A Time For Hanging (20 page)

"Now I know why you've been acting funny," Lucille said.
 
"You think you can have me and some other woman, too.
 
Well, you can't."

She'd slapped his face and ridden off to town, and of course he'd gone after her with his tail between his legs.
 
Now here he was, off to hang some poor meskin kid for killin' Liz.

He hadn't seen the kid last night, but he'd seen Liz.
 
He was there to find out what she'd learned about her condition.
 
It hadn't been good.

"It's too late," she said.
 
"Even if there'd been something they could do sooner, it's too late now.
 
I'm going to have the baby.
 
I've got to."

Well, she was wrong about that, as it turned out, Charley thought.
 
She wasn't ever going to have the baby now, and he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to marry Lucille Benteen.
 
Maybe it had been too much to hope for in the first place.
 
Maybe he should've been happy just to wrangle horses and punch cows.

He looked around at the other cowboys as they rode, laughing and talking about what they were going to do to Paco Morales.
 
They were happy, he thought, and they weren't ever going to marry the boss's daughter.
 
Why couldn't he have been satisfied?

If he had been, maybe Liz would still be alive and maybe Paco Morales wouldn't be about to die.

It was too bad that things worked out like they did sometimes, but that was just the way it was.
 
He didn't have anything against the Morales boy, but he had to think about himself.
 
If somebody had to die, it might as well be the meskin.

He sneaked another look at Randall, sitting rigid in the saddle, his hard belly sticking out past the sides of his black coat, his eyes staring straight ahead, his hand never far from the butt of the pistol on his hip.

It was scary to see a preacher like that, real scary, and Charley looked away quick, but not before the preacher caught him looking and smiled at him.

It was a smile Charley wished he hadn't seen, like seeing a dead man smile.

Charley didn't smile back.

The Morales place looked deserted.
 
There were a few scrawny rust-colored chickens pecking in the dirt around on the shady side of the house, and there was a dog sleeping under the porch.
 
Aside from that, there wasn't any sign of life.

Sheriff Vincent stopped his horse a few yards from the front door.
 
"Hello, the house," he called out, standing up in the stirrups.

The dog lifted its head from its paws, opened its eyes, and looked at him incuriously.
 
It scratched its neck with its back leg and then settled back down to sleep again.
 
There was no answer from the house.

"Now, then, Miz Morales, I know you're there," Vincent said.
 
"You might's well come out here and talk to me."

The front door opened, and Consuela Morales stepped out on the porch.
 
The dog pricked up its ears for a second, but not for long.

"Yes, Sheriff?" she said.

"I've come for your boy," Vincent said, settling himself back in the saddle.
 
"It was because of my carelessness he got out of the jail, and I don't blame you for it, but you know I've got to take him back."

"He is not here," Mrs. Morales said.
 
"As you can see."

"I can't see anything like that," Vincent said.
 
"I don't know what's in your house."

"You may look if it pleases you, but you will not find my son.
 
He was here, it is true, but he is gone now.
 
He took the mule and rode away."

"I don't think so," Vincent said, shifting his weight in the saddle.
 
"He wasn't in any shape to do much ridin' when I last saw
 
him."

He looked around, but he didn't see the mule.
 
He wished that the woman wouldn't give him any more trouble.
 
He was having enough trouble already, what with Charley Davis admitting to having seen the girl and with that bunch from the saloon wantin' to take Paco out of the jail and do no tellin' what to the boy, not to mention the preacher's wife sayin' that maybe her husband had killed his own daughter, and with even Jack admittin' to havin' known more than he should've about Liz Randall.

"He'd be better off if he came with me," Vincent said.
 
"I can have the doc in to look at him, and I can keep him safe till the trial."

"There was no trial for my husband's killer," she said.
 
"You did not keep my husband safe."

Vincent wished she wouldn't bring that up.
 
He felt bad about that, but there hadn't been anything he could do about it.
 
He hadn't even been there when the man got shot.

"Nobody's going to hurt your son," he said, hoping that he was telling the truth.
 
This time, there was a lot of evidence to indicate that even if Paco had been caught in a pretty bad situation, there were others who shared that situation with him.
 
Vincent didn't know how much good that evidence would do Paco, however.

"That is what you say.
 
It may even be what you wish.
 
But it is not what others might wish."

Hell, what could he say to that?
 
She was right.

"I'll do my best by him," he said finally.
 
It was all that he could say, and even saying that much caused him a twinge and brought a bad taste into him mouth.
 
He didn't want to have to stand up to anybody to save the boy's life.
 
He didn't want to have to stand up to anybody for anything.

"Anyway, he is not here," Mrs. Morales said.
 
"You may search the house now, if you wish, but you will not find him there."

Vincent slid off the horse.
 
The dog perked up again, and the chickens left off their pecking to look at him.

"I guess I'll just have to take a look, anyhow," he said.
 
He had a sinking feeling that she was telling the truth, however.
 
He wondered where the hell the boy had got to.

In the shed, Paco heard the whole conversation.
 
It was almost as if his mother and the sheriff were discussing someone else, a person that Paco was not even related to, but at the same time he knew what was happening.
 
He felt light-headed and dreamy, and he wondered if he had a fever or it he was coming close to suffocation in the almost airless shed.
 
He tightened his grip on the rifle, the smooth stock slippery under his sweaty hands.

He hoped the sheriff would look in the house and then leave.
 
He did not want to kill the sheriff.

He would do it, though.
 
He would not go back to the jail, where he knew that sooner or later he would die for killing the girl.
 
The fact that he was innocent would not save him.
 
No one would care about that.

If the sheriff opened the shed door, then Paco would have no choice.

#

The house wasn't much, and Vincent didn't find the boy.
 
He found the two little girls, and he found two sparsely furnished bedrooms, a kitchen with a dingy stove and a rickety wood table and four chairs, and a sitting room that had a couple of chairs and a raggedy settee in it, but that was all.

"You see," Consuela Morales said.
 
"He is not here."

"He ain't in the house," Vincent agreed.
 
"He's around here somewhere, though."

"No," Consuela said.
 
"He is not here.
 
I told you.
 
He took the mule, and he is gone."

"Yeah, that's what you said."
 
Vincent went past her and out on the porch.
 
He looked around the yard, but it was something off down the road that caught his eye.
 
Looked like riders.
 
He shaded his eyes with his hand.

It was riders, all right, and there wasn't much doubt where they were headed.
 
Vincent fought a sudden urge to get on his horse and get out of there.
 
He was pretty sure he knew what was coming, and he didn't know how to deal with it.
 
Damn those fellas anyhow.
 
Why couldn't they have just stuck to their drinkin'?
 
He'd heard stories about how one man faced down a mob, but he didn't think he was that kind of man.
 
He didn't like the idea of having to find out, either.

He turned back inside.
 
"Miz Morales, if you know where your boy is, you better tell me right now.
 
There's some more men comin', and they won't be as easy about this as I am."

"I will tell them as I have told you," she said.
 
"He is not here."

"Yeah," Vincent said.
 
"And they won't believe you any more than I do.
 
What's gonna happen then?"

"We will see," she said.

#

Turley Ross was riding along in front, thinking of how he'd led the men last night and how he was leading them now.
 
He'd never been in charge of anything before, but he last night the men had been looking to him for advice, and he'd given it to them, too.
 
If it hadn't for that goddamn deputy, they'd've strung that kid up and that would've been the end of it.
 
And everybody would've known that Turley Ross had been the one to get it done.
 
Today, by God, they'd do it right.

It had felt good last night to be the one who knew what to do, the one who was sure of what should be done.
 
He could almost feel the hesitation in the others, even in Len Hawkins and Lane Harper.
 
But Turley Ross didn't hesitate.
 
"Let's string him up here and now," was what he said, and the others all respected him for sayin' it.

Now he was leading them again, and even Roger Benteen was havin' to eat his dust.

Thinking about Benteen upset Ross just a little.
 
He didn't like it that the rancher and his men had dealt themselves in.
 
The preacher, he had a right, and maybe even the gambler did, seein' as how the Morales boy was involved.

Remembering the way Moran had killed the boy's father did not cause Ross even a moment's unrest.
 
Morales was an uppity meskin, always comin' into the saloon and behavin' just like he was a white man and had a right.
 
It was just like him to want to sit in on the card game, and what he got just exactly what he deserved.
 
Turley always kinda wished he could've been the one to have killed him.
 
People would've looked up to him for that.

No one had ever had to look up to Turley before.
 
He was too short for that, and when he'd been a kid all the other boys had picked on him, especially the older ones, the ones that could reach down and pat him on the head.
 
They thought that was so damn smart, pattin' him on the head like he was some kinda little dog.

They called him names, too, because of the way he looked, with his long arms and stocky build and the way he sort of hunched over when he walked.
 
Somebody saw a picture of a monkey in a book and showed it to all the others.
 
"Turley looks like a monkey," they all said after that.

"Turley the monkey, Turley the monkey," they would yell in their high kid's voices, and then they'd chase after him and try to pat him on the head.
 
Sometimes he thought he could still hear them yelling.

"Nice monkey," they'd say when they caught him.
 
"Nice monkey."
 
And then they'd pat him.

It didn't last for long, though.
 
One evening one of the kids, the one who'd found the picture in the book and showed it around, was walking back to the house from a trip to the privy.
 
Someone came up behind him and hit him with an ax handle.
 
Six or seven times.
 
Broke one of his arms and a couple of ribs and knocked out most of his teeth.