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Updated: May 20, 2025
And as it chanced he looked across the packed shoulders and between the peering heads of the crowd straight into the face of McFluke and the black eye adorning that face. He rose to his feet and pushed his way through the crowd to the side of the sheriff. "Can I ask a question?" said he to the officer. "Shore," nodded the sheriff. "Many as you like."
McFluke had not been idle at the bar, and the coroner's jury was three parts drunk. The members had not yet agreed on a verdict. But the delay was a mere matter of form. They always liked to stretch the time, and give the territory a good run for her money. Racey Dawson, conscious that both Jack Harpe and Luke Tweezy were watching him covertly, rolled a meticulous cigarette.
Racey nodded indifferently and slouched sidewise so that he could watch the doorway without dislocating his neck. McFluke, his back turned, still stood in the doorway. Racey lowered a cautious hand and loosened his sixshooter in its holster. He wished that he had taken the precaution to tie it down. It was impossible to foresee what the next few minutes might bring forth.
The man's tone was as expressionless as his face. "Here's hell." He filled and drank. Racey looked about the room. "Where's Old Man Dale?" he asked, casually. "He got away on me," replied the man. "He Say!" with sudden suspicion "who are you?" "Are you McFluke?" shot back Racey. The man nodded slowly, suspicion continuing to brighten his hard blue eyes.
"No," said Mr. Pooley, "it won't be a check. It won't be anything, you worm." So saying Mr. Pooley laid violent hands on McFluke, yanked him out of the bunk, and flung him sprawling on the floor. "Not one cent do you get from me," declared Mr. Pooley. "I never paid blackmail yet and I ain't beginning now. I always told Harpe you'd upset the applecart with yo're bullheaded ways.
He placed the tips of his fingers together, leaned back in his chair, and stared at Racey between the eyebrows. "McFluke?" he repeated. "I don't know the name." "I mean the murderer Jack Harpe sent to you to be taken care of," explained Racey. Mr. Pooley continued to stare. For a long moment he made no comment. Then he said, "Still, I don't know the name."
But when I saw that slickery juniper McFluke standing there behind the bar so fat and sassy, it come over me all of a sudden what he'd done to the Dale family by letting old Dale have whiskey, that I couldn't help myself. Gawd, I wanted to knock him down and tromp his face flat as a floor. It ain't as if McFluke ain't been told about old Dale's failing.
"Yeah old Dale and a stranger." Racey nodded. He knew with a great certainty what was coming next. "Anybody hurt?" he asked. "Old Dale." "Bad?" "Killed." Racey nodded again. "Even break?" "We don't think so," Thompson stated, frankly. "Who's we?" queried Racey. "Oh, Austin, Honey Hoke, Doc Coffin, McFluke, Jack Harpe, Lanpher, and Luke Tweezy.
"So as to let in the feller who was to pick open Mac's handcuffs." "Well, what does that prove?" "It proves that the expert who set Mac loose was a bigger man across the shoulders than McFluke. Now who all around here, besides Kansas Casey, is wider across the shoulders than McFluke?" Peaches wrinkled his forehead. "I dunno," he said after a space. "Think again, Peaches, think again.
If he could only catch McFluke by himself. As Racey dismounted at the rail a man came to the open doorway of the house and looked at him. He was a heavy-set man, dewlapped like a bloodhound, and his hard blue eyes were close-coupled. The reptilian forehead did not signify a superior mentality, even as the slack, retreating chin denoted a minimum of courage. It was a most contradictory face.
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