sparks falling every once in a while and dying before they hit the floor.
He said at last, “Creyton?”
“He's dead.”
I could see the fire race almost halfway down the cigarette as he dragged deeply. I was still too numb to put things together. I only knew that Pappy had been awake at the time of the shooting and he had made no move to help me. He hadn't even bothered to come out and see if I was dead or not. He took one more drag on the cigarette and flipped it away.
“Well,” he said, “it's just as well. Maybe I could have stopped it, but I doubt it. Sometimes it's best to let things run until they come out the way they're bound to in the end, anyway.”
“Were you awake,” I asked, “while he was trying to steal my horse?”
“I was awake.”
“A hell of a friend you are! What was the idea of laying there and not even bothering to wake me up?”
“You woke up,” Pappy said mildly. “Anyway, it wasn't any of my business. I did my part when I warned you about Paul Creyton. What if I had walked into the quarrel and shot Paul for you? What difference would it have made? He's dead anyway.”
“But what if he had shot me?” I wanted to know.
I could almost see Pappy shrug. “That's the way it goes sometimes. By the way, you handle guns pretty well, at that. Paul Creyton wasn't the worst gunman in Texas, not by a long sight.”
It took me a while to get it. But I had a good hold now. All the time I had been thinking that Pappy was my friend. He didn't even know what the word meant. Bite-dog-bite-bear, every man for himself, that was the way men like Pappy Garret lived. Unless, of course, some dumb kid came along who might be of some use to him for a few days. I'd played the fool all right, thinking that you could ever be friends with a man like that.
“Buck Creyton,” I said. “You were afraid to take a hand with his kid brother because you knew you'd have Buck Creyton on your tail.”
“I'll admit I gave Buck some thought in the matter,” Pappy said.
I found that I still had the pistol in my hand. I flipped it over and shoved it in my holster. It's surprising how fast the shock of killing a man wears off. I wasn't thinking of Paul Creyton now. I was just thinking of how big a fool I had been, and getting madder all the time.
“This finishes us, Pappy. From now on you take your trail and I'll take mine. This is as far as we go together.”
There was another flare of a match as Pappy lit a fresh cigarette. “Of course, son,” he said easily. “Isn't that the way you wanted it all along?”
I left Pappy in the shack! I'd had enough of him. I went outside and gentled Red some more and wondered vaguely what to do with Paul Creyton. I didn't have any feeling for him one way or the other, but it didn't seem right just to leave him there.
What I finally did was to drag him down to the bottom of the slope and roll up boulders to build a tomb around him. That was the best I could do since I didn't have anything to dig a grave with. It was hard work and took a long time, but I stuck with it and did a good job. Anyway, it had a permanent look, and it would keep away the coyotes and buzzards.
When I finished, the sky in the east was beginning to pale, and it was about time to start riding back toward John's City. I stood there for a while, beside the tomb, half wishing I could work up some feeling for the dead man. A feeling of regret, or remorse, or something. But I didn't feel anything at all. I looked at the pile of rocks that I had rolled up, and it was hard to believe that a man was under them. A man I had killed.
When I started up toward the shack again, I saw that Pappy had come outside and had been watching the whole thing. There was a curious twist to his mouth, and a strange, faraway look in his eyes, as I walked past him. But he didn't speak, and neither did I.
I got Red saddled again, and, as I finished tying on the blanket roll, Pappy came over.
“You probably don't want any advice,” he said, “but I'm going to give you some anyway. Go on down to your uncle's place on the Brazos, like your old man wanted. You'll just get into trouble if you go back home and try bucking the police.”
I swung up to the saddle without saying anything.
Pappy sighed. “Well ... so long, son.”
I had forgotten that I was still wearing the guns that he had given me, or I would have given them back to him. As it was, I just pulled Red around and rode west.
Chapter 4
around the second day, on the trail back to John's City, I began to think straight again. I began to wonder if maybe Pappy hadn't been right again and I was acting like a damn fool by going back and asking for more trouble from the police. Maybe—but I had a feeling that wouldn't be wiped away by straight thinking. It was a feeling of something stretching and snapping my nerves like too-tight banjo strings. I couldn't place it then, but I found out later what the feeling was. It was fear.
Up until now it was just a word that people talked about sometimes. I always thought it was something a man felt when a gun was pointed at him and the hammer was falling forward, of when a condemned man stood on the gallows scaffold waiting for the trap to spring. But then I remembered that I hadn't felt it when Paul Creyton had taken a shot at me a few nights back. This was something new. And I couldn't explain it. When I felt it, I just pushed Red a little harder in the direction of John's City.
We made the return trip in three days, because I wasn't as careful as Pappy had been about covering my
