Although Fuzzy went to Yellow Butte with Skeeter Bill next day, he was
not enthused over it at all. They talked with the sheriff, who told them
that the inquest would be held Saturday forenoon, delayed because Doctor
Boardman had to go to Crescent City on business. Skeeter Bill lost no
time in going down to see the doctor, who was ready to drive away.
“I wanted to ask yuh a question, Doc,” said Skeeter Bill. “On the day or
two after Hooty Edwards was shot, was you called on to treat any sort of
a gunshot wound?”
The gray-haired doctor shook his head. “No, I’m sure I wasn’t, Sarg. I
would have remembered it, I’m sure.”
Skeeter Bill thanked him and went back to the main street, where he
found Fuzzy Davis and told him he was going to Silver Springs.
“I’ll be back for that inquest,” he told Fuzzy. “Don’t worry--I’ll be
here.”
“Who’s worryin’?” demanded the little cowman. “You must think yuh’re
awful important. Go ahead and get yourself shot. Silver Springs is a
awful nice place to die. I’ll tell Emmy to pray for yuh.”
“Every little helps.” Skeeter flashed a smile. “Much obliged, Fuzzy.”
It was late Friday night when Skeeter Bill came back to the Bar D ranch.
Aunt Emma fixed supper for him, and Fuzzy did a lot of hinting, but
Skeeter did not mention why he went to Silver Springs.
Aunt Emma said, “Fuzzy and I have to be at the inquest tomorrow and they
said you’ve got to be there, too. I saw Margie Edwards and they’ve told
her to be present and bring the two kids.”
Skeeter Bill smiled over his coffee. “We’ll have a regular old-timers’
reunion,” he said. “Anythin’ new, Fuzzy?”
“Nothin’ unusual. I went out to Hangin’ Rock water-hole but the fence is
all right yet. Nobody shot at yuh in Silver Springs?”
“No, they treated me all right. Nice place over there.”
“You can have it,” replied Fuzzy. “Yuh’re goin’ to the inquest, ain’t
yuh?”
“If I live--yeah.”
“My goodness!” exclaimed Aunt Emma. “You ain’t figurin’ on gettin’
killed between now and then, are yuh, Skeet?”
“Livin’ in a benighted land like this, Aunt Emma, it don’t do for
anybody to plan too far ahead.”
Saturday was always a big day in Yellow Butte. It was the shopping day
for almost everybody in Road-Runner Valley and they not only brought
their kids, but their dogs, as well. By ten o’clock all the available
hitchrack space was taken. Fuzzy and Aunt Emma tied their horses behind
the sheriff’s office, along with Skeeter’s horse.
They held the inquest in the courtroom at the courthouse, with Doctor
Boardman, the coroner, officiating. The room was filled, long before
the inquest was called to order. Mrs. Edwards and her two children,
Fuzzy and Aunt Emma and Skeeter Bill, all being witnesses, were
accorded a special number of seats at the front.
From his position Skeeter Bill could look over most of the crowd. Many
of them he had known for a long time. In the front row of seats he could
see Slim Lacey and Sam Keenan. Behind Lacey was Johnny Greer, Keenan’s
foreman, and some of his men. In the selection of a jury, Sam Keenan was
chosen, along with five other men of Yellow Butte.
Sheriff Al Creedon and his deputy, Muddy Poole, had seats near the
coroner, basking in the gaze of the proletariat.
Doctor Boardman opened the proceedings, outlining the circumstances of
the finding of Dutch Held’s body, and giving the cause of his death.
“In my opinion,” stated the doctor, “someone held a forty-five almost
against the back of Dutch Held’s head and fired the fatal shot, the gun
held so closely that it burned his hair.”
He waited for that fact to soak into the crowd and then said:
“We will now call Skeeter Bill Sarg to the stand.”
The coroner clumsily administered the oath for Skeeter Bill to tell the
truth, and Skeeter swore that he would.
* * * * *
Skeeter took the chair, stretching his long legs. He shoved his
holstered gun to a handy position.
The coroner said, “It is hardly proper to wear a gun on the witness
stand.”
“Who is liable to have more need of one, Doc?” asked Skeeter, and the
crowd laughed. The doctor nodded, and said:
“Go ahead and tell the jury what happened in front of Mrs. Edwards’
home.”
Skeeter told them in detail of the attack on him, how he got out of it,
and said that he didn’t know anyone had been killed.
“I thought that shot was fired at me,” he confessed, “until the sheriff
came out to the Bar D and told me what happened.”
“I understand that you do not know--did not know--Dutch Held, and that
you do not know why the attack was made on you,” said the doctor.
“I never met Dutch Held, but I deny the last statement, Doc.”
The doctor stared at Skeeter for several moments, and asked quietly, “Do
you mean to say you know why you were attacked?”
“I do,” replied Skeeter Bill coldly. “They tried it before, Doc, but
they shot a dummy, instead of me. It was good shootin’, too, but yuh
can’t kill a fencepost, even if it is wearin’ a hat. Yuh see,” he
continued, after a pause, “the dry-gulcher made a mistake. He never
picked up the empty shells from his rifle. Almost every rifle leaves
its own mark on a shell. Mebbe it’s the way the firin’-pin hits the
primer, a scratch on the shell, always in the same place. Doc, I
found those shells and I shot a gun, just to get the empty shell--and
they match.
“But wait a minute! This deal is older’n just a few days. It goes
back to the conviction of Hooty Edwards. Yuh see, gents, a bartender
put dope into Hooty’s whisky that night, and that’s why Hooty didn’t
know what happened. It’s a cinch that no doped man could have robbed
that bank. That man had to be cold sober.
“The sheriff swapped shots with the bank-robber that mornin’ and the
sheriff was sure he hit the man. Gentlemen, he did, but it wasn’t
Hooty Edwards. The man he hit went to a doctor for treatment of a
gunshot wound next day, but not to Doc Boardman. He was scared to do
that.”
There was a long silence in that big room. Every eye was on Skeeter
Bill, waiting for him to continue. He moved his long legs, pulling his
feet in close to his chair. Then he said in a brittle voice:
“Slim Lacey, keep yore hands in sight.”
Suddenly Skeeter Bill flung himself sideways, landing on his knees, six
feet away from the witness chair just as a bullet smashed into the back
of the chair. Johnny Greer, hunched behind Slim Lacey, had drawn a gun,
unnoticed by anybody, except Skeeter Bill, who had seen his shoulder
action.
Skeeter Bill’s gun flamed from his kneeling position, the bullet
slashing across Lacey’s shoulder, but centering Greer. The room was
instantly in an uproar. Keenan, in the jury box, flung a man away
from in front of him, giving him room to shoot. He fairly screamed:
“You dirty bloodhound, I’ll--”
Skeeter’s gun flamed again, and Keenan went to his knees over empty
chairs, flinging his gun ahead of him. Men were clawing at each other,
crashing over chairs, trying to get away from the line of fire. Someone
yelled:
“Slim Lacey is gettin’ away! Stop him!”
There was no chance to get through that milling crowd. Skeeter Bill
whirled to the front windows. They were not built to be opened, but
Skeeter hurled a chair through one of them, and went out onto the
sidewalk as Slim Lacey ran from the entrance. The gambler saw Skeeter
Bill, whirled, gun in hand, but caught his heel and went flat on his
back, firing one shot straight into the air, before Skeeter’s toe
caught the gun and kicked it halfway across the street.
Men were piling out of the courthouse. Skeeter yanked the gambler to his
feet. Al Creedon and Muddy Poole had fought their way loose from the
crowd, and came running. One of the men was the gray-haired prosecutor,
who had sent Hooty Edwards to the penitentiary, and his face was just a
little white.
“I’ll talk!” panted the frightened Lacey, cringing at the expression
of the faces around him. “I--I didn’t kill anybody. I gave Hooty the
dope in his drink, but Keenan paid me to do it. I put it in his last
drink, when he said he was going home.”
“Keep goin’,” said Skeeter Bill tensely.
* * * * *
The gambler blurted out his confession hastily, in a high-pitched
voice. “Sam Keenan was broke, and he robbed the bank, and put the
deadwood on Hooty Edwards. He--he wanted Edwards’ wife. Then Keenan
bought the Seven-Up and the New York Chop House. I didn’t own the
saloon, but everybody thought I did.”
“Why did they try to kill me?” asked Skeeter Bill.
“Because they thought you knew too much. They wanted to make Fuzzy
Davis sell the Bar D. That’s why Keenan hired Greer, and Greer was an
old bunkie of Dutch Held. Greer was the best shot in the state. He
says he shot Dutch accidentally, when Dutch ducked in front of him.
He was tryin’ to kill you, Skeeter. That’s all I know. But I didn’t
murder anybody--honest, I didn’t!”
Muddy Poole snapped handcuffs on Slim Lacey and headed for the jail with
him. Keenan wasn’t dead, but badly hurt. They carried him outside; he
was conscious. He said to Al Creedon and the prosecutor:
“Mrs. Edwards can have the Tumblin’ K--it’s hers. Where’s Skeeter Bill?”
“Right here, Sam,” replied the sheriff, pushing the tall cowpuncher
forward.
Sam Keenan scowled up at Skeeter Bill, his voice weakening, as he said:
“You win, Sarg. But I’d like to live long enough to kill Doc Higgins
over at Silver Springs, for tellin’ you that he doctored a bullet-wound
on me the day they got Hooty.”
Skeeter Bill hunched down lower, his face grim, as he said:
“Yuh’re wrong, Sam. Doc didn’t tell me that. Yuh see, he wasn’t comin’
back to Silver Springs until today, so I couldn’t wait.”
“You--uh--” Keenan blinked painfully, as he realized what had happened.
Then he said, “But you found that matchin’ thirty-thirty shell,
Skeeter.”
“No, I didn’t, Sam,” denied Skeeter. “I tried to, but the blamed
extractor flung the shell through a crack in the porch floor, and I
didn’t have a chance to shoot twice.”
“What did yuh have?” whispered Keenan.
“All I had was a rawhide honda, which I found at Fuzzy’s spring, after
the wires was torn loose. It’s got a JG mark, done with a hot wire. That
sounded like Johnny Greer, and that’s all I had--except the knowledge
that when a man’s guilty, he’ll fall for a lie, and you was guilty,
Sam.”
Skeeter Bill turned away. Fuzzy, Aunt Emma, Margie Edwards and her two
children were talking excitedly.
Fuzzy said, “We’ll have Hooty back here in two shakes, I tell yuh.
You’ll own the Tumblin’ K, too. Whooee-ee! Ole Skeet shore mussed up
that rat’s nest in a hurry, didn’t yuh, Skeet? I jist shook hands with
Dan Houk. We was both so darned excited that we forgot to be enemies.
He invited me to have a drink, but Emmy was listenin’. Well, darn yore
long hide, why don’tcha say somethin’?”
Skeeter Bill smiled slowly, his eyes shifting from face to face, until
he was looking at young Bill Edwards, his blue eyes slightly red, cheeks
just a trifle tear-stained. His eyes were just a bit wide, as he looked
at Skeeter Bill.
Skeeter Bill said, very softly: “Happy Birthday, Bill!”
“It--sure--is,” whispered young Bill, and Skeeter walked away, yanking
his hat down over his eyes.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the Fall, 1948 issue
of _Giant Western_ magazine.]