“I dunno that either, Tex.”
“All right,” Tex smiled crookedly and shrugged his shoulders. He looked at Marion, but did not speak, and turned away.
“What’ll yuh do to that kid, Al?” asked one of the men.
“Do to him?” Porter took it under advisement. “I dunno. He might ’a’ been right. I was so —— mad that I dunno just how things was.”
“You reached back for a gun,” reminded Eskimo, and the other three AK cowboys nodded in confirmation.
“Yuh did, Al,” said Johnny.
“All right,” nodded Porter. “Mebbe I did.”
“And the kid thought yuh was goin’ to draw on him,” offered Oyster Shell.
“Well, what the —— is all the argument about?” snarled the deputy. “I’ll admit he was right. But,” Porter mustered a smile, “I hope that —— dog bites him when he gits off that horse.”
All of which ended all arguments as far as the guilt or innocence of Jimmy Legg was concerned—although Jimmy Legg, running his horse back toward the Double Bar 8, considered himself a deep-dyed killer.