Now Playing: Last Job
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Episode
Five Concluded with:
“That’s why
I was ridin’ back to Hard Stone,” Tully took a long sip of coffee and waited
for it to settle. “The paper says they got a man in jail for pulling that
robbery. George Conklin, the banker, has positively identified him as the guy
who pulled the hold up.”
“Sounds like there was more to your last job than you thought.” Dehner
gave his prisoner a cockeyed expression. “Don’t tell me you were going back to
Hard Stone to confess to the crime!”
“Don’t know
exactly, I sure don’t want Conklin gettin’ away with framin’ an innocent man.”
Tully raised the cup of java to his lips, this time taking only a small sip. He
seemed to be using the gesture to collect his thoughts. “Know why I became an
outlaw, Rance?”
Episode Six
Dehner shook his head.
Tully answered his own
question. “Boredom. Laziness. Never cared much for workin’ steady. Thought
bein’ an outlaw would be excitin’ and fun. I was just gonna do it for a year or
so, but it didn’t work out that way. I also thought I’d never kill anyone…”
“That didn’t work out
either, did it?”
“No.” This time Tully
only stared at his coffee. “I’m thirty-eight years old. With Grinder gone, I
got no friends. I never had a home. I gotta pay anytime I want to keep company
with a female. Maybe I thought goin’ back to Hard Stone would make up for some
things.”
Brooks looked in the
direction of the mining town. His eyes conveyed the deep sadness of opportunity
delayed too long. “You and me got certain things in common, Rance.”
“Like what?”
“We’re in the same line
of work, just on different sides. Both of us are always careful about not
leavin’ much of a trail. Good idea, I suppose. But in the end, you’re a man who
just disappears one day and nobody much cares.”
Dehner once again peered
into the fire, this time to avoid having to reply to his prisoner. When he
looked back, Tully Brooks had set down his coffee, his arms were crossed and
pressing against his body.
“I got a favor to ask,
Rance.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m not gonna be up to
doin’ much for a while. Could you ride into Hard Stone? Don’t want an innocent
man to suffer for what I did.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks...”
Rance steadied the outlaw
and helped him to lie back down. Rance Dehner then opened his own bedroll and
tried to get some rest. Sleep didn’t come easy. Dehner wondered if Tully’s
words would also apply down the trail to him, “…you’re a man who just
disappears one day and nobody much cares.”
The color of blood was
again returning to the sky when Dehner awoke to cries of pain. He scrambled
over to Tully Brooks, whose forehead was dotted with drops of perspiration.
Rance tried to speak in a comforting voice. “I’m going down to the stream and
get you a cold, wet cloth.” He took off his bandana. “We’ll bring down that
fever, then I’ll get the doc.”
“Yeah…thanks.”
Tully listened to Rance’s
departing footsteps and then began to cry. He cried for the Marshall he had
killed two years back. He wept for a life he had never lived, for friendships
never made and for the girl he had loved when he was fourteen and whose name he
couldn’t remember.
Tully thought he heard
Rance’s footsteps hurrying back and tried to stop the tears. He couldn’t let
Rance see him bawling like a baby. That would be a terrible humiliation, he had
to stop…
When the detective
crouched over Tully Brooks, he knew the cold cloth would be of no use. He
mistook the dampness on the outlaw’s face for perspiration.
Tomorrow:
Episode Seven of Last Job
