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“Carl carried it with him all these years?”

“Did he remind Frank Miller of it?”

“You’re saying the tribal cop was a friend of his?”

“Both from Okmulgee, Carl thinking of becoming a lawman?”

“Carl ever say he was out to get Frank Miller?”

“This story’s bigger’n it looks.”

Faye said, “You want to hear something else happened?

“How Carl was eating an ice-cream cone that time and what Frank did?”

They sat on the porch sipping tequila at the end of the day, insects out there singing in the dark. A lantern hung above Virgil’s head so he could see to read the newspapers on his lap.

“Most of it seems to be what this little girl told.”

“They made up some of it.”

“Jesus, I hope so. You haven’t been going out with her, have you?”

“I drove down, took her to Purity a couple times.”

“She’s a pretty little thing. Has a saucy look about her in the pictures, wearing that kimona.”

“She smelled nice, too,” Carl said.

Virgil turned his head to him. “I wouldn’t tell Bob Cardell that. One of his marshals sniffing around a gun moll.” He waited, but Carl let that one go. Virgil looked at the newspaper he was holding. “I don’t recall you were ever a buddy of Junior Harjo’s.”

“I’d see him and say hi is all.”

“The Daily Times has you two practically blood brothers. What you did was avenge his death. They wonder if it might even be the reason you joined the marshals.”

“Yeah, I read that,” Carl said.

Virgil put the Daily Times down and slipped the Oklahoman out from under it. “But now the Oklahoma City paper says you shot Frank Miller ’cause he took your ice-cream cone that time in the drugstore. They trying to be funny?”

“I guess,” Carl said.

“They could make up a name for you, as smart-aleck newspapers do, start calling you Carl Webster, the Ice Cream Kid?”

“What if they do?”

“I’m getting the idea you like this attention.”

Virgil saying it with some concern and Carl giving him a shrug. Virgil picked up another paper from the pile. “Here they quote the little girl saying Frank Miller went for his gun and you shot him through the heart.”

“I thought they have her saying, ‘straight through the heart,’” Carl said. He turned to see his old dad staring at him with a solemn expression. “I’m kidding with you. What Frank did, he tried to bluff me. He looked toward Faye and called her name thinking I’d look over. But I kept my eyes on him, knowing he’d pick up his Colt. He came around with it and I shot him.”

“As you told him you would,” Virgil said. “Every one of the newspapers played it up, your saying, ‘If I draw my weapon I shoot to kill.’ You tell ’em that?”

“The only one I told was Frank Miller,” Carl said. “It had to’ve been Faye told the papers.”

“Well, that little girl sure tooted your horn for you.”

“She only told what happened.”

“All she had to. It’s the telling that did it, made you a famous lawman overnight. You think you can carry a load like that?”

“I was born to,” Carl said, starting to show himself.

It didn’t surprise his old dad. Virgil picked up his glass of tequila and raised it to his boy, saying, “God help us showoffs.”

The General

By CAROL EMSHWILLER

They had conquered his people, then raised him

as one of their own. How far would they be willing

to go to destroy their own creation?

One of the enemy has escaped into the mountains. An important general. He knows our language, he knows our ways, but we don’t know his nor where his men are, nor even if there are any of his men left at all. We were holding him in our maximum-security facilities and we had thought to torture him until he told us what he knew of his own army. We had called in others to torture him because we don’t believe in torture, but he escaped before they arrived.

There’s a large reward for his capture. For a sum like this, even his own men would turn him in. He can’t count on anybody. There’s no way that he can survive very long anyway. It’s too cold and everybody is on our side around here. Most likely they’ll fight among themselves over the reward. There’ll be a few more of us dead.

We had dressed