Stooping down, I picked him up and helped him to his corner, and as I stopped him there, where of a sudden there was nobody to receive him, his eyes opened and he looked around.
Me, I let go of him and held out my mitt.
'It was a good fight, Dun. You're a tough man.'
He blinked at me, then held out his own hand and we stood there looking surprised, like two fools.
And then I turned and walked away and leaned against the roan, which had been led up for me. The Tinker was handing me my sweater. 'Get into this,' he said; 'you'll take cold.'
Taking it from his hand, I said, 'I got to see a man.'
'The one who tried to kill you? He got away.'
'No, he didn't.'
We walked, the Tinker and me, along the dusty street. Doc Halloran walked behind us with Captain Mcationelly and Sheriff Walton.
Their rig was coming down the street toward us, and there for a moment I thought he was going to try to ride right over us, but he drew up and stopped when we stopped, barring his way.
Marsha was there in the seat beside her father, and nobody else with them. They were alone, those two, but somehow I had a feeling they'd always been alone.
Deckrow's face showed nothing, but it never had.
His eyes looked at me, cold and measuring, with no give to them.
'You shot and killed your brother-in-law, Jonas Locklear,' I said, 'and it was you tipped Herrara off that we were in Mexico, and what for.'
'I do not have any idea what you are speaking about,' he replied, looking at me sternly. 'I am sure I would be the last man to shoot my own brother-in-law.'
'I saw you shoot him,' I persisted, 'and Miguel did also. That's why he died. That's why you tried to kill me today.'
'You ought to be ashamed,' Marsha said, 'telling lies about my father.'
You know something? I was sorry for him. He was a little man and nothing much had ever happened to him, andwith all his planning and figuring he could never make any money; while Jonas, who did all the wrong things, was always making it. And now he had to pay for it all.
Trouble with me was, I was a mighty poor hater. There was satisfaction in winning, but winning would have been better if nobody had to lose.
That's the way I've always felt, I guess.
Seems to me I'm the sort of man who, if a difficulty arose, might knock a man down and kick all his teeth out, but then would help him pick them up if he was so inclined, and might even pay the bill for fixing them--alth that's going a bit far.
'That property,' I said, 'the ranch and the house and all, belongs to Gin and your wife, unless a will said otherwise ... not to you.
'You've no claim'--I spoke louder to prevent his attempted interruption--?and you tried to get one through murder. I will take oath, here and now and in court, that you betrayed and then shot down your brother-in-law. Furthermore,' I said, and lied when I said it, 'I can get Mexicans to testify they saw it.
'You sign over all claims to Gin and your wife--'
'My wife left me,' he said.
'You sign over all claims or I'll have you on trial for murder.'
He sat there holding the lines and hating me, but he hadn't much to say. The trouble was, he was a man with a canker for a soul, and he would be eaten away with his bitterness at failure, nor did I care much.
It is wrong to believe that such men suffer in the conscience for what they do ... it is only regret at being caught that troubles them. And they never admit it was any fault of their own ... it was always chance, bad luck. ... The criminal does not regret his crime, he only regrets failure.
The Bishop was standing by listening, but I paid him no mind. There had been a time when he seemed awesome and dangerous, but that was a while back.
'You remember what I said, Deckrow,' I told him, 'because wherever it is this is settled, San Antonio or Austin or wherever, I'll be there.'
When I came up to the house pa was there, and Gin beside him. He looked fine ... they were a handsome couple if I ever saw one--but I was sure I'd never get around to calling her ma.
I stepped down from the saddle and slid my Winchester from the boot, and pa looked at me.
'Somebody gave you a beating,' he said.
'He didn't give it to me,' I replied, 'I fought for it.'
'You'll be coming with us now? I've held your share of the gold ... it's been waiting your return.'
'Buy something with it in my name. I'll come for it one day ... or send a son of mine for it.'
'You're going back for the rest?'
'When I left Tennessee for the western lands it was in my mind to become rich with the goods of this world, but by planning and trade, not by diving for dead men's gold. I shall go on to the West.'
'You still want me along?' the Tinker asked.
'We left Tennessee together. I left with you and a mule. It's fitting we hold to our course.
However, we never did make a dicker for one of your knives. Now, I'd give--'
'Stand aside, Gin,' Pa interrupted, 'there's trouble.'
When I turned around it put me alongside of pa, although there was a space between us. And the Tinker stood off to one side of me.
And there facing us were the three Kurbishaws, three tall men in dusty black, Elam, Gideon, and Eli.
Pa was first to speak. 'You've come a long way from Charleston, Elam ... a long way.'
'We came for you.'
'You will find most of the gold still there ... if you can get it,' pa said coolly. 'We've had ours.'
'It isn't for gold any more,' Gideon said.
'There's more to it.'
'I suppose there is,' pa replied, his voice still cold. 'You hounded your sister to death; you hunted my son.'
'And now we got him,' Elam replied, his--and you.'
Pa didn't want it, I could see that. He was talking to get out of it, to get it stopped, but they would not listen. Strange men they were, but I'd see their like again, in lynch mobs and elsewhere. They were men who knew what I did not--they knew how to hate.
'You wouldn't try me alone,' pa said. 'Now there's two of us.'
'Three,' said the Tinker.
'We've come a far piece since then,'
Elam said, 'and we've lived as we might, by the gun.'
'Why, then,' pa said, 'if you'll have it no other way--'
Gideon was looking at me, so when pa drew I swung up the muzzle of my Winchester and levered a shot into him. I saw the bullet dust him at the belt line, and worked the lever again and fired. He threw his gun hand high in a queer, dance-like gesture, and then he tried to bring it down on me. I stepped forward and shot again and my bullet went high, striking at the collarbone and tearing away part of his throat as it glanced off.
The sound of shooting was loud in the street, and then there was stillness, the acrid smell of gunpowder mixed with dust, and we three stood there, facing them as they lay. The last one alive was Eli, tugging at one of Tinker's knives sunk deep into his chest.
'If that's the only way,' I commented, 'to get one of those knives, I'll wait.'
Looking down at them, I thought it was a strange trail they had followed, those three, and how in the end it had only come to this, to death in a dusty street, nobody caring; and by and by nobody even remembering, except by gossip over a bar in a saloon.
Seemed it was just as well a man did not know where he was headed when he was to come only to this--a packet of empty flesh and clothes to end it all.
In the end their hatred had bought them only this ... only this, and the bitter years between.
It always seemed that for me something waited in those western lands, something of riches in the way of
