"The salary I get don't take much seeing to," Roscoe said. "A dern midget could see to it." At thirty dollars a month he considered himself grievously underpaid.

"Well, if you was earning it, the man wouldn't have got away in the first place," Peach continued. "You could have shot him down, which would have been no more than he deserved."

Roscoe was uneasily aware that he was held culpable in some quarters for Jake's escape. The truth was, the killing had confused him, for he had been a good deal fonder of Jake than of Ben. Also it was a shock and a surprise to find Ben lying in the street with a big hole in him. Everyone else had been surprised too-Peach herself had fainted. Half the people in the saloon seemed to think the mule skinner had shot Ben, and by the time Roscoe got their stories sorted out Jake was long gone. Of course it had been mostly an accident, but Peach didn't see it that way. She wanted nothing less than to see Jake hang, and probably would have if Jake had not had the good sense to leave.

July had heard it all twenty-five on thirty times, the versions differing a good deal, depending upon the teller. He felt derelict for not having made a stronger effort to run Jake out of town before he himself left for the trial in Missouri. Of course it would have been convenient if Roscoe had promptly arrested the man, but Roscoe never arrested anybody except old man Darton, the one drunk in the county Roscoe felt he could handle.

July had no doubt that he could find Jake Spoon and bring him back for trial. Gamblers eventually showed up in a town somewhere, and could always be found. If he hadn't had the attack of jaundice he could have gone right after him, but now six weeks had passed, which would mean a longer trip.

The problem was, Elmira didn't want him to go. She considered it an insult that he would even consider it. The fact that Peach didn't like her and had snubbed her repeatedly didn't help matters. Elmira pointed out that the shooting had been an accident, and made it plain that she thought he ought not to let Peach Johnson bully him into making a long trip.

While July was waiting for Peach to leave, the rooster, annoyed at being held so tightly, gave Peach's hand a couple of hard pecks. Without an instant's hesitation Peach grabbed him by the head, swung him a few times and wrung his neck. His body flew off a few feet and lay jerking. Peach pitched the head over in some weeds by the jailhouse porch. She had not got a drop of blood on her-the blood was pumping out of the headless rooster into the dust of the street.

"That'll teach him to peck me," Peach said. "At least I'll get to eat him, instead of a skunk having the pleasure."

She went over and picked the rooster up by the feet and held him out from her body until he quit jerking.

"Well, July," she said, "I hope you won't wait too long to start. Just because you're a little yellow don't mean you can't ride a horse."

"You Johnsons marry the dernest women," Roscoe said, when Peach was safely out of hearing.

"What's that?" July said, looking at Roscoe sternly. He would not have his deputy criticizing his wife.

Roscoe regretted his quick words. July was touchy on the subject of his new wife. It was probably because she was several years older and had been married before. In Font Smith it was generally considered that she had made a fool of July, though since she was from Kansas no one knew much about her past.

"Why, I was talking about Ben and Sylvester," Roscoe said. "I guess I forgot you're a Johnson, since you're the sheriff."

The remark made no sense-Roscoe's remarks often made no sense, but July had too much on his mind to worry about it. It seemed he was faced every single day with decisions that were hard to make. Sometimes, sitting at his own table, it was hard to decide whether to talk to Elmira or not. It was not hard to tell when Elmira was displeased, though. Her mouth got tight and she could look right through him and give no indication that she even saw him. The problem was trying to figure out what she was displeased about. Several times he had tried asking if anything was wrong and had been given bitter, vehement lectures on his shortcomings. The lectures were embarrassing because they were delivered in the presence of Elmira's son, now his stepson, a twelve-year-old named Joe Boot. Elmira had been married in Missouri to a fellow named Dee Boot, about whom she had never talked much-she just said he died of smallpox.

Elmira also often lectured Joe as freely as she lectured July. One result was that he and Joe had become allies and good friends; both of them spent much of their time just trying to avoid Elmira's wrath. Little Joe spent so much time around the jail that he became a kind of second deputy. Like Elmira, he was skinny, with big eyes that bulged a little in his thin face.

Roscoe was fond of the boy, too. Often he and Joe went down to the river to fish for catfish. Sometimes if they made a good catch July would bring Roscoe home for supper, but those occasions were seldom successful. Elmira thought little of Roscoe Brown, and though Roscoe was as nice to her as he could be, the fish suppers were silent, tense affairs.

"Well, July, I guess you're between a rock and a hand place," Roscoe said. "You either got to go off and fight them Texas Rangers or else stay here and fight Peach."

"I could send you after him," July said. "You're the one that let him get away."

Of course he was only teasing. Roscoe could hardly handle old man Darton, who was nearly eighty. He wouldn't stand much of a chance against Jake Spoon and his friends.

Roscoe almost tipped over in his chair, he was so astonished. The notion that he might be sent on a job like that was ridiculous-living with Elmira must have made July go crazy if he was thinking such thoughts.

"Peach ain't gonna let it nest," July said, as much to himself as to Roscoe.

"Yes, it's your duty to catch the man," Roscoe said, anxious to get himself as far off the hook as possible. "Benny was your brother, even if he was a dentist."

July didn't say it, but the fact that Benny had been his brother had little to do with his decision to go after Jake Spoon. Benny had been the oldest and he himself the youngest of the ten Johnson boys. All but the two of them went away after they grew up, and Benny seemed to feel that July should have gone away too. He was reluctant to give July the sheriff's job when it came open, although there had been no other candidate than Roscoe. July got the job, but Benny remained resentful and had balked at even providing a new lock for the jail's one cell. In fact, Benny had never done one kind thing for him that July could remember. Once when he pulled a bad tooth of July's he had charged the full fee.

July's feelings of responsibility had to do with the town, not the man who was killed. Since pinning on the sheriff's badge two years before, his sense of responsibility for the town had grown steadily. It seemed to him that as sheriff he had a lot more to do with the safety and well-being of the citizens than Benny had as mayor. The rivermen were the biggest problem-they were always drinking and fighting and cutting one another up. Several times he had had to pile five on six into the little cell.

Lately more and more cowboys passed through the town. Once the wild men of Shanghai Pierce had come through, nearly destroying two saloons. They were not bad men, just rowdy and wild to see a town. They tended to scare people's livestock and rope their pets, and were intolerant of any efforts to curb their play. They were not gunmen, but they could box-July had been forced to crack one on two of them on the jaw and keep them in jail overnight.

Little Joe worshiped the cowboys-it was plain to July that he would run off with one of the outfits, given the chance. When not doing chores he would spend hours practicing with an old rope he had found, roping stumps, or sometimes the milk-pen calf.