Pop. 1280

pimps?'

'Hah? What?' He rubbed his hand over his eyes. 'Who says I took dirt from pimps?'

'I knew you didn't!' I said, giving him a slap on the back. 'Not Ken Lacey, the bravest, smartest peace officer in the state.'

'Well,' said Ken. 'Uh, you shorely spoke a mouthful there, Nick. You shorely did, and that's a fact!'

'Any other man, I wouldn't have let him go over there last night. But I knew you could stand up to those pimps if they come at you with guns and knives. I knew you'd make 'em wish they'd never been born.'

Ken put a stern look on his face, like that fella William S. Hart does in the movies. He squared his shoulders and straightened up, or as much as he could straighten with the whiskey wobbling his legs.

'What'd you do to 'em, Ken?' I said. 'How did you settle their hash, anyways?'

'I, uh, I took care of 'em, that's what.' He gave me a lopsided wink. 'You know, I- hic!-took care of 'em.'

'Good. You took care of 'em for good, Ken?'

'God-danged right, I did. Them's two pimps that won't never bother a white man no more!'

He started looking around for the whiskey bottle. I pointed out that he was holding onto it, so he had himself a couple more drinks, and then he held the bottle up to the light.

'Why, god-dang! Danged if I ain't drunk almost a whole quart of whiskey!'

'What the heck?' I said. 'It don't hardly show on you none.' And the funny part of it was that it suddenly didn't show much.

I'd seen him drink before, and I knew how whiskey acted on him. A fairly small amount of booze, say, a pint or so, and he'd get drunk as a skunk. He'd show it, I mean. But when he went over that certain amount- and up to a point, of course-he'd seem to sober up. He'd stop staggering, stop slurring his words, stop playing the fool in general. Inside, he'd still be dead drunk, but you'd never know it by looking at him.

He finished the rest of the whiskey, and we headed for the railroad station. I introduced him to everyone we met, which was a big part of the population, and he stuck out his chest and told everyone how he'd taken care of the two pimps. Or rather, he just said that he had taken care of 'em.

'Never mind how,' he'd say. 'Never you mind how.' And then he'd wink and nod, and everybody would be pretty impressed.

We stopped to talk to so many people that it was only a couple of minutes before train time when we got to the station. I shook hands with him and then, before! realized I was doing it, I laughed out loud.

He gave me a suspicious look; asked me what I was laughing about.

'Nothing much,' I said. 'I was just thinkin' how funny it was you rushing down here last night. Thinkin' I might kill those pimps.'

'Yeah,' he grinned sourly, 'that is funny. Imagine a fella like you killing anyone.'

'You can't imagine me doing it, can you, Ken? You just can't, can you?'

He said he sure couldn't, and that was a fact. 'If I'd stopped to think, instead of letting that god- danged Buck get me all riled up-'

'But it would be easy to imagine you doing that killing, wouldn't it, Ken? Killing wouldn't bother you a bit.'

'What?' he said. 'What do you mean, I-'

'In fact, folks wouldn't have to do any imagining, would they? You've as good as admitted it to dozens of people.'

He blinked at me. Then the wild sweat broke out on his face again, and a streak of spit oozed from the corner of his mouth. And there was fear in his eyes.

It had soaked in on him at last, the spot he was in. Soaked clear through a quart of booze until it hit him where he lived and rubbed the place raw.

'Why-why, god-dang you!' he said. 'I was just makin' talk! You know danged well I was! I never even seen those pimps last night!'

'No, sir, I bet you didn't.' I grinned at him. 'I'd bet a million dollars you didn't.'

'Y-you-' He gulped. 'You m-mean you did k-kill-'

'I mean, I know you're a truthful man,' I said. 'If you said you didn't see those pimps, I know you didn't see 'em. But other folks might think somethin' else, mightn't they, Ken? If those pimps' bodies was to crop up some place, everybody'd think that you killed them. Couldn't hardly think nothin' else under the circumstances.'

He cussed and made a grab at me. I stayed where I was, grinning at him, and he slowly let his hands drop to his side.

'That's right, Ken,' I nodded. 'That's right. There ain't a thing you can do but hope. Just hope that if someone did kill those pimps that no one ever finds their bodies.'

The train was coming in.

I waited until it came to a stop; and then, since Ken seemed too dazed to do it by himself, I helped him on.

'One other thing, Ken,' I said, and he turned on the step to look at me. 'I'd be real nice to Buck, if I was you. I got kind of a funny idea that he don't like you very much as it is, so I sure wouldn't do no more talkin' about makin' him peck horse turds with the sparrers.'

He turned back around again, and went on up the steps.

I started back through town.

9

I'd been thinking it was about time to do some political campaignin', since I had a pretty tough opponent coming up for a change. But I figured there'd been enough going on for one morning, what with Ken's big talk; and anyways, I just didn't have a campaign plan this time.

Always before, I'd let the word get around that I was against this and that, things like cockfighting and gambling and whiskey and soon. So my opposition would figure they'd better come out against 'em, too, only twice as strong as I did. And I went right ahead and let 'em. Me, almost anyone can make a better speech than I can, and anyone can come out stronger against or for something. Because, me, I've got no very strong convictions about anything. Not any more I haven't.

Well, anyway, by the time it got ready to vote, it looked like a fella wouldn't be able to have no fun at all any more, if my opponents were elected. About all a fella would be able to do, without getting arrested, was to drink sody-pop and maybe kiss his wife. And no one liked the idea very much, the wives included.

So, all and all, I began to look pretty good to folks. It was a case of nothing looking better than something, because all anyone had to do was listen to me and look at me a while to know that I wasn't against anything very much, except having my pay stopped, and that I wouldn't have enough gumption to do anything even if I did want to. I'd just let things go along like they always had, because there wasn't much point in trying to change 'em. And when the votes were counted, I was still sheriff.

I'm not saying that there weren't a lot of folks who really liked me. There was a lot of 'em, folks that I'd been kids with and who knew me as a nice friendly fella who was always ready to do a favor if it didn't put him out of pocket too much or offend someone else. But it seemed to me that I didn't have as many friends as I'd used to. Even the very folks I'd favored, them most of all, it seemed like, weren't as friendly as they had been. They seemed to kind of hold it against me because I hadn't cracked down on 'em. And I didn't know quite what to do about it, since I'd never really got the habit of doing anything, and I didn't know how I was going to get myself elected again. But I knew I was going to have to do