“Somebody coming.” Geraldine cocked her head, listening.

“What?” Clovis said.

“Thought I heard somebody.”

“Maybe one of our people,” Clovis suggested.

“They don’t come to the front.”

Alonzo seemed uninterested.

Then they heard footsteps crossing the porch, and the door from it was opened without a preceding knock. When thus unannounced, the man walked into the room, the three already there stared at him with equal surprise.

“What do you want here?” Clovis asked angrily.

Roman ignored her, his eyes on the man who sat in the chair before the dark fireplace, a woman’s shawl on his lap.

“That’s hers,” Roman said. He reached under his coat and brought forth a large pistol. Geraldine screeched but did not move. Alonzo raised the shawl to his face as if he could hide in it, but Roman, holding the heavy pistol steady with both hands, aimed it at his brother and fired.

21

Two days later four men met in the small jailhouse that had only one cell, and it seldom used. They were Leon Kendrick, Roscoe Elk, Sheriff Charles Byrne, and Judge Fulton Maynard who had been summoned from the county seat.

Sheriff Byrne and Judge Maynard had already been to Beulah Land where they had talked at length and separately to Sarah Kendrick and to Roman Elk. They had been to the Anderson Place where they questioned Clovis Elk. They had met and talked with Roscoe Elk and with Leon Kendrick, with Bruce and Edna Davis, and with Dr. Theodore Platt. Everyone knew how the affair was to be settled; it only remained to do it.

Judge Maynard presided. He said, “Does anyone question the fact that rape occurred?”

Roscoe turned his head deliberately to look at Leon. “From the doctor’s report I have no doubt that my son Alonzo raped Mrs. Leon Kendrick. As to what may have led up to the act—”

Leon said nothing; his face was like stone.

“Nor,” the judge continued after a hard look at Roscoe, “does there appear to be any doubt that Roman Elk, who was devoted to Mrs. Kendrick because she had befriended him, took a pistol from Leon Kendrick’s desk and went to what is hereabouts known as the ‘Anderson Place’ and shot his brother Alonzo Elk—he, Roman Elk, having been told by Mrs. Kendrick the name of the man who attacked her.”

No one spoke in assent or dissent.