“I reckon that don’t rest with me.”
Matson cut straight to business. “That’s just who it rests with. Sam, it’s a show-down. Will you come through with the evidence I want, or won’t you?”
“I won’t-you. We done talked that all out, Aleck. I wisht you-all wouldn’t bother me if it’s not unconvenient for you to let me alone.”
He offered the officer a chew of tobacco to show that he was not peevish about the matter.
The sheriff waved the plug aside impatiently.
“One of the boys can’t stand the gaff. He’s breaking, Sam. But you’ve got a wife and a kid. He hasn’t. I want you to have first chance. Come clean and I’ll look out for you. After the trial I’ll see you get out of the country quietly. You can take your folks back to Texas.”
Sam looked out of the window. The little boat and the jackknife hung limp in his hands. In a cracked, falsetto voice he took up a song of the range that he had hummed a hundred times in the saddle:
“I woke one mo’ning on the old Chisum Trail,
Rope in my hand and a cow by the tail.”
He thought of the rough and turbulent life that had come at last to the peaceful shoals of happy matrimony. A vision rose before him of his smiling young wife and crowing baby. They needed him. Must he give them up for a point of honour? If someone was to go clear, why not he?