“You killed Tory!” Burr shouted.
Before I could open my mouth to speak, Judith said, “How could he? He’s been standing here talking to me!”
That stopped them, and for the moment nobody thought to ask how long I’d been there. After that moment they never got the chance, because the marshal pushed by them.
“What happened down there?” he asked me.
“Sounded like some shooting. These boys say Tory Fetchen got killed.”
Just then Bat Masterson came up the steps. “Everything all right, Wyatt?” Then he saw me standing there at Judith’s door. “Oh, hello, Sackett.”
Earp turned on him. “Do you know this man, Bat?”
“Yes, I do. He brought Evan Hawkes’s cattle in, and helped round up some strays. He’s a friend of mine.”
Earp glanced down at my boots. “Mind if I look at your boots? The man who did that shooting had to come along behind the buildings. It’s muddy there.”
I lifted one boot after the other. Both were as slick as though they’d never stepped on anything but a board floor.
Colby Rafin was sore. He simply couldn’t believe it. “He’s lyin’!” he shouted. “It had to be him! Why, Tory was – ”
“Tory was what?” Masterson demanded. “Laying for him? Was that it?”
It was Burr who spoke up. “Nothin’ like that,” he protested, “Tory just went after his horse.”
“At this hour?” Earp asked. “You mean he was riding out of town this late, with a storm brewing?”
“Sure,” Burr replied easily. “He was riding out to join some of our outfit.”
“Gentlemen,” Earp said coldly, “before we ask any further questions or you give any more answers, let me tell you something. Your Friend Tory Fetchen wore new boots, boots with a very distinctive heel pattern. He left enough tracks down there at the stable for a man who was doing a lot of waiting, a man crouched down or standing beside one of the support posts. From those tracks, I’d say he was waiting for somebody and trying to keep out of sight. He was either nervous or he waited a long time. In any case, his gun was fired twice, and he was hit twice … looked to me like a third shot cut the top of his coat’s shoulder. We’ve no case against the man who shot him. Both men were armed, both were shooting. It’s nothing but a matter of clearing up the details.”
“Just a question, gentlemen,” Masterson said. “You came up here, apparently headed for Sackett’s room. Did you have some idea of finishing the job Tory tried to do?”
“Aw, it was nothing like that!” Burr Fetchen waved a careless hand. “Only we had some trouble back in Tennessee, and – ”
“Then I suggest you go back to Tennessee and settle it,” Earp interrupted. “I won’t have shooting in Dodge.”
“I give you my word, Marshal,” I said, “I won’t shoot unless I’m shot at.”
“That’s fair enough, Sackett. All right, you boys go about your business. If there’s any more trouble I’ll lock you up.”
When they had gone, I said, “Judith, I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“You were standing here with me!” she insisted. “Why, I must have come out of my door just as those shots died away.”
She had been quick enough. The trouble is that a running man can cover a good distance, and folks just never calculate time as well as they think. In any event, she had stopped a nasty shooting in a crowded place where she or others might have been hurt, and for that much I was glad.
“They didn’t tell the truth,” she said then. “Tory wasn’t going out of town. He was going to have dinner with James and me.”
“Late for dinner, isn’t it?”
“James said he would be busy. He wanted to eat late. He said the restaurant would not be so crowded.”
‘I’d better go,” I said. I backed off a few steps. “If you change your mind, you can always come back and join us. We’ll take you on to your pa.”
She smiled a little. “Flagan, I shall not change my mind. I love James, and he loves me.”
“You keep telling yourself that. Maybe after a while you’ll come to believe it,” I said.
“Flagan Sackett, I – ”
Maybe it isn’t right for a gentleman to walk away whilst a lady is talking, but I did. This was an argument where I was going to have the last word, anyway … when they found no preacher in town.
There was a corner at the head of the stairs where a body couldn’t be seen from above or below, and I stopped there long enough to reload my gun.
Galloway was sitting in the lobby holding a newspaper. He looked up at me, a kind of quizzical look in his eyes. “Hear there was a shooting over to the livery,” he said.
“Sounded like it,” I agreed, and sat down beside him. In a low tone I added, “That Tory laid for me whilst I was putting hay down the chute. He come close to hangin’ up my scalp.”
“Yeah, and you better start pullin’ slivers out of your face. The light’s brighter down here than in that hallway upstairs.”
Something had been bothering my face for several minutes, but I’d been too keyed up and too busy talking to notice it much. Gingerly, I put my hand up and touched the end of a pine sliver off that post. Two or three of them I pulled out right there, getting them with my fingers, but there were some others.
We walked down the street to the Peacock, just to look around, and Bat was there. He came over to us, glanced at the side of my face and smiled a little. “I hope you had time to change your socks,” he said. “A man can catch cold with wet, muddy socks on.”
Me, I had to grin. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”
“I saw you go into the barn. I also saw Tory follow you. I saw the track of a sock foot just back of the barn. I kicked straw over it.”
“Thanks.”
“When I take to a man, I stand by him. I have reason to believe that you’re honest. I have reason to believe the Fetchens are not.”
But, no matter how good things looked right at that moment, I was worried. Black Fetchen was not one to take Tory’s shooting lying down, and no matter what anybody said, he would lay it to me or Galloway. I’d had no idea of killing anybody; only when a man comes laying for you, what can you do? The worst of it was, he’d outguessed me. All the time, he knew about that other door from the loft, and he figured rightly that I’d find it and use it. That he missed me at all was pure accident. I’d been mostly in the dark or he’d have hit me sure, and he’d been shooting to kill.
After a bit Galloway and me went back to the hotel and crawled into bed. But I slept with a Colt at my hand, and I know Galloway did, too.
Tomorrow two things would happen, both of them likely to bring grief and trouble. First would be Tory’s funeral, and second would be when they tried to find somebody to marry Judith and Black Fetchen.
Anybody could read a funeral sermon, but it took a Justice of the Peace or an ordained minister to marry somebody.
Chapter 5
There was a light rain falling when we went down to the restaurant for breakfast. It was early, and not many folks were about at that hour. The gray faces of the stores were darkened by the rain, and the dust was laid for a few hours at least. A rider in a rain-wet slicker went by on the street, heading for the livery stable. It was a quiet morning in Dodge.
We stopped at the dining-room door, studying the people inside before we entered, and we found a table in a corner where we could watch both doors. Galloway had the rawhide thong slipped back off his six-shooter and so did I, but we were hunting no trouble.
Folks drifted in, mostly men. They were cattlemen, cattle buyers, a scattering of ranch hands, and some of the business folks from the stores. A few of them we already knew by sight, a trick that took only a few hours in Dodge.
There were half a dozen pretty salty characters in that room, too, but Dodge was full of them. As far as that goes, nine-tenths of the adult males in Dodge had fought in the War Between the States or had fought Indians, and quite a few had taken a turn at buffalo hunting. It was no place to come hunting a ruckus unless you were hitched up to go all the way.