of it.”
“That’s ’cause you ain’t got a bullet in your leg,” Cooter said.
Matt could have told Cooter that he had a knife slice on his side that was rib deep, but he said nothing.
Matt was correct in his belief that Cooter was faking more pain that he was actually feeling. Cooter was playing for time, waiting for the right opportunity, and when he saw Matt turn away from him, he was positive that the opportunity had presented itself. Reaching around behind, he pulled Mole’s pistol from his waistband, then he brought it around and aimed it at Matt’s back.
“I’ve got you now, you son of a bitch!” Cooter yelled, pulling the trigger at the same time he yelled.
Cooter should not have yelled. He did not count on Matt’s phenomenal reaction time because, even as Cooter was yelling and pulling the trigger, Matt was falling off his horse. The bullet whistled just over Spirit’s empty saddle, passing through the exact spot Matt’s spine had been but a split second before.
The contact with the ground was hard and painful, doubly so because it slightly reopened the wound on Matt’s side. Halfway down to the ground, Matt pulled his pistol. But by the time Matt actually hit the ground, he had brought his gun to bear, and pulled the trigger.
Matt’s bullet caught Cooter in the chest, causing him to let out one, large, expulsion of air.
“How the hell did I miss?” Cooter asked, his voice racked with pain. He raised his pistol and tried to shoot it again, but the gun began wobbling in his hand, then he dropped it and grabbed his chest, then fell.
Chapter Seventeen
When Matt came riding into Medbury, he was leading Cooter’s horse behind him. Cooter was draped, belly down, across his saddle, and Matt’s entry into town aroused immediate attention. Those who were riding or driving in the street, as well as those who were merely pedestrians, saw the body draped over a horse. Many of them interrupted their transit to their original destination in order to follow Matt. There were other townspeople engaged in commerce inside the stores and buildings, both as customers and merchants, who saw the macabre parade through the windows, and they came pouring out of the stores and buildings, including one man who ran out from the barber shop still draped in the barber’s cape, with the barber, brandishing his razor, chasing after him. They joined the growing throngs of people who were now walking alongside Matt, keeping pace with the two horses as they moved down the street, the hoofbeats making loud, clopping sounds.
“Ain’t that Cooter’s horse?”
“Yeah, it’s Cooter’s horse. That’s Cooter lyin’ across the saddle.”
“He looks dead.”
“Hell yes, he’s dead. You think he’d be lyin’ belly down on his horse that way iffen he war’nt dead?”
“That’s Matt Jensen leadin’ him. I reckon you’ve heard of Matt Jensen.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t figure he’d ever come back into town after he kilt the Mexican the other night.”
The curiosity of the crowd grew even greater when Matt stopped in front of the Sand Spur. The crowd followed, but kept a reasonable distance, because no one wanted to incur Matt Jensen’s anger.
“What you reckon he stopped here for? How come he didn’t go on down to the undertaker? I mean, what else for would he be bringin’ in Cooter’s body, iffen he wasn’t bringin’ him in to the undertaker?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“No sir, not me. I ain’t goin’ to ask him nothin’.”
Tying, first his own horse off, then Cooter’s horse, Matt slid Cooter’s body off the saddle, draped it across his shoulders, stepped up onto the porch, then pushed his way through the bat wing doors.
“Here! What are you doin’ there?” one of the saloon patrons shouted. “You can’t be bringin’ no dead body into a saloon like that! They’s folks drinkin’ in here.”
Matt looked at the man who had complained, fixing him with such a steely glare that the man blanched, then took a couple of steps backward.
“Of course, I reckon if you wanted to bring him in here, that would be your business,” the man said, clearing his throat.
Upon seeing Matt come into the saloon with a body draped over his shoulder, most of the patrons jumped up from the tables and moved back out of the way. One man, however, was conspicuous in that, unlike the other patrons of the saloon, he remained seated. He was playing a game of solitaire, and he gave the impression that he was so engrossed in his game that he didn’t even notice Matt.
Matt had never seen Poke Terrell, but the man sitting at the table was short and stocky, baldheaded, and with no neck, which was exactly the way Poke had been describe to him. Matt also saw Mole, and it was obvious that Mole had been talking to Poke because, though he had moved away from the table, he was still in close proximity to it.
Matt walked back to the table. Not until then, did Poke look up.
“I’ve got a play for you, Poke,” Matt said.
“What would that be?”
Without ceremony, Matt dumped Cooter’s body onto the cards that were spread out for the game.
“Dead man on the black queen,” he said.
Poke sighed, but made no abrupt movement.
“I was winning this game,” he said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to win at Ole’ Sol?”
“This is number five for you,” Matt said.
