could see by Morgan’s expression. In fact, it even impressed Parker, but he showed nothing by his expression as he returned his attention to Amy.
“All right,” he said to the beautiful girl. “That doesn’t really matter any more, though. McElhaney is dead… whatever his intentions, he’s dead. What I want to know now is where your uncle sent Charley Swindin.”
Morgan spoke up. “You’re calling me a liar, Travis. I told you I didn’t send him anywhere.”
“I think you’d lie,” Parker shot right back. “Morgan, I think under the right circumstances you’d lie.” He smiled with his lips only. “You can take offence if you wish. You’ve got a gun. Miss Amy, step clear.”
Amy shook her head. “Why do you think I got between the pair of you?” she asked.
Parker looked at her, still with his mirthless smile. “You know,” he said softly, “you’re quite a woman. I knew that when we met this morning. I just didn’t know how much of a woman you are.” He inclined his head. “All right, I withdraw what I said to your uncle. But neither of you is going out of here until you tell me about Swindin. Where did he come from, who were his friends…where would he be most likely to go?”
Amy turned to gaze at Lew. He seemed in an agony of indecision. Finally he said: “Charley’s not a coward, Travis, but neither is he a fool. He won’t go down to Tularosa where he came from. He’ll know you’ll find that much out about him. Most of the saloon girls here in town know that much about him. I frankly don’t know where he’d go…and I’m thankful that I don’t.”
Parker stood there with his head a little to one side wryly watching Morgan. “I’ll find him,” he said. “If I can’t make much of a start here, I’ll ride down to Tularosa. From there, I’ll backtrack every camp he’s ever made. Somewhere along that trail I’ll run across him, Morgan. Maybe you don’t know where he’s gone, but all your ignorance has bought Swindin is a few more months. I’ve got a lot of time, I’ll find him…and for running I’ll kill him.”
“That,” exclaimed Amy forcefully, “is your kind of justice, isn’t it? That’s what you were talking about this morning. Not genuine justice, as you’d have had me believe, Mister Travis, but jungle justice.” Her words burnt him with scorn, with deepest contempt. Her smoky gaze raked over him. She faced her uncle. “Take me out of here. I need fresh air. Take me home, Lew.”
Morgan, though, looked for a moment past her at Parker Travis. “Listen,” he said, “I can’t change anything, not your brother’s killing or your going after Swindin. And words are one of the cheapest commodities on earth. But nevertheless I want to say this. I want you to remember it, Travis, for as long as we both live. I’m sick inside about what I helped do to your brother. So is Hub Wheaton. If I could give money or cattle, land or anything else I own, to change things back, I’d give them up right this minute. All of them, every damned thing I own.”
Morgan stood still with a little flutter at the nostrils, a hot dryness to his eyes. Then he took an uncertain forward step, caught Amy’s arm, and walked past to the door, looking down.
Parker let them leave. He kicked the door closed after them, crossed to the window, saw Morgan’s hat upon the bed, looked at it briefly, then looked around for the chair he’d left beside the window, drew it up again, dropped down upon it, pushed both long legs out until his heels were upon the sill, and there he sat.
Fifteen minutes later a gentle knocking brought him around, one hand dropping down. “Come in!” he called, then wearily stood up as Amy Morgan entered his room.
She murmured: “My uncle’s hat.”
He handed it to her. She looked at him. He was mute.
She passed over to the door, turned, and said—“Mister Travis, it matters to me whether or not you believe me.”—then she was gone and he stood, looking at the blank place where she’d been.
Two hours later Parker Travis was still sitting at his upstairs window, watching the lamp-lighted town below. Riders came and went, off work for the night and bent on the powerful releases range men need at the end of the day. The last coach departed northward to make its eventual easterly swoop toward Cheyenne
A knock on the door brought Parker back to the present with a jolt. He stood up, stepped away from backgrounding light, and called: “Come in!”
It was Sheriff Wheaton. He stood a moment, peering ahead beyond the opened door into the room’s deep gloom. As though he believed Parker had doused the light for fighting purposes, Hub said: “Stand easy, Travis. I come in peace.”
“Then come in and close the door.”
Wheaton did this. He said: “You worryin’ about another bushwhacker, sittin’ in the dark up here?”
“Not exactly.” Parker resumed his seat by the window. “Pull up a chair if you wish.”
Wheaton did that. As he sank down upon it, he mightily sighed. “Hot tonight. Thirty degrees cooler than daytime, but still damned hot.”
Parker sat looking down upon Laramie, saying nothing or looking around at the sheriff.
Wheaton turned loosely where he sat. He, too, ran a solemn look out over his town. Then he suddenly said: “You weren’t the only one who lost, Travis.”
Parker still said nothing or moved.
“I talked to Amy before she an’ Lew left town. I’d like to tell you something. It’s personal, and therefore I’ve never spoken much about it. My brother who was the former sheriff…the man your brother shot and killed…he was twelve years older than I was. My mother died in an epidemic. My pa was shot to death tooling a stage from here to Cheyenne. But the outlaw who robbed that coach and shot Pa was never found. That happened when I was a kid, Travis. After that, it was just my brother an’ me. He left school and went to work for a liveryman. He got three dollars a week and Saturdays off so he could go huntin’. We lived on brush rabbits, sage hens, an occasional antelope, and deer meat. Sometimes in wintertime he’d get a chance to go with freighters to the Tetons. When that happened, he usually came home with plenty of bear meat.” Hub stopped speaking for a moment, put his feet upon the windowsill, ruefully wagged his head, and chuckled. “You ever eat antelope and bear meat, Travis? Well, antelope stinks when you’re cleanin’ it, and, when it’s cooked, it tastes like an old billy goat smells. Now bear meat…there’s something. It’s like eatin’ rancid hog fat with the entrails left in. When I was real little, I’d bawl like a bay steer, but later, after I was old enough to understand how much Ken was sacrificin’ to get those carcasses, I’d choke…but I’d eat the stuff.”
Parker spoke finally. He looked steadily at Wheaton, saying: “I get the point, Sheriff.”
But Hub wasn’t ready to stop yet. “Sure you get it,” he conceded, “but let me tell you a little more. We didn’t have very good clothes, you see…oh, sure, the townsfolk helped when they could, but they had kids of their own… so when I went to school, the other kids used to pick on me. I reckon I got beat up more’n any kid in our school until I got big enough to do a little beatin’ of my own. Now, mind you, Travis, Ken was only eighteen or nineteen at the time, but he was big as a man and tough as catgut. Still, when I’d come home bawlin’, he’d refuse to go with me an’ waylay those big kids. You know what he told me, Travis? He said…‘Hub, you can’t lean on folks. You’ve got to learn to fight back.’ It used to make me hate him. I didn’t understand why a big tough kid like Ken wouldn’t defend his little brother. Then one day he did, but that wasn’t with school kids. A drunk cowboy roped me in the roadway and was draggin’ me behind his horse. Ken was in the livery barn and saw that.” Wheaton chuckled. “He came across the damned road like he’d been shot out of a cannon. He hit that cowboy on the fly, knocked him off his horse, and dang’ near beat him to death. I think he would’ve killed him if some fellers hadn’t dragged him off.”
“And you learned a lesson there,” said Parker quietly. “You learned that he’d always be around if something too big to handle came up.”
“Yeah,” mused Wheaton. He was quiet for a little time, sitting there in night shadow beside Parker. “Yeah, I learned a lot from Ken. Now he’s dead.”
“Killed by my brother…is that what you mean, Wheaton?”
“Yes.”
“And what d’you want to do about it?”
