Cimarron

as a diamond. I seen him take a bullet out of Luke Slaughter once and sew him up when he was so drunk he didn’t know his right hand from his left, or where he was at, but he done it. What? Oh, yeh⁠—well, he tells Yancey, drunk as he is, that he’s right in the camp where the Kid and his gang is hiding out. One of them was hurt bad in that last Santa Fe holdup at Cimarron. Like to died, only they sent for Doc, and he came and saved him. They got close to thirty thousand that trick, and it kind of went to their head. Valliant overheard them planning to ride in here to Osage, like today, and hold up the Citizens’ National in broad daylight like the Kid always does. They was already started. Well, Yancey off on his horse to warn the town, and knows he’s got to detour or he’ll come on the gang and they’ll smell a rat. Well, say, he actually did meet ’em. Came on ’em, accidental. The Kid sees him and grins that wolf grin of his and sings out, ‘Yancey, you still runnin’ that paper of yourn down at Osage?’ Yancey says, ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, say,’ he says, ‘how much is it?’ Yancey says a dollar a year. The Kid reaches down and throws Yancey a shot sack with ten silver dollars in it. ‘Send me the paper for ten years,’ he says. ‘Where to?’ Yancey asks him. Well, say, the Kid laughs that wolf laugh of his again and he says, ‘I never thought of that. I’ll have to leave you know later.’ Well, Yancey, looking as meek and mealymouthed as a baby, he rides his way, he’s got a little book of poems in his hand and he’s reading as he rides, or pretending to, but first chance he sees he cuts across the Hills, puts his horse through the gullies and into the draws and across the scrub oaks like he was a circus horse or a centipede or something. He gets into Osage, dead tired and his horse in a lather, ten minutes before the Kid and his gang sweeps down Pawhuska Avenue, their six-shooters barking like a regiment was coming, and makes a rush for the bank. But the town is expecting them. Say! Blood!”

Sabra waited for no more. She turned. And as she turned she saw coming down the road in a cloud of dust a grotesque scarecrow, all shanks and teeth and rolling eyes. Black Isaiah.

“No’m, Miss Sabra, he ain’t hurt⁠—not what yo’ rightly call hurt. No, ma’am. Jes’ a nip in de arm, and he got it slung in a black silk hank’chief and looks right sma’t handsome. They wouldn’t let him alone noways. Ev’ybody in town they shakin’ his hand caze he shoot that shot dat kill de Kid. An’ you know what he do then, Miss Sabra? He kneel down an’ he cry like a baby.⁠ ⁠… Le’ me tote dis yere valise. Ah kin tote Miss Donna, too. My, she sho’ growed!”

The newspaper office, the print shop, her parlor, her kitchen, her bedroom, were packed with men in boots, spurs, sombreros; men in overalls; with women; with children. Mrs. Wyatt was there⁠—the Philomatheans as one woman were there; Dixie Lee actually; everyone but⁠—sinisterly⁠—Louie Hefner.

“Well, Mis’ Cravat, I guess you must be pretty proud of him!⁠ ⁠… This is a big day for Osage. I guess Oklahoma City knows this town’s on the map now, all right.⁠ ⁠… You missed the shootin’, Mis’ Cravat, but you’re in time to help Yancey celebrate.⁠ ⁠… Say, the Santa Fe alone offered five thousand dollars for the capture of the Kid, dead or alive. Yancey gets it, all right. And the Katy done the same. And they’s a government price on his head, and the Citizens’ National is making up a purse. You’ll be ridin’ in your own carriage, settin’ in silks, from now.”

Yancey was standing at his desk in the Wigwam office. His back was against the desk, as though he were holding this crowd at bay instead of welcoming them as congratulatory guests. His long locks hung limp on his shoulders. His face was white beneath the tan, like silver under lacquer. His great head lolled on his chest. His left arm lay in a black and scarlet silk sling made of one of his more piratical handkerchiefs.

He looked up as she came in, and at the look in his face she forgave him his neglect of her; forgave him the house full of what Felice Venable would term riffraff and worse; his faithlessness to the Wigwam. Donna, tired and frightened, had set up a wail. Cim, bewildered, had gone on a rampage. But as Yancey took a stumbling step toward her she had only one child, and that one needed her. She thrust Donna again into Isaiah’s arms; left Cim whirling among the throng; ran toward him. She was in his great arms, but it was her arms that seemed to sustain him.

“Sabra. Sugar. Send them away. I’m so tired. Oh, God, I’m so tired.”

Next day they exhibited the body of the Kid in the new plate glass show window of Hefner’s Furniture Store and Undertaking Parlors. All Osage came to view him, all the county came to view him; they rode in on trains, on horses, in wagons, in ox carts for miles and miles around. The Kid. The boy who, in his early twenties, had sent no one knew how many men to their death⁠—whose name was the symbol for terror and daring and merciless marauding throughout the Southwest. Even in the East⁠—in New York⁠—the name of the Kid was known. Stories had been written about him. He was, long before his death, a mythical figure. And now he, together with Clay McNulty, his lieutenant, lay side by side, quite still, quite passive. The crowd was so dense that it threatened Louie Hefner’s window. He had to put