The Kid shot, and the sheet of newspaper swatted. “Wow!” he said, just to be charming. He fired again with his left hand, and the first bullet hole got larger. His third shot from hip-high was elsewhere on the page. “Enviable piece,” the Kid said. And because they were heading into a public place, he half-turned the cylinder so that the hammer was on the first spent shell and couldn’t misfire. Jack took the pistol back with satisfied pride.
Even in midafternoon, there was the noise of someone cranking organ music from a hurdy-gurdy, the hee-haws of drunken laughter at the long bar, and four flirting daughters of joy in frilly, full-length white dresses inveigling fallen men. Red-haired Tom went to one who was no prettier than the others and confided a few sentences. She tugged him by the hand into the stalls in back.
The Kid bought pints of Anheuser-Busch for Chisum and Finan and got a porcelain cup of coffee for himself. And then he heard a drunk yell, “Are you Bunny? I’s here alookin for Kid Bunny!”
The Kid leaned toward the mixologist. “You know who that is?”
“Says he’s Joe Grant. Says they call him Texas Red.”
“Stewed?”
“Half a quart of our rotgut so far.”
The Kid waved his hand and called, “Kid Bonney, over here!”
Jim Chisum whispered, “You need help, just say so.”
Widening his winter coat to give freedom to his six-shooter, the Kid said, “I’ll deal with it.”
Joe Grant was zigzagging over to him, skidding off the backs of drinkers and swinging his forearm at the vexation or bumping chairs into screeching changes of position. His hand gripped the bar to hold himself upright. He was fat and hatless, and the fringe of auburn beard at his jaw so matched the fringe on his skull that the Kid thought his chapped, round face would look pretty much the same upside-down.
“So, you Bunny?”
“William H. Bonney.”
“We gots a score to shettle.”
“Why don’t I buy you a shot or two of fire starter and you can tell me all about it?”
“Had enough for now.” Weaving and seeming about to fall, Joe Grant’s unfocused glances around himself fell on Jack Finan’s fancy .45. “Lemme see that gun.”
The Kid nodded permission, and Jack handed it over.
Grant admired it for a second, then asked, “Wa was I sayin?”
“Shettling something,” the Kid said.
“Here. Here,” Grant said to Finan. “My gun while I’m lookin.” Exchanging weapons, he shoved his own pistol into Jack’s holster, then he lewdly licked the shining barrel and ivory handle of the Colt with his own pitiful impression of rapier wit. “She so perty!”
“So,” the Kid patiently said. “What’s your plan?”
His face hardened. “Ah’m gonna kill you afore you do.”
A reverent, churchlike silence took over as hard-bitten cowhands and gunmen in the saloon edged away from the forecast confrontation, not wanting to get anything on them.
The Kid chose to be pacifying. “Oh, wha’d’ya want to kill anybody for, Joe? Give Jack his pistol and let’s solve the world’s problems with whiskey.”
Joe Grant was shaking his head from side to side. “Nope, mind’s made up.” But then he tilted a little as he uncertainly focused on Jim Chisum. “You Uncle John? Hafta kill Chisum firs.”
His halitosis could frazzle houseplants.
Jim’s and Jack’s hands were easing down to their holst
ers as the Kid lifted his hand in the halt sign. “Hold on, Joe. You got the wrong sow by the ear. This is Jim Chisum, Uncle John’s brother. And he done nothing to you.”
“Well, I gots this shiny gun and she’s all go!”
“Shall I show you to the door? Walk with me outside.” The Kid strolled from Joe Grant’s fuddled menace toward the saloon doors, the ever-so-quiet crowd dividing for him as he heard Jim Chisum call out, “Kid!” and then heard the click as the hammer cocked and snapped onto an empty chamber. The Kid hesitated and heard another snap as in frustration Joe Grant tried to kill him again. And then the Kid ducked and twisted around in a crouch and in sudden rage and viciousness fired his own Colt three times, bang, bang, bang, each shot hitting Joe Grant in the chin in a gruesome destruction that was the size of a fist. Grant was dead so quick there was no chance for reaction or even for pain. He fell against the foot rail of the bar, and his body sagged gradually to the floor, blood eddying from him.