“We—we didn’t hear nothin’.”
Ben Dillon was just coming from the Oasis as they went past, and he joined them. He had heard the two shots, but did not know just where they had been fired.
They found Charley Prentice sprawled on the little front porch, one arm dangling over the edge, lying on top of his own revolver. They secured a lamp from Minnie, placed it on a chair, so that the body was illuminated, and Breezy went after the doctor, who was county coroner. The sheriff questioned Minnie, and her story, told in monosyllables, was practically the same as Larry had told.
The coroner came and they examined the body. He had been hit twice, and either bullet would have killed him. No one offered any suggestions as to who might have killed Prentice, except Breezy’s remark: “I guess he was plumb scared to death that Len⸺” And then Breezy ended his remark with, “I didn’t think how that sounded.”
Hashknife was watching little Larry’s face in the lamplight, and he saw the little fellow look sharply at the squaw, who merely looked back at him with a blank stare. The boy sighed deeply and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
They placed the body on a blanket and carried it down to the doctor’s office. Hashknife looked back towards the house, where the squaw stood in the doorway, holding the lamp shoulder-high, her other arm around the shoulders of little Larry.
CHAPTER XIV: AFTERMATH
Lobo Wells was just a little shocked over the killing of Charley Prentice. They did not call it murder, although it was obvious that Prentice had been murdered. Tongues did not wag in Lobo Wells, but every one felt that there was just one man in the country who might kill Charley Prentice.
The following morning Ben Dillon and Breezy Hill rode out to the Box S. Len was saddling a horse for Nan, and finished the job before coming up to the house to meet them. Nan was talking to them, but they had not told her about Prentice.
Len nodded and smiled as he tied her horse to the porch.