“What other thing?” Kyle replied. Then, suddenly, he smiled broadly and reached into his shirt pocket. “Oh, you must be talking about this.” He walked over to hand the paper to Matt.
“What is this?”
“Read it,” Kyle said. “If you have any questions, I’ll explain it. Though, how difficult is it to understand a full governor’s pardon?”
Chapter Twenty-two
“Damn,” Kyle said.
“Yeah,” Matt replied. “I see them.”
The two were looking at vultures, wings outstretched as they rode the thermal waves.
“Coyote?” Kyle suggested.
“No. Too many for a coyote. It’s bigger than that.”
“Deer? Horse?”
“Look how they are staying away,” Matt said. “If it was a deer or a horse, they’d be on it. No, whatever it is, they are afraid of it.”
“There’s only one thing they are afraid of,” Kyle said.
“Yes,” Matt replied. He didn’t have to say it aloud. He knew, and he knew that Kyle knew, that what the buzzards were circling was a man.
It took at least half an hour before they reached the body. It was hanging from the branch of a cottonwood tree, twisting slowly at the end of the rope. Some of the vultures had gotten brave enough to descend to the upper branches of the tree, but none had actually reached the body yet, because it showed no signs of vulture feeding.
“It’s Dempster,” Kyle said.
“He was just a drunk. Who could a drunk make angry enough to do something like this?”
“He had stopped drinking,” Kyle said. “And he is the biggest reason the governor granted you a pardon.”
“I’ll be damn,” Matt said as he sat on his horse and looked at Dempster’s body. “He tried to defend me in the trial. I guess he never gave up.”
“And my guess is, that’s what got him killed,” Kyle said. “He made an enemy of Cummins and his deputies.”
“We can’t leave him just hanging like this,” Matt said.
“Want to bury him?” Kyle asked.
“No. I have a better idea.”
Matt and Kyle arrived in Purgatory at just about supper time, and along with the spicy aromas of Mexican cooking, they could smell coffee, pork chops, fried potatoes, and baking bread.
Matt was pulling a hastily constructed travois. Dempster’s body was in plain sight, tied onto the travois.
“Frederica?” a woman called.
“Sí, señora?” a young Mexican girl answered.
“Take the clothes down from the line, will you?” the woman ordered.
“Sí, señora,” the servant girl replied.
The servant girl, startled by sight of the dead man on the travois, gasped, and took a step backward. Matt touched the brim of his hat in greeting, then urged his horse on.
A game of checkers was being played by two gray-bearded men in front of the feed store, watched over by half-a-dozen spectators. A couple of them looked up at Matt and Kyle rode by, their horses’ hooves clumping hollowly on the hard-packed earth of the street.
“Son of a bitch!” one of them said. “That’s Dempster. That’s Bob Dempster’s body he’s a’pullin.”
Amon Goff came through the front door of his shop and began vigorously sweeping the wooden porch. His broom did little but raise the dust to swirl about, then fall back down again. He brushed a sleeping dog off the porch, but the dog quickly reclaimed his position, curled around comfortably, and within a minute was asleep again.
Goff watched the two men ride by, then, nervously, went back into his shop and started pulling down window shades.
“What are you doing that for, Amon?” he wife asked. “It ain’t time to be a’closin’ yet.”
“Hush, woman, and get into the back,” Goff said.
“What?”
“Do like I say, woman!” Goff said. “There’s about to be some killin’ and we’d best be out of the way.”
Matt and Kyle stopped in front of the city mortuary, and Matt dismounted, then cut the travois loose. A tall, cadaverous-looking man, dressed all in black, stepped out of the building.
“You the undertaker?” Matt asked.
“Yes, sir, Prufrock is the name.”
“Take care of him, Prufrock,” Matt said.
“Well, I—uh, would be glad to,” the undertaker replied. “Is the city going to pay for it?”
Matt handed the undertaker a fifty-dollar bill. “No,” he said. “I’m paying for it. The city will be paying for the others.”
“What others?” the undertaker asked, clearly not understanding what Matt was talking about.
“Marshal Cummins and his deputies,” Matt said flatly.
“Wait,” Kyle said. “Prufrock, my name is Ben Kyle. I’m a United States marshal. I’m going to ask you just one time and if you know what is good for you, you will tell the truth. Have you ever heard of a man named Jerome? Cornelius Jerome?”
Prufrock didn’t answer.
“You have five seconds to answer,” Kyle said. “Or when we have finished with Cummins and his crowd, we will be coming back for you.”
“He’s buried out here in Boot Hill,” Prufrock said quickly. “Under the name Bill Smith.”
“If you knew his name, why did you bury him as Bill Smith?”
“It was what Marshal Cummins ordered,” Prufrock said. “He killed him.”
“Cummins killed Jerome? Why?”
“He didn’t mean to kill him. He was tryin’ to shoot his hat off his head. It was an accident,” Prufrock said.
“An accident?”
“Yes.”
“This is what I want you to do, Prufrock. I want you to write that out for me and sign it,” Kyle said.
“I can’t do that,” Prufrock said. “Cummins would—”
“Don’t worry about Cummins. He’ll be dead,” Kyle said in a flat, matter-of-fact voice.
Leaving the startled undertaker with Dempster’s body, Matt and Kyle rode slowly down to the far end of the street, then tied their horses off at the hitching post in front of the Pair O Dice Saloon. When they dismounted, Kyle drew his pistol, pointed it into the air, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the quiet streets for a long time. Then it was silent.
The gunshot attracted several of the townspeople and they looked toward the saloon, at the two men who were standing in front, one with a smoking gun.
A curtain fluttered in one of the false fronts.
A cat yowled somewhere down the street.
A fly buzzed past Matt’s ear, did a few circles, then flew away.
A face appeared over the top of the batwing doors, then looked out at Matt and Kyle.
“Are you one of Cummins’s deputies?” Kyle asked.
The man shook his head no.
“Then get the hell out of the saloon.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Get out or get killed,” Kyle said.
Without another word, without even looking back into the saloon, the man left and walked hurriedly on down the street.
“Hear me!” Kyle shouted.
The two words echoed back down the street. “Hear me—hear me—hear me.”
“Anyone in the saloon who isn’t with Marshal Cummins, come out of there now!” Kyle called.
From inside the saloon, Matt could hear the sounds of chairs and tables being scooted across the floor as people hustled to leave. A few seconds later, almost a dozen men came through the front door, then hastened to get out of the way, though they didn’t go so far as to not be able to see the show they were certain was about to take place.
Kyle looked over at Matt.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Matt didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped up onto the porch, then pushed through the batwing doors and went inside, backing up against the wall as he did so. At the bar, a glass of beer in front of him, his lips dripping with moisture, stood Cletus Odom. Also at the bar, but separated by the length of the bar from Odom, stood Marshal Cummins.
Matt’s lips twisted into an evil smile. Part of him wanted to kill both men this very instant, while part of him wanted to delay the pleasure. He could imagine the fear Dempster had shown when about to be hanged, and he wanted these two men to know that same terror.