The Gun Fight by Richard Matheson

another sigh, “. . . I go on working. Asking
nothing
in return but a little help in the shop a few days out of the week.” She fixed an accusing look upon her niece. “Is that so much to ask?” she said. “Is that so—stop that!”
    Louisa jerked the moist, chewed knuckle from her lips and swallowed nervously.
    “Is it, Louisa?” asked her aunt.
    “No, Aunt Agatha, it . . . isn’t that. I like to help you in the shop but . . .” She bit her lower lip and couldn’t help the tear that wriggled from beneath her right eyelid and trickled down her cheek. “They all look at me so,” she said, brokenly.
    “And what would you like to do?” her aunt challenged. “Go home? Hide away as if you had something to be ashamed of?”
    “No, Aunt Agatha, it isn’t—”
    “You might just as well confess your guilt as do that!”
    Louisa’s mouth twitched. “G-guilt?” she murmured, eyes wide and frightened.
    “Yes,” her aunt said. “Guilt. Is that what you want people to think; that you have something to be ashamed of?”
    “
No
, Aunt Agath—”
    “That’s all there is to it,” stated Agatha Winston firmly. “We have nothing to hide and we will not hide.”
    Louisa stared helplessly at her aunt.
    “Let John Benton hide his face!” Agatha Winston said angrily. “Not us.” She glared at Louisa, then picked up her pen. “Now . . . kindly take care of the shop until I finish my work.”
    Louisa still stood watching until her aunt lookedup again, dark eyes commanding. “Well?” said her aunt.
    Louisa turned and walked slowly down the length of the counter. She stopped at the front of the shop and looked out the window at the sunlit square.
    She stared bleakly at the reversed letters painted on the glass— MISS WINSTON’S LADIES APPAREL . Then her eyes focused again beyond the letters and she looked at the plank sidewalk, the dirt square, the shops across the way. She looked a while at the motionless peppermint-stick pole in front of Jesse Willmark’s Barber Shop. She thought of the look Jesse had given her when she passed him that morning with her aunt. The memory made her breath catch.
    Then she saw a horse man ride by and look into the shop and she turned away quickly, her cheeks coloring embarrassedly. She hoped the man didn’t see her blush. The way he
looked
at her . . .
    She stood with her back to the window a long time, feeling a strange quiver in her body. She reached up and brushed away a tear that dripped across her cheek. Why did everybody look at her that way?
    All during the last sale, Mrs. DeWitt had kept staring like that, always turning down her gaze a little too late to hide the curious brightness in her eyes. Never once did she say a word about the situation Louisa knew she was thinking about. She talked about shifts and stockings and corsets as if there were nothing else on her mind. And, all the time, her eyes kept probing up, then down, as if she were attempting to penetrate Louisa’s mind and ferret out its secrets.
    All through the sale, Louisa had tried to smile, to repeat the things about the merchandise her aunt had taught her.
Oh, yes this is what every woman back East is wearing now. This is delicate but completely sturdy. I think you’ll find it will not bind or roll. This is the best material of its type on the market.
Words repeatedin a nervous voice, when all the time she wanted to run away and hide.
    Louisa glanced over her shoulder again and saw that there was no one in front of the shop. She turned back and looked out the window again. Far down in the south end of the square was the shop where Robby worked. Louisa looked in that direction.
    All morning she’d been dreadfully afraid that Robby was going to come in and ask her if the story about Benton was really true. Every time she’d heard footsteps in the doorway or heard hoofbeats out front, her head had jerked up from whatever she was doing and she’d looked fearfully at the shop entrance, heart