“You the one that killed him?”
“I am.”
“Then it ain’t all over, boy. Not by a long shot, it ain’t over. It’s just startin’.”
“Marshal Dawson, Billy Ray is the one who started this. He came in here, shooting first,” Lenny said. “You can see there at the bar, he fired the shotgun and took out part of the bar. Hit this man, too. This man had no choice but to shoot back, considering Billy Ray was ready to shoot again.”
“If I need any comment from you, Lenny York, I’ll ask for it,” the marshal said. “You do the piano playing. I’ll do the marshaling around here.” He made a gesture with his shotgun, thrusting it toward Pearlie. “Shuck out of that gun belt, boy, and let it fall, real easy like, to the floor.”
“Marshal, Lenny is right,” Deckert said. “Billy Ray come after this fella. Seems to me this fella didn’t have no choice.”
“Lenny and Mr. Deckert are telling the truth, Marshal,” Mary Lou said.
“So now the whore puts her two bits,” Dawson said dismissively. “Anybody else got anything to say?”
Pearlie looked around, and when no one else said anything, the marshal spoke again.
“I know Billy Ray had a temper,” he said. “But he wasn’t in the habit of goin’ after someone, especially with a shotgun, unless he had a good reason. Why did he come after you?”
“We were playing cards. I won the hand and he took issue with it.”
“Who else was playin’?”
“I had been playin’ but I dropped out,” Deckert said.
“Were you the only one?”
“No, Doc and Brandon were playin’, too,” Deckert said.
Dawson looked around the saloon. “Where are they?”
“They left before the shootin’,” Evans said.
Dawson turned his attention back to Pearlie. “So you’re saying that Billy Ray get mad just because he lost a hand of poker?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Well, now, I’ll admit that Billy Ray had a temper. But I don’t think even he would fly off the handle like that just because he lost a hand of poker.”
“It might have been the way he lost, Marshal,” Deckert said.
“Oh? And how was that?”
“This here young fella, Pearlie, he said his name was, run a bluff, only it weren’t no ordinary bluff.”
“You mean he cheated?”
“No, wasn’t nothin’ like that. But he sorta set Billy Ray up, you might say, playin’ like he didn’t quite know what he was doin’, then when Billy Ray stepped into it, why, Pearlie here, closed the trap slick as a whistle.”
“You a cardsharp, are you boy? I don’t like cardsharps.”
“I enjoy playing. I’m not a cardsharp.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me, boy, how do you make your livin’?”
“I’m a cowboy.”
“Is that a fact? Who do you work for?”
“Well, I, uh, haven’t cowboyed the last six months,” Pearlie said.
“How have you been supporting yourself?”
“Doing odd jobs here and there,” Pearlie said. “I just came off a job of bein’ a shotgun guard on a stagecoach. I worked there for nearly three months.”
“Doing odd jobs here and there, you say. Where was you a shotgun guard?”
“Down in New Mexico.”
“Why you wanderin’ around so?”
“No particular reason,” Pearlie answered. He wasn’t about to tell the marshal about Lucy. That was none of his business.
“Boy, I get real suspicious of folks that can’t stay in one place. I’ll just bet that if I go back down to my office, I’ll find some wanted dodgers on you.”
“I’m not a wanted man,” Pearlie replied.
“Uh-huh. You ever been in trouble with the law?”
“I’m not a wanted man,” Pearlie repeated.
“That ain’t what I asked. I asked if you have ever been in trouble with the law.”
“Nothing to speak of,” Pearlie answered.
“How much did you win tonight?”
