“Yet the whole of two outfits came along to get Doc Martin. And Elmer took Buck’s word for it.”
“Elmer didn’t love Doc exactly, no more than Buck did,” Charlie said. “An’ I guess Elmer won’t love you none, by the look of him when Buck made that crack about you gettin’ his brother. So you’re the feller that put Mark Duffy’s light out, eh? I was in the Odeon myself, once, first summer it opened. Some joint. One of the Seventy Seven men told me about ‘Big’ Duffy’s downfall. But I’d forgotten your name. He told me. I guess you don’t need to worry about any of these bad actors troublin’ you much.”
He stared at Rock with a trace of admiration.
“I don’t know, Charlie,” Rock answered. “I can’t help thinking there was more in this than just jealousy over women, or a few stolen calves. And I have a hunch you could give me an idea what the real reason was for Buck being so dead set to get Doc Martin out of the way.”
“Forget it,” Charlie counseled. “You’re a kind of a mind reader. But Doc’s dead. Let his troubles stay buried with him. I’d go all the way with Doc if he was alive and in trouble. He was a white man. I think myself that this talk about the Burris boys sayin’ Doc was in with them is pure bunk. But it ain’t our funeral now. Forget it. Buck’s wise enough to leave sleepin’ dogs lie—when they’re dead. Our job is to look out for ourselves an’ the TL an’ let the Seventy Seven an’ Maltese Cross skin their own cats.”
Farther Charlie would not go. Nor did Rock try pressing. The boy knew something. Rock suspected it was something he would like to know. But Charlie would not tell, and doubtless he had what seemed to him cogent reasons. Rock conceded that the wisdom of this youth might be sound, so he let it drop. He lay in a bunk opposite to Charlie. They smoked and chatted until the hay diggers stabled their horses for noon, and the half-breed girl called them to dinner.
After that Rock set out with Charlie Shaw to gather in a few work horses ranging by some springs over toward the Maltese Cross. The river made a bend toward the south, away below the Parke Ranch. So they cut across the bench.
Five miles out from home, Charlie, glancing back over his shoulder, spotted a couple of riders on a rise less than a mile behind them.
“Funny we didn’t see them,” he remarked. “Musta been in some low ground somewhere.”