Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John - Страница 14

“Would you’ve thought it of him?” Job Bob uncorked the bottle and took a drink. “Man-”

Royce was next to him now, taking the bottle and drinking from it. He scowled happily, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Now this puts a different light on the subject.”

Joe Bob took the bottle again, extending it to Martha. “Sweetie?”

“No, thank you.”

“Just a little one.”

Royce said, “Don’t pour it away. If she doesn’t want any, all right.” He watched Joe Bob lift the bottle and snatched it from him as it came down. Now he took his time, smiling, looking at the label before he drank again.

“I think we ought to sit down,” Royce said. “Like a party.”

“And talk to her about staying,” Joe Bob said.

Royce grinned. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“Man, picture it.”

“Maybe we’d even pay her.”

“Sure we would. With love and affection.”

Cable said, “Does Vern know you’re here?”

Royce looked at Cable. “Maybe I ought to take a turn on him.”

“Help yourself,” Joe Bob said.

“Vern and I agreed to settle this ourselves,” Cable said.

Joe Bob looked at Royce. “He don’t talk so loud now, does he?”

“He knows better,” Royce said.

Joe Bob nodded thoughtfully. He drank from the bottle before saying, “You think we need him?”

“What for?” Royce took the bottle.

“That’s the way I feel.”

“Hell, throw him out.”

“What about the kids-throw them out too?”

“Do you hear any kids? They’re asleep already. Kids forget things a minute later.” Royce lifted the bottle.

“Just throw him out, uh?”

“Sure. He’ll lay out there like a hound. Else he’ll crawl away. One way or the other, what difference does it make?”

Joe Bob considered this. “He can’t go for help. Where’d he go, to Vern? To the one-arm man?”

Royce nodded. “Maybe to Janroe.”

“So he does,” Joe Bob said. “How’s the one-arm man going to help him?” Joe Bob shook his head. “He’s in a miserable way.”

“Sure he is.”

“Too miserable.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him.”

“I mean, put him out of his misery.”

Now Royce said nothing.

“Not us do it,” Joe Bob said. “Him do it.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You don’t have to.” Joe Bob drank from the bottle, then stood holding it, staring at Cable. “As long as he does.” After a moment he handed Royce the bottle and walked over to Cable.

“You understand me, don’t you?”

Cable straightened against the back of the chair. He shook his head.

“You will.” Joe Bob stood close to him, looking down, and said then, “You’re a miserable man, aren’t you?”

Cable sat tensed. He could not fight Joe Bob now and there was nothing he could say. So he remained silent, his eyes going to Martha who stood with her hands knotted into slender fists. Still with his eyes on Martha, he felt the sudden, sharp pain in his scalp and in a moment he was looking up into Joe Bob’s tight-jawed face.

Close to his belt, Joe Bob held Cable’s head back, his hand fisted in Cable’s hair. “I asked if you’re a miserable man!”

Cable tried to swallow, but most of the blood-saliva remained in his mouth. He said. “I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t.” The words came hesitantly, through swollen lips. But he stared up at Joe Bob calmly, breathing slowly, and only when he saw the man’s expression change did he try to push up out of the chair. Then it was too late.

He went back with the chair as Joe Bob’s fist slammed into his face. On the floor he rolled to his side, then raised himself slowly to his hands and knees. Joe Bob stood looking down at him with both fists balled and his jaw clenched in anger.

“I hate a man who thinks he’s smart. God, I hate a man who does that.”

Joe Bob was feeling the whisky. It showed in his face; and the cold, quiet edge was gone from the tone of his voice. On Royce, the whisky was having an opposite effect. He was grinning, watching Joe Bob with amusement; and now he said, “If he bothers you, throw him out. That’s all you got to do.”

“Better than that,” Joe Bob said. He extended a hand to Royce though his eyes remained on Cable. “Give me his Colt.”

“Sure.” Royce pulled the revolver from his belt and put it in Joe Bob’s hand. He stepped back, watching with interest as Joe Bob turned the cylinder to check the load.

“You’re going to kill him?”

“You’ll see.” Joe Bob cocked the revolver. He pointed it at Cable and motioned to the door. “Walk outside.”

Cable came to his feet. He looked at Martha, then away from her and walked toward the open door, seeing the dark square of it, then the deep shadow of the ramada as he neared the door, and beyond it, over the yard, a pale trace of early moonlight.

Now he was almost in the doorway, and the boot steps came quickly behind him. He was pushed violently through the opening, stumbled as he hit the ground and rolled out of the deep shadow of the ramada. He pushed himself to his knees, then fell flat again as Joe Bob began firing from the doorway. With the reports he heard Martha’s scream. And as suddenly as the gunfire began, it was over. He heard Joe Bob say, “I wasn’t aiming at him. If I was aiming he’d be dead. I got rid of four rounds is all.”

Joe Bob leaned in the doorway looking out into the darkness, the whisky warm inside of him and feeling Royce and the woman watching him. He would make it good, all right. Something Royce would tell everybody about.

He called out to Cable, “One left, boy. Put yourself out of your misery and save Vern and me and everybody a lot of trouble. Pull the trigger and it’s all over. Nobody worries anymore.”

He flipped the Walker in his hand, held it momentarily by the barrel, then threw it side-arm out to the yard. The revolver struck the ground, skidded past Cable, and the door slammed closed.

What would Forrest do?

That was a long time ago.

But what would he do? Cable thought.

He’d call on them to surrender. Not standing the way Duane stood, but with a confidence you could feel. The Yankees felt it and that part was real. He’d convince them he had more men and more artillery than they did-by having more buglers than companies and by having the same six field pieces come swinging down around the hill and into the woods, which was the reason the Yankee raider, Streight, surrendered-and only that part was unreal. And if they didn’t surrender, he’d find their weak point and beat the living hell out of it.

But these two won’t surrender. You’re seven hundred miles away from that. So what’s their weak point?

Almost a quarter of an hour had passed since the door slammed closed. Cable lay on his stomach, on the damp sand at the end of the river. He bathed his face, working his jaw and feeling the soreness of it, and rinsed his mouth until the inside bleeding stopped. The Walker Colt, with one load in it, was in his holster. And now what?

Now you think it out and do it and maybe it will work. Whatever it is.

What would Forrest do?

Always back to him, because you know he’d do something. God, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, I need help. God’s smile and Forrest’s bag of tricks.

When too many things crowded into Cable’s mind, he would stop thinking. He would calm himself, then tell himself to think very slowly and carefully. A little anger was good, but not rage; that hindered thinking. He tried not to think of Martha, because thinking of her and picturing her with them and wondering made it more difficult to take this coldly, to study it from all sides.

Two and a half years ago, he thought, you wouldn’t be lying here. You’d be dead. You’d have done something foolish and you’d be dead. But you have to hurry. You still have to hurry.

But even thinking this, and not being able to keep the picture of them with Martha out of his mind, he kept himself calm.

He was thankful for having served with Forrest. You learned things watching Forrest and you learned things getting out of the situations Forrest got you into. There had been times like this-not the same because there was Martha and the children now-but there had been outnumbered times and one-bullet times and lying close to the ground in the moonlight times. And he had come through them.