Wyatt in Wichita by John Shirley

Author:John Shirley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Wyatt in Wichita
ISBN: 9781629143132
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

They had a fire built from snags and dead tree limbs that Sanchez had somehow scavenged from a nearly barren hillside, and Wyatt was sitting on a heap of fallen gravel in the sheltered spot, warming himself at the blue and yellow flame.

Henry McCarty, hunkered across from him, was finally coming out with the full story. “Well sir, after you left town, Bessie Earp started saying that the Marshal was a dirty damned fool or a dirty damned liar, holding that Montaigne kilt that girl. She had some thoughts about who it might’ve been, but she wasn’t saying.” He broke off for a moment, staring into the fire, his buck teeth and wide eyes catching the light.

Wyatt threw a crooked gray branch into the fire, making sparks spiral upward. “Get on with it, Henry.” The boy seemed to be coming at the story from every direction but the start.

“Well now, nobody told me that old Montaigne was arrested for killing that girl. I thought they took him in for bein’ a nuisance. And it could be that I thought it best to keep my mouth shut about that night, anyways. I’ve seen that man that rides with Pierce. And he warned me …”

“How’s Pierce come into it?” Wyatt demanded, startling the boy with the edge in his voice.

“Oh! As to that, now, you remember I was in the next shed over, that night the girl was killed—with Agnes—that colored lady Bessie set to watch over me. I was on my cot, but I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t tell you quite all I heard that night, Wyatt …”

“Is that so?” Wyatt said.

Henry missed the irony ringing in Wyatt’s voice. “It is. I do confess it. I hear a commotion that night and I get up to look out what passes for a window and I see him come out of there, and with that Burke on his heels, and Mr. Pierce is saying ‘I can’t believe it was her’ and Burke is saying, ‘Hold on a minute, Mr. Pierce’ and he says some other things I can’t hear. But I hear him say ‘let me talk to her’ and he goes back in and Abel Pierce is marchin’ up and down and then a few minutes later he’s gassing something at that Burke about how they got to get out of there and Burke comes out … Well before he talks to Pierce, that yellow-haired man sees me pokin’ my head out the door of our shanty. Over he comes with his hand on his gun and he leans close to me and says, ‘This man here with me is Ace High around here, he’s a big man, and if you go mentioning him—or me!—coming around this cat-house, you will shame him and I will kill you for it! I’d do it now was I not in a hurry. But maybe it wouldn’t take so long, at that.’ Then he grabs my neck and looks me in the eyes and he gives a squeeze on my neck, like to just show me how he might start in killing me.

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