“This feller would,” young Mather replied slowly. “So would he”—he nodded at the dead man—“an’ you don’t know Dolly. I should never ’a’ left here.”
“Maybe she did the same as your old man,” Charlie suggested. “Got scared an’ lit out when the trouble started.”
“No. She’d stay an’ laugh at them,” Bill muttered. “Well, I can soon find out. Help me pick him up, Charlie. I’d rather he was on a bed.”
“Better leave him where he lays,” Charlie said. “There’ll be county officers wantin’ to look into this in a day or two.”
“Let ’em look,” young Bill said. “I don’t like him layin’ all this time on a cold, bare floor.”
Two rooms opened off the larger one, which was at once kitchen, dining and living quarters. One of these had a bunk in each corner—a man’s room, with blankets tumbled as they were last slept in. They laid the stiff body on one bunk and closed the door. Bill looked at his watch.
“It lacks hours till daylight,” said he. “Let’s put up our horses an’ start a fire.”
They walked back to the house under a sky now beginning to show stars. A south wind whistled forlornly down that cut in the Bad Lands. Pines loomed in dark patches against white canyon walls. Frost-crisp snow crunched underfoot. The south wind would soften that soon, but for the present the frost still had its teeth bare. Bill found wood in a box and stoked a kitchen range. He looked with distaste at the crimson-stained floor. Eventually he found a piece of canvas and covered that dark patch on the raw wood. Lamp in hand, while the fire crackled, he roamed about the room, examining floor, walls, doorways, windows. Charlie Shaw pulled off his boots, put his feet on the oven door, rolled a cigarette, and watched this survey. Bill set the lamp on a table and joined him by the stove.
“There was only one shot fired,” he said at last. “Jed never even drawed his gun. It was laid there by his hand after he was down. They fought first. Jed’s face is marked. His knuckles is skinned.”
He slumped in a chair by the stove, chin on his breast. Passion had flared and death taken its toll in that room. An atmosphere intangible but sobering, with a touch of the sinister, remained. Charlie felt it as something unpleasant. How it affected young Bill, he did not know. The boy stared at the stove, his dark face darker still with the shadow of brooding. They sat waiting in silence for the dawn, each occupied with his own obscure thoughts.