Knowing
He only said it once, said he didn't do it and didn't say nothing after that. Sat quiet and small, in a big kinda way and I knew he was gonna run. I been doin this twenty years and twenty years teaches you something about who's gonna run and who ain't, who's guilty and who ain't. It's the loudest, belly-achinest ones that's the guiltiest, and they almost never run. Just go up there a screamin' and a hollerin' and then it's over. They cry, a lot of 'em, piss themselves before the trap falls. Then there's the others.
He looked like a hunderd other killers, had guts and guns enough to be guilty, and I guess that's all it takes anyways. I wasn't at the trial, so I don't know much 'bout what happened. Didn't ask him, neither. Ain't no man's business but his'n and the Lord's. There was somethin different about him, been half dozen or so like him over the years, and I remember every single one of 'em. I knew he was gonna run. Not when, or how, or why; well, I guess I did know why.
I watched careful. When they're like that, alls they see is the open range, not what's betwixt them and it, and I didn't wanna be a laid out carcass on his back trail. It was my job to feed him over the days, turned into a few weeks I reckon. I don't think he said more'n twenty words the whole time. "Thank you" for every meal, that's two, twice a day for, oh, twenty days or so time it was said and done. He'd just sit there in the quiet, some of the boys tried to get his goat but he wouldn't be drawed into a fight. Asked for his mouth harp, and I give it to him after the trial. I figgered on it bein' mine and I could watch him and learn to play, but hell, he couldn't play nothin' that sounded like music, and there was nights I'da like to have shot him for blowin' that thing. He was polite, but then so was Bill Bonney, and look at him.
Seems like not too many killers got an honest-to-God-job like buffalo huntin' though. Knowin' people that done that, I know that's damn hard work and I don't know that too many killers wanna work that hard. He knew some Indian words, too. We had a Indian in here for a couple days and he could talk to him a bit, real quiet like but I could tell they was talking back and forth. The Indian died pretty quick, though. He was shot up when he come in and the doc nor the town seen much reason to fix the feller up just to kill him. Pissed that feller off, raised holy hell when we drug that body outta there.
He ain't got a gang to bust him out, that's for sure. He's alone, nobody come to the trial, nobody come to see him, and he didn't want to send no telegram to no one, and I usually tell people that I'll notify kin when they're dead. Most people'll send something out, but not him. Maybe he knew he wasn't gonna hang anyway.
He tricked one of the younger fellas that was supposed to be watching him. Reckon he figgered it'd be easier than trickin' me. That deputy says he looks up and this killer is fixin on hangin' himself in the cell. Well, hell, now why would he do that? Anyways, this deputy needs to stop him so we can have a proper hangin' in the morning and when he went in to get him, he got it instead. We all shook our heads over how stupid that deputy was. He got trussed up and left and that feller was gone, just like that.
We looked for him, but we got other things to do and there weren't much of a trail to follow. It's the knowin' men like him that keeps you from making stupid mistakes like that other deputy did. I was glad he got away, long as he didn't do it to me. I kinda liked him.
I don't know why.
Always wondered where he went. There's his face tacked up to the wall, and a week don't go by somebody says they oughta go after him, $500 is a lot of money. Vin Tanner, Dead or Alive, Wanted for Murder in the Sovereign State of Texas. Hell, he's probably already dead, but it's been along time since he was here. Ain't nobody turned in a body for the bounty. Men like him, they sometimes die young, sometimes they're too damn stubborn to get kilt. Ain't got time for it.
They're too busy livin'.
The End