Gunsmoke Serenade Page 13

  ‘You want to fight?’

  ‘Precisely.’ Manchester began rolling up his sleeves. ‘I am quite the expert in boxing. I know you must have heard of John L. Sullivan. I am his admirer and you are certainly a worthy opponent.’

  ‘You’re as crazy as a loon.’

  ‘That may be true,’ Manchester said, ‘but can you beat me?’

  ‘Hell,’ Knight said as he unbuckled his gunbelt, ‘if you want me to kill you with my bare hands I’ll oblige you. I killed your mangy brother that way and I’ll do the same for you.’

  Manchester’s eyes flared and the two men stepped closer. They circled each other as the clouds crossed the sun and sent shadows fleeing across the grass around them. Knight hit Manchester with his right fist. He hit him so hard that those around them watching could feel the impact in their own bones. A flap of flesh tore loose beneath Manchester’s left eye, followed by a gout of blood. Manchester was unfazed. They circled each other again, the cloud shadows crossing the earth like some strange, otherworldly spectres urging them silently on. Knight jabbed with his left and snapped Manchester’s head back; then he hit him again with a hard right that nearly rolled Manchester’s eyes, but still he did not falter. His face was puffed and red, his eyes like black fire. Knight hit him again and again, and Manchester hesitated.

  When Manchester finally threw a punch it was the equal of anything that Knight had thrown. His power was tremendous. The blow connected on Knight’s head, just above the right ear as he attempted to dodge away. Manchester struck with the speed of a viper. The two men clinched, grappled briefly, and pushed each other away.

  Knight sent a flurry of punches into Manchester’s ribs that cracked them, badly. Manchester sucked in air, wincing in pain.

  ‘Very good,’ Manchester gasped, ‘I was not mistaken in my estimation of your abilities, but this fight is far from over.’

  ‘There’s air in your bellows, that’s for sure. I’m going to knock it out of you.’

  Manchester rushed and hit Knight with a left and right combination that staggered him. Then he kicked Knight in the groin and hit him so hard the lawman was knocked to the ground. Tibbs, watching from a few feet away, was shocked. Remarkably, and against all odds, Knight was back on his feet in a lightning move. He landed a solid punch on Manchester’s nose, crushing the cartilage. Blood swept from the nostrils and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Let me tell you what it felt like to kill your brother,’ Knight said. ‘It felt good.’ And then he hit Manchester again and again. His fists pummeled the man’s face. The skin was ruined, swollen. ‘It felt good, and you’re no better than your mangy brother.’

  Another flap of skin had torn loose beneath Manchester’s eye and hung down, revealing bone. Showing no mercy, Knight hit that spot again. And again. Finally, Manchester howled in pain.

  ‘You’ll take it and like it,’ Knight said between clenched teeth. A fist came out of nowhere and with blurred speed Manchester was struck hard and forced to his knees. Knight stepped up and put both hands around Manchester’s neck. He began squeezing, slowly at first, and Tibbs saw Knight take in a lungful of air as his hands turned red themselves from the extraordinary pressure he was exerting on Manchester, who had begun to gurgle and sputter. Manchester’s eyes widened in disbelief and then horror as his life was choked out of him. The flesh of Manchester’s neck was indented fiercely by Knight’s fingers. The fingers looked as if they had disappeared in dough. They all heard it when the larynx cracked. Manchester spewed vomit over Knight’s hands, twitched, and died. Knight let go of the body.

  Looking about quickly, Lacroix, Castellanos and Tibbs waited to see if any of Manchester’s men would try anything, but the fight was over for them as well. The clouds had blown away and the sun beat down from a blue sky.

  Finally, Tibbs asked, ‘Are we gonna bury him?’

  ‘Hell no!’ Knight growled, ‘Leave him for the buzzards. I’m hungry. Let’s go rustle up some grub.’

  EPILOGUE

  The following morning Lacroix shot a deer, hung it from a branch and gutted it. Tibbs and Castellanos helped skin it, and they cut the venison into steaks and fed all the men who lingered. At Knight’s direction, Manchester’s gold had been divided evenly among all the men who assisted with the burials. It took the better part of the day to retrieve the bodies from the hills, and when it was done Manchester’s camp had become a graveyard.

  Knight still refused to bury Manchester, and so at his direction they hauled the carcass to an area that Lacroix knew belonged to the grizzly. They let nature take its course.

  In the end, they were disgusted by the tin cans of food that Manchester had brought and decided that Lacroix knew more about eating than any fat man from the east. Lacroix’s venison steaks were popular with all the men. Knight saw to it that Castellanos was given an extra bag of gold, which made the Italian happy. On the second morning Manchester’s men had all ridden away, except for Castellanos who asked if he might ride a ways with Knight and Tibbs.

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ Knight said, ‘except we have some fishing to do first.’

  Surprised, Castellanos asked why they would want to go fishing after everything they’d been through. To this Knight simply replied, ‘Because there’s a good fishing spot nearby. Why waste it?’

  Lacroix took them to the lake they had all skirted earlier, and they set to the task of fishing. Now that they had their horses there was no hurry. Lacroix made them poles from sapling branches and had the twine and the handcrafted bone hooks in his pouch. They caught some small-mouthed bass late that afternoon but all of them were too weary to carry on much as the evening approached. The sun had surrendered to a line of deep purple clouds that edged in over the treeline like a row of kings.

  Tibbs and Knight had numerous superficial wounds that they cleaned and bandaged. Neither man complained. They bandaged themselves up and said nothing further on the matter.

  They made a fire and ate the fish and biscuits Lacroix whipped up from Manchester’s flour sack. That night they sat around the fire and listened to the man called Castellanos talk about Rome. He was a good storyteller, and he talked about Italy with such passion that Tibbs almost had a hankering to visit Rome for himself. ‘There is such beauty in southern Italy,’ Castellanos told them, ‘that it rivals a beautiful woman. The rolling hills are green and the vines are fat with grapes that will make fine wines.’

  The following day they fished in earnest. It was a good day for fishing. They pulled out half a dozen fat bass, and at midday Lacroix pulled out a musky that was so big it could feed a family. In the late afternoon they rekindled the fire, cooked the fish and marveled at the ever-changing lake that looked different but wildly beautiful under the sun and at the foot of the mountains. The wind and sun added a sparkle to the waves and an eagle joined them, swooping low and snatching a fish from just below the surface. They heard its majestic wings swoosh the air as it passed over them.

  That afternoon they ate their meal and finished the last of Manchester’s bourbon, with the exception of Tibbs who was a teetotaler except twice a year, on his birthday and on Christmas day. Knight remarked he would drink Tibbs’ fair share for him. The sun had begun to sink below the treeline when Knight said to Castellanos, ‘Do you have any trees in Rome?’

  ‘Sure, we have trees, but not like the trees here.’

  ‘You ever know anyone to get stuck in a tree like Tibbs here did?’

  They all laughed, and Tibbs felt himself turning red.

  ‘I treed a coon once,’ Lacroix said. ‘He stayed in that tree all dang day while I roasted some fat bass below him. That coon got mighty hungry. When he finally came down I shot him and ate him, too.’

  The roar of their laughter echoed across the lake.

  The next morning Lacroix announced that he was heading home. He had accumulated the guns and ammunition from the victims of Knight’s rage, and there was no sense in letting it all rust. There was no shortage of game and he could hun
t to his heart’s content.

  Lacroix shook their hands and invited them to visit any time. He said he’d promise not to blow their heads off with one of his new Winchester rifles as long as they came in slow and didn’t bring trouble with them. The last few days had shown him enough trouble to last a lifetime.

  Tibbs hated to leave the lakeshore, but they had obligations to the US Marshal’s service. Castellanos got the horses ready, and they started out when Knight told them, ‘Ease up a spell and follow me in slow. There’s a place I need to visit.’

  Tibbs had an inkling on what that place was but remained silent. Riding out of the valley they followed the same trail that had brought Tibbs here those long days ago. It took them all afternoon to reach the place that Knight was intent on visiting.

  There was a cemetery near a strand of wavering oaks. The leaves rustled on the wind. Knight told them to stay put. He cantered his horse up to the cemetery and dismounted. He tethered the horse to an old picket gate and went to stand near a stone marker. Neither Castellanos nor Tibbs could read the name on the marker, but knew who it was. They watched silently as Knight bent over and pulled some prairie flowers free of the earth. The rough and crushed prairie flowers looked somehow majestic in his calloused hand.

  Castellanos and Tibbs heard him say something, but Knight’s words were lost on the breeze. Then he set the flowers on the grave and returned to his horse. When Knight had ridden up next to them, Castellanos nodded and said, ‘It sure has been a pretty day.’

  ‘That it has,’ Knight said.

  ‘Are you ever going to tell me about your wife?’ Tibbs asked.

  ‘Nope,’ was all that Knight said.

  They turned their horses up the trail as the wind pushed through the tall grass with a sound like whispering ghosts, and together the three men rode into the sunset.