“So you said. Tell me about that killing. The straight of it.”
The man had quite recovered from the effects of his blow, except that an ugly lump was raising itself above his ear, which from time to time he patted softly.
“That feud between John Gater and me,” he said, “dated back a long time. He was the boss of Huevaca County in those days, of course, and I was a sort of leader of the faction that was trying to pull him off his throne and get halfway decent government. Sheriff Aristo Coyne was his man, and all Coyne’s deputies. And he was in with the Sarran gang.”
“A fine bunch of desperadoes and horse thieves,” Carmichael murmured.
“And Dick Sarran, the head of them, was a dirty killer, but nobody could do anything to him because Gater stood behind him. And Gater was above all the law there was in Huevaca County.”
“He was a powerful boss.”
“And I fought him, like a young fool. I was about twenty-five. I’m only forty-nine now. This white hair——
“Larry Beeson was governor and Gater was his man—and that meant that he had the State backing for anything he chose to do, murder included, provided he delivered the votes of the county. The first killing was on an election day, when ‘Buck’ Hamilton, one of Sarran’s gang, tried to vote a bunch of Mexicans solid that he’d brought across the river only that morning. He and I had words and he went after his gun. I was some fast in those days and I killed him. They couldn’t do a thing to me. It was self-defense and there were a lot of witnesses. But they had it in for me from that minute. I was a fool not to leave the county. But I was too stuffy.”
“It took more than stuffiness to stay in Huevaca County after John Gater and Dick Sarran wanted a man out of it,” the Ranger said sympathetically.
“So they laid for me, and inside of a year I had to kill two more of them.” Even the thought of it brought a harassed, haunted look into the man’s eyes. “I slept, those days, with a gun, not under my pillow, but actually in bed with me, under my hand. Sometimes, looking back on it, it seems as though I didn’t really sleep during that whole year. It was along in the early part of that time that the baby was born, and my wife died when it was four days old. And it seemed to me I didn’t much care whether they killed me or not. My wife’s sister here in San Antonio took the baby.