“One thing I’d like to have you explain, Mr. Shores,” said Hulsey. “You plugged me in the shoulder, then yelled ‘halt!’ Why didn’t you command me to stop before firing?”
“Well, it was this way, Hulsey,” Asa replied, unsmiling and looking the convict squarely in the eye. “I aimed at the spot where I calculated your heart ought to be, but the light was poor and I had to shoot quick. I naturally supposed you were dead when I commanded you to halt, and, believing you dead, I could see no reason for being in a hurry with the command. Sorry I bungled the job that way, but my intentions were good.”
“But,” the scowling “lifer” persisted, “you haven’t told me yet why you shot before commanding me to halt.”
“Oh, that?” Asa drawled with a deprecatory shrug of his massive shoulders. “That is merely a matter of form with me. I very often, after shooting a convict, yell ‘halt’ some time the next day—or week. Besides, if you had a nice chance to bump me off, you wouldn’t say, ‘Beware, Mr. Shores, I’m about to kill you.’”
For a half minute convict and keeper gazed into each others eyes.
“I get yuh,” Hulsey finally said. “And I guess you’re right. I have an idear though that my turn comes next, Mr. Shores; and there’ll be no preliminary command or argument.”
“Fair enough, Hulsey,” Asa replied as he turned away.
AT LAST the big new cell house was completed.
Asa wondered whether he would be left on Old Tower Number Three. It had been decided, he knew, that the old tower would be left on the wall but perhaps not used.