Target Practice (Stout, Rex)
Page 31
At that moment I heard somebody behind me say to somebody else:
“It was Mac—you know, Mr. Willett’s horse—he kicked a man—it was a stranger come to hire a rig; I don’t know his name—he kicked him clear across the stable—”
Suddenly the group of men stirred and parted, and I saw the doctor rising to his feet. One of the men turned to the throng at the door, and before he spoke I knew by the expression on his face what the doctor had said.
Into the sudden silence about the doorway came the whisper:
“He’s dead.”
That evening after I came back from a ride out to old man Hawkins’s farm I sat with Dal Willett in his office. We didn’t talk much; I could see that Dal didn’t want to, though he was glad to have me there. And when I asked a question—forced out of me by curiosity—which I perhaps should not have asked, Dal shook his head.
“Of course I knew,” he said with a certain grimness. “And I sent him back there. But somehow I don’t feel responsible. Those iron-shod hoofs were the heels of fate, that’s all. Anyway, it’s between Mac and me.”
After a long pause he added:
“And God.”
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copyright © 1997 by Carroll & Graf Publishers
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