A Time For Hanging (27 page)

Randall looked at her, but his eyes were not seeing her.
 
In reality he was looking into himself, as deeply into himself as he could see.

What he saw there, only he could say.
 
Whether it was good or evil, whether it was or Randall or of Reynolds, he gave no sign.
 
Perhaps it was neither, or both.

Or perhaps he saw nothing at all.

"What's the matter with you?" Martha said.
 
"Can't you say anything?
 
Isn't there anything in your head except those Bible verses?"

He kept on staring, seeing or not seeing.

"Quote the Bible, then.
 
Go ahead.
 
It won't change anything.
 
It won't make you anything but what you are."

His mind clicked in again.
 
"What I am," he said.

"That's right," she said.
 
"I know what you are.
 
God knows, too."

"God knows what I am," he said tonelessly.

He thought of his daughter, dead.

He thought of the man he had killed today, of the men he had killed years ago, of the lie that his life had been.
 
Kid Reynolds was not his past.
 
Kid Reynolds had never died.
 
Kid Reynolds had killed Randall's daughter, as surely as he had killed her lover.

Kid Reynolds had killed Martha, too.
 
Surely this woman, this grossly fat woman who stared and yelled at him was not Martha.

Randall pulled the pistol once again.
 
He looked at if as if it were a snake that might strike him.

"What are you doing?" Martha said.
 
"Put that back!"

He looked at her stonily. "'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.'"

She looked fearfully at the gun.
 
"What?
 
What is that supposed to mean?
 
Are you the one who cut my daugher?"

"No, he said, I never touched her.
 
I would never have hurt her willingly.
 
She was my daugher, too."
 
He looked at Martha for a second longer.
 
Then he said, "'And if thy right hand offend thy, cut it off and cast it from thee.'"

Martha started crying again.
 
"I don't understand," she said.
 
"I don't understand."

Randall sighed, as if he were very tired.
 
"Neither do I," he said wearily.
 
"Neither do I."

He cocked the pistol, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger.

#

Vincent and Simkins got up and stood looking at Turley Ross for a minute.

"He wasn't a bad fella," Simkins said.
 
"I guess he just went a little crazy."

"I guess we all did, but that don't make him any less dead," Harper said.
 
"What about Len?"

"You can see about him," Vincent said.
 
He turned to look in the shed to check on Mrs. Morales and Paco.

Mrs. Morales was conscious and trying to sit up.
 
Vincent helped her.
 
Ross' bullet had passed through her shoulder, and Vincent thought she would be all right after they got the bleeding stopped.

Paco did not look quite so good.
 
He had been shot in the arm, the one that had not been broken in the beating.
 
It looked to Vincent as if it might be broken now.

"We've got to get him to a doctor," Vincent told Jack.
 
"His mother, too."

"Rankin oughta be here pretty soon," Jack said.
 
"That is, if Benteen told him to come for Charley like he said he was."

"That's right," Vincent said.
 
"We can use his wagon."

"He's gonna have quite a load," Jack said.
 
"He'll have more bodies than he thought for."

"They can wait."

"Mighty hot," Jack said.

"They won't mind," Vincent told him.

"What about Len?" Harper called out.
 
"He's hurt mighty bad.
 
Looks like this arm might have to come off."

They heard Hawkins groan aloud at that remark.

"There'll be room in Rankin's wagon for him, too," Vincent said.
 
"Unless you want to throw him across a saddle and let him get to town that way."

"He'd never make it," Harper said.
 
"He's still bleedin' pretty bad."

"Then he'll just have to wait for the wagon," Vincent said.
 
"See if you can do anything to help him, Jack."

While Jack was trying to get Len's bleeding stopped, Harper walked over to join Vincent.
 
"I'm sorry about all this," he said.
 
"We never meant for anybody to get killed."

"You meant for Paco to get killed," Vincent reminded him.

"Yeah," Harper admitted.
 
"I guess we did.
 
I guess we were wrong about that."
 
He thought for a minute.
 
"Who killed that gambler?" he asked.

"Paco," Vincent said.
 
"But if you're thinking that makes him guilty of killin' the girl, you're wrong."

In fact, Vincent was now convinced that Paco was innocent of Liz Randall's murder.
 
Somewhere in among all the shooting and the scrambling, the things he'd been thinking about had come together in his mind.
 
He was pretty sure he knew now who had killed the girl.

"I wasn't thinkin' he killed the girl," Harper said.

"It is a good thing you were not," Consuela Morales said, speaking for the first time.
 
Her face was shiny with sweat.
 
Though she must have been in pain, her voice was strong.

"What were you thinkin', then?" Vincent said.

"I don't know if I oughta say it."

"Say it."

"I guess I was just thinkin' that it was one of those things that was meant to happen," Harper said.
 
"Sooner or later, I mean.
 
That gambler killed the kid's daddy, you know."

"I was kinda surprised to see him show up here," Vincent admitted.

"He just rode into town today," Harper said.
 
He hesitated, but it was plain he had more to say.
 
He pulled off his hat and rubbed a hand across his slicked-down hair.

"Go on," Vincent said.
 
"If you've got somethin' to say, spit it out."

Harper put the hat back on.
 
"Hell, it probably don't matter.
 
Turley's dead and Harl's turned tail.
 
Len sure as hell won't care."

"Say it, then."

"The kid's daddy.
 
He didn't pull any knife on that gambler.
 
The gambler carried that knife in his boot and he put it in Morales' hand after he shot him.
 
Morales called him a cheater, and the gambler shot him.
 
We backed him up because he was a white man.
 
That's the long and the sort of it."

"Damn," Vincent said.

"Yeah," Harper agreed.
 
"I don't think you oughta do anything to the kid for killin' that bastard.
 
The kid was just doin' what was right."

"It wasn't right," Vincent said.

"It was justice," Mrs. Morales said.
 
Her eyes were aglow with either pain or pride.
 
"I knew that my husband was murdered and that my son was not a killer; he would not have shot that man if he had been left alone."

"You're probably right," Vincent said.
 
"A clear-cut case of self-defense if I ever saw one.
 
I doubt it'll ever come to trail."

"And what of the girl?" she asked.

"That either," Vincent said.
 
He looked over at Jack.
 
"How's the bleeding?"

"Just about got it stopped," the deputy said.
 
"He'll live to get it cut off."

Hawkins groaned again.

After a few more minutes, they saw the undertaker's wagon coming.

#

When they got back to town, Vincent waited while Doc Bigby, still relentlessly cheerful, saw to Consuela Morales and Paco first, over Hawkins' vehement objections.

"Goddamnit, I'm a white man, Vincent!"
 
he said.
 
"You can't mean to get those two greasers taken care of before the doc gets a look at me!"

"I'd watch how I was talkin' if I were you, Len," Vincent said.
 
"Anybody that throws down on the sheriff with a shotgun is likely to be in a whole lot of trouble.
 
And the more you talk, the more trouble you're lettin' yourself in for."

Doc Bigby smiled and showed all his teeth.
 
"You're in for plenty of trouble, all right, Len.
 
Soon's I get my saw sharp, you're gonna have a little cuttin' done on you.
 
There don't look to be enough of that arm left to feed a sick cat."

Hawkins stopped his complaining and moaned.
 
"Won't do you no good makin' noises like that, either," Bigby said.
 
"Might make me nervous, might cause my hand to slip.
 
You sure wouldn't want my hand to slip, would you, Len?"

Hawkins tried to stop moaning, but he merely succeeded in reducing the noise to a whimper.

"You go on and take care of the Moraleses," Vincent said.
 
"Len can wait.
 
Can't you, Len?"

Len whimpered in reply.

#

Later, when Paco and Mrs. Morales were taken care of, Martha Randall took them home with her to rest and recuperate.
  
Paco wasn't in any condition to be moved far.

"He's young, though," Doc Bigby said.
 
"Tough.
 
Hell, Sheriff, we were tough once.
 
You remember.
 
He'll be all right."

 
Vincent explained to Martha Randall that Paco had nothing to do with Liz Randall's death, and Martha wanted to do something to help the boy and his mother.

"It'll help me get over what's happened," she explained.
 
She had come to Bigby's after being unable to find Rankin at his place of business, where she had gone immediately after watching her husband shoot himself.

She told Vincent about her husband's death.
 
"I don't know why he did it," she said.
 
"Just put that gun on his head and shot himself right there in the room.
 
Maybe he was upset at the way Liz died.
 
I don't know."

She did not mention what had been said at their last meeting, except to say, "I don't think he killed her, do you?
 
Not his own daughter."

"No," Vincent said, "I don't think he killed her."

"I really think he loved her."

"I'm sure he did," Vincent said.

"Why would he do a thing like killin' himself, though?
 
I just can't understand why he'd do a thing like that, unless he was crazy.
 
You think he was crazy, Sheriff?"

Vincent thought about what had happened at the Morales place.
 
"Maybe he was," he said.
 
"Maybe he was."

When the stagecoach came, Lucille Benteen was ready to leave.
 
Nothing her father said could change her mind.

"Things would always be the same here," she said.
 
"You'll make Frank your foreman, and pretty soon you'll start thinking that he'd make just as good a husband as Charley.
 
And maybe he would.
 
But I wouldn't want either one of them for a husband.
 
I know that now."