McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [49]
“You can make him out,” the marshal who did the talking said, “from that distance?”
“If he says it,” Virgil told the marshal, “then he did.”
Carlos waited for the marshals to look at him before saying, “The cowboy starts to ride off and I call to him to wait a second. He reins and looks back. I said, ‘But you try to ride off with my stock I’ll shoot you.’ ”
“You spoke to him like that?” the talker said. “How old are you?”
“Going on sixteen. The same age as my dad when he joined the marines.”
The quiet marshal spoke for the first time. He said, “So this fella rode off on you . . .?”
“Yes, sir. Once I see he isn’t gonna turn my cows, and he’s approaching the stock trailer by now, I shot him.” Carlos dropped his tone, saying, “I meant to wing him, put one in the edge of that yellow slicker . . . I should’ve stepped down ’stead of firing from the saddle. I sure didn’t mean to hit him square. I see the other fella jump in the truck, doesn’t care his partner’s on the ground. He goes to drive off and tears the ramp from the trailer. It was empty, no cows aboard. What I did was fire at the hood of the truck to stop it and the fella jumped out and ran for the trees.”
The talkative marshal spoke up. “You’re doing all this shooting from four hundred yards?” He glanced toward the Winchester leaning against a pecan tree. “No scope on your rifle?”
“You seem to have trouble with the range,” Virgil said to him. “Step out there about a hundred yards and hold up a live snake by its tail. My boy’ll shoot its head off for you.”
“I believe it,” the quiet marshal said.
He brought a card from his vest pocket and handed it between the tips of his fingers to Virgil. He said, “Mr. Webster, I’d be interested to know what your boy sees himself doing in five or six years.”
Virgil looked at the card and then handed it to Carlos, meeting his eyes for a second. “You want you can ask him,” Virgil said, watching Carlos reading the card that bore the deputy’s name, R.C. “Bob” Cardell, and a marshal’s star in gold you could feel. “I tell him join the marines and see foreign lands, or get to love pecans if you want to stay home.” He could see Carlos moving his thumb over the embossed star on the card. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think he knows yet what he wants to be when he grows up,” Virgil said to the marshal, and to Carlos, “Isn’t that right?”
Carlos raised his head.
“Sir, were you speaking to me?”
Later on Virgil was in the living room reading the paper. He heard Carlos come down from upstairs and said, “Will Rogers is appearing at the Hippodrome next week, with the Follies. You want to go see him?”
Carlos had his hand on his stomach. “I don’t feel so good. I upchucked my supper.”
Virgil lowered the newspaper to look at his boy. He said, “You took a man’s life today,” and watched Carlos nod his head thinking about it. “You never said, but did you look at him laying there?”
“I got down to close his eyes.”
“Made you think, huh?”
“It did. I wondered why he didn’t believe I’d shoot.”
“He saw you as a kid on a horse.”
“He knew stealing cows could get him shot or sent to prison. I mean anytime, but it’s what he chose to do.”
“That’s what you thought looking at him? You didn’t feel any sympathy for the man?”
“I did; I felt if he’d listened to me he wouldn’t be lying there dead.”
The room was silent, and now Virgil asked, “How come you didn’t shoot the other one?”
“There weren’t any cows on the trailer,” Carlos said, “else I might’ve.”
It was his son’s quiet tone that got to Virgil and made