“You’ve lived by the gun,” the weapon seemed to say. “I’ve seen you through every big crisis of your life. I do my work well when properly handled. I stop babbling tongues; smother secrets; give the old the strength of the young. I am your friend, Aaron Gallup. Men whom you have trusted have failed you or else they have been clumsy, stupid—in me alone can you place dependence.”
Yes, it was plain, Johnny Dice had to die. Tobias and Madeiras were dangerous—they could be attended to later, but Johnny Dice’s end was imperative. He had to go. But how? It had to be soon—before the boy talked with the other two. That meant tonight! Johnny Dice would have to die tonight!
Gallup began to shake off his lethargy. Between now and sundown he had to be ready.
He went downstairs and puttered over his stove preparing food. Color flowed back into his face as his brain began to function again. He mumbled to himself as he settled on what he would do. Gallup’s vanity took much pleasure from the proposed plan. It was simple, but ripe with the native ingenuity which had brought Aaron across many a rough spot.
In brief, it was this: no one but Tobias Gale and Jackson Kent knew that he had seen through Johnny’s game. The boy had first appeared to Kent and then to him. That argued that Johnny would be hiding out—anxious to keep alive the story of his death.
Last night the boy’s ghostly visit had been more than a success. Now, if he, Gallup, spread the story of what he had seen—the grinning face, the fiendish cry—wouldn’t word of his talking reach Johnny? The man must have some confederate who would carry the tale.
But supposing that failed, if men heard the coroner talking of having seen a ghost, and this very night that ghost should return and be killed, and proved no ghost at all—well, wouldn’t that be alibi enough? Yet the law couldn’t touch Gallup for that.
So, then, it got down to whether Johnny would return. Aaron was satisfied to believe that he would, so between then and sunset he spread his story up and down the main street of Standing Rock.
Charlie Paul, loafing in front of the Palace Hotel, heard it and carried it to Johnny.
“He look sick, Gallup,” the Indian went on. “He pretty damn well scared, him.”