Gunman's Rhapsody by Robert B. Parker

Author:Robert B. Parker [Parker, Robert B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Western
ISBN: 9781101190777
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2001-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-eight

It was hot and the river was low. The green belt along the San Pedro had narrowed as the water dropped. But there was some shade and there was a small breeze that drifted off the river. Josie and Wyatt spread a blanket in the best shade the sparse cottonwoods provided and put out some food. Canned ham, cold biscuits, canned peaches. Far enough away so they wouldn’t feel it, squatting on his heels, with his sleeves rolled, Wyatt built a fire and made coffee with water dipped from the river. He wore no coat. He wore no handgun, but there was a Winchester behind the seat in the buckboard. His chest where his shirt was open was white, as were his forearms. His face and neck and hands were weathered in sharp contrast. When they had eaten, and put the dishes and leftover food in a sack in the back of the buckboard, they sat beside the river leaning against a tree trunk and drank sweet, strong black coffee from tin cups.

“You ever think about moving on?” Josie said.

“Not without you,” Wyatt said.

“No,” Josie said. “Not without me.”

Wyatt had unharnessed the horses and tethered them a little downriver at the water’s edge. The horses stayed in the shade, drinking now and then from the river, and cropping at the sparse green buffalo grass. They twitched their skin occasionally the way horses do to shake off flies, and swished their tails sporadically for the same purpose.

“Maybe someday,” Wyatt said.

“Why not now?”

“Not rich yet,” Wyatt said.

“We could go to San Francisco,” Josie said. “You could get rich there.”

Across the river a coyote stopped in a splash of sunshine and stared at them calmly, then loped on.

“It’s a city,” Wyatt said. “None of the things I’m good at will make you rich in a city.”

“You could be a policeman.”

Wyatt smiled and shook his head.

“You’re a policeman here, sometimes,” Josie said. “You’ve been a policeman in Dodge City and Wichita and… where, Ellsworth?”

“ San Francisco,” Wyatt said, “the captain tells you what to do and the lieutenant tells you what to do and the sergeant tells you what to do.”

He shook his head again. Josie leaned her head against his shoulder. His shirt was damp with sweat.

“So what are you so good at here?” she said. “Doing what you want to?”

“Yes.”

“When you’re Virgil’s deputy, doesn’t he tell you what to do?”

“He’s my brother.”

“That makes it different?”

“Means he’s asking. He’s got a right to ask.”

“But no strangers.”

Wyatt shrugged and drank some of his coffee.

“What else you good at, staying here?” Josie said.

“I can shoot,” Wyatt said.

“Uh-huh.”

“And I like being where it’s not so crowded,” he said. “I’m a farm boy, you know, from Illinois.”

“Would you ever want a ranch?”

“Maybe someday. Right now I’m a town man. I got interests in saloons and mines.”

“Not a city man,” Josie said. Her voice had a happy, teasing quality to it that he liked. “And not a cowboy. A town man. Right in the middle, I guess.”

“Right in the middle,” Wyatt said.

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