“You are one of the Arizona Rangers?”
“I am.”
“Slip your saddle on that blue horse. You know what you have to do?”
“Yes, sir.”
Scarboro departed, and half the court room went with him. Five minutes later he rode the Twilight horse, prancing daintily, under the courthouse windows. The windows were lined with faces. Johnny, the judge and Wade had a window to themselves, within the sacred railing. But Spinal Maginnis did not look from any window. Spinal was looking elsewhere—at Caney, Weir and Hales.
The ranger wore a loose and sagging belt; his gun swung low on his thigh, just at the reach of his extended arm. As he came abreast of the destined box Scarboro’s arm flashed down and up. So did Twilight.
A pistol shot, a long blue streak, and a squeal of anguish ascended together, hopelessly mingled and indiscriminate, spurning the spinning earth. It launched toward outer space in a complex of motion upward, sidewise, forward and inside out, shaming the orbit of the moon, nodes, perturbations, apsides, syzygies and other symptoms too luminous to mention; but perhaps apogee and acceleration were the most prominent. A clatter, a pitch, an agonized bawl, a sailing hat, a dust cloud, a desperate face above it, with streaming hair; the marvel fell away down the hill and left a stunned silence behind. And presently a gun came down.
“Do you want to cross-examine the witness?” inquired Johnny.
Wade threw up his hands.
“Well!” he said. “Well!” His jaw dropped. He drew Johnny aside and whispered, “See here, damn you—did you kill that man?”