Boys Life

Earp as best we could. He gave me Billy Clanton’s gun and holster as a gift for savin’ his life.” Mr. Cathcoate shook his scraggly-maned head. “I should’ve thrown that damn gun down the well, like my momma wanted me to.”
    “Why?”
    “’Cause,” he said, and here he seemed to get irritable and agitated, “I liked it too much, that’s why! I started learnin’ how to use it! Started likin’ its smell, and its weight, and how it felt warm in my hand after it had just gone off, and how that bottle I was aimin’ at flew all to pieces in a heartbeat, that’s why.” He scowled as if he’d just had a taste of bitter fruit. “Started shootin’ birds out of the sky, and believin’ I was a quick-draw artist. Then it started workin’ on my mind, wonderin’ how fast I could be against some other boy with a gun. I kept practicin’, kept slappin’ that leather and pullin’ that hogleg out time and again. And when I was sixteen years old I went to Yuma in a stagecoach and I killed a gunslinger there name of Edward Bonteel, and that’s when I put a foot in hell.”
    “Ol’ Owen here got to be quite a name,” Mr. Dollar said as he brushed the clipped hairs from Dad’s shoulders. “The Candystick Kid, I mean. How many fellas did you send to meet their Maker, Owen?” Mr. Dollar looked at me and quickly winked.
    “I killed fourteen men,” Mr. Cathcoate said. There was no pride in his voice. “Fourteen men.” He stared at the red and black squares of the checkerboard. “Youngest was nineteen. Oldest was forty-two. Maybe some of ’em deserved to die. Maybe that’s not for me to say. I killed ’em, every one, in fair fights. But I was lookin’ to kill ’em. I was lookin’ to make a big name for myself, be a big man. The day I got shot by a younger, faster fella, I decided I was livin’ on borrowed time. I cleared out.”
    “You got shot?” I asked. “Where’d it hit you?”
    “Left side. But I aimed better. Shot that fella through the forehead, smack dab. My gunfightin’ days were over, though. I headed east. Wound up here. That’s my story.”
    “Still got that gun and holster, don’t you, Candystick?” Mr. Dollar inquired.
    Mr. Cathcoate didn’t reply. He sat there, motionless. I thought he’d gone to sleep, though his heavy-lidded eyes were still open. Then, abruptly, he stood up from his chair and walked on stiffened legs to where Mr. Dollar was standing. He pushed his face toward Mr. Dollar’s, and I saw his expression in the mirror; Mr. Cathcoate’s age-spotted face was grim and thin-lipped, like a skull bound up with brown leather. Mr. Cathcoate’s mouth split open in a smile, but it was not a happy smile. It was a terrible smile, and I saw Mr. Dollar shrink back from it.
    “Perry,” Mr. Cathcoate said, “I know you think I’m an old fool half out of my head. I accept the fact that you laugh at me when you think I’m not lookin’. But if I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, Perry, I wouldn’t be alive right now.”
    “Uh… uh… why, no, Owen!” Mr. Dollar blubbered. “I’m not laughin’ at you! Honest!”
    “Now you’re either lyin’, or callin’ me a liar,” the old man said, and something about the soft way he said that made my bones grow cold.
    “I’m… sorry if you think I’m-”
    “Yes, I still have the gun and holster,” Mr. Cathcoate interrupted him. “I kept ’em for old time’s sake. Now, you understand this, Perry.” He leaned in closer, and Mr. Dollar tried to smile but he only summoned up a weak grin. “You can call me Owen, or Mr. Cathcoate. You can call me Hey, you or Old Man. But you’re not to call me by my gunfighter name. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Do we see eye to eye on that, Perry?”
    “Owen, there’s no call to be-”
    “Do we see eye to eye?” Mr. Cathcoate repeated.
    “Uh… yeah. We do. Sure.” Mr. Dollar nodded. “Whatever you say, Owen.”
    “No, not whatever I say. Just this.”
    “Okay. No problem.”
    Mr. Cathcoate stared into Mr. Dollar’s eyes for another few seconds, as if looking for the truth there. Then he said, “I’ll be leavin’ now,” and he walked to the door.
    “What about our game, Owen?” the Jazzman asked.
    Mr. Cathcoate paused. “I don’t want to play anymore,” he said, and then he pushed through the door and out into the hot June afternoon. A wave of heat rolled in as the door settled shut. I stood up, went to the plate-glass window, and watched Mr.