Rudell wrinkled his chin and stared off, letting his eyes go out of focus while he thought about it. Phil Boyer asked, “What’s his name?”
“Micchiche.” Black pronounced it Mitch-i-kay. “Danny Micchiche.”
“You a friend of his?” asked Joe Morgan.
“Never met him.”
“We aint’s seen ’im,” Tod Spencer grumbled snappishly and lit another Lucky Strike.
Black slowly cocked his head and stared at Tod. His face had gone strangely gentle. A curious, tender expression played around his hard mouth.
“Now that’s interesting how you knew that, Tod. You boys only take one day off a week. Most of the time you’re up at your claims. You get together afterwards and talk about folks you didn’t see, is that it?”
Black crushed his beer can in one hand and placed it carefully on the porch. He stood, shrugged on his windbreaker, picked up his ice-chest, and walked away without another word.
When they couldn’t hear his footsteps any more, Tod said, “That one’s kind of a smart-ass, ain’t he? All’s I said was—”
“What you suppose he’s lookin’ for that fella for?” put in Joe Morgan. “What’d he say his name was?”
“Black,” said Larry Dobbs.
“No, not him. The one he’s lookin’ for. Some kinda wop.”
“I bet his name ain’t Black,” said Phil Boyer.
“I bet he’s prob’ly a wop, too,” said Joe Morgan.
“Maybe not,” said Tod Spencer. “He’s got the Jew look to ’im.”
“If I was that Micchiche,” said Rudell Foster, “I don’t believe I’d care to have that fella Black lookin’ for me.”
The five of them stood and watched the gray Chevrolet leave the parking lot and drive over the low hill to the east and disappear. Tod Spencer got out some crackers and some sardines and some canned tomatoes and they ate, being hungary from the beer they had consumed.
Later they got up a card game, and later still Rudell threw in and went back to his own place. The rest of them stayed on, now and then passing a pint of Seagrams. It was almost twilight by that time, and the last of the tourists were leaving. Rudell saw Ranger Warren trudging toward his house up on the rise just outside town.
Evenings were eerie in Glory. The very shadows were ancient, hiding ancient empty things. The stars looked colder and farther away than they did in other parts of the world. The wind whistled down from the hills and came pussyfooting through the dirt streets and empty buildings. Tumbleweeds scratched against walls like things begging entrance. Rudell Foster lived here because he wanted to and hadn’t been scared of it in a long time, but tonight he banged his door getting it closed and locked behind him. He didn’t feel like sleeping, so he stoked up the wood stove and made a pot of coffee and got down his rifle for cleaning. He took his time with it, laying out the rod and solvent and rags and patches and oil on the kitchen table. He took the rifle apart and cleaned each part thoroughly, wiped it carefully, applied oil, and reassembled it. The beauty of the thing caught his eye and he admired its fine, graceful lines. It was a Savage Model 00 in meppn and there was an amoral ruthlessness in its functional design which appealed to him. He opened the box, spilled cartridges on the table, and admired them, too, before loading his weapon.
Then he just sat, not knowing why.
He wasn’t even surprised when he heard the shot. Just terrified.
Without thinking, he put out the light. He sat in darkness, letting his eyes accustom themselves until he could make out objects in the room. Moonlight came through the small windows and made splashes on the bare wood floor. The wind outside came in fits and starts — low moaning, heavy gust, more moaning, then silence before the next gust. The shot had sounded during one of the gusts and had been muffled, but Rudell knew a shot when he heard one. He listened, hard, but heard nothing else besides the wind.
Smart thing to do, thought Rudell Foster, is just stay in here and wait for whoever it is. Yessir. That’s what I’ll do.
He wondered if the others had heard the shot. Man alone, he hears things four fellas drinking and playing cards and talking don’t hear, sometimes. If they didn’t hear it, why, they’d go right on with cards and talking and drinking. If they did hear it, well, then, they could get ready. Each of them could take a window. Be a sight better off there than here, with him having to look everywhere at once.
The longer he sat, the harder the fear gripped him, and the more he wanted to be over at Tod’s place, and the less he wanted to be here, by himself, all alone. So finally, he forgot about doing the smart thing, and left his house.
Besides, thought Rudell Foster, he knows where I live.
He slipped out the back door and padlocked it behind him. He stayed close to the buildings’ backsides and moved carefully, catching the shadows, keeping away from Main Street, pausing to look and listen at corners. His hands sweated on the checkered wood stock of the Savage, and his heart hammered at him. The air went dry past his throat and sat cold in his lungs. All he could think was something he’d heard when he was with, the Third in Europe — you never hear the shot that kills you! But all Rudell Foster heard was the wind and the pulsebeat in his ears.
When he was a half-dozen houses away from Tod’s he heard the second shot. He froze, his knees shaking, and tried to look everywhere at once for the attacker. But he saw no one, and then another shot banged out.
It came from the general direction of Tod’s, and it didn’t echo off the hills and go fainter and fainter against the mountains, the way a shot did when you fired it out in the open. Which meant that whoever fired that shot had let go inside.
The next shot decided him. He took off, rifle at high port, legs pumping furiously, past the wall, out onto Main Street under all that moonlight. The building he was running for was the mortuary with its different sizes of wooden caskets.
He heard another shot, the fourth since leaving his house, the fifth altogether, but it was fired from inside a building like the others, and besides, you never heard the shot that kills you. Then he was across the street and behind the mortuary. He didn’t stop there, but kept right on going, up the slight rise that led out of town, the very same rise where Ranger Warren’s house was.
Ranger Warren’s house was dark and the door was open. Rudell didn’t want to go in there, because he knew what was waiting for him to stumble over. But he was more afraid of what was back at Tod’s, and he didn’t want to be caught out here in the moonlight, so in he went.
The ranger lay flat on his back in the middle of the front room. Rudell could see his face clearly, even though no lights were on. His eyes were used to darkness, now.
Rudell had been in here before, visiting with Warren over the years, and he felt his way across the room and found the flashlight. He pulled out the chair, sat down at the ranger’s desk, and turned on the flash just long enough to find the switch on the two-way radio and pick up the mike. He didn’t fiddle with the settings or anything like that because he knew that Warren never had.
“Hello,” he said, his voice hoarse from the phlegm and the fear and the running, “come in... I need help here...”
But nothing was happening. The radio wasn’t doing the things radios are supposed to do, and after a few seconds of sitting with the dead mike in his hand, Rudell stood and flashed the light quickly behind the radio, saw where the wires had been ripped out. Outside the ranger’s house the wind moaned and went silent, getting ready for a gust.