“‘I’D LIKE TO HAVE IT OVER’”
They looked at him seriously, as one looks at a friend whom an illness has seized. The storm of feeling had spent itself, the mood of the Gap was relaxed and torpid, and the serenity of coming dusk began to fill the mountain air.
“You boys think I’m touched in the head,” said Drylyn, and paused. “This knife done it,” said he. “This one I’m showing you.”
They looked at the knife in his hand.
“He come between me and her,” Drylyn pursued. “I was aiming to give him his punishment myself. That would have been square.” He turned the knife over in his hand, and, glancing up from it, caught the look in their eyes. “You don’t believe me!” he exclaimed, savagely. “Well, I’m going to make you. Sheriff, I’ll bring you some evidence.”
He walked to the creek, and they stood idle and dull till he returned. Then they fell back from him and his evidence, leaving him standing beneath the dead man.
“Does them look like being touched in the head?” inquired Drylyn, and he threw down the overalls, which fell with a damp slap on the ground. “I don’t seem to mind telling you,” he said. “I feel as quiet—as quiet as them tall pines the sun’s just quittin’ for the night.” He looked at the men expectantly, but none of them stirred. “I’d like to have it over,” said he.