little older.”
“I ain’t got no ma and pa,” the boy said. “I never had no pa. Well, I had one, but my ma never know’d who he was. My ma, she was a—well, she was what they call a—fancy lady, if you know what I mean. But she was a good ma to me, and I ain’t none ashamed of her.”
“Nor should you be,” Matt said.
“Truth to tell, mister, my last name ain’t really Smith, it’s just one my ma took. She died two years ago when I was twelve.”
“Where do you live?”
“Mr. Tobin lets me stay in a nice room over at the stable and charges me nothing because I muck out the stalls for him. And Mr. Coker, he gives me three meals a day because I sweep the floors for him. I have a good life.”
Matt thought of his own orphaned boyhood and how he had been little more than a slave to the Soda Springs Home for Wayward Boys and Girls. It would have been much better had he been on his own, like this boy. Others might feel sorry for Jimmy, but Matt knew that the boy was serious when he said he had a good life.
Matt smiled. “I guess you do at that,” he said.
“Do you want me to go over there and start spyin’ on him now?” Jimmy asked.
“No. He has seen us talking, so if you get too close to him now, he might get suspicious,” Matt said.
“Oh, yes, I see what you mean,” Jimmy replied. “I guess you have to pay attention to things like this when you are first learnin’.”
“And be careful,” Matt cautioned.
“Yes, sir, I will be,” Jimmy promised. “Oh, oh,” he said.
“What?”
“Them three men that just come in? They ride for Denbigh. That’s the same man Butrum worked for. I don’t reckon they’re goin’ to be any too happy over Butrum getting’ hisself kilt like he done.”
“Hey, bartender,” one of the three men called. “Where at is Butrum? How come he ain’t standin’ out on the front porch like he nearly always is?”
“Ha! I’ll bet he’s upstairs with a whore,” one of the others said.
“Are you kiddin’? He’s so ugly, not even a whore will have anything to do with him,” the third said, and all three laughed.
“What’ll it be, gents?” Paul, the bartender, asked.
“Whiskey,” the first said. “And you ain’t answered my question. Where at is Butrum?”
“He’s down at Lisenby’s,” Paul replied.
“Lisenby’s. What’s that? Another saloon?”
“Maybe it’s a whorehouse for ugly people,” the third said, and again all three men laughed.
“It is a mortuary,” Paul said.
“A what?”
“It is an undertaker’s parlor.”
“Well, what the hell is he doing down there?”
“He’s dead, cowboy,” Stan said from the opposite end of the bar. “When someone is dead, they generally wind up in a mortuary.”
“Dead? What the hell do you mean, dead? Who killed him?”
Neither Stan nor Paul answered the question.
“You heard me. Who killed him? Whoever it was had to have shot him in the back, ’cause there ain’t no man alive faster.”
“Jimmy, you’d better move away from the table,” Matt said quietly.
The cowboy pulled his gun and pointed it at the bartender. “I expect you had better tell me right now who killed him, else I’ll put a ball in your brain.”
“I killed him,” Matt said, his words loud and clear.
The cowboy turned toward Matt. “You killed him?”
Matt stood up. “I did,” he said.
“What did you do, mister? Shoot him in the back?”
“You’re name is Logan, ain’t it?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah, Logan, what of it?” Logan replied. He was still glaring at Matt.
“Logan, he didn’t shoot Butrum in the back. He took him on, face-to-face. And not only that, Butrum already had his gun in his hand.”
“What? You expect me to believe that?” Logan replied.
“Believe it, Logan, because it’s true,” Stan said.
“I seen it my ownself. Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it,” one of the other saloon patrons said. “But what
