I’m good at killing men who need it.

William Herbert Dutton Arvel watched the town prepare for the evening while having a beer and a smoke on the hotel’s veranda. Will showed up and sat down next to him. He slept well but was no less distracted than before his conversation with the party of men.

 Arvel offered him a smoke and poured him a beer from a bottle he’d just opened. “My friend, tell me, what’s on your mind?”

Will knew Arvel well enough to speak freely. “I’m no killer, Arvel. And that son of a bitch Dutchman, he just, what you did back at that place, to him, that just,” he looked into his glass, as if to find the words he could not conjure to express himself. He looked into Arvel’s eyes, “God damn, Arvel, I don’t know. I’ve heard stories about you, but back there, it was like you were another man, like you’re two different people.”

Arvel grinned, “Hah, just two. That’s pretty good. Chica says I’m at least six different men.” He crushed out a smoke and lit another. This was a two cigarette type of conversation. “I’m a killer, Will, you’re not. It’s like you being good at finding strikes; I’m good at killing men who need it.” He looked at Will to get his reaction and laughed. “Good God, man, you think I’m something. Chica makes me look like a piker.”

“Seriously?” Will was aghast. He’d heard stories of Chica, but thought most were exaggerated as well.

“It’s why I’ve left her alone, to get our little girl.” He suppressed an urge to cry, breathed in deeply and felt his throat quiver. “She’ll get her, and leave a whole passel of dead men in her wake, I will bet my ranch on that.”

Will sat silently for a few moments, gulped his beer and poured another. “I don’t have any business in all this, Arvel. I thought I did. I’m no coward…”

“No, you’re not, you are definitely not a coward, old friend.”

“I feel a fool, swaggering around toting that dynamite, like I’m some kind of Wild Bill Hickok. I just feel the fool. And I got no business questioning you or your methods. I know you and I know Dick, and the Colonel seems a moral fellow. I’m mighty sorry running off at the mouth like that. I’m just, I don’t know…”

“Well, I tell you what. You stick with me and my uncles, Bob and del Toro, and my mother and Kosterlitzky. I have a feeling we’ll be kind of directing the attack anyway, and I’ll need your expert’s eye, as a miner, to help direct the artillery, and when the time comes for your dynamite, and I’m certain it will, you help me with the strategy. Can you do that?”

“Sure, Arvel, sure.”

“I know you can, Will. And you know, some killing’s going to come of your work, but it won’t be close in…it won’t be”

“Shootin’ a man through the head at two feet with a scattergun?”

“Right, right.”  Arvel shifted in his chair. “And Will, get the word out to the boys, tell ‘em to enjoy themselves a little tonight. I’m not in any celebrating mood, with my girls still out there, but they should enjoy this a little.” He cast his eyes over the street. You could feel the energy in the air, it was going to be a big time.

Some young boys were kicking a football around the street and it landed in Arvel’s lap. He laughed and grabbed the ball. He hobbled over, down onto the street and dropped the ball, kicking it with his left leg, nearly tumbling over onto the dirt street. The boys ran after it and he followed, limping as fast as his broken body would allow. Will looked on. For a man of nearly sixty, a man who’d just had a stroke, and a man who just now sat before him and told him he was a killer, he certainly didn’t look the part. The Mule Tamer II, Chica's Ride