A Bullet for Billy Read Free

come,” she said.
    â€œThat would be nice.”
    She clucked the little horse to a start, and I stood and watched her head back toward Coffin Flats.
    I went back inside dreading whatever it was that had brought Cap’n Gus Rogers to my front door on a fresh winter day.

Chapter Two
    â€œN ice lady, your friend,” the Cap’n said when I stepped back inside.
    â€œYeah, you want a refill of that Arbuckle?”
    He held out his cup and I filled it with coffee, then my own, and set the pot back atop the stove plate. He looked at the bottle of bourbon.
    â€œHelp yourself, Cap’n,” I said.
    He spilled in a nice portion and stirred it with his spoon and sipped it.
    â€œSo you want to tell me why you came all the way from Texas?”
    He took his time sipping the coffee, blowing off the steam, and said, “Thank Jesus for the whiskey ’cause you still can’t make coffee worth a holy damn, Jim.”
    â€œKinda early to be drinking, isn’t it?”
    He arched his back as though it was aching,then relaxed. He had lost weight since I’d last seen him, though he never was a big man to begin with: maybe a hundred fifty, tops, but a solidly built man of good coloration and clear keen eyes that seemed to see everything at a glance. Now he was down to a lot less and looking gaunt, his gray eyes sunk back inside their sockets under a ridge of forehead. His cheeks were sunk in and his color an unhealthy pale.
    â€œI came to ask you a favor and you know I don’t ever ask them easy,” he said.
    â€œYes sir, I know that.”
    He looked uncomfortable.
    â€œYou okay, Cap’n?”
    â€œDepends which day it is. Today’s worse than yesterday was.”
    â€œWhat’s the favor?” I said.
    He looked grim.
    â€œGot me this real bad problem, Jim. First thing you should know is, I’m dying. Doctors tell me I got five, maybe six weeks left at the outside…”
    â€œSorry to hear that,” I said, and I truly was. The Cap’n was one of the best men I’d ever met in my life. He waved a hand.
    â€œDidn’t come looking for pity, just need to tell you this so you’ll know why I come this far and what I come for.”
    â€œGo on with it,” I said.
    â€œYou remember I got two grandboys?”
    â€œSeems to me I do.”
    â€œBilly Edward, he’s the oldest, and Sam Houston is five years younger, nineteen and fourteen.”
    I faintly remembered him speaking of them when I rangered for him.
    â€œThey’re my Laura Lee’s kids, and as you know she’s my only child. Never had no boys of my own, just Laura Lee. Had her, then JoAnn died right after and I never married again because there was no use to it. You love a woman as hard as I loved JoAnn, well, what’s the use of trying to find something to compete with that. I raised Laura Lee best as I could and she turned out a good woman with poor judgment when it came to men.
    â€œWent through two marriages herself before she met the right man. That’s how come the difference in her boys’ ages. Billy was fathered by her first husband, Wayne Brown, and Sam was fathered by her second, Orville Cutter. Anyway, neither of them was much count and took off soon as they found out she was pregnant. Then she met this Jardine Frost fellow. They were living together over in Tascosa, her and this Jardine raising the boys together, Jardine adopted them and gave them his last name. From what she’d written me, Jardine was a good, decent man, hard worker, and treated her boys like they werehis own, she said. Then he got himself killed in a dispute over a horse.”
    Cap’n Rogers told it with his eyes cast down, remembering it all, and when he mentioned about this Jardine Frost getting killed, he just shook his head slowly.
    â€œWell,” he said, sipping from his cup, “like I said, Laura Lee never did have any luck with men, good or bad. Frost