Free Robert B. Parker's Blackjack by Robert Knott

you some satisfaction.”
    He raised his hand up to his face where his nose used to be. Then he shook his head from side to side and spoke through clenched teeth.
    “Oh, God,” he said. “Fuck . . .”
    “Yeah, you don’t look so good,” I said. “Don’t imagine you feel too good, either.”
    “Seeing how they left you here to fend for yourself,” Virgil said. “And got your nose shot off and took your horse to boot, I think the quicker you let us know where Truitt and Bill went, the better things might go for you.”
    “Fuck,” he said.
    He looked at the ceiling and shook his head from side to side and mumbled as if he were having a conversation with himself.
    “They . . .” he said.
    “They what?” I said.
    A bubble of blood swelled up as he exhaled, and then it popped. He gasped, choked on more blood, then coughed and spit. He tried to talk, but blood filled his mouth and he gagged. I pulled a chair from the counter and grabbed him with one hand by the collar and lifted him.
    “Up,” I said.
    He managed to rise. He leaned over and spit. I slid the chair under him and he sat. He lowered his head as if he were about to black out.
    “I got little concern for you,” I said. “Where?”
    He looked worse sitting up than he did lying down. In my time fighting the Comanche I’d seen plenty of people live with facesdisfigured like this, missing lips and noses and ears and scalps. He lowered his chin to his chest.
    “Do not pass out on us,” I said.
    “Tell us what you know,” Virgil said.
    He lifted his head a little.
    “You’re . . . you’re Hitch . . . and Cole,” he said.

20.
    B ill knew you’d be after us,” he said. “Knew you was marshals in Appaloosa and that it would not be long until you was on his trail.”
    He leaned over and spit blood on the floor.
    “Oh . . . goddamn . . .”
    “Go on,” Virgil said.
    He lowered his head again.
    “Why’d you shoot at us?” I said.
    “He told Truitt and me you’d be coming. Figured you to be a few days back . . . I figured different. I’m smart like that.”
    “Black’s long gone and then you poked that Winchester out that window and killed one of us,” I said. “Why?”
    He didn’t answer.
    “There is a good man out there dead ’cause of you,” I said. “He was younger than you. You killed him.”
    “I’m sorry, goddamn it,” he said.
    “You’re sorry?” I said.
    It was all I could do not to raise my eight-gauge and blow hisdisfigured head off, but the idea of Mrs. Opelka having more of a mess to deal with than what was already being left behind by this disregard tempered my resolve.
    “Why?” I said.
    “Ain’t going back to being locked up. Not now, not ever.”
    “What’s your story?” Virgil said.
    He looked back and forth between Virgil and me.
    “What?” I said.
    “I broke out a while back.”
    Virgil glanced to me, then looked back to the bleeding man.
    “Yuma?” Virgil said.
    He looked at Virgil for a long bit, then nodded.
    “What’s your name?” I said. “Your real name, and don’t lie.”
    “Ricky,” he said. “Ravenfield.”
    “You’re one of the five that escaped a few months back?” Virgil said.
    He stared at Virgil for a long moment, then nodded.
    “Where are the others?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Went our separate ways. All I know is I ain’t going back there. Not now, not ever . . . You’ll have to kill me.”
    “We don’t have to do anything,” Virgil said.
    “I was in that goddamn place since I was sixteen,” he said.
    “For?” I said.
    “Killing a man that tried to kill me.”
    He lowered his head and shook it back and forth. Then he looked up to the ceiling and cried.
    “Oh, God, I hurt . . . fuck.”
    “How was it you and Truitt come to team up with Black?” Virgil said.
    He breathed and breathed, then looked to Virgil with bloodshot eyes. He was having a hard time keeping his head up.
    “Truitt . . . knew