Chapter IV: The Hardluck Stranger

The inquest over the body of Jim McGowan was held the evening following his death. The courtroom was crowded. The testimony was very brief. Pink took the stand and told the same story he had told following the shooting. That is, he had shot at the flash of the other man’s gun. The sheriff and the coroner had gone out to the SP ranch that day with Pink and had located the bullet which had nearly struck him.

It was deeply imbedded in one of the old posts, shoulder high to a man, and as near as they could judge was of the same caliber as McGowan’s gun—a .45. This was put in evidence. The rest of the testimony consisted of the discovery of the body. There did not seem to be any reasons for McGowan’s attack on Pink. Not a Diamond R man had been impanelled in the jury, which brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide.

Scotty McGowan was mad. He stood up in court and told them he was not satisfied with the verdict.

“Jim was shot down,” he declared. “Self-defense, hell!”

It required several men to silence Scotty, who took his crowd and went outside. Steve Pelliser watched Scotty go out, and the tall, gaunt rancher looked worried. Pink was mad. He wanted to go out and poke Scotty in the nose.

“And start another killin’, eh?” said the sheriff. “One’s enough.”

“It’ll probably come to that anyway, Dud.”

“Then wait for the proper time.”

“Aw, you give me a cramp.”

But Pink obeyed orders. He realized that there was no sense in his starting trouble with all of the Diamond R outfit. Scotty took his men over to the War Paint Saloon, and Steve Pelliser went to a restaurant with Dud and Pink, near the War Paint.

“Scotty is unreasonable,” declared Steve, as they sat together.

“He’s crazy,” said Pink disgustedly. “What does he know about it? He was in the house when the shootin’ took place. He don’t even know as much as I do about it, and I don’t know but danged little. He’ll shoot off his face until I knock his jaw out of kilter. I didn’t have no reason to shoot Jim McGowan, except that he shot at me.”

“Did he follow you down there?” asked the sheriff.

“I suppose he did.”

“It’s shore funny. By golly, it was so dark, I don’t see how he even knew where to shoot. You couldn’t see him, could you, Pink?”

“I could not. All I saw was the flash.”

“Must have shot at you from sixty feet away, too. Queer thing.”

“Yeah, and he didn’t miss me far, I’ll tell you that much.”

Steve Pelliser shook his head thoughtfully.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” he said slowly. “McGowan is the only one who could ever tell, and he’s gone.”

“Are they goin’ to bury him here?” asked Pink.

“I dunno. That’s up to Scotty and his outfit.”

“Where did McGowan come from?”

“I don’t think I ever heard,” replied Pelliser.

“I never did,” said the sheriff. “Jim was never a man to talk much.”

They ate their meal, while more cowboys drifted in. Old Caliente Smith came in. He had imbibed a few drinks and was loquacious.

“Scotty’s talkin’ big in the War Paint,” he told them. “You’d almost think he was the one who got shot. If he don’t look out, somebody’ll hit him so hard he won’t even be able to answer Saint Peter’s questions.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” advised the sheriff. “How’s Uncle Hoddy today?”

“Oh, he went home with Aunt Ida. She shore rides herd on him. She tells me I’m one of the devil’s mavericks and a bad example for Hoddy. Well, he’s sixty years old, they’ve been married forty years, and she’s been preachin’ temperance to him all them years. His mind is shore clear on the subject—but it never killed his thirst, as far as I can see. Example, hell! He’s led me astray oftener’n I have him.”

“I guess that’s right,” laughed Pelliser, as he and the two officers went out.

They halted in front of the restaurant. Just to the right of them, bordering the sidewalk, was a long hitching-rack used by patrons of the War Paint and the restaurant. Just beyond was the wide front of the saloon, ablaze with yellow lights.

The rack was fairly well filled with horses. Among them was a tall sorrel belonging to Steve Pelliser, a half-broken animal. Steve was telling Dud and Pink about the horse when a rider came from the south and swung in at the rack. It was too dark to distinguish his features. There was a space between Pelliser’s sorrel and another horse, which the newcomer rode in to take.

As he started to dismount, something happened suddenly. Came the flurry of startled horses, a sharp cry, the snapping of a tie rope, dust and confusion. The three men ran to the rack, trying to see what had happened. The man was on the ground with the sorrel kicking viciously over him, the rest of the horses jerking and snorting. Two loose horses milled around behind them.

Quickly they ducked under the top pole of the rack, shoving the sorrel away, while they dragged the man away. More men came and they carried the injured man into the saloon.

“His own saddle turned with him,” said someone.

“Flung him under my sorrel,” panted Pelliser.

They laid him on the floor in the saloon, while a man went running to get the doctor. None of them knew him. He was an oldish man, grizzled of hair, dressed in range clothes. But so far as identification was concerned, even his best friend would have had difficulty in recognizing him. He had been kicked full in the face by a shod hoof, luckily a smooth shoe; otherwise he would have been killed.

“Been hit more than once,” decided the sheriff. “It’s a wonder he’s alive.”

The doctor came and made a quick examination.

“No bones broken,” he decided. “Don’t think there’s any fracture. But he’ll be wearing a different face from now on. Help me take him down to my office. I’ve got an extra bed down there, and this man needs care. Who is he?”

Nobody knew.

“The horse is from Newton,” said a cowboy. “Got the O Box H brand.”

“Fix him up if you can, Doc,” said Pelliser. “I’ll foot the bill. It was my sorrel that done the job, and I feel kinda responsible.”

“We’ll not worry about the pay,” said the doctor.

“I’ll put the horse in the livery stable,” offered the sheriff. “We can probably find out who he was from the O Box H, in case they sold him the horse.”

“Oh, he will probably wake up and tell us,” said the doctor. “Outside of being knocked cold and having his face busted out of shape, I don’t think he’s badly hurt. Of course, it’s too early to tell all about it.”

They took the man down to the doctor’s office, where his cuts and bruises were taken care of; but he was still unconscious when the boys came away. The sheriff searched his clothes, looking for identification, but found nothing except a few dollars and some loose revolver cartridges. Later he found an old Colt revolver half buried in the dust near the rack.

“That feller was sure travelin’ light,” he told Pink, as they went to bed that night. “The horse ain’t much, and the saddle ain’t worth more than ten dollars. He had six dollars and thirty-five cents in his pocket.”

“And the devil only knows what his face will look like when the swellin’ goes down,” said Pink. “That _hombre_ shore got dished plenty. When he started to get down, his saddle slipped and threw him right under that mean sorrel. I’ll betcha he seen so many stars that he won’t look at the sky for the next year.”

“It’s shore tough luck for him. Say, I heard somebody say that Scotty was goin’ to ship Jim’s body to Santa Dolores. Said his wife was buried up there.”

Santa Dolores was about fifty miles northwest of Willow Wells.

“I reckon I ought to feel bad about it, but I can’t,” said Pink. “If Jim was tryin’ to kill me, he got what was comin’ to him; and if he wasn’t, why did he shoot toward me? I never killed a man before, and I ought to feel kinda queer about it, but I can’t.”

“I never killed anybody,” said Dud, as he drew off his boots. “I hope I never have to kill anybody. But if that clothes drummer ever shows up, I’ll shore—”

“That wouldn’t be murder, even if you shot him in the back, Dud. That would be a favor to the world. But I ask for the first chance at him.”

“If he ever comes back we’ll match for first shot. That’s the fair thing to do.”