits in Albert's palm. "No way. Not chancing getting myself made into a lead sandwich for no six bit slip.

  Albert turned his head to me.

  "I got some," I said. I dug out all I had. Together it was about four dollars.

  "That enough?" Albert asked.

  "Well now," Sled Driver said. "Four dollars is four dollars."

  "Just asking you to take a little message. You let me and Buster here get back down to that wagon at the end of the street, then you tell him this. His uncle, Private Albert C. Moses, United States Cavalry, is coming to see him. And I ain't bringing presents. Tell him I ain't coming for no fast draw. I'm coming to do a bit of business."

  "That don't make no sense" Sled Driver said.

  "It will to him," Albert said. "Little Buster. Get me on my feet."

  I did.

  "Is he going to shoot me?" Sled Driver asked.

  "Not if you tell him that dumb, crazy nigger he beat up sent the message. Then you can cuss me some. He likes that."

  "Well," Sled Driver said looking at the money in his hand, "four dollars is four dollars."

  We carried Skinny back to the wagon and put him on Billy Bob's stoop. Albert pulled the rack of Cure-All aside, and underneath it was a trap door.

  "Madonna and I built this in here," Albert said. "Billy Bob didn't never know about it."

  He opened the trap. Inside was a crate. He took the crate out and opened it. There was an old Army uniform, a cap, a .45, an old .44, and a Springfield rifle, some shells for all of them.

  "Now," Albert said, "I got this thing to do. You ain't no part of it. You go over to the livery, get the mules, hitch them up, and get out of here."

  "What about you and Rot Toe?"

  "I'll come on to the next town later. Hang around a day or so here and see if I can find Rot Toe. I don't come, you just keep on without me. "

  "I can't do that."

  "You're a good boy, Little Buster, but you don't know a thing about fighting men. I used to make a living at it."

  "You can't go after him alone. He'll have Blue Hat with him. Maybe someone else. This ain't no dime novel, Albert. "

  "I don't plan to have no straight draw with him, Little Buster. I'm just going to kill him. I owe that much to jasmine. I said I'd watch after-her boy, and I done all I could. This is the last thing I got to do for her. Get him out of the way. He can't carry on her blood and be the way he is. Ain't right."

  "Can't let you go alone, Albert."

  "You got no choice. You look plumb sick anyway, Little Buster. You ain't up to

  "I'm up to it. I'll just follow you if you don't let me go." Albert sighed. "All right," he said.

  He put on the soldier suit. It was a little tight, but still fit him. He stuck the .44 in his belt, put the extra shells for it and the Springfield in a pocket. He gave me the .45. "That kicks," he said. "Use two hands. And remember. You're just the backup, so stay out of it best you can."

  I nodded.

  We went out of there down the street, and the woods, the
buildings, even the sky, seemed to be pushing down on me. It was the fever made it seem that way, I guess. Even the .45 in my hand seemed unreal. The barrel two yards long, the hammer as big as a cucumber. I kept blinking until I brought things into focus, but it didn't stop the throbbing and rushing in my head.

  The storm had turned something fierce, and my cap brim had gone soggy and was slapping in my face like the flap on a union suit.

  When we got to the saloon, Albert sent me around back. I hoped the door wasn't locked. I wondered if Albert had sent me back there just to get me out of the way.

  Jack was still out back. They hadn't gotten around to burying him yet. Even in the wind and rain he had him an aroma. He was all swollen up too. So big, in fact, his shirt had rolled up under his arms and his pale belly looked like a polished, white boulder. Ants and such had been at him. Maybe a stray dog.

  I stepped over Jack, put a hand to the door and eased it open. There wasn't a sound in there. No one took a shot at me.

  I pushed it open some more and stepped inside, and then I seen why it was so quiet.

  Albert had already come in, big as a brass band, the rifle over his left shoulder, the .44 in his right hand.

  Everyone was just staring, not quite believing it. "Nice day, ain't it?" Albert said.

  "You got a lot of sand, nigger," Riley said, easing to the middle of the bar.

  I stepped in where everyone could see me and said, "You stay away from under there, Mr. Riley," I said. "That Mex's pistol will just get you killed. In fact, you just take it by the barrel and put it up easy on the bar, slide it down to the far end out of the way."

  He did.

  Albert had the rifle level now, waving it toward Riley and the pistol toward the crowd at the tables. They were all looking very friendly, and every hand was in plain sight, lest there be a mistake.

  "Where's Billy Bob?" Albert asked.

  "Gone to church," Riley said. "He didn't trust no nigger to come here and fight fair. He said to meet him there."

  "Anybody with him?"

  "Just the kid, Noel. Billy Bob figured you'd bring your boy here. He wanted to even things up."

  "Guess that means you had to give Noel back them bullets, huh?" I said.