at all, brother. Practical is the word. After the way he busted in here, a raging threat to all of us, his remains don’t deserve consideration.”
“The barn. Come on, let’s get it done.”
Well, I might have argued with him, but I held my tongue. Peace and harmony, now the crisis was ended—that was the ticket. I shrugged and winked at Annabelle and went to put on my rain gear.
And out we went into the storm, my hands full of the dead rancher’s scuffed boots, and across a mud field to the barn. The stage driver had gone back out there earlier to sleep in his coach and the storm had prevented him from hearing the gunfire. He woke up quickly when we came staggering in and laid the corpse in one of the empty stalls. Nesbitt gave him a terse explanation of the events inside. Dell said he’d fetch Kraft’s horse and went out to do that.
On one knee, Nesbitt ran his hands over Kraft’s clothing. Searching for a wallet or purse, mayhap, but he found nothing of the sort. When he stood up again, he said: “You’re quite a marksman, aren’t you, Shock? For an itinerant peddler.”
“A man’s profession has little to do with his ability with firearms.”
“True enough. Still, it was pretty risky, firing as you did in there. Suppose you’d missed?”
“But I didn’t miss.”
“But you could have.”
“Not at that range, with the element of surprise in my favor,” I said. “No, brother, the only danger was that Kraft might have had a notion to fire his weapon again, as drunk and raging as he was. I did what I had to do for all our sakes. You’d have done the same, given the opportunity.”
“Would I? Why do you say that?”
“You wear a sidearm. Before I drew and fired, I saw you ease the tail of your coat back.”
“Very observant. But I wouldn’t have drawn unless Kraft turned his gun in the direction of the table.”
“Might’ve been too late by then. I chose to act immediately. The right choice, eh, brother?”
“As it turned out.”
He gave me a long, searching look. As if he were trying to take my measure. It was the scrutiny of a lawman, one I’d seen too many times in my life to mistake. Well, if a lawman was what he was, no matter to me or my plans. I was not wanted anywhere for any sort of crime. A few close calls here and there, that was all. And no one could dispute the fact that I’d plugged the rancher in self-defense; half a dozen witnesses could attest to that. I had nothing to fear from the law. And wouldn’t after I left here, if I were careful.
On the walk back to the roadhouse, I thought again of what Luke Kraft had said after shooting down the wife stealer. Bastard stole my wife and three thousand dollars out of my safe. $3,000! No one other than the ever-vigilant James Shock seemed to have paid attention to those words. And where were the $3,000 to be found? In the wife’s or the cowhand’s luggage, possibly, but more likely it was on the cowhand himself. As he’d lain there on the floor, with the Devane woman ministering to him, I’d spied a cowhide pouch fastened to his belt. What better place to keep greenbacks or gold specie or both?
Heigh-ho! And who better to lay claim to those $3,000 than the resourceful Mr. James Shock?
Annabelle Murdock
After James Never Jim Shock and Mr. Nesbitt took the dead man away, I went over to where Mrs. Kraft slumped in a chair in front of the fireplace. Even though the room was warm, she was shaking as if she had the ague and her eyes were unfocused. Well, of course she was in bad way. She’d just seen her husband shoot her lover—that had been a surprise, Joe Hoover being her lover, even though the two of them hadn’t really acted like cousins—and then her husband shot dead right afterward.
I was still upset myself. All that sudden violence—right here in my home! Oh, we’d had incidents before, drummers imbibing too much whiskey, men cheating at cards and getting into fights. But they’d never been anything that Dad couldn’t resolve without any shooting being done. What had happened tonight had been terrible to see. I’d probably have nightmares about it for the rest of my life. If it hadn’t been for James Never Jim Shock, that man Kraft might have shot