Blood and Gold

Startled, Ned shook his head.

“He can’t sing, Lafe,” Ezra said, pretending deep disappointment.

“Well, maybe he can dance.” Wingo looked up at Ned. “Well, how about it, Pops? Can you dance? Maybe one of them Missouri jigs I’ve heard so much about.”

Dumbly, Ned Tryon nodded, looking impossibly old and wearied in the revealing firelight.

I’d seen enough. I sprang to my feet, rage simmering in me. “Wingo, give him the bottle or don’t, but leave the man his dignity.”

Wingo’s draw when it came was a blinding blur of motion and I suddenly found myself staring into the business end of a Colt that looked as big as a railroad tunnel.

“Boy”—Wingo smiled, his voice level and conversational—“you got two simple choices: Sit down or die right where you stand.”

Ezra was studying me closely. He hadn’t drawn his gun, but he was coiled and ready and I knew when it came his draw would be as fast as a striking snake.

Now wasn’t the time.

I gulped down my touchy, eighteen-year-old pride like a dry chicken bone and sat, humiliation burning in my cheeks. I caught Lila looking at me and saw something in her eyes, sympathy maybe, and something else . . . contempt? Disappointment? I could not tell.

Wingo holstered his Colt. “Excellent choice, boy.”

He turned his attention to Ned. “Now, Pops, where was I afore I was so rudely interrupted? Oh, yeah, now I recollect. Let’s see that Missouri sodbuster’s jig.”

“You’ll give me whiskey?” Ned asked, pleading words rustling quiet from his lips like falling leaves.

“Sure,” Wingo said. “Hell, that’s what whiskey is for, ain’t it? To be drunk.” Wingo laughed and began to clap his hands, and Ezra joined in with him. Over by the fire, even Hank, hurting and dying slow like he was, grinned.

Ned put his hands on his hips and began to dance. He kicked his feet in a dreadful parody of a country jig, the desperation in his eyes awful to see. Ned Tryon knew how complete was his humiliation, but the lure of whiskey drove him on and his jig became more and more frenzied, his booted feet pounding again and again into the dusty earth, stomping out a demented, detestable dance of the damned.

Wingo and Ezra grinned and clapped faster, quickening the pace, and Ned tried to keep up, sweat beading his forehead, drenching his shirt, his mouth hanging open and slack as he gasped for breath.

“Heee-haaa!” Wingo yelled, clapping even faster, his hands blurring.

Ned danced for five terrible minutes before he faltered to a halt and fell flat on his face. The man lay there for a long while before he looked over to the grinning Wingo. “Whiskey,” he pleaded.

The gunman put the bottle to his mouth and drank deeply, then passed it to Ezra. “Nah,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re a rotten dancer an’ you don’t deserve no whiskey.”

“Please,” Ned begged. “Whiskey. For the love of God man, you promised. Give me my whiskey.”

Ezra grinned and passed the bottle back to Wingo and the big gunman stood. He stepped beside Ned and said: “You want whiskey, Pops? Here, go get it.”

Wingo tilted the bottle and poured its contents into the sand a few inches from Ned’s face. Ned tried to intercept the gushing amber cascade with his open mouth, but Wingo grinned and pushed him roughly away with his foot.

When the bottle was empty, Wingo kicked at the damp sand. “There, Pops. There’s your whiskey.”

Ned made a strangled sound deep in his throat and dived on the wet patch, stuffing the sand into his mouth, sucking at it. His mouth and beard covered in sand, he finally gave up and lay there, sobbing, his thin shoulders heaving.

The whole affair had been set up by Wingo to be a cold, calculated act of cruelty and as I watched Lila lie beside her father, whispering softly to him, my hatred for the gunman grew into a livid fire, consuming me.

I rose to my feet and stepped beside Lila and her pa. Gently I lifted Lila off her father, then raised Ned into a sitting position. The man’s eyes were wide-open, but he saw nothing as he stared into the fire like someone already dead.

Beside me, Wingo stretched and yawned. “Well, I’ve had enough fun for one night. Now it’s time for my blankets.” He reached down, grabbed Lila by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. He held the girl close to him, looking down at her tearstained face, his eyes hungry. “Come on, little lady, I don’t plan on sleeping alone.”

I hit him then.

My right took Wingo square on the chin as he turned to look at me. The man let Lila go, staggered a few steps and crashed heavily on his back. Wingo made no move for his gun, but a triumphant grin spread across his face. “Boy,” he said, “now I’m going to tear you apart.”

Wingo stood and my heart sank when I realized just how huge he was. He easily made two of me, and by his eager grin and the joy of battle in his eyes, it seemed he was no stranger to rough-and-tumble fistfights.

But my scraps with Wiley back when I lived on his pa’s ranch had taught me something. Enough, I fervently hoped, to square the odds.