STAN PARKER was not beloved. He had made his way through the world as a man makes his way through a wall — by constant hammering. Now the men in the saloon gathered around the loosely lying body and made comments, regardless of how young Tom Derry stood at the bar with his chin dropped on one fist.
Tom Derry stared into the mirror and saw his own face and told himself that that face was no good.
Vaguely he heard the men talking behind him.
“I guess he’s ticked off.”
“Yeah, when they got their eyes just a little open like that and their mouth open, too — just like they was goin’ to wake up and start takin’ — that’s when you tell they’re done in.”
“It’s their eyes. When their eyes look like dead fish, then you tell.”
“A doctor had oughta come and pronounce him dead,” said the bartender, putting his hands on his knees and leaning over the man.
“He don’t need no doctor pronouncin’ nothin’,” said another. “He’s dead as anything. The kid split his wishbone for him.”
“I ought to run,” said Tom Derry to himself. “But to hell with running. I’m tried of running. Better for white men to hang me than lascars or greasers, or something.”
After a few moments, the sheriff came in. He was a man with a fat stomach, and a golden watch-fob hanging out of his vest pocket. He wore no coat. His sleeves were held up by elastic garters, red and blue, worn around the fat of his arm. He pulled up a chair and sat down by the corpse. He made a cigarette and dribbled the tobacco over the body and even on the face of Stan.
“Sure he’s dead,” said the sheriff, lifting a leg and scratching a match on the tight under-surface of his pants. “He’s dead as last Wednesday’s fish. The big, red-faced bum! I’m glad he’s gone. Who done it? The kid there? Self-defense, wasn’t it, kid?”
Tom Derry said nothing. He kept looking at himself in the mirror. He kept hating himself.
“The kid’s sick at the stomach,” said the sheriff. “A lot of gents get that way when they see blood all over the floor. Give him a shot of whisky, Cleve.”
“He won’t take none,” said Cleve. “It was self-defense, all right. The kid didn’t want — ”
“Aw, sure, sure,” said the sheriff. “Sure it was self-defense. It would be self-defense, in this town, if somebody had plugged Stan right through the back. The big, red-headed bum! What a lot quieter things are goin’ to be now! Kid, you goin’ to bury the victim? No, you let it go. The whole town’ll contribute. We’ll dig the grave deep, too. What a yaller pack we been to let Stan stick around so long, anyway!”
Tom Derry listened to these calm remarks with very little satisfaction. Now that he was tired of running away from the results of his battles, it seemed that men no longer wish to hunt him. He could not understand this. He was baffled, and almost unhappy. His mind was not functioning very clearly, for the moment.
When he turned around, the sheriff had put a bandanna over the face of Stan Parker, and had taken everything out of his pockets and piled it on a table. There was not a great deal. There was something over two hundred dollars in cash, and a pocket-knife, tobacco, papers, matches, some string, a little coil of bailing wire, some odds and ends, a note-book, and three very soiled envelopes.
A little rag of paper blew off the table and dropped to the floor, and Tom Derry picked it up.
“What’s that you got, kid?” asked the sheriff.
“Aw, just a scrap,” said Derry, staring down at it.
“There’s enough money here to bury Stan,” said the sheriff cheerfully, “and to buy drinks all around, too. Set up the drinks, Cleve. Stan can rest just as well inside a pine coffin as he could in solid silver. And we’ll spend all the change in a few rounds of drinks. Come on, boys. Step up! Step up! Here’s to the kid. Long may he wave! A game youngster, he is, and he scavenged this here town for us. Here’s to the kid, and bottoms up. Hey, where is the kid, anyway?”
The “kid” was already out, through a side door, and had taken his mustang and ridden down the first alley off the main street. He put the bronco into a canter and kept at that pace until he was well outside of the town, and there he drew rein and pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket.
There were not many words. It was just the lower part of a sheet of ordinary correspondence paper, and across it was written:
— your share in the business. It’s a big thing, and we ought to do it. Meet me in Thompson’s Creek, by the split rock, as fast as you can come. This is going to be the turning point in your life, Stan. If you will only —
Young Tom Derry read the words through again, the paper flapping up and down as the horse jogged along. He had a very strange feeling that that paper had blown to his feet for a mysterious reason. He had a feeling, too, that in the one case where people had not driven him, after he had done a killing, he would now be hounded by the soul of the dead man himself. He thought of the red face and the cruel eyes of Stan Parker and shuddered. But, after all, he knew that all through his being there was a response, as if to a command. Into Stan Parker’s shoes he intended to step and keep the rendezvous for the dead man.