“Now, Bill, Tully said not to let you charm me into supplying you no gun,” Snookie said. “There’s no harm in your trying to charm Tully, though—he’ll be back directly.”

Tully Roebuck did spend a good deal of time in the cell, chatting with Billy and even taking a hand at dominoes once in a while. Little reference was made to the killing of Bucketmouth, the banker, and the cattleman, Sam Bradley. Few locals had liked either one of them, it appeared, and no one at the jail exhibited the slightest rancor at Billy for having gunned them down.

Indeed, after twenty-four hours of high tension, the mood in Lincoln relaxed to such a point that it was difficult to remember the fatal violence that had recently occurred.

Things became so relaxed that it was hard even to stay awake through the hot days. The morning Tully deputized me he warned me against even sticking my head outside the jail unless I wanted it shot off; but by the third day, most of the folks who had drifted into town hoping for cheap entertainment had been forced to go back to earning a living. The time soon came when I could have taken a nap in the middle of the street and been in no great danger.

The situation looked so placid that Tully decided he could afford to take off for a day or two. He ran some cattle up near Encinoso and wanted to go check on them.

“Heard the judge might have to have his leg sawn off yet,” he informed Billy, Snookie, and me the morning he was ready to leave.

“I would rather take bitter poison than have a dern red centipede bite me,” Snookie said. “I don’t step into my britches without shaking them out good first.”

Billy snorted with disgust at the report of this cautious behavior. “Dern, you’re so careful I expect you’ll live to be two hundred years old, Snookie,” he said.

Then, the next morning, he killed Snookie Brown himself.

15.

Had it not been that I had developed a taste for chilies and eggs, I suppose it’s possible that Billy would have shot me, too, that blazing morning. To this day I don’t believe Billy would have killed me—but then I don’t imagine Snookie thought he would kill him either, and Snookie was wrong.

The escape itself was a matter of near-perfect planning on the part of Katie Garza. Instead of leading a cavalry charge through town, she bided her time in the hills until she judged that the hanging frenzy had subsided and that the town of Lincoln had sunk back into its normal stultified state.