“Then it seems to me that the least you can do is give him a decent burial,” Kyle said.
Cummins stroked his chin for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I reckon I can do that.”
“Tell me something about Jensen,” Kyle said.
“Tell you about Jensen?”
“Yes, what kind of man is he?”
“He’s a cold-blooded murderer, that’s what kind of man he is,” Cummins said.
“That’s funny, because from everything I’ve been able to find out about him, he just doesn’t fit the picture of a cold-blooded murderer. What was he like before the murder?”
“Don’t nobody know,” Cummins said. “He just come into town and shot Deputy Gillis without so much as a fare-thee-well. Nobody had ever seen him before that.”
“You mean the day he arrived is the day he shot Gillis?”
“Not the day he arrived, the moment he arrived.”
“Did he know Gillis from before?”
“Not that I know of,” Cummins said.
“Did Gillis give him any call to shoot him?”
“No,” Cummins said. “All Gillis done was try and collect the tax from him.”
Kyle looked confused. “What tax? I thought you said he had just come into town?”
“That’s true, he had just come into town. But there’s a five-dollar visitors tax for ever’one who comes into town. ’Cept you, of course, you bein’ the law and all.”
“So, what you are saying is, Gillis tried to collect the visitors tax and Jensen didn’t want to pay it, so he shot him down in cold blood.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re sayin’.”
“Were there any witnesses?”
“We all saw it,” Cummins said.
“Yeah, ever’one of us, plus a bunch of the folks that was in the saloon that day,” one of the other deputies said. “They seen it, too.”
“And you are?” Kyle asked.
“Duke. The name is Duke.”
“So, it happened here in the saloon?”
“Same as. It was out front.”
“No,” Kyle said. “Out front is not the same as happening inside. Were any of you out front when it happened?”
“Yeah,” Cummins answered. “Jackson was out front. He saw it.”
“Who is Jackson?”
“I am,” one of the deputies said.
“And you saw it?”
“We all saw it, in a manner of speaking,” Cummins said, answering for Jackson. “We heard the shot, then we seen Gillis come in here with a hole in his chest. He took about two or three steps, then he fell dead on the floor. Right after that, Jensen come in behind him, and he was still holdin’ the gun in his hand.”
“And the gun was still smokin’,” one of the other deputies said.
“What about Gillis’s gun?”
Cummins smiled broadly. “I was hopin’ you’d ask me that,” he said. “Gillis’s gun was still in his holster. He hadn’t even drawn it.”
“Jackson, tell me exactly what you saw,” Kyle asked.
“It’s like they said. We heard the shot, then we seen Gillis come into the saloon with a bullet hole in his chest.”
“What do you mean you heard the shot? I thought you said you saw it.”
“Yeah, uh—yeah, I did see it.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘Then we seen Gillis come into the saloon.’ How could you see him come into the saloon if you were out front?”
“I didn’t say he was out front, Marshal,” Cummins said, speaking quickly. “I said he saw it. Jackson was standing over there in the window, looking outside.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. “I was standin’ over there by the window, lookin’ outside.”
Kyle stroked his chin for a moment. “I have to agree that your account does sound pretty damming,” Kyle said.
“I thought you’d see it our way, once you knew the whole story,” Cummins said.
