Holbrook’s citizens were prudent folk. They loved to revel in the recounting of gunfights, but they reasoned, logically enough, that in order to pass on the stories, it was a necessary requisite that one stay alive. In order to accomplish this, they stayed out of sight until the fight was over. Thus it was that the Vermilion Kid strolled away from the scene of carnage, retrieved his horse from the suddenly sobered hostler at the livery barn, and rode easily out of town in a long, mile-eating lope.
That night the Kid sat on a juniper-studded knoll that overlooked the D-Back-To-Back ranch house. The watery, faint light of the clear, cold stars and the weak moon, made shadows of the coming and going riders below. He knew that Toma Dodge had heard, by now, of his shooting scrape. He wondered what she thought of him, in light of his recent blunder. The Kid thoughtfully chewed a straw as the night hours drifted by. Finally, when the last lights had died out over the ranch, he carefully removed his spurs and made a cautious, laborious descent to the gloomy buildings of the ranch. The Kid got to the house without much trouble. The riders were sawing wood after the day’s excitement. The Kid forced a window with determined effort, slid through the opening, only to feel the cold, menacing barrel of a six-gun in his belly. He exhaled slowly and tried to pierce the gloom.
“Don’t move.” It was Toma’s voice.
The Kid froze but felt a surge of relief at the same time. At any rate, it wasn’t Dugan or Beale. “Miss Dodge…?”
“Be quiet. I should’ve known better than to trust you. I…”
“Doggone it, hold on a minute, will you? I didn’t have a chance…”
The voice of the girl was as firm as the gun barrel. “No, of course you didn’t. Oh, what a fool I was to believe in you. Jeff Beale suspected you from the start, and, when he found the bullet in Dad’s horse, he and Sheriff Dugan stole one of your bullets and they matched. I ought to kill you right now. You’re nothing but a cold-blooded murderer.”
All the time she was talking, the Kid was trying to piece something together. He listened to her angry voice drone into the darkness without hearing much of what she said, then it came to him in a flash. He started to move and the gun barrel, momentarily forgotten, pressed deeper. He pulled backward instinctively and interrupted the flood of vituperation.
“Wait a minute, will you? Hold it a second.” Her voice died away gradually, begrudgingly, and the Kid tried to see the violet eyes, but he couldn’t. “Did you say Beale found a bullet in your paw’s horse?”
“Yes. He dug it out this afternoon, after you shot him.” Her voice held a full measure of sarcastic triumph in it. “He wasn’t so badly shot up that Doc Carter didn’t patch him up enough to go on digging up facts to hang you with.”
The Kid’s funny bone had been rubbed. He nodded soberly, lugubriously. “Yeah, I’m sure of it, ma’am, especially since I didn’t shoot to kill…but just hold off pullin’ that trigger for one second, will you?”
“Well?”
“Look, Toma…”
“Miss Dodge!”
“Uh, yeah, Toma…uh, Miss Dodge, honey. Your dad’s horse was shot through the chest sort of between the shoulders an’ the chest. The bullet went in on the left side. There’s a hole to show where it entered, an’ on the right side there’s a hole to show where it come out. Now, listen, Toma…”
“Miss Dodge!”
“Uh, yeah, Toma, now listen. How in…uh, heck…could Beale dig the bullet out of your paw’s horse, when the slug went in one side an’ come out the other side? In other words, ma’am, there couldn’t have been any slug in that there critter to dig out.”
The girl was silent and the Kid felt the pressure on the gun barrel lessen slightly. She was silent so long that the Kid felt uneasy. “You didn’t happen to see the horse, did you?”
“No.”
“Was Sheriff Dugan here this evenin’?”
“Yes.”
“Look, Toma”—there was pointed pause but she didn’t take it up—“do me a favor, will you?” “What?”
“Go to Holbrook tomorrow mornin’ an’ look at that there horse.”
“Yes, I intend to…but not as a favor to you.”
The gunbarrel had dropped quite a bit and the Kid wanted to smile.
“Well, then, can I go now?”
“Why did you come here tonight?”
“To talk to you, to tell you how I was forced to make that gun play or get locked up, an’ I don’t want to get locked up just yet. I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to try out. Can I go now?”
The gun was at her side now, dangling from a white, small hand. Out of place and slightly ridiculous. She tried to see his eyes in the darkness. “You haven’t discovered anything, then?”
The Kid gingerly let one leg out of the window as he answered. “Yes, ma’am, I discovered one thing. ’Course, it’s got no bearin’ that I can see on the murder, but still it’s awful important to me.”
“What is it?”
“That I’m in love with you.”
He was gone over the windowsill before she could recover from the surprise and shock. The faint rustle of his boot heels in the geranium bed softly blended into the night and Toma Dodge sank into a rocker and let the gun drop to the floor. She let her wan, worried face follow the shadowy figure that faded into the gloom as the Vermilion Kid fled through the night, back to his patiently grazing big black horse on the little knoll.
The Kid was in his element now and there were few better at it. He was on the dodge. There were handbills tacked to the trees along the Holbrook road and on the fronts of buildings in town. He hid with the almost nonchalant casualness of an old hand on the owlhoot trail. Once he even slipped into Holbrook. He flattened against the walls of the livery barn and buttonholed the startled hostler.
“Listen, pardner, I want you to tell me somethin’.”
The hostler recognized him and relaxed a little. He hadn’t forgotten that $20 gold piece. “Sure, Kid, what is it?”
“Was Beale alone when he dug a slug out of Dodge’s horse?”
“Well, I don’t know what he done to the horse, ’cause they sent me away…”
“Who were they?”
“Oh, Les Tallant…the
“How is the horse?”
“’Sfunny thing, by golly, but the dang’ critter got up all by hisself today. ’Pears to be gettin’ better.”
“One more thing, pardner. Were Tallant an’ Dodge friends?”
The hostler shrugged a little. “No, I wouldn’t call ’em exactly friends. Y’see, Tallant’s hell to gamble, an’, near as I can figger out, old man Dodge set him up in this here livery barn with a big loan. Les’s been gamblin’ pretty heavy, an’ once I heard ’em cussin’ at each other in the office. ’Course, I wasn’t eavesdroppin’, y’understand…”
“’Course not, I understand.” If there was a tinge of amused sarcasm in the Kid’s voice, the hostler didn’t get it.
“Anyway, like I was sayin’, they was hollerin’ at one another an’ Dodge tol’ Les, if he didn’t keep his word on the note, they’d have some trouble.”
“How long was that before Dodge got killed?”
