“How about Nate Blaine; has he cooled off any?”
The deputy, a tall, gaunt man in his late forties, smiled faintly. “I don't know. I haven't been near him since midnight!”
“Did he talk?”
The smile widened, wearily. “He cusses anybody that comes within yellin' distance of his cage, if you can call that talking.”
“I see,” the marshal said heavily.
The deputy got up from the desk and racked his shotgun on the wall. As Ralph Striker tramped out of the office, the marshal took the chair and scowled. Almost immediately he got up again, took the cell keys from his desk and headed down the corridor toward the single iron cage which was the Plainsville jail.
Nathan Blaine lay stretched out on a board bunk, one arm flung over his eyes. When he heard the rap of boot heels on stone, he snapped to a sitting position, his eyes bitter. The marshal paused at the iron-barred door.
“Nate, you ready to talk?”
Nathan stood up in his cage. “You haven't caught him?”
“Caught who?” the marshal asked.
“The man that robbed the bank and killed old man Harper.” All the bitterness was in his eyes—his voice was only slightly edged with anger.
Elec rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I figured we had the killer in jail,” he said mildly. “However, I'm willing to listen to anything you've got to say, Nate.”
With an iron will, Nathan clamped down on his nerves and anger. He forced himself to remain calm, knowing that his very life depended on how clearly he was able to think this thing out. He made himself look into the marshal's eyes and say, “You've got the wrong man, Elec.”
“I'm listening.”
“All right; this is what happened. I'm not a drinking man, but like a fool I got tanked up yesterday after leaving your office. I got to thinking about something, and the more I thought the more I drank. Around four o'clock I was feeling sick. I needed air. I walked to the end of the block, went around behind the bank building where the grangers hitch their teams, and was heading for the corral when I heard the shooting.”
“Then what did you do?” the marshal asked.
“I couldn't tell where the shot came from. I wasn't thinking very straight. Anyway I started running the other way, toward the public corral. Then I realized I was going the wrong way. I stopped and turned around, and that was when I saw this drifter hightailing it out of the bank's side door.”
“What drifter was that?” Blasingame put in.
“The one that was in Bert Surratt's place just a few minutes before. I saw him; one of those cool-eyed boys that you run across sometimes in the Indian Nations, about fifty years old, with long gray hair and a sharp face. He rode a good-looking dun with an expensive rig, and he had a Model Seven Winchester on his saddle. Surratt saw him; he can tell you.”
The marshal's face had gone bland, showing nothing. “What happened to this drifter after you saw him come out of the bank's side door?”
“Nathan shrugged. “I don't know. He must have lit out across the street. I figure the shooting must have been something he hadn't intended. When it happened, he figured he'd best lie low for a while and see if he could slip out of town in. the confusion. I'd say that's just what he did. Before I could go after him, a lot of damn fools were trying to lynch me.”
Blasingame continued to rub his chin thoughtfully.
“Look here,” Nathan said, “you believe me, don't you?”
A long moment of silence passed. “Maybe I would, Nate, except for one thing. Beulah Sewell swears you're the one that gunwhipped her and shot Jed Harper.”
Nathan had known this would come up, and he tried desperately to hold back his rage. He couldn't do it. He felt a wildness swarming over him and suddenly he grabbed the iron bars and began shaking the door like a madman.
“Damn Beulah Sewell! She wants to get me out of the way! She wants to bring up my boy like a milk-fed house-cat! That's the reason she lied about what she saw in the bank!”
“Now, Nate,” Blasingame said quietly, “taking on like that won't help you.”
“How would you feel about it?” Nathan shouted.
“Stop it!” Elec Blasingame's big voice blasted on the stone walls of Nathan's cage. “Listen to me, Nate. You're in a bad spot. Your own sister-in-law has identified you as the killer; what do you expect me to do about that?”
Nathan felt the life going out of him. Hopelessly, he loosened his grip on the bars.
Finally he said, “This would be almost funny if I didn't know that half the town had lynching on the brain. On the say-so of one woman you lock me up and accuse me of murder and robbery. I didn't have the bank's money on me when they got me, did I? And you can't prove that the bullet that killed Harper came from my gun.”
“You had plenty time to hide that money,” Blasingame said. “You had time to reload, too.”
“Is that the kind of evidence you hang a man on in Plainsville?”
“The strongest evidence in the world. The testimony of a respectable eyewitness to the crime.” This time Elec saw the storm coming, and he added quickly, “But I said I'd listen to you, and I have. I'll go back over the
