Wheaton did not answer this question. Instead he said: “You know, Travis, when I first knew who you were, I wanted very much to run you down, call you out, and kill you. You weren’t responsible for Ken’s death, but you were the brother of the man who killed him.”
“And now, Wheaton?”
“Nothing. I’m sitting here in the dark with you, feeling no hatred for you, no hatred for your brother. Just sadness that a good man died.” Wheaton twisted on his chair. “You told Amy Morgan she couldn’t know how you felt. She told me you said that. That’s why I came up here tonight. Travis, maybe Amy doesn’t know, maybe Lew and Ace and Charley don’t know…but
The Mexican cigar Parker had been smoking had gone out. He put it aside. “I reckon you do, at that,” he murmured to Hub Wheaton. “I’ve been sittin’ here for hours wrestling with myself. It’s like trying to swallow something that won’t go down. The difference between us is that your brother was older…he stood in my shoes, in relation to my brother.”
“I know.”
Parker folded both hands in his lap. “I’m sorry about your brother, Wheaton.”
“I know that, too. You’re a fair man, Travis. Would you like to tell me about young Frank?”
“No. No, Frank is dead.”
“I took his money from the express office and put it in my jailhouse safe. Any time you want it, it’s yours.”
“Thanks. But it’s not the damned money. That’s what got him in the notion to run in the first place. I wish he hadn’t had the damned money at all.”
“What was he going to do with it?”
“Well, when he left me the last time, he said he thought he’d come up into this country and look around. He’d heard there was good cattle country up in here for sale, cheap.”
“He should have left the money with you down in Arizona.”
Parker smiled for the first time. “Sure he should have, but Frank was independent. I raised him to be that way. He wanted it with him and I didn’t argue about it.”
Hub leaned forward, pushed up off the chair, and stood, tall and grave, in the faint light. “You know how I looked at my brother’s killing, Travis? I’ll tell you…your brother shot and killed him when he was doing his legal duty as a sheriff…” Hub paused, saw Parker’s face lift toward him, and said: “Wait a minute, hear me out. Ken didn’t shoot your brother. He was trying to, yes, but he didn’t get it done…instead, your brother killed him. As things turned out, Ken was being too hasty and your brother was also being too quick to jump to conclusions. But at first what blinded me was grief…and the knowledge that your brother killed Ken when he was legally trying to apprehend him.” Once more Hub paused. This time he looked out the window before concluding what he had to say. “I wanted to shoot you, Travis. I wanted to kill anyone connected with the man who shot my brother. I told Lew Morgan that. He argued with me like a Dutch uncle. He said his talkin’ the town council into appointin’ me to fill out Ken’s term as sheriff was based on the belief in me that I wouldn’t react like that. Even after we discovered who you were, Lew argued against me on that.” Wheaton faced back around. “He was right, of course. I know that now. Your brother died senselessly and so did mine. Do you know what that proves, Travis? It proves that no matter how fair and honest men are, the snap judgments of the best of us aren’t worth a damn.”
Parker also stood up. He gazed down where people were moving in and out of those puddles of lamplight. “What’s your first name, Wheaton?”
“Hub. Why?”
“Hub, you’re a pretty good man,” said Parker, turning, pushing out his hand. “I’m glad we talked.”
They shook, standing together in the dry, hot night. Wheaton said: “Take a little walk with me. I’d like to show you something.”
Parker caught up his hat, crossed to the door, and held it for the sheriff to pass through. Together they descended to the lobby, passed on out into the night, and strolled along without speaking to the first eastward intersection. There, Hub paced along until the last residence had been passed. One hundred yards farther along they came to a white picket fence with a high gate. Here, Hub led out beyond that gate.
They were in a moonlighted cemetery.
“There,” said the sheriff. “That’s my brother’s grave. That other one…”
“I know,” said Parker softly. “The first night I was in Laramie I came out here. That’s Frank’s burial place.”
“They don’t look much different, do they?”
They didn’t, but Parker said nothing. There was, in fact, nothing to say. After a while the sheriff made a cigarette, lit it, and blew out a pale small cloud. Beside him Parker Travis murmured. “That first night…I went first to boothill. Frank wasn’t there. It took me near an hour an’ a box of matches to find that out. Why, Hub, why did they put him here instead of boothill?”
Wheaton shrugged. “He was too young, some said, to be much of an outlaw. That was when everyone thought that’s what he was. But even then there were a few who weren’t convinced.” Hub inhaled; he exhaled. “I’ll tell you honestly I didn’t want him here…not in the same ground with my brother.” Hub dropped the smoke, ground it underfoot, and concluded: “You see, Travis, you see how lousy snap judgments are? I’m glad he’s here now, and, if he was out at boothill, I’d move him myself now. I’d bring him here.”
“It’s a hell of a price to pay to learn a little lesson, though, isn’t it?”
Hub turned this over in his mind. “I don’t figure it was a little lesson, Travis. If only you and me an’ no one else has learned from this to think first and jump second, then it won’t be such a small lesson. That’s what Ken would’ve said.”
Parker turned away. He slowly made his way back to the picket gate. There he turned, put a steady look back, and said: “You win, Hub, you win. How about a drink?”
They left that quiet place, strolling along, two large, thoughtful men, stepping on through silvery light saying nothing back and forth, coming closer to the boisterous part of town, and leaving behind for a little while their agony and their memories.
“Which saloon?” asked Parker.
“The Great Northern, I reckon,” stated Hub, and made a dour smile. “Johnny Fleharty carries good liquor even if he is a troublesome little weasel.”
They turned north moving toward those puddles of lamplight that fell outward across the plank walk, outward into the dusty roadway.
They paused near Fleharty’s quivering doors to let two struggling cowboys pass through with a limp one between them, his head lolling, hatless, vacant-eyed, and rag-like.
At sight of Hub’s badge, one of the struggling men nervously smiled and said: “We’re takin’ him on home, Sheriff. Just took on a mite too much o’ Fleharty’s Taos lightning.”
The riders staggered past with their burden. Hub and Parker exchanged a look, and that was when the gunshot came, blowing the night apart with its thunderous
Hub Wheaton didn’t make a sound; he went down without even a grunt.
Those staggering cowboys dropped their passed-out companion in the roadway beside the hitch rack, threw themselves flat, and wiggled into shadows.
Parker was stunned and did not react for several seconds. Hub lay softly flat at his feet, half on, half off the plank walk. Men squawked out where they were exposed in the roadway, upon the opposite plank walk, their feet beating a loud tattoo as they also fled for cover.
Parker wheeled around, facing southward, the direction of that assassin’s shot. There was nothing to be seen down there in the overhanging shadows. He stepped over the sheriff, planted both legs wide, and swung his palmed six-gun. No second shot came; no sound of any kind came from down there.
Men boiled out of the saloon behind him. They piled up with their called questions, their grunts, and their sucked-back profanity at sight of Sheriff Wheaton, lying there in the roiled dust.
A squeaky voice cried out insistently: “Go fetch Doc Spence, someone! Hurry up, too. Here, couple o’ you fellers take hold. Let’s get him inside.”
Parker turned back finally, snarling at those bigeyed men. “Leave him alone. Don’t move him until the doctor’s seen him an’ said it’s safe to do that.”
