grinned. Them rotten boys all whistled and cheered.
“Now it’s my turn,” a redheaded kid said.
“No, it ain’t your turn.”
“How come?”
“Because you ain’t old enough. And it’s none of your business.”
“I’m almost as old as you are.”
He had me there, but I ignored him.
Smythe, he dragged his mailbag out from under the platform and began doling out rocks to that pack of boys. “You put these back where you got them,” he said.
“I’m keeping mine for a souvenir,” said that rotten redhead.
“This show’s over,” I said loudly. It wasn’t just them boys I was talking to. It was half the town of Doubtful, seemed like. Pretty soon they all drifted off, except for a few fellers who thought they knew everything, and were pointing at the noose, or at the gallows, or at the platform and the trap, sharing all that stuff they had in their heads with anyone in sight.
DeGraff picked up the spare rope and carried it off to the sheriff office, and the Cleggs cleaned up their stuff and left, and then I was alone on the square, with that dangling noose, and wondering whether what was gonna happen in a couple of days could be called justice at all—or a mistake.
TWENTY-THREE
Things was real quiet. No one was trying to bust into the jail to hang the boy, or to bust him out. I told DeGraff to keep a sharp eye out anyway.
“We got two more days to guard him, and then it’ll be over,” I said.
“Over for the kid, that’s for sure,” he said.
My deputies had done a good job. They’d worked long hours, night and day. They were forted up and ready for trouble. And I made sure the prisoner got fed and cared for, which was something I plain insisted on after I found them fellers were ignoring the boy’s needs. Still, I sure wished it was over. I didn’t like the tension in town, like a ticking bomb, with all them T-Bar men of Ruble’s running around, drinking too much, and scaring the people half to death. They was all armed, some of them with two guns, as if they were just itching for trouble. But it wasn’t illegal for them to carry, so they did.
I unlocked the jail door and went in there to King Bragg’s cell, and found him staring at the ceiling. He barely acknowledged that I was standing there. I guess when a feller knows he’s gonna get hanged in forty-eight hours or so, he’s got a lot on his mind.
“You all right?” I asked.
He stared at me as if that was the dumbest question ever asked. Lot of people stare at me like that. My ma used to say you could learn more from the way people looked at you than from what they were saying.
“Tell me again how it happened you went into the Last Chance that day,” I said.
He just stared at me and said nothing.
“Tell me, boy. I want to know.”
“I went in because I was stupid,” the kid said. “All it cost me was my life.”
He’d about given up; I could see that. There weren’t any tears, any anger, any hope left in him.
“Well, just so I know, what did happen?”
“There’s a record in the courthouse. I was tried, remember?”
“I want you to tell it, King.”
“Why?”
“Just tell it.”
He stared silently at the ceiling, but then he did talk. “I went in there—the Sampling Room, because that’s where all the Anchor men go, and that’s where we were welcome. I got a drink from Mrs. Gladstone. She always said I was too young for hard liquor, so she’d give me a draft beer, like I wasn’t grown up yet.”
“You were wearing your sidearm?”
“Of course. My father gave it to me. I’d practiced until I was good. I burnt more powder than anyone in the valley. It was for the Anchor Ranch. For my father. We had the oldest and best place, and we’re not going to let someone like Crayfish Ruble drive us out.”
“There was more to it, wasn’t there?”
He glanced at me and then away. “I wanted to be the top dog.”
“That was a dream, wasn’t it? Being the fastest gun, the one no one could ever beat?”
“Stupid dream,” he said.
“So she poured some suds for you, and you were sipping real quiet, and then Plug Parsons come in.”
“Yeah, he walked in. He spotted me right off. Said he’d been looking for me all afternoon. Mrs. Gladstone told me Plug had been checking every few minutes to see if I was around town. The T-Bar outfit wanted to talk to me, or something.”
