The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [106]
“Honey, he ever tell you how I pulled him out from under the cows? Deep water after a flash flood and they was millin’ in the stream—” He grinned at her as if there was a secret between them. “You’d still be shaking your tail in that Sudan hash-house if it wasn’t for me.”
“Saving my life doesn’t bless anything you’ve got to say to my wife.” Boland had felt the temper hot in his face, but he calmed himself. Now his voice was lower, but there was an edge to it still.
“And it doesn’t give you leave to walk in my house with your gun out and start pushing everybody around. I know you’re in some trouble. With your dirty mind and Red’s drinking it could be almost anything. Now I’m telling you, Jeffy, start acting right or move on.”
Jeffy shook his head sadly. “That’s some way to talk after all the time Red and me and you bunked together.”
“What did you do, Jeffy?”
There was a pause and his face became serious. “Held up a man and Red shot him when he went for his gun.”
“Where’d it happen?”
As suddenly as he had become serious, his face grinned again and he said, “You always did have a long nose.” He looked over to the cot and said, “Red!” surprising the man’s eyes open.
“I’m not going to tell you again. Keep your eyes open.” He lifted his slicker from the chair and shrugged an arm into it. “Pull your gun and hold it on them, while I take a look around. I might even go all the way toward town, so don’t get jumpy if I’m gone a couple hours.”
He started for the door, buttoning the slicker with one hand, then looked at Virginia. “Honey, you have some coffee on for when I get back. Like you used to.” He grinned at her showing tobacco-yellowed teeth and shook his head reminiscently. “You sure used to throw it around in that café.”
She looked away from him to her husband. Neither of them spoke.
“Your joining society’s changed you, honey. There was a time when we couldn’t shut you up.” They heard the rain when he opened the door, then the sound was closed off again and he was gone.
In the room’s abrupt silence Red drew his pistol, but his hand fell to the cot and the fingers closed on the handle loosely. He did not cock it.
Looking at him, Boland tried to picture him killing a man. Neither he nor Jeffy were ever good citizens, he thought. But they never robbed or killed before. He had worked with them for a couple of years when he first started riding for the T. & N. M. Cattle Company and he had not particularly liked them then; but his dislikes were based on small, personal things—Jeffy always making dirty remarks, and Red getting sloppy drunk any chance he had. Both had been lazy and never did any more than they had to.
And now—they had to flop themselves right on top of his other troubles.
Virginia moved over to the stove and lighted the fire under the coffeepot. She said to him, “Are you hungry, Dave?”
He shook his head. “Not very.” And I’ve got to worry about Ginny on top of all of it. And then he thought: or, are you feeling sorry for yourself?
“Are you?” Her head nodded to the man on the cot.
“I don’t think I’d hold it.”
Boland asked him now, “When were you shot, Red?”
“Yesterday, in Clovis. Somebody musta recognized me and told the marshal. He hit me by surprise.”
“Right after you killed this man?”
“Hell, that was months ago in Dodge. We been hiding since. Went into Clovis yesterday for grub and somebody seen us.” He was breathing easier and went on, “We lost them last night. Damn marshal hit me by surprise—”
Boland said, “I suppose you were drunk in Dodge.”
Red grinned sheepishly. “Fact is, I don’t even remember shootin’ the man.”
“But Jeffy told you you did.”
“Yeah, Jeffy said I was actin’ mean and—”
“And lost your nerve and shot him when you didn’t have to.”
Red looked surprised. “Yeah.