A Time For Hanging (14 page)

His mother closed the door and went to the house.
 
Paco sat with his eyes wide open, trying to accustom them to the darkness, which at first seemed absolute.

Eventually, however, he could see the light that shone through the cracks between the boards, and then he could see the vague outlines of the boxes and the tools.

When his mother opened the door, the sudden glare almost blinded him, and he vowed to himself to keep his eyes on the cracks from then on, to let them take in as much light as they could.
 
He did not want to miss his first shot.

"Here," Consuela said, handing him the rifle.
 
It was a lever-action Henry, older than Paco.

She put four cartridges into his hand.
 
"That is all the ammunition we have," she said.

"It will be enough," he told her.

She said nothing, closing the door.
 
Then she went to catch the mule.

#

Vincent had no call to hold Charley at the jail, so he let him go, telling him to stay in town.
 
He left Jack in charge of the jail, too late, he knew, but he wasn't going off and leave the place unattended this time.
 
He had to talk to Bigby and to try to find Paco.

Bigby was his usual ebullient self again, smiling and showing his teeth all the way back to his throat when Vincent entered the office, really nothing more than a rented room decked out with a few ads for patent medicines on the wall.

"I took the girl over to Rankin's, like you said.
 
He wasn't too happy with me for bringin' her in, though.
 
Said she was a real mess, and he didn't have time to fix her like she ought to be fixed, not with the weather as hot as it is.
 
I told him the family'd be by to talk to him about the buryin'."

He stopped to look to Vincent for approval, and when the sheriff did not say anything, Bigby went on.

"Did I do the right thing?
 
You did say the family'd best see her over there, didn't you?
 
Told me not to keep her here?"

That's right," Vincent said.
 
"But I'm not sure the family ever went over there, at least not the father.
 
Maybe the mother did.
 
Anyway, that's not why I'm here."

"Well, well.
 
Don't tell me you've got somethin' the matter with you.
 
It'd be the first time.
 
You comin' down with a cold or the fever?
 
I got some medicines here that'll have you feelin' better in no time."
 
He started rummaging around in his bag, the bottles clinking together.

"I don't need anything like that," Vincent said.

"Well, what do you need, then?
 
I hate to say it, Sheriff, but it ain't like you to be droppin' by for a sociable visit.
 
There must be somethin' on your mind."

"There is," Vincent said.

"You're sure havin' a hard time sayin' what it is, ain't you.
 
One of those 'delicate' matters, is it?"

"That's right," Vincent said.
 
It's delicate.
 
That's the right word."

Bigby rubbed his hands together.
 
"You come to the right man, then.
 
Bein' a doctor and all, I can keep quiet about things when I have to.
 
People wouldn't tell me what I need to know to help 'em, otherwise."

Where had he heard something just like that lately, Vincent wondered, and then he remembered that Martha Randall had said practically the same thing about her husband.
 
As far as Vincent knew it was the only thing doctors and preachers had in common.

"It's about the girl," Vincent said.

"What about her?
 
She's dead, that's all."

"Was she pregnant?"

Bigby's smile went from wide to thin, but he didn't say anything.

"I thought that was one of the things you'd check, just to be sure, in a case like this.
 
It's just what a doctor ought to do."

"You sayin' I ain't a doctor?"

"I'm just asking, did you check.
 
That's all."

"What if I did?"

On their return from the jail, the men slammed into the saloon where Willie Turner was drinking with Benteen's cowhands, who had not been put off in the least by the fact that Willie told them there was no one there to sell them any liquor.
 
They were not going to be denied their chance for a drink, and they went behind the bar for what they wanted, ignoring Willie's pleas to leave.
 
When he saw that there was no use in arguing with them, he joined them.

He had just about finished off Ross Turley's bottle, though it hadn't done
 
him any good.
 
For some reason, he couldn't seem to get drunk, not even halfway.
 
The more he drank, the more sober he got.
 
It wasn't a good feeling.

A couple of the girls who lived out back had come in by this time, and things were getting pretty lively by the time the men came back from the jail, what with the liquor being supplied by Benteen.
 
Willie wasn't joining in the fun, but the cowhands weren't letting that bother them.
 
They were laughing and joking, playing up to the girls and pinching them on the sly, not that it seemed to bother the girls all that much.
 
They were laughing, too, probably hoping to engage in a cash transaction or two later on, when things got to rolling really good.

"What's goin' on here?" Lane Harper demanded as he came through the doors.
 
He looked for Willie and saw him standing at the bar between two of the waddies.
 
"I thought I told you --"

"I know what you told me," Willie said.
 
"I tried to get 'em to leave.
 
You can ask 'em."
 
He wondered what the preacher was doing with there, all dressed in black like he was ready for church.
 
It didn't seem right for a preacher to be in a saloon, not where there were girls and drinking.
 
The gambler was with them, too.
 
Willie didn't like the gambler being there.
 
That wasn't a good sign.

"Leave him be," Len Hawkins advised.
 
"We got other things to discuss."

Harper wasn't going to be dissuaded so easily.
 
"If Mr. Danton was to've come in here and seen all this goin' on, and me bein' gone, he'd sack me quick as a cat can lick its ass.
 
I oughta --"

"Mr. Danton ain't comin' in," Turley Ross said.
 
"When's the last time he came in here, anyway?"

Harper didn't say anything to that.
 
He knew exactly the last time Danton had come in.
 
It had been the day the gambler, that same fella who was with them now, had killed Morales.
 
Danton had been there then, and what happened had sort of killed the pleasure he took in coming in.
 
He had been back, of course.
 
It was his business.
 
But he came in only when he had to, and he didn't stay long when he was there.
 
He didn't even mess with any of the girls anymore.

"Let 'em have a little fun," Ross said.
 
"Let's decide what we're gonna do about that kid."

"Let's us have a little fun, too," Harl Case said.
 
"Get us a drink," Lane.

Harper went behind the bar and got a bottle.
 
Willie was glad to see that Ross seemed to have forgotten that he had already bought one.

The men went to a table and pulled up some chairs.
 
They sat down, opened the bottle, and began discussing their next move.
 
Willie noticed that although the preacher sat down, he didn't have anything to say, nor did he touch the bottle.
 
And Willie saw the gun the preacher was wearing.
 
He'd never seen anything like that before, and he knew it meant trouble, even more trouble than there was already.

Then Charley Davis came in, and the trouble got worse.
 
It seemed to Willie as if he could almost predict what was going to happen, like he could see the future.

Davis would tell the ranch hands what had happened to Liz Randall, and they would be indignant.
 
The men over at the table, their heads together, would hear the cowboys talking, and because they felt the same way, everyone would get together.
 
Willie couldn't see beyond that, but he knew that nothing good would come of it.

He was right.
 
It happened pretty much that way, with two exceptions.
 
One of them Willie didn't know about, since he didn't realize that Charley was a suspect in the case.
 
Charley left that part out entirely, making it sound as if Paco Morales was guilty beyond a doubt.

 
The other exception was the way the upstairs girls reacted.
 
Willie hadn't thought about them.
 
They pretended to be afraid and put their hands to their mouths and talked about how a girl "couldn't even go out for so much as a little walk without getting killed by some crazy meskin."

It was almost sickening to listen to them, but Willie did listen.
 
He seemed frozen at the bar, his head icily clear despite the liquor he had drunk.
 
He looked at Turley's bottle.
 
It was empty, but that didn't seem to matter now.
 
Willie didn't want any more.
 
It was useless to him now.

"We oughta do somethin' about it," one of the ranch hands, a big, broad-shouldered man named Frank, said.

"Damn right.
 
We oughta go down to the jail and tell the sheriff what we think about a town where a decent woman can't even walk outside without fearin' for her life," another cowhand said.

"You'll have to do better than that," Ross said from the table. He was glad to hear the commotion, and he was already thinking about how it could benefit his own ideas.
 
"The one that did it's already out of the jail."

"You mean the sheriff let him out?" Frank said.

"No," Charley told him.
 
"The kid escaped."

"That damn sheriff never was no good," Frank muttered.
 
"I guess there's nothin' we can do, then."

"Sure there is," Ross said.
 
He was about to tell them what they could do when the batwings swung inward and Roger Benteen entered the saloon.

The noise level dropped to nothing.
 
Everyone looked at Benteen, even the men from town.
 
They knew that he pretty much ran things around there, and they didn't know how much he knew about the situation.