A Time For Hanging (23 page)

"I didn't mess with Lucille, not ever," Charley said when she had wiped the blood away.
 
"I didn't mean for Liz to get pregnant, either.
 
She went to the doc, but there wasn't anything he could do."

He coughed again, and again the blood came out.
 
Consuela wiped it away.

"You didn't kill her, though," Ross said.
 
"You said you didn't kill her."

"No.
 
Hell no.
 
I didn't kill nobody."

"A dyin' man don't lie," Ross said.
 
He stood up and went into the house.
 
Vincent didn't try to stop him.

Charley coughed one more time.
 
He died just as Willie, Jack, and Lucille rode into the yard.

#

Lucille didn't cry.

She didn't know why, but she just couldn't, not after she heard about Liz being pregnant.
 
How could Charley have done that and not said anything? she wondered. To look at him lying there, you'd think he was as innocent as a baby, with those clear blue eyes.
 
Later, she'd cry.

"We'd better go on home," Benteen told his daughter.
 
His plans for her were ruined, and he no longer so the need for finding the Morales boy.
 
"There's been enough dying here already.
 
I'll send Rankin for Charley when we get back to town."

"We can't go yet," Lucille said.
 
"Mr. Turner has something to say."

"That's right, Sheriff," Jack said.
 
"I wouldn't've come out here otherwise."

"Don't worry about that, Jack," Vincent said.
 
"What's this about Willie?"

"He says the Morales boy didn't kill Liz Randall," Lucille said.
 
"He was there."

"Is that the truth, Willie?" Vincent said.

"Who the hell cares what a drunk says?" Ross said, emerging from his fruitless search of the house.
 
"He wouldn't know the truth if it spit in his face."

"I know some things, all right," Willie said.
 
"I can't remember ever'thing, but I can remember some things."

"What do you know about Liz Randall?" Vincent said.

"I know that boy didn't kill her," Willie said, trying to sound as if he believed himself.

"How the hell do you know that?" Ross demanded.

"I was there," Willie said.

"You sayin' that you killed her?" Ross asked.

"No, I ain't sayin' that.
 
I'm sayin' I was there.
 
I saw her body, and then the meskin kid came along.
 
I hid from him, but then he heard me in the bushes and ran off.
 
He didn't do anything.

"You ain't nothin' but a damn drunk," Ross said.
 
"You don't know what you saw or when you saw it.
 
I think you're lyin'."

"He's not lying," Lucille said.
 
"Why would he lie?"

That stopped Ross for a minute, and Vincent said, "You didn't see who killed her?"

"I can't remember that part," Willie said.

"See what I'm tellin' you?" Ross said, his confidence restored.
 
"You can't believe a word he says.
 
He don't know what he saw and what he didn't see.
 
I still think it was the kid."

"You can't be pos'tive, though," Harl said.

"We saw the kid, caught him in the act.
 
He was there.
 
He done it."
 
That settled it as far as Ross was concerned.

Then he turned to Vincent.
 
"And because you got things stirred up here, you've gone and got Charley Davis killed.
 
It's as much your fault as anybody's.
 
If you'd let us be, the preacher wouldn't've shot him."

"If you hadn't brought 'em out here, Charley would still be alive," Vincent said.
 
"Maybe it's your fault as much as it is anybody's."

"I don't know who you think'd believe a thing like that," Ross said.
 
"Now you do what you want to with Charley and the preacher.
 
I'm gonna help Moran find that kid."

#

Paco was asleep when the shots were fired.

He didn't know how it had happened, but somehow he had drifted off.
 
He was sweating heavily, and he had been dreaming of being in a burning building.
 
It was a barn of some kind, with a high, beamed ceiling and a loft from which burning bales of hay were falling all around him, flying apart into flaming balls as he ran down a seemingly endless corridor of stalls filled with screaming horses that reared and kicked at the stall doors.
 
The dream was so real that he could almost smell the smoke and hear the frantic neighing of the panicked horses.

The shots caused him to jerk awake, his hands clenching on the rifle, and he was momentarily disoriented.
 
It was as if he were still in the burning barn, and he fought to get to his feet to flee the flames that were licking out at him, the bales that were falling like blazing comets.

The pain in his arm and side let him know that he was not going to get up very fast, and then he came to himself.
 
He remembered that he was in the tiny shed, that he was hiding from men who wanted to kill him, and that he had to be alert to everything that happened.

He got his eye to one of the cracks in the wall, and he could see there were people in the yard, men on horses, and that some of them were looking at another man who was on the ground.
 
Paco didn't know for sure what had happened, but it seemed that the man had been shot.

Why he had been shot was not at all clear, until Paco saw that one of the men was the preacher.
 
These men had come for Paco, but they had killed someone else.

Paco watched as the wounded man was carried to the porch.
 
He saw that the preacher did not dismount to help, nor did one of the other men, someone whom Paco did not recognize.

That man, when the others were occupied with the wounded one, left the preacher and began to ride his horse slowly around the yard.
 
Paco soon lost sight of him.

Other riders came into the yard.
 
One of them was Jack Simkins, whose face was easily recognizable, and one of them was Willie Turner.
 
Paco did not know the woman.

There was some sort of argument on the porch.
 
Paco wondered what it was about.
 
Maybe they were arguing about him, about where he was.
 
He had to be ready for them.
 
If they came for him, he would not hesitate.
 
His finger found the trigger of the rifle, and it pressure comforted him.

#

Lane Harper heard the shots and pulled up on the reins.
 
His horse came to a stop, and Harper listened to see if there would be any more shooting.

He had gotten behind the other riders when he had stopped to go off down a side trail that led into a dry wash, but he hadn't found anything.
 
When he rode out again, the others had gone on ahead and turned a bend that led them around a sizeable hill; they probably hadn't heard anything.

When no more shots came, Harper wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him.
 
If they'd found the Morales kid there'd've been more shots than two, wouldn't there?

Harper smoothed his moustache with the thumb and first finger of his right hand, wiping the sweat on his shirt when he was done.
 
He hoped they would find the kid soon and do what they had to do.

He wondered for the first time why he was so eager to do it.
 
The kid had never done anything to him.
 
Was it because of the first killing and the fact that Harper had played a part in covering for the gambler?

Or was it because they had beat the kid so damn bad last night and wanted to prove they had a right to do it?

Harper didn't know, but when he thought about it, both reasons seemed pretty damn weak to him.
 
He wondered if he was getting yellow, like Harl Case, or Mr. Danton.

Not that he would ever have called Mr. Danton yellow to his face, but Lane thought that was what the man was, all right.
 
He had got so that he was scared even to come to his own place of business, all because of the shootin' that had occurred there.
 
He had just about turned the whole thing over to Lane, and now all Mr. Danton wanted to do was sit in his little house with the shades drawn and get drunk.
 
The few times he'd come back to the saloon, Lane could smell the liquor on him, though he was the very one who'd told Lane that the one thing a saloon keeper couldn't afford to do was to drink.

It was advice Lane had taken to heart, even more so after seeing Danton the last few times he'd come into the saloon.
 
Lane drank, but never more than a couple of shots a day.

Lane couldn't figure Mr Danton.
 
The man was a good boss; he paid on time, and he kept his nose out of the bar business and let Lane run it the way it ought to be run.
 
He had his pick of all the girls who worked the saloon.
 
But the shootin' had taken it out of him.
 
He was more like a ghost now than a man; come to think of it, Lane hadn't seen him in the daytime for more than a year.
 
He came to the saloon only after dark, after most of the citizens were off the street.
 
Lane wondered briefly if Mr. Danton had ever run into Liz Randall on his moonlight walks to the saloon, but he dismissed the thought.

Lane knew nothing would ever get to him like the shooting of Morales had gotten to Danton, so why was he worryin' about the damn kid?

Then he thought of a
 
reason he might be worried.
 
What if the kid hadn't done anything, and whoever killed that Randall girl was still on the loose?
 
That might make a difference.
 
It might mean that someone else could get killed.

He put that thought out of his mind.
 
If people couldn't watch out for themselves, that wasn't Lane Harper's fault.
 
He was going to take care of the fella who really mattered -- himself -- and to hell with the rest of 'em.

That was why they had to get the Morales kid, he guessed.
 
They had to show that they were right and that they were takin' care of themselves in the way they were supposed to, and takin' care of the rest of the town, too.

But what if there was another killin' and they were proved wrong?

Harper took off his hat and wiped his shirt sleeve across his forehead.

We weren't wrong, he told himself.
 
We done the right thing.
 
And if we didn't, no one would know it when the kid was dead.
 
That was a good enough reason to find him and get him out of the way once and for all.

He clucked to his horse, getting her into a trot.
 
He needed to catch up with the others.

He had already forgotten hearing the shots.

Harper caught up with them just as they found the mule.

It was grazing on some dead grass that stuck up from between the rocks at the bottom of a narrow gully.

"How you reckon he got down there?" Frank asked no one in particular.
 
He was slightly embarrassed that he had lost the mule's trail.
 
They had only found the cussed thing by accident.

"Hell," one of the cowhands said, "you never know about a mule.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if it flew."

There was a hackamore on the mule's head.
 
A rope was attached to the hackamore.

"You reckon the kid was ridin' it?" Len Hawkins asked.
 
"I sure as to God don't see him anywhere."

"He coulda fell off," a cowboy ventured.
 
"Might be lyin' somewhere in that ditch."