fired again, destroying the rest of the bottles.
'Now, I know you got more hooch stashed down under the trapdoor,' he said. 'And that's where it better stay, you hear what I'm telling you?' He slipped in the last of his handmade shells and snapped the gun shut. 'Ma'am?' he said, politely pulling at the brim of his hat. And he left the hotel.
On his way up to the Reverend's depot he passed Professor Murphy who, after seeing Tiny and Bobby-My-Boy killed, had vomited against the wall of his barbershop until he was empty. Now, his lips slack and moist, he was looking down at Tiny's naked body… his pulpy, suppurating chest and stomach, his limp little penis. He dry-retched, and revulsion caused his eyes to flinch away, but morbid fascination dragged them back again.
Matthew stood in the street in front of the depot. 'Come out here, preacher!' he called.
The front door was ajar, creaking slightly in the breeze that was beginning to dissipate the mist.
'You can't hide in there forever.'
Nothing stirred within.
He waited a full minute, perfectly patient. Then: 'All right. Here we go.' He mounted the steps to the porch.
He knew the Reverend had given his gun to Lieder, but there were still kitchen knives and a poker and a kindling hatchet; and Hibbard could be behind any door, ready to spring out. So Matthew cocked the shotgun before opening the front door wide with his toe and looking obliquely in… then he shook his head, uncocked his gun, and pushed his hat back with his thumb.
The disorder within said it all. Hibbard was gone. He had returned to the depot, snatched up a few clothes and valuables, then run off. Either he was on his way up the tracks to the Surprise Lode, or he was making the tortuous descent to Destiny. Feeling suddenly empty and sour inside, Matthew sank into the chair by the table where the Reverend used to work up his hellfire sermons. Both his wrists had been wrenched by recoil, and the swollen right one throbbed with each beat of his pulse. He knew he could lose the pain by letting himself slip even deeper into the Other Place, by just letting go and sliding into the velvety warmth…. No! He stood up, tipping the chair over with the backs of his knees.
When he stepped out onto the porch of the depot, the mist had blown off, revealing the year's first snow out on the high reaches of the westward mountains. Torn shreds of cloud scuttled across a taut, wintry sky while, down in the street, the chill breeze ruffled the muddy puddles. He drew a long sigh and started back up toward the Mercantile.
He stopped at the Tonsorial Palace and kicked at the door. Murphy appeared, his eyes red from drink, his cheeks pale from another bout of vomiting.
'Come with me.'
'Listen, boy, I'm feeling awful, and I-'
'Just come along.'
So carefully did Murphy keep his eyes away from Tiny's gory chest and limp penis that he tripped over Bobby-My-Boy's headless corpse, and he recoiled, gagging and spitting. But he meekly followed Matthew to the porch of the Traveller's Welcome.
'Calder!'
The old veteran stumped up to the door and looked out.
'Come with me.'
'Right now?'
'Just do it.'
The three of them continued down toward the Mercantile, where a primitive carrion fascination had drawn the Bjorkvist men across the street to look at the remains of Lieder, which Oskar couldn't resist prodding with his toe. An act of bravado that made him tingle with frightened titillation.
'Here's what I want you to do,' Matthew told the four of them. 'Go fetch shovels and brooms and whatever you need, and clear away what's left of these men. Then I want you-'
'Hey!' Mr. Bjorkvist objected. 'Why should we-'
Matthew shifted his shotgun and let his eyes lie heavily on Bjorkvist before saying, 'I'm pretty disgusted over how none of you lifted a hand to save Coots. So it'd be a big mistake to give me any back-sass.' The marshal's eyes narrowed, and he slowly inventoried their faces, one by one, causing each in turn to look down or aside. 'Now like I said, I want you to clear these men away. Dump it all over the cliff. I don't want them in the same burying ground as Coots. Then I want you to sluice water around everywhere and scatter dirt until there's not a trace left. Not… one…. trace. I'll be sitting up yonder on my porch, watching you. Now get to it.'
He glanced up at the doorway of the Mercantile, where Ruth Lillian was standing next to Mr. Kane, who had a bandage over his eyebrow. He nodded to them, touched his hat brim, then turned and walked up to the marshal's office.
All morning, B. J. lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes gritty and dry, as old eyes are when they have shed all the tears their ducts can produce. He had heard the shooting out in the street, but he didn't care. He had heard Frenchy and Kersti run out of the house on their way over to the hotel, but he didn't care. And now he heard the scrape, scrape of shovels out in the street, but he didn't care. For the first time, he knew that he was old. Really old. There was nothing for him to do. No one needed him. There was no one to take care of, or be irritated with, or tease. So he'd just… lie there.
By noon the street had been cleared of the last traces of Lieder and his men, dirt had been scattered over the bloody places, and the reluctant clean-up party had returned to their houses. But still Matthew sat on a chair on his porch, the ball-pointed star on his breast, the shotgun containing his last shell heavy on his lap.
Although he had been aware of her approach out of the corner of his eye, he didn't turn toward Ruth Lillian when she said, 'We're waiting dinner for you.'
'That's real good of you, ma'am. But I'm not a bit hungry. And anyway…' He held out his swollen wrist and sausage fingers. 'I doubt I'd be any great shakes with a fork.'
She reached out and gingerly touched the hot, tight skin of his hand.
'I'll be all right,' he said.
But she went into the office and soaked a cloth in the chipped enamel wash-up basin he had carried with him all the way from Nebraska. He didn't object when she wrapped the sodden bandage around his wrist. 'There, that'll help bring down the swelling.'
'Feels better already. Thank you.'
'I could bring a bowl of stew for you to eat here, if you want?'
'No thank you, ma'am. I'm just fine as I am.'
'Yes, but…' She didn't know what to say. That 'ma'am' was worrying. 'Pa's not hurt. Just a bad headache.'
'I'm glad to hear that.'
'You'll be up for supper, I hope?' She smiled. 'You won't have to help with the dishes. Not with that wrist of yours. You can just sit and talk to Pa.'
He blinked and turned to her. 'I'm sorry… what was that?'
'I asked if you'd be coming for supper.'
He looked at her with a slightly puzzled frown until she said, 'Well, I… I've got to get back. Dinner's getting cold.'
He nodded slowly.
She felt she ought to say something else, but she couldn't think of anything, so she left.
Matthew did not come to supper that evening, nor did he show up at the Traveller's Welcome the next morning to make breakfast for the girls. His time as the town's odd-job man was over. Later in the afternoon he came into the Mercantile, still wearing the badge and carrying his shotgun over his shoulder, the muzzle in his fist. In his new, softly diffident voice he gave Mr. Kane an order for flour, dried beans, bacon, corn syrup, tinned tomatoes, and tinned peaches, which Mr. Kane put into his canvas satchel for him because his wrist was still swollen. When Ruth Lillian came down from above to greet him, he said he hoped she was feeling all right after that little dustup the day before. Then he told them he wouldn't be burdening them with his company at meals anymore. He'd just fix up his own grub, if it was all the same to them. Ruth Lillian was saying, no, it wasn't all the same to her… when he tugged the brim of his hat at each of them and left.
From then until the miners returned the next Saturday for their weekly blow-out, Matthew spent most of his
