"I'm in charge here!"
"But you're getting nowhere. Al, will you talk to me?"
"I'll tell you what I can, Lorin'."
"If you had anything to do with this, tell your story now. I don't hold with shooting, but certainly I never held with Smoky Delbert. I, for one, am willing to believe that, no matter how it happened or who he met, Smoky raised his rifle first. I've known him a long while."
"But you never jailed him."
"Only because," the warden said, "I could never catch him. He was crafty as he was mean. But he's still a human being."
"Could be some argument 'bout that," Al murmured. "Lorin', where was Smoky shot?"
"Coon Valley," the warden answered reluctantly. "Almost beside those three big sycamores near Glory Rock."
"Is he dead?"
"No, but he probably would be if he hadn't dragged himself to the Fordham Road. Bill Layton, passing in his logging truck, found him and took him into the hospital at Lorton."