“What?”
“Iffen you could put up a sign that says, ‘The famous gunfighter Snake Cates was kilt here.’”
The patrons who were close enough to hear gasped, and several of them, including Cole, looked over toward Cates to see how he would react to it. Apparently, Cates was paying no attention whatever, because he was occupying himself with a game of solitaire.
“You want to put that sign up do you, Arnie?” Greer asked.
“Uh, no,” Arnie replied quickly. He tossed the rest of his drink down, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all the while looking toward the small but deadly gunman. “I have to go,” he said, leaving quickly.
“Ole Arnie better watch that mouth of his, else one day he’s goin’ to say somethin’ he shouldn’t,” Greer said to no one in particular.
“He shouldn’t of said that,” one of the saloon patrons said. “He’s just lucky that Cates didn’t hear him.”
“I heard him,” Cates said. He played another card without even bothering to look up from the game. “He just ain’t worth my time.”
Because the mortuary was just next door, the undertaker and his assistant were the first to arrive.
“Hello, Gene,” Greer said.
“Who’s going to pay for them?” the undertaker asked.
“I will, if you’ll get me pictures of the bodies so I can put ’em up on the wall,” Greer answered.
Gene nodded; then he grabbed the legs of one of the two bodies, and his assistant grabbed the legs of the other. They began dragging the two bodies out just as the sheriff was arriving.
“Hold on, Gene,” the sheriff said to the undertaker. He looked down at the two bodies. “Only one bullet hole in each of them?”
“Yes,” the undertaker replied.
The sheriff looked over at Cates, who was still playing solitaire. “With shooting like that, I don’t suppose I have to ask who did it, do I?”
No one responded.
“Anyone know these two boys?”
“I never saw either one of them before today,” Greer said. “Do you know them?”
“No, I don’t,” the sheriff replied.
“Can we take them now, Sheriff?” Gene asked.
The sheriff nodded. “Yeah, go ahead.” He looked out over the saloon. “Anybody see what happened?”
Nobody responded.
“Come on, there are what—ten of you here? Ten of you in a room no bigger than this, but not one of you saw anything?”
“I saw it,” Cole said, speaking up.
Cole glanced over toward Cates, and saw that the gunman had interrupted his game of solitaire and was now staring at him with his small, dark, obsidian eyes.
“Well, finally I get someone who isn’t blind,” the sheriff said. “All right, mister, tell me. What did you see?”
“It looked to me like the two men Mr. Cates killed had something they wanted to prove,” Cole said.
“Something to prove? What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to prove that they weren’t scared of Mr. Cates or something. I mean, I can’t think of any other reason why they would have wanted to goad him into a gunfight.”
“Wait a minute,” the sheriff said. “Are you telling me that these two men goaded Cates?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“How did they do that?”
“Well, first, they sat at his table, and when they were asked, real friendly like by the bartender here, to change tables, they didn’t do it.”
“That’s right, Sheriff, I asked them, real nice, if they would please change tables,” Greer said.
“Go on,” the sheriff said to Cole.
“And then, when Mr. Cates asked them if they would mind changin’ tables, and he asked them just as friendly as the bartender did, well, they challenged him to a fight.”
“The two men challenged Cates?”
“That’s right. I reckon they thought that, bein’ as there was two of ’em, they could beat him,” Cole said.
“Anyone in here see it any different than that?” the sheriff asked.
“No, Sheriff, if you ask me, I’d say that’s just the way it happened,” Greer said.
“Looked that way to me, too,” one of the other patrons said.
The sheriff shook his head. “If that’s so, how come none of you spoke up when I asked you?”
