GUNFIGHT

by C. Hall Thompson

I told Darby about it. The stranger had come that morning, riding slow and stiff down the narrow street of
Carrizozo, under a cold March sun. He pulled his tired pony up outside the hotel, and the tiredness showed in him,
too.
"You know this town, Mister?"
I nodded.
"You know a man called Darby?"
Lots of folks came hunting for Darby, mostly cattlemen who wanted to talk business. But I noticed the rider's
Colt, holstered low and thonged to his right thigh, it didn't have the look of cattle business.
I said, "I ramrod for Darby."
His black eyes didn't flicker. "I want to see him."
"He's not in town."
"I'll take a room in the hotel. He'll come to town," the stranger said.
"He'll want to know your name."
"Call me Waco," he said. The lobby doors swung shut behind him.

***

Darby sat in the old rocker, with his boots propped on the ranch-house porch rail. His pale eyes stared too hard.
But when I finished, all he said was, "The name don't mean a thing."
I wasn't sure. Three years ago, Ross Darby had ridden into Carrizozo and bought up the old Penell spread. He'd
hired me and for three years I'd worked beside him. You think you know a man. Then one day, something happens
and you see a change in his eyes, and you don't know him at all.
Without looking up. Darby said. "What'd he look like?"
"Middling tall. Thin, black-haired," I said. "Seemed damn' cocksure."
Darby stood up.
"Who is he, Ross?" I said.
You live with a man for three years. You think you know him. But he's twenty-nine. He lived twenty-six years
before you met him.
I dressed the coyote dun and led it up to the kitchen dooryard. Darby came out. He had buckled on a gun.
The hotel lobby was full of worn red plush and worn green carpets and had a glass chandelier imported from
New York. The pasty-looking clerk said Waco had 213.
We climbed the stairs. I was on Darby's left. I thought his right hand moved—like when a man loosens his gun in
the leather.
The upper hall was dim and dusty. Darby walked straight to 213. He knocked, and a thick voice said, "Come in."

***

The room was a box with heavy oak furniture. There was a bottle on the table and a glass in Waco's hand, I saw
the gun belt and Colt looped over the carved bedstead and I breathed easier. Waco sat by the window, smiling at
Darby. Darby didn't smile back. "You wanted to see me."
Waco's lips kept smiling; his bloodshot eyes didn't, "Ever hear of a man called Zwing Sutton?"
Darby didn't answer.
"It started four years ago, in January." Waco looked up from his glass. "I got good reason to recollect the date,
Mr. Darby."
"Get to the point," Darby said.
Waco said, "An old boy ran a spread down Pecos way. Zwing Sutton was his foreman. That January, they had
trouble; a big mountain cat slaughtered nearly twenty calves."
He stopped, and it was very quiet in the room. Darby stood rigid, watching him.
"So, one morning they headed for the Sacramentos," Waco said. "Sutton was for waiting; there was too much
snow in the sky. But the old boy was bound he'd get that cat."
 Waco refilled his whisky glass. His eyes were bright. "They were in the upper reaches when the storm broke. The
old boy misjudged a drift and tripped; his Winchester went off. There wasn't a whole bone left in his foot." Waco
frowned. "Sutton had a choice: he could stick with the old boy and maybe freeze before rescue came, or save his own
hide. He lit out."
Darby's face was gray.
Waco said, "The old boy's son found him five days later. The cat had got to him. The body wasn't nice to—"
"I've had enough of this," Darby said.
"There's more," Waco said. "There's the way the son swore he'd get Sutton; the way Sutton lived from then on,
beating trail from one fleabag town to the next. Sometimes he thought he'd run far enough." Waco's eyes turned to
the window. "He'd start all over; live at peace in the sun. But it was always a winter sun. A sun that couldn't warm a
man; a sun that went down too soon."
Abruptly Darby turned to the door.
"Mr. Darby, how far can a man run?"
Darby let go of the latch. "All that's done. It's all over."
I stared at him. You never know, I thought. Nobody ever knows anybody. I felt sick.
"Not at all." Waco looked at the gun belt hooked over the bedpost. "We'll meet at sundown, Mr. Darby. Sort of
fitting and proper—the last setting of a winter sun."
"You're out of your head."
"At sundown, Mr. Darby."
They looked at each other. Darby's lips parted, but no words came.
I followed him out. In the hallway, he turned. His face was troubled. "Listen Frank—"
I didn't listen. I had heard too much already. I didn't even look at him. I turned away and got out of there.
The news got around. "Gun fight," the whispers echoed over back fences, along polished bars, down through the
bordello district. "Yeah. Darby and the stranger. At sundown."
The side lanes were quiet under naked willow branches and kids didn't play on the main street. Blue shadows
stretched east across the rutted street. Somewhere a dog was barking.
I saw it all from a window of the Palace saloon. Darby started at the north end of the street. He walked with a
loose, easy stride, his right arm hanging free, and his black shadow keeping pace like a silent partner.
Waco looked smaller and thinner coming on to meet Darby, but he walked easy, sure, like a man with some crazy
laughter in him. He reached the Granger's Bank, passed Millard's Emporium and then, sharply, his gun hand dropped
a fraction quicker than Darby's. I heard the blast and saw Waco fold at the middle and stomp back on his heels. He
fell face down. The dog had quit barking.

***

Then I was running. Men were pushing through the hotel doors, and I was beside Darby, standing over the body.
"Ross, I thought he had you."
I stopped. I followed Darby's stare. Waco's Colt hadn't even cleared leather.
I shook my head, "But he had the drop..."
"He always was faster than me.'" Darby lifted Waco's gun and handed it to me. It was a beautiful piece. Someone
had burnt initials in the bone grip. Z. S. — Zwing Sutton.
"He thought I was after him," Darby said. "I was, at the start. Later, I realized it wouldn't help my old man if I
killed Zwing Sutton. But Sutton figured I'd never give up. First off, I thought he came to settle it his way, to finish me.
He was a better shot. Then I saw his eyes. I heard that crazy talk..."
Darby holstered his own gun. "Like he said, Frank, how far can a man run? He saw too many winter suns. He had
too much of running—from me and himself. Funny," Darby said. "He never came to kill. He came to be killed."
People began moving in the quiet street. A couple of grangers had picked up the body. They headed slowly for
old Biddies Funeral Parlor. The sun was nearly gone. It should have been colder then. But I don't know. The last rays
had turned red now. They lay warm and peaceful across the dust. As we headed for the bar, I had the notion that
spring was moving in on the evening air.