Simon"s teeth snapped together like a cornered coyote. "If you"re trying to put this thing all off on me--" he began, and stopped.
"We"re not trying to put anything off on you," the district attorney told him silkily. "There"s nothing to put off on you anyway. Not a thing. You"re nervous, that"s all, Simon. Your imagination is working overtime."
"Sure is," corroborated Rafe. "You don"t think we"ve got anything to do with the murder of Tom Walton, do you, Simon?"
The Reelfoot jaw dropped. The man stared helplessly at Rafe and the district attorney. "Whatell did-- Say, what else was all that rigamarole for then?"
"What rigamarole?" Oh, so patient was the voice of Rafe Tuckleton.
Reelfoot gulped. "You had me go to Wingo"s office, and rile him up, and spin him a lot of jerkwater stuff about my rustled cows, so"s to get him and his deputies all ready to go away with me, when Driver was to come in with that stuff about Kilroe and keep Bill in town while the deputies went with me. Well, you know how only Shillman went. But I couldn"t help that. Anyway, I suppose you thought you was foxy not to tell me the rest of the story about Skinny Shindle and the fake letter and so forth. Gents, you was foxy. Yeah, you was foxy. But I"m foxy himself. I can put two and two together and make four any day."
He paused and glared at the pair of them. "I wondered what it was all about. Yeah, I wondered, and I asked you and you said it was to keep Bill Wingo from mixing into a li"l stock deal. Stock deal!" Here Simon spat upon the floor. "Stock deal!" rushed on Simon. "You never said it was murder."
Rafe Tuckleton and the district attorney exchanged wooden looks.
"Now that you mention it," said Rafe, "I don"t believe we did."
"I thought you didn"t like Tom Walton," observed the district attorney.
Simon Reelfoot swore a string of oaths. "I didn"t like him, not a bit.
But I don"t want to be hung for helping having him killed."
"That would be unfortunate," murmured the district attorney.
"I ain"t sorry he was killed, of course," Simon fretted on, unheeding.
"That part was all right, but I didn"t want to be mixed up in it.
There"s no sense in doing a thing like that if you"re gonna be caught.
And I don"t mean to be caught! You didn"t have no right to get me into this deal without telling me all the circ.u.mstances first," he concluded weakly.
"Then you think you"ve been badly treated?" purred the district attorney.
"I know it," declared Simon.
"I"m sorry."
"I didn"t come here for sympathy."
"What did you come for?"
"Protection. What do you s"pose? You"ve gotta protect me."
"Listen to him, Rafe. Says we gotta protect him. That new brand of whisky at George"s Place is certainly awful stuff. If you"ll take my advice, Simon, you"ll go a li"l easy on it till your system gets used to it."
"Yeah, sosh up by degrees like," offered Rafe.
"Look here," said the exasperated Reelfoot, "either you fellers pull suspicion off o" me, or I go to Wingo with the whole story."
"What"ll that get you?" demanded Rafe. "Nothin", just nothin". Wild tales of dead cows and separatin" Bill from his deputies and all ain"t evidence. Nawsir. Think again, brother, think again."
"And, anyway," tucked in the district attorney, "what was wrong with the wild tale? It came straight enough. There were the tracks and there were the cows. Who can say your story wasn"t the truth?"
"I tell you, they _know_ it ain"t the truth."
"How do they know?"
Simon did not make immediate reply. It was the worst thing he could have done.
"Well?" prompted Rafe.
"They--uh--uh--they know it."
"How, I asked you?"
"They didn"t--Shillman got suspicious over the cows."
"Why did he get suspicious over the cows?"
Simon Reelfoot wriggled in his chair. "Well--uh--I--he did, that"s all."
Rafe leaned forward. His face was sharp with suspicion. "_Why did he?_"
"I--I----" Simon stammered, and bogged down right there.
"C"mon," directed Rafe inexorably. "Spit it out."
"One of the cows had big-jaw," admitted Reelfoot.
Rafe sucked in his breath.
"What did the other one have?" almost whispered the district attorney.
"The other one died of the yallers last fall," said Reelfoot in a voice that matched the district attorney"s. "But," he added hastily, "it come on to freeze soon after. I--I sort o" hated to kill two _good_ cows."
"Seeing that two good cows were all you were putting up in return for the benefits you would derive from the--uh--political situation, you could have afforded to lose them." Thus the district attorney, staring at Reelfoot.
The latter looked with sullen foreboding at Rafe. The Tuckleton face was bloated with rage.
"So that"s how it is!" he choked out. "You had your orders and you muddled them out of rank meanness! Too stingy to kill a couple of healthy cows, you hadda risk everything with one that died last year and another with big-jaw! And then, after you"ve got "em suspectin"
you good and strong through what"s first, last, and only your own fault, you come to us for help!"
"Where else could I go?" queried Reelfoot sulkily.
"To h.e.l.l for all I care, you half-witted fool! A big-jaw steer! And the other one half rotten, I"ll bet!"
"I didn"t think he"d notice it," defended Simon.
"You didn"t think! No, I"ll gamble you didn"t! You never have! You couldn"t! My Gawd, you deserve to be hung! I hope you are!"