Bullets Don't Die by J. A. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page B

tried to leave, but Ahern wouldn’t let him. Finally Ed just couldn’t stand it anymore. He threw a punch at Ahern . . . That’s when Ahern shot him.”
    “Phillips didn’t reach for his gun?” Cumberland asked with a frown.
    “No, he didn’t. He swung his fist, that’s all. I reckon if Ahern had beaten him to death then, he could’ve claimed self-defense, although that would’ve been a stretch since he’s twice Ed’s size. But that’s not what happened. For some reason Ahern pulled first.
    “Ed made a fight of it, though. He didn’t go down right away, and managed to get his gun out after he was hit and got some shots off. Everybody in the place went diving for cover. It was a pretty good battle for a minute or so, but that’s all. Ahern wasn’t even hit, but poor Ed was shot to pieces. Then Ahern picked up Ed’s body, made some comment about how it wasn’t worth scraping his knuckles on trash like that, and chunked him through my window. That’s the story, Marshal . . . and I say it’s murder.”
    The Kid thought so, too. From the sound of it, even if Phillips had drawn first, his death would have still been murder. Maybe not legally, but certainly morally.
    With the eyewitness testimony he had just heard, there was no question Ahern was legally guilty of murder and ought to hang for it. The members of a jury hadn’t decided that yet . . . but they would if they got the chance.
    They would if Marshal Cumberland locked up Ahern and held him for trial. That was what it amounted to.
    Cumberland didn’t seem to be disposed to do that, however. He was obviously looking for a way out of the dilemma when he asked, “Did anybody else in the saloon see things the same way, Constance?”
    “Did anybody . . . They all saw it that way, if they were looking, because that’s what happened!”
    “You won’t mind if I ask them to back up your story, then? Otherwise it’s just your word.”
    “Which ought to be good enough.” Constance scowled and turned to look over the bat wings. “Somebody come out here and tell this pitiful excuse for a marshal that Ahern murdered Ed Phillips!”
    No one came out of the saloon.
    Constance grabbed the bat wings and jerked them open.
    “I said come out here and tell the truth!” she bellowed.
    The Kid looked past her into the barroom. He could see a lot of pale, nervous faces, faces that were lowered or turned away so their owners wouldn’t have to look directly at Constance.
    “If you want to keep drinking here, you’ll tell the marshal what happened!”
    Not even that threat was enough to make any of the saloon’s patrons budge.
    But one man did come to the door. He was short and slender, wearing an apron over a stained white shirt and dark pants and carrying a mop. His thinning hair was almost colorless.
    “It was like Miss Constance said, Riley,” he told the marshal in a mild, hesitant voice. “Jed Ahern picked the fight, and he didn’t wait for Mr. Phillips to draw. It was murder, all right.”
    “Well, of course you’re gonna agree with her,” Cumberland said. “You’re the swamper here at the Trailblazer. You work for her.”
    “But it’s the truth,” the man insisted. “Doesn’t your own father’s word mean anything to you, Riley?”
    The Kid’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He could tell from the flush creeping across Cumberland’s face the swamper was telling the truth about being the marshal’s father. Nobody else seemed surprised, so The Kid figured the relationship was common knowledge around Copperhead Springs.
    One of the saloon’s customers, a man with a thick white mustache, muttered, “Well, hell,” then stepped forward to join Constance and the swamper on the boardwalk. “I’m tired of letting the Broken Spoke run roughshod over everybody in town. It’s all true, what they said, Marshal. Ahern murdered Ed Phillips, and you really ought to lock him up.”
    Cumberland was starting to look sick. The Kid knew what he was