Boys Life

I’d heard about the O.K. Corral. Every boy with even a passing interest in cowboys and the Wild West knew that story, about the day the Earp brothers-Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan-and cardsharp Doc Holliday faced down the rustling Clantons and McLowerys in the hot dust of Tombstone. “Is that for real, Mr. Cathcoate?” I asked.
    “For real. I was lucky that day. I was just a kid, didn’t know nothin’ about guns. Almost shot my foot off.”
    “Tell him how you saved ol’ Wyatt,” Mr. Dollar urged as he blotted the last of the lather off the back of Dad’s neck with a steaming towel.
    Mr. Cathcoate frowned. I figured he didn’t like remembering it, or else he was trying to put the details together again. A ninety-two-year-old man has to open a lot of locks to recall a day when he was nine years old. But I suppose that particular day was worth remembering.
    Mr. Cathcoate finally said, “Wasn’t supposed to be anybody on the street. Everybody knew the Earps, Doc Holliday, the McLowerys, and the Clantons were gonna spill blood. It had been a long time brewin’. But I was there, hidin’ behind a shack. Little fool, me.” He pushed his chair back from the checkers board, and he sat with his long-fingered hands twined together and the fan’s breeze stirring his hair. “I heard all the shoutin’, and all the guns goin’ off. I heard bullets hittin’ flesh. That’s a sound you don’t forget if you live to be a hundred and ninety-two.” His slitted eyes stared at me, but I could tell he was looking toward the past, where dust clouds rose from the bloodstained earth and shadows aimed their six-guns. “A terrible lot of shootin’,” he said. “A bullet went through the shack next to my head. I heard it whine. Then I got down low and I stayed there. Pretty soon a man came staggerin’ past me and fell to his knees. It was Billy Clanton. He was all shot up, but he had a gun in his hand. He looked at me. Right at me. And then he coughed and blood spurted out of his mouth and nose and he fell on his face right next to me.”
    “Wow!” I said, my arms chillbumped.
    “Oh, there’s more!” Mr. Dollar announced. “Tell him, Owen!”
    “A shadow fell on me,” Mr. Cathcoate said, his voice raspy. “I looked up, and I saw Wyatt Earp. His face was covered with dust, and he seemed ten feet tall. He said, ‘Run home, boy.’ I can hear him say that, clear as a bell. But I was scared and I stayed where I was, and Wyatt Earp walked on around to the other side of the shed. The fight was over. Clantons and McLowerys were lyin’ on the ground shot to pieces. Then it happened.”
    “What happened?” I asked when Mr. Cathcoate paused to breathe.
    “The fella who’d been hidin’ in an empty rain barrel raised up and took aim with his pistol at Wyatt Earp’s back. I’d never seen him before. But he was right there, as close to me as you are. He took aim, and I heard him click the trigger back.”
    “This here’s the good part,” Mr. Dollar said. “Then what, Owen?”
    “Then… I picked up Billy Clanton’s pistol. Thing was as heavy as a cannon, and it had blood all over the grip. I could hardly hold it.” Mr. Cathcoate was silent; his eyes closed. He went on: “Wasn’t time to call out. Wasn’t time to do a thing except what I did. I was just meanin’ to scare the fella by firin’ into the sky, and to get Mr. Earp’s attention. But the gun went off. Just like that: boom.” His eyes opened at the memory of the shot. “Knocked me down, ’bout busted my shoulder. I heard the bullet ricochet off a rock about six inches from my right foot. That bullet went straight through the fella’s gunhand wrist. Blew the pistol out of his hand, broke his wrist open so the edge of a bone was stickin’ out. He bled like a fountain. And as he was bleedin’ to death I was sayin’, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ ’Cause I didn’t mean to kill anybody. I just meant to keep Mr. Earp from gettin’ killed.” He sighed, long and softly; it was like the sound of wind blowing dust over the graves on Boot Hill. “I was standin’ over the body, holdin’ Billy Clanton’s gun. Doc Holliday came up to me, and he gave me a four-bit piece and he said, ‘Go buy yourself a candy stick, kid.’ That’s how I got the name.”
    “What name?” I asked.
    “The Candystick Kid,” Mr. Cathcoate answered. “Mr. Earp came to my house to have dinner. My dad was a farmer. We didn’t have much, but we fed Mr.