“You’re just a girl, you might be a poor judge of tough!” Billy snapped, before he thought.

I think he wished immediately that he hadn’t said it. Don’t we all, when we throw some quick insult at a woman?

“Why, I’m proud to be a girl,” Katie said. She was not reluctant to argue.

“At least I can shoot a pistol,” she added. “And the only man in this country who can shoot one any better is the man who taught me how.”

“Who would that be? Some sweetheart I ain’t met?” Billy asked, quite defiant.

“No, Pa taught me,” Katie said.

“What? That farmer?” Billy scoffed.

“You may think he dresses odd, but he can shoot your eye out at forty feet,” Katie said coolly. “You’d be lucky to hit an elephant at the same distance, from what I’ve seen.”

With that and a flash of her eye she turned and walked back to her hut, leaving the three of us to stand there under the fine mesquite tree.

Billy Bone was shocked, but Joe Lovelady and I just felt slightly embarrassed.

4.

“Well, what now?” Billy asked, finally.

Neither Joe nor I spoke. We had no idea what to say. He had provoked his lady, and his lady had walked off in a temper, if only a mild one.

Billy was no judge of such little contretemps, though. I am sure he had begun to suppose that he and Katie would enjoy perfect bliss forever, with never a cross word said.

Though swaggering a moment before, he now looked pale and sickly.

The truth is, Billy Bone was delicate, a prey to sick headaches and sudden spells of weakness. He had survived a hard boyhood, and it’s commonly assumed that such trials toughen a person—but Billy Bone’s health, in the time I knew him, put the lie to that assumption.

His rough childhood hadn’t toughened him: it had weakened him. When a headache or a bad spell seized him he could quickly look so wan you’d hardly expect him to survive.

That happened as we stood around, nervous and embarrassed, in front of the little cantina in San Isidro. Billy suddenly turned so white and faint-looking I had to jump and urge him to take my chair.

“It’s all right, Billy, it’s just a tiff,” I said. “Sit down before you topple.”

He sat, his hands trembling.

“I wish we hadn’t eaten all those good pills, Sippy,” he said. “I’m getting one of those old headaches.”

Joe Lovelady walked over and soon fetched Katie back. At the sight of Billy’s wan face her annoyance at once gave way to concern.

“Just look at you, Billy,” she said. “Can you walk?”

“I feel somewhat wobbly,” Billy said, in the formal way he was apt to speak when he was deathly sick.