'I'm reckonin' that as marshal it's yore job to find out who bumped off this fella,' the puncher retorted.
At a word from the marshal two of the bystanders untied the body and laid it on the sidewalk. 'Hell's flames, it's Kit Purdie--thought I reckernized his roan! ' cried one of them; adding meaningly, 'yu won't have far to look for them as did this, Sam.'
'Keep yore fool trap closed--Up to now there ain't nothin' to show who done it,' the officer snapped, but his forehead wrinkled in a worried frown. 'Why didn't the damn young idjut pull his freight like I told him?'
He hent over the body and then straightened up. 'Somebody fetch Doc. Toley,' he ordered, and turned to the puncher. 'What d'yu know 'bout this?'
Sitting slackly in his saddle, the puncher told his story. The mention of the glimpsed grey horse brought a curse from Slype. He looked malignantly at Sudden.
'We on'y got yore word,' he said. 'Yu mighta done it yoreself.'
The accused man smiled in derision. 'An' fetched him into show yu? Oh, yeah,' he scoffed.
'It would 'a' bin a good bluff,' retorted the officer. 'Lemme see yore gun.'
At this demand the stranger stiffened, and there was an ominous rasp in his voice as he replied, 'Which end would yu like to look at? She's a Winchester .44 an' the barrel is foul; I told yu I fired once.'
Ere the marshal could reply to this obvious challenge, a short, fat man, with long, unkempt hair, and a clever if somewhat bloated face, pushed his way unceremoniously through the crowd. He was clearly the worse for liquor, but his speech was careful, precise.
'What do you want now, Slippery?' he asked, and then, as he saw the outstretched figure, 'young Purdie, eh? So the Burdettes have downed him?'
The marshal gritted out an oath. 'We dunno; yu got no right to say that, Doc.,' he growled.
'I have a right to say just what I damn please, Slippery,' the medico retorted. 'If you and your friends the Burdettes don't like it, suit yourselves. What's the use of sending for me now? I can't put life into a dead man.'
The marshal's mean eyes flashed an ugly look at him. 'Ain't askin' yu to,' he said sullenly. 'Want yu to dig suthin' out--the bullet; mebbe it'll give us a pointer.'
Toley turned the corpse so that it lay face downwards, cut away the clothing which covered the wound, and began to probe. With the morbid curiosity of a crowd the world over, the onlookers jostled one another to get a view, and the doctor cursed them when the stamping feet threatened to engulf him. At length the gruesome task was done and he stood up, the bloodstained pellet of lead between his fingers. The marshal examined it.
'Looks like a .38 to me,' he said reluctantly, and the frown on his face was heavier.
'Shore is,' agreed half a dozen of the nearest spectators. 'What did I tell yu, Sam?' cried the fellow who had spoken before. 'Luce Burdette uses a .38.'
'Yu didn't tell me nothin' 'cept that yore mouth opens too easy, an' I knowed that afore,' snapped the officer. 'Luce ain't got the on'y .38 in the world, has he?'
'He's got the on'y one in these parts that I knows of,' was the reply.
'King Burdette'll be glad to hear o' yore interest in his family,' sneered Slype. 'Hell! Here comes Ol' Man Purdie; what cussed luck brought him to town to-day?'
Stepping heavily but swiftly along the sidewalk, with the short, clipped stride of one who has spent much of his life in the saddle, came a sturdily-built, broad-shouldered man of around fifty. His strong, clean-shaven face, which should have expressed good-humour, was now drawn and haggard. Before his advance the crowd opened, and in a moment he was beside the body. One glance was enough.
'God ! ' he muttered. 'It's true, then.' He dropped on one knee and touched the pallid face. 'My lad--my only lad,' he whispered brokenly.
For some moments there was silence; men who had not thought of it before furtively removed their hats. Then the bereaved father heaved himself to his feet, tragedy in every line of his face, his eyes shining wetly in the half-light. But there was no weakness in voice or bearing when he turned to the marshal.
'Who did this?' he asked harshly.
'Yu know near as much as I do, Chris,' Slype replied. 'This fella fetched him in'--he jerked a thumb at the cow-puncher. 'Claims he saw it happen.'
Purdie turned his misted eyes on the stranger; his look was an invitation. Sudden repeated his story of the shooting.
'Yu didn't see the skunk?' the old man asked.
'No, I caught the flash of a grey hoss through the brush an' took a chance,' the puncher told him. 'The shell I found was a .38 an' the bullet bears that out. If I could 'a' sat in the game I'd 'a' been right pleased.'
'I'm obliged to yu, friend,' Purdie said.
From the outskirts of the crowd a voice rang through the gathering gloom : 'He'll take the Black Burdettes.'
The cattleman's head jerked up. 'Yu said it, whoever yu are,' he grated. 'This is their work, shore enough.'
'Hold yore hosses, Purdie,' the marshal broke in. 'We got mighty little to justify that.'
'The hoss an' the gun tally, an' Luce was seen headin' that way a bit before it happened,' Purdie said bitterly. 'Yu call that mighty little, huh?'
'It ain't conclusive,' Slype insisted. 'If yu want me to deal with this'
The other whirled fiercely upon him. 'I ain't askin' yu to, Slype; keep out of it. The C P can fight its own battles an' pay its own scores. By God! it'll settle this one in full.'
'That ain't no way to talk, Chris,' the marshal remonstrated. 'I'm here to administer the law'
'Yo're here to do what the Circle B murderers tell yu,' was the angry retort. 'Yu can save yore breath; I ain't a-goin' to back down before all the Burdettes that ever was pupped, an' that goes.'
There was no passion in the challenge--it was the stark defiance of one whose life had been a battle; who had faced indomitably all the difficulties and disasters which the early pioneer in a savage untamed region must expect. Nature in her wildest moods, Indians, rustlers, starvation, thirst--Chris Purdie had fought and beaten them all. And now, in his mellowing years, when Fate had dealt him the bitterest blow of all, he was still unsubdued, still full of fight. There were many such men among the early pioneers; their names are forgotten, but their work survives; they made Western America.
SUDDEN passed the night at the hotel, and in the morning attended the sorry farce of an inquiry into the death of young Purdie. The verdict that deceased met his end in a gun-fight with a person or persons unknown appeared to satisfy the marshal, though it aroused murmurs in some quarters. None of the Burdettes was present, a citizen informed the puncher, but when that young man suggested that this was perhaps good policy on their part, he was quickly corrected.
'Don't yu get no wrong ideas about them fellas,' his informant observed. 'Ain't none of 'em lackin' sand, an' if they done it an' took the notion, they'd be here brazenin' it out, yu betcha. Bad? Shore they're bad, but there ain't a smidgin o' fear in the whole bilin', no sir.'
Then came the interment; the puncher followed the procession to the little cemetery less than half a mile to the north of the town. There, on a grassy slope shaded by cottonwoods and birches, in a silence broken only by the gay chirping of the birds and a few remembered fragments of the burial service pronounced by the doctor, the boy was laid to rest. When the two miners who officiated had filled in the grave, the spectators resumed their hats and melted away. Sudden was the last to leave, save for the sturdy figure with folded arms and bowed head gazing with unseeing eyes at the newly-made mound which held all his hopes. The puncher would have liked to utter a word of comfort, but he did not know what to say, and his cowboy's inherent dread of emotion in any form kept him tongue-tied. At length he too turned to retrace his steps to Windy. He had not gone far when Purdie caught him up.
'Stranger,' the cattleman said in a deep voice, 'I reckon I ain't thanked yu right for what yu did.'
Sudden gripped the outstretched hand. 'Why, there ain't any need,' he returned. 'I wish I could 've ...' He paused awkwardly, and the other man nodded his comprehension. 'It's shore tough, but life is like that,' he said, and despite his iron control there was a tremor in his tone. 'Yu see, he was pretty near all I had--I lost his mother when he was no more'n a li'l trick; there's on'y Nan now.'
