A Time For Hanging (15 page)

He didn't know anything, of course, but Davis drew him aside and filled him in quickly, once again leaving out any hint of that he might be involved with Liz Randall's death.

Benteen was not a stupid man, however.
 
"Goddamn, Charley.
 
Did you have anything to do with this?"

"Hell, no," Charley said.
 
"You know I wouldn't be mixed up in something like that.
 
Ever'body says the Morales kid did it."
 
He was beginning to see that if he could shift the blame entirely to the Morales boy, he would be in the clear.

"Any evidence to that effect?"
 
Benteen liked to think of himself as a law-abiding man.

"Those fellas saw him do it," Charley said, pointing over to Turley Ross and the others.

"The preacher saw his own daughter killed?"
 
Benteen found that hard to believe.

"No, sir, he wasn't with 'em, but those others, they saw it.
 
You ask 'em."

"I will," Benteen said, and he did.

Ross eagerly confirmed everything, and Benteen went back to Davis.
 
"We've got to do something about this.
 
Lucille's just on the verge of doing something crazy, and this might just push her over the edge, since you were involved with the girl.
 
Ross tells me that the boy's escaped from the jail, besides."

"That's right," Davis said.
 
"The way I saw it, his mama came and let him out while the sheriff was busy calmin' Lucille down."

"That's where he'll be, then," Benteen said.
 
"At home with his mama.
 
From what Ross says me, he was in pretty bad shape."

"I guess so," Davis said.
 
He had an idea what was coming.

So did Willie.
 
You could feel it in the room, like it was something in the air.
 
Benteen's men had all had just about enough to drink to make them a little wild, and some of the others had been drinking too, earlier.
 
It didn't matter that what they were about to decide to do was wrong.
 
That wouldn't even enter into it, since they would convince themselves that they were right.

And Willie knew he wasn't going to try to stop them, though he should.
 
There were powerful reasons why he should, but he just couldn't get them clear in his mind.

There were some in the room who had not been drinking and whose minds were not clouded that way, but they were mixed up in other ways, by their own reasoning, in fact.

Hank Moran.
 
He wanted to get the kid out of the way so he could get down to the business of relieving the town's citizens of their spare money.
 
And if the kid were guilty, it would practically prove that Moran had been innocent in killing the father years before, or so it seemed to the gambler.

Charley Davis didn't want word to get out about Liz's condition.
 
If it did, his marriage to Lucille Benteen was over before it ever took place.
 
Lucille, of course, would be devastated, and her father would probably kill him.
 
But if the kid were dead, he would become the guilty party out of necessity.
 
Even the sheriff would have to go along, and maybe no one would ever find out that Liz had been pregnant when she died.

Benteen's case was different.
 
He just wanted to catch the guilty party and show his daughter that Charley Davis had long ago broken any connection with a girl who met with greasers in the evening.

And if you had asked Randall why he was there or what he was going to do, he probably couldn't have told you.
 
His hand kept going to the butt of the pistol at his hip, caressing the smooth wood as if it were a woman's skin.
 
He sat at the table and listened to the men talking, but he did not take part.
 
His eyes were on them, but he wasn't seeing them.
 
He seemed almost to be looking right through them, as if seeing something that no one else in the room was privileged to see.

He did speak occasionally, but not in response to anything anyone else said.
 
He wasn't talking to them.
 
They didn't know who he was talking to, and they were afraid to ask.

He said things like, "'For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?'"
 
It was clearly a question, but no one tried to answer it.
 
For the most part, they simply looked away from him, as if he had done something slightly embarrassing.

The talk in the big room grew in volume, rising like the growing rumble of thunder that signals a summer storm.
 
Booted feet shuffled on the plank floor.
 
Spurs jingled.
 
Bottles clinked against glasses.

Finally Turley Ross' voice cut through the noise.
 
"Let's go get him.
 
That's what we've gotta do."

It might not have been what they had to do, but it was what they wanted to do, what they had been urging themselves to do all morning, whether they realized it or not.

Willie had known it long before they had said it aloud, but he still groaned when he heard it.

"That's a good idea," Benteen said.
 
"We'll bring him in."

Benteen's voice settled it for all of them.
 
If Benteen was in it, they were all in it, and they all understood him to imply more than his words actually said.

What they understood was that they were going after Paco Morales.
 
Whether they actually brought him in or not was another thing.

They might really do it.
 
But if he tried to resist, well, they would just have to see what might happen in a case like that.
 
If he tried to resist, the kid just might find himself getting killed.

No one said it aloud, but it was in the air of the room like the stink of death, and Willie Turner could hardly breathe.

After he left Bigby's office, Vincent decided he'd better go looking for Paco.
 
He was worried about that bunch that had left the jail, but he thought they were likkered up and probably wouldn't do anything foolish.
 
They might try to work themselves up to it, but in the end they were decent men who would do the right thing.

He didn't take into account the possibility that they might meet up with another group of like-minded men.
 
Had he done so, he would have gone by the saloon to check on them.
 
He knew that while one or two men might think about doing something foolish, they would rarely act on the thought, whereas a bunch of men got braver in proportion to their numbers.

He also didn't realize that Roger Benteen was in town and would be one of the group.
 
Benteen was the kind of man who could easily sway men to one side or the other on an issue.

So, not having any idea of what was going on in the saloon, Vincent went down to the stable and saddled up for his ride out to the Morales place without worrying too much about what might happen.
 
What was worrying him was whether Paco was guilty or not.

There was that business about Charley, for one thing.
 
If there was anybody that had a reason to kill Liz Randall, it was him.
 
Marryin' Benteen's daughter was the best thing that Charley could ever have hoped for from life, and considerin' how Lucille was takin' the news that Charley had just been seein' the girl, she wouldn't like it worth a damn if she found out the girl was pregnant.

Vincent tightened the girth.
 
By God, he thought.
 
What if she did know?
 
If she was shootin' at Charley, intendin' to miss, what might she have done to the woman?

He swung up into the saddle, wondering if he should go by the hotel and ask her, but he thought better of it.
 
If she did know, he'd find out sooner or later.
 
If she didn't, he damn sure wasn't goin' to be the one who told her.

He'd better ride by the jail, though, and let Jack know where he was goin'.
 
That Jack was a case, now, standin' up to those men they way he had.
 
As far as Vincent knew, that was the first time Jack had ever done anything like that.
 
He was shy about his face, about his eye and all, and it made him hesitate to use his authority.

And that gave Vincent another thought.
 
Jesus God, could it be possible?
 
Hell, in this mess, anything could be possible.
 
He'd better get to the jail and talk to Jack about it, though he didn't see how he could bring the subject up.

#

It turned out to be easier than he thought it would.
 
It took him a while to work up to the subject, but he got it done.

"Jack," he said, "I been thinkin' about when that girl was killed."

The two men were in the jail again, Vincent seated at the desk.
 
He had tied his horse outside and gone in, making the excuse that he wanted to check something with Jack about the murder, which was true enough anyway.

"Sure," Jack said.
 
"What about it, Sheriff?"

"Well, I know you told me somethin' about the girl last night, somethin' about how you saw her over at that grove not long before the killin'.
 
Now, Jack, those trees, they just don't happen to be in your usual territory."

Jack frowned, clearly puzzled by the turn of the conversation.
 
He didn't seem to get the point.

"What I mean is, you check around town and sometimes you check out a few of the houses, but you don't get out that way much.
 
It's not very close to the area you're supposed to be patrollin'.
 
So I was wonderin' . . . . "

Jack got it then.
 
He got up out of the chair where he'd been sitting and walked over to the cellblock door without saying anything.

"You see where I'm goin' with this, Jack?" Vincent asked.

"Yeah, I see," Jack said reluctantly.

"And you see why I've gotta ask you?"

Jack nodded.
 
He could see that, too, but it didn't make things any easier for him.

He wasn't making things any easier for Vincent by keeping his mouth shut, either.
 
The sheriff gave him a few seconds to respond, but Jack still had nothing to say.

"Well, Jack," Vincent said.
 
"Looks like I'm gonna have to ask you straight out -- did you ever meet that Randall girl yourself?"

At first he thought his deputy was not going to answer, but finally Jack said, "Yeah.
 
Yeah I met her a time or two."

Vincent was surprised.
 
He had thought it might be possible, but he really didn't believe it.
 
After all, Jack, with his face and all, didn't seem like the kind of man a romantically inclined young woman would be interested in, no matter how much her father tried to keep her penned up in the house.

Besides, Vincent prided himself on the way he kept up with things in town, and he was finding out that there was a lot going on that he didn't know a thing about.
 
He knew Liz Randall was roaming around, but he sure didn't know who she was meeting.
 
His own deputy, too.
 
It was hard to believe.

Jack didn't seem to have anything else to offer, so Vincent said, "I'm waitin', Jack."

Jack walked back to the chair and sat down.
 
"It wasn't nothin' like you're thinkin'.
 
I just met her to talk to a couple of times, that's all."

"You weren't the only one, by a long shot."

"That's the truth," Jack said.
 
"There was me, and I guess there was Charley.
 
She never mentioned him, though."

"Anybody else?"

"Willie Turner.
 
She'd talk to him now and then."

Willie Turner? Vincent thought.
 
This was getting stranger by the minute.
 
Was there anybody in town the girl hadn't seen while she was out walkin' after dark?