At the hotel I switched into that new suit, and had me a struggle with the necktie. Reminded me of a cowboy I’d heard of. The first time they put a tie on his neck he didn’t move for two days. Thought he was tied to a hitchin’ post.
The Dutchman had rounded up a sky pilot and some folks gathered around to be at the wedding. With my collar all cinched up like that I hadn’t been so strangled since they tried to hang me that time.
That sky pilot brought the Good Book with him and we stood up whilst he spoke the words, and simple as that, I was a married man with a beautiful wife, so while she talked with womenfolks, the Dutchman and me went out to saddle our horses.
That blue roan was standing ready and I saddled my other horse for Janet. I’d finished cinching up and walked around the horse when the Dutchman spoke.
“Mr. Passin’? Watch it.”
Well, I looked around, and across the street stood Charles Pelham Clinton in a white suit and a panama hat and he was standing there looking across at me.
“I’ve been looking for you, Mr. Passin’,” he said quietly. “I’ve been looking and waiting.”
“I’m here,” I said.
“You surprised me,” he said, “and I didn’t expect it of you. You seem to have a gift for survival.”
Now Charles Pelham Clinton, whose brother I’d killed and whose plans I’d helped to upset, had not come to talk about politics or the weather, nor even to congratulate me on my wedding. But maybe he did.
“You’re a bridegroom, I hear,” Clinton said, “and you married Janet Le Caudy, of all people.” “I did.”
“Too bad,” he said, “for such a young wife to become a widow.”
“It would be,” I replied.
“But,” he said, “I must congratulate you. In fact I must take off my hat to you.” He lifted his hand to his hat and then his hand started down and I shot him dead.
The Dutchman started forward. “You shot him! You -”
“Look in his hand,” I said.
Clinton lay sprawled, one hand outstretched, one almost under him. In the palm of his right hand was a double-barreled .44 derringer.
Passin' Through (1985) Page 19