A Bullet for Billy Read Online Free PDF

how you didn’t think you were ever going to leave here again?”
    â€œLike it here more than anyplace else I’ve ever been.”
    â€œThen why go?”
    â€œNo choice.”
    She looked beyond me as if someone was standing behind me.
    â€œWe can choose to stay or we can choose to go,” she said. “If you’re going, it’s because you choose to go, because you want to go, not because you have no choice.”
    I came up close to her. She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and I could see the heaviness of her breasts loose inside, and I wanted to take them in my hands through the cloth and hold them and feel their firm softness once more. Something dark and troubling had been working at me ever since I first saw the Cap’n’s buggy black against the snow.
    â€œIt’s because of that man that came to your house, isn’t it?” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    She crossed herself as if she’d just stepped into the little church at the other end of the street—the one by the plaza where bailes were held every Saturday night if the weather was decent—and had a bell in the tower that would ring in the believers. An old padre with one good eye preached there, and some claimed he could perform miracles.
    â€œI knew it,” she whispered.
    â€œHe needs my help,” I said. “I owe him from the past.”
    â€œWhat do you owe him?”
    â€œMy life.”
    â€œAnd now he wants it back.”
    â€œNo. Not if I can help it.”
    She shrugged in resignation, shook loose a wet skirt she’d been holding, and hung it on the line.
    â€œIt’s none of my business what you do,” she said. “When and where you go and come. I’m just the woman who cleans your house.”
    â€œAnd sleeps in my bed,” I said.
    â€œYes, and sleeps in your bed.”
    â€œI just wanted you to know,” I said. “I figured I owed it to you to tell you.”
    â€œAnd now you have told me.”
    â€œYes.”
    I turned to leave. She called my name.
    â€œJim.”
    I turned back, and she came close to me and pressed the palms of her hands against my chest.
    â€œI’m afraid for you,” she said. “I’m afraid you will go away and I will never see you again.”
    â€œYou don’t have to worry; there’s nothing to this. I’m just going to ride along with the Cap’n while he does some business. You were right about him looking sick. He is. He’s dying and is worried he won’t get his business done before hepasses on.”
    â€œWhat sort of business needs you wearing this?” she said, patting the bulge under my left armpit.
    â€œYou know how it is out here in this country,” I said.
    â€œYes, I know how it is.”
    â€œI best get on,” I said.
    â€œI’ll wait for you until the spring,” she said. “After that I’ll stop waiting for you.” I wanted to laugh at her foolishness.
    â€œI shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks at the outside.”
    â€œDo you want me to go and feed and water your horses?”
    â€œNo, I’ve asked Gin to do it.”
    â€œWhat about the chickens, should I go collect the eggs?”
    â€œThey’re scattered all over hell,” I said. “I broke the stud earlier and he kicked down the coop and fence and everything. I reckon those chickens could be in Colorado by now.”
    She smiled. I kissed her, then walked back up the street to the station.
    Cap’n looked up when I approached like he knew something.
    â€œYou let her know you’re going off?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou think you might end up marrying her?”
    â€œIt’s possible.”
    â€œShe strikes me as a good woman besides being real easy on a man’s eyes. Women like that are hard to come by way out here in this frontier. Even no-account ugly women are hard to come by, but especially the real good-looking