The stairs creaked noisily as another cowboy came down into the hall, carrying his boots. He was a stolid-faced, pudgy-looking person. His socks were not mates, and one of them was minus the whole toe. He peered into the sitting-room, nodded at the squatting cowboy.
Against the wall, beyond Big Medicine, was a cheap phonograph. The bootless cowboy deposited his boots in the hall, crossed the room over the protesting boards, and squatted down to put on a record.
Big Medicine did not look up. He knew that “Musical” Matthews had come down the stairs, and was going to play something on the phonograph before breakfast. He had been doing the same thing before breakfast for five years.
From the kitchen came breakfast odors, the rattle of dishes, the unmistakable rattle of stove lids. From somewhere outside the house came the sound of a man’s voice raised in song:
I’ll saddle my pony and feed him some ha-a-a-ay;
And I’ll buy me a bottle to drink on the wa-a-ay.
Big Medicine lifted his head slightly, as the phonograph scratched and spluttered the opening of “The Holy City.” He had heard it every morning for five years—or one just like it. It was Musical Matthews’ favorite.
In fact it was the only one Musical Matthews played. He sat entranced until the last notes of the singer faded out in a splutter, like someone frying eggs in a hot pan. Then he got up, crossed the creaking floor to his boots, which he drew on slowly, and went out to the wash bench, where the other singer was washing his face and hands.
Big Medicine lifted his head and looked at the cowboy squatting at the door.
“The stage was held up, was it? And a man shot?”
“That’s what I heard,” replied the cowboy. “The sheriff came back to the poker game and told us. He didn’t know how much they got, nor he didn’t know how bad hurt this man was.”