by Bill Crider
"We don't have to listen to some drunk spout off about his delirious trembles," Ross said. "You get out of the way, Mr. Benteen, and take that drunk with you."
"Wait a minute, Ross," Vincent said. "Why don't you let these men hear for themselves what Willie has to say? It might surprise 'em."
"You saw what talkin' did for Charley," Ross said. "He prob'ly ain't too happy about lettin' you spout off to that preacher."
Vincent got the point, but he still thought he had to let the men hear Willie. Maybe they would believe him.
"You don't speak for me or my men, Mr. Ross," Benteen said, determined that Willie was going to be heard. "They're going to listen to Willie if I say so. Isn't that right, men?"
The cowboys who had pulled their lariats were already tying them back to the saddles.
"We'll listen if you think we ought to, Mr. Benteen," Frank said. "You're the boss man."
Ross knew when he was whipped. "All right. We'll listen. But I don't know who you think'll believe a drunk."
"We'll see," Benteen said. "Tell them, Willie."
Willie had never needed a drink more in his life, not even on the day his wife died. He swallowed once, and it felt like his Adam's apple was going to stick in his throat. He swallowed again, and it wasn't much better.
"Hell, I don't even believe he can talk," Ross said. "Why don't you just get outta the way, Willie, and let us go about our business."
"Yeah, Willie," Len Hawkins said. "Why don't you just do that."
"Don't let 'em bother you, Willie," Vincent said. "Go on and say your piece."
Willie tried again. This time he got it out. "I don't think the kid -- Paco -- I don't think he' the one that killed the preacher's girl."
"There it is then," Ross said. "That about does it, sure enough. The biggest drunk in Dry Springs don't think the kid did it. I guess all you fellas are satisfied now, ain't you?"
He laughed, and most of the others joined in.
"Tell 'em why you think the way you do, Willie," Vincent said.
Willie swallowed again. "I . . . I was there."
The laughter stopped short. Some of the men stirred uneasily in their saddles.
"You was there," Ross snarled. "You was there. Well, if you was there, tell us who did kill her then." Ross already knew that Willie couldn't answer that one.
"I don't know," Willie said. He looked down at the ground.
"See there?" Ross said. "He ain't got no more idea than a rabbit about who killed that girl. Get outta the way, Willie, and you won't get hurt."
Willie would have moved then, but Benteen still had hold of his arm. Benteen may have looked soft, but he had a grip like a bear's claw.
"Tell them the rest of it, Willie," Benteen said.
"I . . . I was there when the kid came by," Willie said. "She was dead when he got there."
"That's a damn lie!" Ross yelled. "We caught him in the act! We was there, too!"
"No you weren't," Willie said, adding something that Ross had not heard earlier. He said it so soft that Vincent thought nobody would hear him, but they did.
"What?" Len Hawkins said. "You callin' us liars, you drunk sonofabitch?"
"I ain't callin' you anything," Willie said. "I'm just sayin' you weren't there when the kid come along, and I was. That's all."
"I oughta kill you right now," Ross said.
"I don't think so," Benteen said. "Not right now."
"You tellin' me that you believe this damn drunk, Mr. Benteen?" Ross said. "Jesus, he's just --"
"I know what he is," Benteen said. "But I think he saw something last night, something that casts a doubt on the boy's guilt. I'm taking my men home."
He looked at Vincent. "I'm not saying the boy's innocent, but I'm not going to have anything to do with hanging him. You're on your own now, Sheriff."
He turned back to his men. "We're pulling out of here. You can come, too, Willie."
Still holding Willie by the arm, he started back to the house, not even looking back to see if his men were following.
The cowboys were looking at one another and at the retreating back of the man who paid their wages.
"What do you think, Frank?" one of them said finally.
"Hell, I think we better follow the boss," Frank said, nudging his mount gently. "Let's go."
The others moved aside for him.
"You don't mean you're gonna take the word of a yella drunk?" Ross said. "A man that ain't seen a sober day in no tellin' how many years?"
"I don't give a damn about him, tell you the truth," Frank said. "But I know where my money comes from." He kept on going, and the other ranch hands followed him.
When Benteen reached the porch, he stopped to wait for his daughter. She gave Mrs. Morales on last comforting hug and stepped off the porch to join her father. The cowboys waited a respectful distance behind.
When Lucille got on her horse, Harl Case got up from the porch and climbed on his own. He didn't look at the men by the shed.
Benteen and his daughter rode slowly out of the yard, followed by the cowboys. Harl Case and Willie trailed along behind.
"Goddamn that Harl," Ross muttered. He, Harper, and Len Hawkins were left to face the sheriff and his deputy.
Vincent liked the odds better than he had earlier, but he was still uneasy. Those two shotguns were enough to level him, Jack, and the shed besides. Without reloading.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Consuela Morales was walking across the yard. The sun glinted on the barrel of the shotgun she carried, the one Harl had left behind. She was carrying it purposefully, as if she knew how to use it. She was no longer crying. Her eyes were dry and hard.
The odds were getting better all the time, Vincent thought.
"It's over, fellas," Vincent said. "You might's well go on back to town. We got two dead men here, maybe one in the shed. No use havin' any more."
Ross' face was flaming, and not because of the heat. He was irate about the way things had worked out. He had been for a short time the leader of a whole crowd, but now he was down to only two other men. The sheriff had no business being there, and then that damn Benteen girl had to turn up with Willie Turner. It could all have been so simple, but it just hadn't worked out the way it should.
Turley Ross wasn't goin' to turn tail, though. If the sheriff thought that, he was dead wrong. Ross was goin' to get the kid and he was goin' to see that the kid got what was comin' to him.
"I ain't goin' nowhere, Sheriff," he said. "Neither are these other two. So why don't you just step aside and let me look in that shed. If the kid's dead, well, then maybe we'll go on back to town."
"If he's dead, I'll be takin' you to the jail," Vincent surprised himself by saying. "For murder," he added.
Ross took a deep breath, swelling his chest, then let the air out slowly.
"You sonofabitch," he said. "You wouldn't dare to do that to me."
"Yes he would," Jack said. "I'd help him, if he needed any help." Vincent was as surprised at Jack as he had been at himself, though he shouldn't have been. Jack had already showed he had nerve, last night.
Consuela Morales walked behind them then, entering the shed and bending over her son.
"How's the boy?" Vincent asked.
"He is alive," Consuela said. "I think. But he is very sick. He is bleeding." She turned to stand in the doorway, the shotgun trained on Ross.
"Looks like we got a stand-off here," Vincent said. "Why don't you fellas let us get this boy to the doc. I'll see that he stays in the jail this time and that he stands his trial. We'll let the law decide if he's guilty."
"He's guilty," Ross said. "Ain't that right, fellas?"
"Damn right, he is," Len Hawkins said.
Harper didn't say anything for a minute. He was beginning to wonder if this was worth it. Two men dead. The kid beat to hell, maybe shot.
But Harper had been there in the grove. He'd beat the kid along with the others. "Yeah," he said. "He's guilty, all ri
ght."
"So," Ross said.
"Yeah," Vincent said. "Where does that leave us, though? You want to try killin' all of us? It seems likely you could do it, but one or two of you won't come out of it without a few holes in you."
Ross saw the logic of that. He didn't want to get killed, but at the same time he wanted to get the kid.
"Let's leave it," Harper said suddenly. "We can leave him to the law. If he's guilty, he'll swing. We don't have to be the ones to do it."
"If he's hurt pretty bad, he might not even make it to the trial," Hawkins said, not mentioning the fact that Vincent would consider Ross guilty of murder in that case. "Maybe we oughta give it up."
Vincent watched Ross' reaction. The stocky man ground his teeth; he was furious.
But he was not stupid. He could see that things were not in his favor any longer, if they had ever been. It was time for a decision.
"Goddamnit," he said with clenched teeth.
"If you drop it now," Vincent said, "you better not try anything else. I've had about all I can stand of this." His voice was a little strained; he hoped it was convincing.
"All right," Ross said, his shoulders suddenly slumping. "To hell with it." He slipped his pistol in its holster and turned to walk away. Harper and Hawkins turned their horses to follow after him.
Vincent felt the tension drain out of him. Behind him, Consuela lowered the shotgun, and Jack heaved a slow sigh of relief.
Vincent was about to look in the shed when Ross whirled back, whipping out the pistol.
He got off a shot, flame spewing from the muzzle. The bullet passed right between Jack and Vincent and hit Consuela. The force of the bullet shoved her backward, and she fell on top of Paco. As she fell, she jerked the barrel of the single-shot Whitney up and pulled the trigger.
Harper and Hawkins, though taken by surprise as much as the others, were spinning in their saddles, trying to get their weapons in position to fire.
Vincent and Jack were dropping to the ground when the buckshot from Consuela's gun sizzled over their heads. The pattern was already spreading when the shot got to the two men on horseback, but it was still concentrated enough to shred Len Hawkins' left arm, throwing him hard to the right and out of the saddle.
Vincent was half lying on his pistol and scrabbling to get his it out of the holster when Jack started firing. The deputy wasn't hitting anybody, but he was keeping Harper too busy to fire the sawed-off.
Hawkins was lying on the ground now, screaming. No one was paying him any attention. They could hardly hear him, anyway; their ears were ringing from all the shooting.
Ross shot at the sheriff again, once or twice, but his aim was no better than Jack's. At least one of the bullets whacked into the dry wood of the shed. Vincent wasn't counting the shots, however, so he didn't know for sure how many times Ross had fired.
The sheriff finally got his pistol out. He shot twice at Ross, and the stocky man staggered back on his heels, dropping his pistol.
He bent to pick it up, but he couldn't seem to reach it. Looking at Vincent, he sat slowly down. A red stain was spreading on the front of his shirt.
Vincent felt sick. He hadn't really meant to hit him.
Ross kept his eyes on the sheriff as he felt around for his pistol. When his fingers closed on it, he cocked it and fired again, missing everyone, even missing the shed.
Harper broke open the sawed-off and pulled out the cartridges that he had never fired.
"I'm done," he said, laying the gun across his lap and putting his hands in the air. "Give it up, Turley."
Hawkins stopped screaming. He lay on the ground, twisting and moaning. His horse had run away.
"I ain't givin' anything up," Ross said. He had made his play, and he was sticking with it. No one was going to say that Turley Ross turned yellow at the end. No one was going to laugh at him and call him a monkey again.
He was having trouble holding the pistol; it felt heavier than he thought it should, but somehow he kept it level.
He wondered if he had enough strength in his thumb to cock the hammer. He began pulling it back.
"Goddamnit, Turley," Harper said.
Turley looked at him and smiled. "Ain't it the truth?" he said. Then he looked at Vincent. He got the hammer cocked.
"Lay the damn thing down, Turley," Vincent said.
"Can't do that, Sheriff. I got to finish it, show folks that I was right."
"This ain't right or wrong, Turley," Vincent said. "It's just downright stupid."
It looked to him like Ross was leaning over to one side. Maybe if he could keep him talking, he'd drop the gun.
"Turley, it ain't too late to call this off. You put the gun down, and we'll --"
Turley pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the shed, high up near the roof.
"Damn," Turley said. He thumbed back the hammer.
"Stop it, Turley," Harper said. "Damnit, just stop it now."
"Can't," Turley said. The hammer clicked into place.
Vincent shot him. The bullet hit Turley square in the chest, knocking him back and flipping him over. He looked like he was doing a backwards somersault. It would have been funny if Turley hadn't been dead.
30.
The Reverend Randall rode home, got off his horse, and went inside. His wife was there, sitting at the kitchen table. She looked up when her husband walked in.
She didn't look good to him. Her eyes were red from crying, and her fat face was even puffier than usual. For a minute, he wondered who she was and what she was doing there.
For an even longer time, he wondered who he was.
"Where've you been?" she said when he didn't speak. "Don't you care that your daughter's over there in the funeral home? Don't you even want to see her one last time?"
It all came back to him then, who the woman was, and why she was crying. He looked at her without pity. "'Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.'"
She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. "You haven't preached the kingdom of God in years," she said. "I don't think you ever did. I don't know why I didn't see it before. God knows, I should have known -- the way you treated Liz, the way you treated me. You don't serve God, never have. You serve the Devil."
Randall looked at her, but his eyes were not seeing her. In reality he was looking into himself, as deeply into himself as he could see.
What he saw there, only he could say. Whether it was good or evil, whether it was or Randall or of Reynolds, he gave no sign. Perhaps it was neither, or both.
Or perhaps he saw nothing at all.
"What's the matter with you?" Martha said. "Can't you say anything? Isn't there anything in your head except those Bible verses?"
He kept on staring, seeing or not seeing.
"Quote the Bible, then. Go ahead. It won't change anything. It won't make you anything but what you are."
His mind clicked in again. "What I am," he said.
"That's right," she said. "I know what you are. God knows, too."
"God knows what I am," he said tonelessly.
He thought of his daughter, dead.
He thought of the man he had killed today, of the men he had killed years ago, of the lie that his life had been. Kid Reynolds was not his past. Kid Reynolds had never died. Kid Reynolds had killed Randall's daughter, as surely as he had killed her lover.
Kid Reynolds had killed Martha, too. Surely this woman, this grossly fat woman who stared and yelled at him was not Martha.
Randall pulled the pistol once again. He looked at if as if it were a snake that might strike him.
"What are you doing?" Martha said. "Put that back!"
He looked at her stonily. "'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.'"
She looked fearfully at the gun. "What? What is that supposed to mean? Are you the one who cut my daugher?"
"No, he said, I never touched her. I would never have hurt her willingly. She was my da
ugher, too." He looked at Martha for a second longer. Then he said, "'And if thy right hand offend thy, cut it off and cast it from thee.'"
Martha started crying again. "I don't understand," she said. "I don't understand."
Randall sighed, as if he were very tired. "Neither do I," he said wearily. "Neither do I."
He cocked the pistol, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger.
#
Vincent and Simkins got up and stood looking at Turley Ross for a minute.
"He wasn't a bad fella," Simkins said. "I guess he just went a little crazy."
"I guess we all did, but that don't make him any less dead," Harper said. "What about Len?"
"You can see about him," Vincent said. He turned to look in the shed to check on Mrs. Morales and Paco.
Mrs. Morales was conscious and trying to sit up. Vincent helped her. Ross' bullet had passed through her shoulder, and Vincent thought she would be all right after they got the bleeding stopped.
Paco did not look quite so good. He had been shot in the arm, the one that had not been broken in the beating. It looked to Vincent as if it might be broken now.
"We've got to get him to a doctor," Vincent told Jack. "His mother, too."
"Rankin oughta be here pretty soon," Jack said. "That is, if Benteen told him to come for Charley like he said he was."
"That's right," Vincent said. "We can use his wagon."
"He's gonna have quite a load," Jack said. "He'll have more bodies than he thought for."
"They can wait."
"Mighty hot," Jack said.
"They won't mind," Vincent told him.
"What about Len?" Harper called out. "He's hurt mighty bad. Looks like this arm might have to come off."
They heard Hawkins groan aloud at that remark.
"There'll be room in Rankin's wagon for him, too," Vincent said. "Unless you want to throw him across a saddle and let him get to town that way."
"He'd never make it," Harper said. "He's still bleedin' pretty bad."
"Then he'll just have to wait for the wagon," Vincent said. "See if you can do anything to help him, Jack."