‘Oh!’ said Rex dumbly. ‘But I—I never have shot a man.’
‘I ain’t never been held up, either. You be here about one o’clock, young feller. What didja say yore name is?’
‘My name is Morgan—Rex Morgan.’
‘Yea-a-a-ah? Watcha know about that? Mine’s Smith. Yuh spell it S-m-i-t-h. Pronounced jist like she’s spelled. Folks calls me Bunty. You be here at one o’clock, Morgan.’
Bunty spat violently and headed for the back room of the office, while Rex went back to the street. Bunty Smith rather amazed him. The idea of any one not being able to spell Smith—or to pronounce it. Still, Rex rather liked Bunty Smith.
He spent the rest of the morning on the main street. The chap-clad gentry of Cañonville paid no attention to him. It was just at noon when Lem Sheeley and Noah Evans came to Cañonville with the body of Ben Leach, and Rex was in the crowd which gathered around the front of the sheriff’s office, curious to know who the dead man was and how he had met his death.
‘Got in a fight and got killed,’ said the laconic Noah, as they waited for the coroner.
Lem was a little more explicit, and Rex learned that the man had been shot, either during or after a fight, and that he had been a resident of Mesa City. He listened to what the sheriff had to say about it, and went to the stage office to tell Bunty Smith.
‘I knowed him well,’ said Bunty. ‘Plenty much of a damn fool, too. Think a nester killed him, eh? Must ’a’ been one of the Lane fambly. Well, I’ll be darned! Ben Leach. Still, I reckon the day must come when somebody pokes a pin through our balloon. Sooner or later, we’ll all git it.’
‘What is a nester?’ asked Rex.