2-Gun Western, November 1955 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A TINHORN CHOOSES HOT LEAD ing. Now he blinked a little, nodded. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad you saw it that way.. But he was not quite convinced, for there was something in Pierce’s man- ner that didn’t set right. However, that seemed to close the episode of Kelsey’s death. Hatton went back to his work at the saloon, and no one detected any change in him. He was, perhaps, even more close mouthed and unreadable than before, but that in itself wasn’t strange. The front he gave to the world hid . much; and if he suddenly began to find less pleasure in the whisper of the cards, in the clink of chips on baize-covered tables, he did not show it. If, in the deep of the night, he sat on the edge of his cot in the hotel, smoking and staring at nothing, no one knew. For he hardly understood with any clearness, himself, just what was happening to him. It was with strangely mingled feel- ings of dread and anticipation that, on the day of the funeral, Hatton found himself in the group that- went to stand at the grave of the man he’d killed. He knew he wasn’t wanted there. He felt the weight of the hostile glances that ranchers and their wives threw at him as he stood apart from the rest, gaunt and sombre in his dark gambler’s clothes. Mouth hardening a little, he ignored them. He knew, sud- denly, that he was waiting for only one thing, and when it came his heart leaped and swelled within him until he thought it would pound a hole in his chest. One arm around Le mother, the girl came walking across the clipped grass of the crude burial lot. Hatton had learned her name—Mary. A very ordinary name, but somehow filled with the honest simplicity that was the girl herself. She had real strength in her. Hatton knew at once that his first brief glance had not lied to him; and looking at her, he told himself, bitterly, that he was a fool. "'HROUGH the brief services he watched her quietly, drinking in he sight of her. Then the pine box cotta had been. laid away, and the first clods of earth dropped in upon 63 it. The little group dispersed. The girl was among the last to leave, and Hatton stood at a distance watching her as she remained arranging the flowers she had brought. Hat in hand, he walked over to her. She glanced and saw him coming, and at once he saw the stiffening of her body. Coldly, she rose to face him; and not far away, her mother had turned and was staring at him, too. “Miss Kelsey,’ he began, “I—just wanted to tell you how sorry—” He faltered and stopped. There was a bitterness and a wall between them against which his poor words could not prevail, The girl said only, “Very well.” Hatton fumbled in his pocket and brought out a battered wallet. He looked down at the cracked, bulging bulk of it, and then at Mary Kelsey. “I would like to do something,” he told her. “I was going to offer money to you and your mother, but—I sup- |, pose you wouldn’t take it—” “You are quite right we wouldn't!” she answered, shortly. “And if that is all you have to say—’”’ The same resentment Marshal Lane had roused began to stir in him again. “You're not being fair, Miss Kelsey,” he protested. “I didn’t want to do— what I did the other day. It was forced on me. I couldn’t stand there and let your father plug me, could I?” “You should have!” The loathing was in her gray eyes; her breast rose and fell under the black of her mourn- ing dress. The mother came a pace or two nearer; uncertainly. “You should have died, not him! The mon- ey he lost to you was the thing that put him in a mood for killing. You goaded him on—and he was the one to die!” Dark thunder swept uncontrollably into’ bHatton’s: face, at that. -“I.see!” he exclaimed. * ‘Holier than thou,’ is that it? Miss Kelsey, I’m not proud of the work I do; but just because I make my living out of cards instead of breaking my back in the dirt, I'll be damned if I—” He caught himself suddenly, and instantly his mounting temper cooled. He had forgotten where he was; had forgotten the silence of the burial lot, and the newly covered grave at their conmnleloo S CO