“How much is being offered for Dinkins?” Smoke asked.
“Right now, just five hundred dollars. Like I said, he didn’t get one red cent.”
“But he did kill the teller?”
“Yes. In cold blood.”
“Someone like that, the reward can only go up,” Smoke said.
“Yeah, I’m pretty much thinkin’ that myself,” Carson replied.
Smoke and Sally visited with their friends until noon. When Dr. Colton came in to have his lunch Louis insisted they all have lunch, on him.
“Not me,” Sheriff Carson said, holding up his hand. “The wife will be fixin’ a big lunch for me. She would be some disappointed if I didn’t come home for it.”
“You could eat just a little here,” Louis invited, “then go home for lunch.”
“Yeah, I guess I ...” Sheriff Carson shook his head. “No, I better not. But I thank you for the invite.”
“Tell us about New York, Sally,” Louis said after Sheriff Carson left. “It has been so long since I was there.”
“Oh, New York is wonderful. So many huge buildings, four, five, and six stories high, elevated trains whizzing all through the city, electric wires, telephone service. Surely, there is no place in the world like New York.”
“You talk almost as if you would rather you and Smoke lived there,” Dr. Colton said.
“Oh, no.” Sally put her hand on Smoke’s arm. “I am living exactly where I want to live. Remember, I came West of my own accord, and I have never regretted one moment of it.”
“She met with the president of the United States,” Smoke said proudly.
“The president? You met the president?”
“It isn’t that big of a deal,” Sally said. “He and my father were very good friends at one time.”
“What do you mean, that isn’t a very big deal? I think it is a huge deal,” Dr. Colton said.
At the remark made by the young man, all conversation in the Rocky Mountain Beer Hall ceased.
Wesley Harley was an ugly man. He was bald, not because of age, but because some anomaly in his genetic makeup left him completely devoid of body hair—none on his head, no eyebrows or eyelashes, no mustache, and no hair on his arms, chest, or anywhere else. His face was narrow, and his skin was drawn so tight across his high cheekbones he looked almost like a skeleton.
He had been leaning against the bar, with both his hands wrapped around the beer in front of him. He turned toward the young man who had spoken to him.
“What did you say?”
“You heard what I said,” the young man, barely out of the teens, said. His words were loud and precisely spoken. “I said you murdered my pa, and I intend to see you brought to justice for it.”
“Do you now? And just how do you plan to do that?”
“By telling the law. I am going to the sheriff right now. I am going to tell him what you did, and I am going to tell him where to find you.”
“You don’t understand, do you, boy?” Harley said. “The sheriff knows where I am. Hell, all the sheriffs in the West know where I am. They just don’t want no part of me.”
“It ain’t right,” the boy said. “You murdered my pa, and I ain’t goin’ to let you get away with it.”
“Well, now, since I done told you that the sheriff don’t want nothin’ to do with me, if you are lookin’ for justice, seems to me the only way you goin’ to get that justice is if you do it yourself. But before we get on with it, who is it I’m supposed to have kilt?”
“I don’t believe this. You mean you can’t even remember the name of someone you killed?”
“Sonny, I’ve kilt so many of ’em, they all sort of blend in. What was your pa’s name? And where is it I was supposed to have kilt him?”
“His name was Conyers. Enoch Conyers,” the boy said.
“Oh, yeah,” Harley said. “I remember him. He was cheatin’ at cards.”
“My pa never cheated at anything!” the boy said resolutely.
“Yeah, I recollect now. He wasn’t cheatin’. He accused me of cheatin’. I called him out on it.”
“And you killed him,” the boy said.
“You ought not to start somethin’ you can’t finish.” Harley chuckled, but it was a laugh without genuine mirth. “Sort of like what you’re doin’ now, ain’t it, boy? You’ve started somethin’ you can’t finish.”
The expression on the boy’s face changed from one of anger, to fear when he realized what he had gotten himself into. Then, even the fear gave way to resignation.
“Let’s do it, boy,” Harley said, his voice sounding almost bored.
With a defiant scream, the boy went for his gun. He had it but halfway out of the holster when Harley fired at him. The bullet hit the boy in the heart, killing him before he could even react to it.
Only one shot had been fired, and because Harley put his pistol back in his holster as quickly as he had taken it
