A Time For Hanging by Bill Crider Read Free Book Online Page B

accustomed to the light and to get his eyes open, but when he did he looked around him.   He was behind Danton's saloon, sort of leaned up against the wall.   There was a rain barrel propping him up on one side, and he could see the outhouse a few yards away, not far from the shacks where one or two of the saloon girls lived, the ones Danton didn't allow to have rooms upstairs.
    Willie closed his eyes again.   The sun was giving him a terrible headache, on top of the one he already had.   He felt like there was a bucking broncho inside his head, kicking him right behind the eyes, and he wondered just how much he'd had to drink the night before.
    It scared him a little that he couldn't remember.
    It was getting to be that way more and more.   He'd wake up somewhere, and he couldn't remember how he got there or where he'd been before he got there.
    He thought about it for a few minutes, his shoulder rubbing on the barrel, but it didn't do any good.   He was there, but that was it.   How much he'd drunk or where he'd been the night before were as blank as the blue sky that hung over Dry Springs.
    Something almost came to him then, something that made his head slump suddenly forward and his knees jerk up as if he were going to jump up and run.
    Something had happened last night, something bad.
    Really bad.
    Willie hugged himself tightly as if he were cold and rocked gently back and forth, moaning.   He was scared spitless.
    After a minute or two, however, he recovered himself.   What was there to be scared of?   Something had happened, and it had been awful, but he could not for the life of him recall what it had been.   What was wrong with him?   Why couldn't he remember?
    He sat a little straighter and pulled his had brim down so the sun didn't bother him quite so much.
    Hell, why should he worry about not bein' able to remember?   That was why he'd taken up drinkin' in the first place, wasn't it?   So as not to remember?
    Trouble was, he could remember all the things he didn't want to.   He could remember Laura Lee just fine, see her face shinin' and smilin' and see her brown hair hangin' around it.   He could see their baby, too, a little girl, it was.   Laughin' and takin' on, grabbin' at her daddy's finger.
    That was theyway they'd been before the fever took 'em, and the only blessing in Willie's life was that he could remember them that way and not as they had been in the last days of the fever, just before they'd died.
    What was it the preacher had said?   Randall, that was his name.   "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?"   Somethin' like that.   And somethin' about the sun also arising and going down and generations passing away, not one bit of which made a damn bit of difference to Willie.
    If it was meant as a comfort it missed the mark by a long sight, and since that time the only comfort Willie had found was in a bottle.
    He could afford it.   He'd sold his little farm and was determined to drink up the proceeds.   He figured he'd be able to drink himself to death before he ran out of money, and he hoped he could.   He was too much of a coward to shoot himself, though it would have been a good bit quicker and probably cleaner in the long run.
    Clean was one thing that Willie was not.   He couldn't recall his last bath, but he had slept out in the rain a time or two and so he figured that counted as a wash.
    He hadn't changed clothes in quite a spell, either, and he knew he smelled to high heaven.   Well, it didn't bother him, and to hell with anyone it did.
    Using the wall, he pushed himself up.
    He knew exactly what he needed.   He needed a drink.
    He moved away from the wall.   His first step was somewhat unsteady, but by the time had gone four or five steps he was getting the hang of it and was walking almost normally.   He entered the alley beside the saloon, appreciating the cool shade it offered.   Feeling a wave of dizziness, he rested for a minute, steadying himself with a hand on the