CHAPTER XIV: AFTERMATH
Lobo Wells was just a little shocked over the killing of Charley Prentice. They did not call it murder, although it was obvious that Prentice had been murdered. Tongues did not wag in Lobo Wells, but every one felt that there was just one man in the country who might kill Charley Prentice.
The following morning Ben Dillon and Breezy Hill rode out to the Box S. Len was saddling a horse for Nan, and finished the job before coming up to the house to meet them. Nan was talking to them, but they had not told her about Prentice.
Len nodded and smiled as he tied her horse to the porch.
“You boys must have started early, didn’t yuh?” he asked.
“Pretty early, Len. Charley Prentice was killed last night.”
Len’s greenish-gray eyes opened a trifle wider as he looked from Ben to Breezy.
“What killed him?” he asked slowly.
“Couple of forty-fours, Len.”
“Yeah?” Len’s eyes did not waver. “What time was this?”
“After you left town—a while after. Just what time was it, Breezy?”
“I never looked,” confessed Breezy. “Yuh remember when yuh left, Len? Well, me and Hartley went over to the office, and it was ten or fifteen minutes later when Larry came to tell us.”
“Did Larry see it?” asked Len.
“Nope. Somebody knocked on the door, and when Prentice answered the knock, they shot him dead on his own porch.”
Nan was staring at Len, and he turned his head to look at her. “You were back early,” she said, as though it might help him.
He smiled thinly.
“Yeah, I wasn’t very late,” and to the sheriff: “Well, what do you think about it, Ben?”
The sheriff shrugged his broad shoulders.
“There’s no clue, Len. You didn’t see Charley last night, did yuh?”
“He was at home when Len came in,” said Breezy quickly.
“No, I didn’t see him,” said Len. “Shot with a forty-four, eh? That’s the size of my gun, Ben.”
“Mine, too,” said the sheriff glumly. “Prob’ly eight out of every ten punchers in this country pack the same size.”
“Don’t leave yuh much to work on, Ben,” said Len dryly.
“Not much. Well, I just wanted to tell yuh about it.”
“To give me a chance for a getaway?”
Ben Dillon looked straight at him, as he said:
“Ain’t nobody accused yuh, have they, Len?”
“Not in words.”
“Plenty of time to talk about a getaway when they do.”
“Thank yuh, Ben. I’ll come in and see yuh.”
“All right. Pleased to have seen yuh again, ma’am.”
They lifted their hats and rode away. Len leaned a shoulder against the porch and watched them disappear down the road. His lips were shut tightly as he turned and looked at Nan.
“You didn’t do that, Len,” she said.
“That part of it don’t matter,” he said bitterly. “It’s what people think. Sure, I killed him. I might as well say I did, because I can’t prove I didn’t.”
She came closer to him, searching his tensed features.
“But you didn’t really kill him, Len; you couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t I, Nan?” He laughed shortly. Suddenly he sobered, his eyes thoughtful. “I forgot about the boy,” he said, as though to himself. “It’s tough for him—mighty tough, Nan.” He turned quickly. “Do yuh mind if we don’t ride this mornin’? I’d like to go to town—to Lobo Wells.”
“It’s perfectly all right, Len.”
“That’s kind of yuh. I guess I better go now.”
He turned toward the stable.
“I want you to know that I believe in you, Len,” she said.
He stopped, but did not look around.
“That’s mighty sweet of yuh, Nan—I’ll remember it!”
He saddled his horse quickly, rode away to Lobo Wells, arriving but a few minutes behind the sheriff and deputy. He tied his horse to the Oasis hitchrack, but did not enter the saloon. The sheriff had gone to the doctor’s office, but Hashknife and Breezy were in the sheriff’s office and saw Len ride in.
“Whatcha suppose he wants?” grunted Breezy. “Somethin’ must have struck him real sudden.”
They came to the doorway and watched Len cross the street and stop in front of Amos Baggs’s office, where Baggs was just coming out.
The Lobo Wells lawyer eyed Len suspiciously, but there was no anger in Len’s eyes.
“I jist wanted to ask yuh a few questions,” said Len. The lawyer nodded shortly, remembering that Len had prevented Nan from signing that thousand-dollar cheque.
“Charley Prentice never adopted my son, did he, Baggs?”
Baggs’ face twisted thoughtfully.
“No-o-o,” he drawled. “No, he never adopted him, Len.”
“Nothin’ to prevent me from taking that boy, is there?” asked Len.
Baggs walked to the edge of the sidewalk, spat thoughtfully and turned to Len.
“Nothing legal.”
“Meanin’ what, Baggs?”
“There still remains the moral aspect of the thing.”
Len’s eyes hardened.
“Meanin’ that I ain’t fit to take him, Baggs?”
“In plain words: no, you are not, Ayres.”
Splat!
Len’s open right palm landed on the lawyer’s left ear, with every ounce of his lithe body behind it, and Mr. Baggs went sideways off the sidewalk, landing on his shoulders in the dusty street.
For a moment Len looked down at him, rubbed the hot palm of his hand on his thigh, and walked on up the sidewalk, as though nothing had happened. Baggs struggled to his feet, mouthing profanity, swearing dire threats, while Breezy fairly hugged Hashknife in the office door, chuckling with unholy glee.
Baggs climbed back on the sidewalk, trying to shake the dust off his clothes, shaking a fist at Len between swipes at his garments. Then he turned and came down toward the sheriff’s office, half trotting in his haste. Breezy shoved Hashknife back from the doorway and locked the door.
“Nobody home,” he grinned at Hashknife, who nodded. Baggs tried the door, knocked loudly, swore disgustedly, and went back to his office.
“Probably wants to swear out a warrant for assault,” grinned Breezy, unlocking the door. “Give him time to cool off, and he won’t feel so bad about it. I wonder where Len went.”
He wasn’t in sight on the street, because he had gone up to Prentice’s house and was knocking on the door. Minnie came to answer the knock, and behind her was little Larry. Len looked at the expressionless face of the squaw and then at the face of his son.
“I heard what happened last night,” he said slowly, “so I—want yuh to come out to the ranch with me, Larry.”
The boy’s face lighted up for just a flash—and then he remembered. He came past the Indian woman, came very close to his father, his hands behind him, but did not look up.
“Don’tcha want to come with me, Larry?” asked Len.
“I want to come, but I can’t,” he said.
“Why can’t yuh come, son?”
The boy took a deep breath, but he was game.
“If you hadn’t done that—last night,” he said.
“Done what, Larry? Look up at me. Done what?”
“What you done.”
Len looked at the squaw, whose eyes were fastened on his face.
“We not tell,” she said firmly.
Len’s eyes shifted to the boy.
“Do you think I killed Prentice?” he asked.
“We won’t tell. Me and Minnie will never tell, will we, Minnie?”
“Not by damn sight,” she replied inelegantly but firmly.
Len turned slowly around and walked away, lips compressed, his eyes staring at the ground. He didn’t understand, except that they believed he had killed Prentice and that they would not tell. The boy had refused to go with him, because he had killed a man. Len was dazed, wondering even when he went back to the hitchrack and mounted his horse. Hashknife and Sleepy were crossing the street and spoke to him, but he did not see them.
He rode back to the ranch, stabled his horse and sat down on the porch, trying to think. Nan came out and tried to talk with him, but he would not answer; so she sat down in a chair and waited for him to come out of his coma.
It was probably ten minutes later before he lifted his head and looked around. His eyes were bloodshot and Nan had never seen him look so old and tired. He tried to smile, but it was but a grimace.
“Nan,” he said slowly, “do you know how many people there are in the world?”
“Millions and millions, Len.”
“Funny, ain’t it?”
“What is funny about it, Len?”
“That out of all that millions of people, you are the only one who—do you still believe I didn’t kill Prentice?”
“I know you didn’t, Len.”
“That’s fine.”
He clasped his hands around his knees and looked out across the Broken Hills.
“When I was in the penitentiary I used to long for the hills and the old cow-towns, Nan. I dreamed of ’em every night. There was the sunrise in the cow-camp, with waddies saddlin’ cold broncs, the camp cook and his big black pot of coffee. There was the round-up. Hard-ridin’ days; wild nights, when it was all over. The dances at the ranch-house. I could lay there on my bunk and hear the fiddlers and the caller. I could laze along through the hills, where the wind riffled the tall grass, straddlin’ a dream horse, and see the cattle lift their drippin’ jaws from the water-holes. Night after night I’ve dreamed it all over, waitin’ for the day when I’d be free to come back to it all. But it ain’t like my dreams, Nan. I thought I was bad off in the pen, but I—I wish I’d stayed.”
“You wish you hadn’t come back, Len?”
“Yeah. I reckon I’ve lost faith in folks—all of ’em.”
“But you haven’t lost faith in me, Len.”
He looked closely at her for several moments, as he got to his feet.
“Mebby I’ll tell yuh about it sometime,” he said.
It was the same enigmatic answer he had given her before, as he walked down to the corral, where Sailor had just ridden in. Nan closed her eyes and tried to think what Len had meant. What had happened to him in town to cause him to come back in this frame of mind, she wondered?
He talked with Sailor for a while, but did not come back to the house with him. He sat down on a box beside the corral fence, giving no sign of life other than an occasional puff of cigarette smoke.
Nan heard Whispering and Sailor arguing about it in the kitchen.
“He ain’t drunk,” declared Whispering. “Yo’re crazy.”
“Well, he acts drunk. Look at his eyes, will yuh?”
“Aw, he wasn’t in town long enough to git drunk. Go and git me some wood, Sailor.”
“Well, if he ain’t drunk, whatsa matter with him?”
“Prob’ly bilious.”
“Yeah, that’s reasonable; yore cookin’ would do that.”
“That ain’t biliousness—that’s yore danged disposition. Nothin’ short of a pistol whippin’ will ever cure that.”
“Thasso? Mebby you think you can cure me?”
“I don’t want yuh cured, you old squint-eyed porkypine. Go git me that wood and stop arguin’. You make me sick.”