“I’ve no doubt he was surprised,” Joe said. “That don’t mean he won’t come back for you, once he’s thought about it.”

Then he mounted and looked down at me.

“I’ve got to be taking Elmer on home,” he said. “Do you want to accompany me, Mr. Sippy?”

It’s hard to describe what was in my mind at that moment. Elmer Fay had been a skinny fellow—his corpse reminded me of Chittim’s, although Elmer Fay had fallen on the open prairie and Chittim on a Philadelphia sidewalk. I hadn’t really known either man and had no honest claim to grief, but in both cases the closures were so sudden that it left me numb.

I suppose all death is sudden, if you think about it: the luckiest among us still must pass between one breath and the next; but to reason it out is not so affecting as to see it occur.

No doubt the late Mr. Fay had seen a boy approaching and had merely thought to say good morning; now he was dead.

Even Joe Lovelady was numb, I believe, though it didn’t reduce his competence.

Only Billy Bone, the wrongdoer, still had all his nerves exposed. He saw that his friend Joe Lovelady was about to ride away. Though he offered no apology, I think the fact troubled him almost to despair. He looked bleak and pinched and hopeless.

Perhaps it was the boy killer’s hopeless young eyes that curdled my judgment—I don’t know.

“Thank you, no,” I said, to Joe Lovelady. “I believe I’ll ride along with Billy. Maybe I’ll see old Texas another time.”

“Why, I hope so,” Joe said, as he left.

10.

“Why, Billy was the storied one, and you’re a storybook man,” Tully Roebuck said to me, years later, as we were discussing the old troubles along the Pecos. I was speculating about my decision to follow Billy on to Anton Chico, although I had just seen him slaughter Elmer Fay.

“Joe Lovelady was just a cowboy,” Tully added. “I doubt he would have made any of the write-ups if he hadn’t given the tall nigger such a chase.”

“But that chase was the finest thing in the story,” I protested—for the Texas cowboy on his cow pony had led the African warrior across the badlands and the hilly lands all the way from the upper Pecos to the Mogollon Rim.

To me Joe Lovelady’s ride was as fine as Roland at the pass, and the histories and the stories did give it some recognition; but of course, from then till now, it was Billy Bone and his hot gun that got the most space.

“Joe Lovelady never killed a soul,” Tully said, to sum the matter up.