the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) (25 page)

"Sorry I couldn't wait, but I don't think you folks want me hanging around here, anyway."

Mary Ryan was there by the jail. She had tears in her eyes but she looked pleased as a polecat in a henhouse too. Sheriff Jones, he took on something fierce.

"Figured she was talking poetry," he said angrily. "She told him the music he'd get out of that guitar would make his heart free. No wonder Mary wouldn't tell me what became of the other two files."

One big bearded man with hard eyes stared at the sheriff with a speculative eye. "What about the hanging?" he demanded. "We drove fifty mile to see a hanging."

Editor Tom Chafee, Judge Emory Hadlin, and Old Pap came up around them. They looked across the little circle at Jones.

"Ruth figured it right," the judge said. "Only six shotguns in town. My two shotguns, and by the dust of the cases you can see they'd not been disturbed;

Editor Chafee's, which hadn't been cleaned in months; Old Pap's was broke, and Mitch had his with him. That leaves just one more shotgun."

Everybody just stood there, taking it all in and doing some figuring. Suppose that twenty thousand never left the bank? Or suppose it did leave and it was recovered by the man sending it? His debt would be paid and he would still have the money, and a young scamp like Leo Carver'd be blamed for it all.

Of course, Leo was gone. Some folks said he rode that big black Ruth Hadlin bought. What happened to that horse we never did know, because Ruth was gone, too, and her gray mare.

The trail headed west, the trail they left, and somebody living on the edge of town swore he heard two voices singing something about being bound for Californy.

We figured the judge would about burst a gasket, but he was a most surprising man. Something was said about it by somebody and all he did was smile a little.

"Many's a thoroughbred," he said, "was a frisky colt. Once they get the bridle on 'em, they straighten out. As far as that goes," he added, "every blue-blooded family can use a little red blood!"

So everybody was happy. We celebrated mighty big. I reckon the biggest in the history of Canyon Gap. O'Brien's German band played, and everybody had plenty to eat and drink.

The folks that came for the hanging wasn't disappointed, either. They got what they wanted. They got their hanging, all right. Maybe it wasn't a legal hanging, but it was sure satisfactory.

We hung Mort Lewand.