Before young Jim or little Emmy Hardin saw him, he was right up on them; only the width of the bench separated him from them. He leaned across it and called Jim that name again and slapped him in the face with a wide-armed sweeping stroke of his open hand. The boy flinched back from the coming blow so that only the ends of old Ranees flailing fingers touched his cheek, but the intent was there. Before the eyes of his sweetheart, he had been slapped in the face. The girl gave a startled choking gasp and tried to put her arms about young Jim. He shook her off.
Well content with his work, old Ranee fell back, all the time watching young Jim. People gave way for him involuntarily. When he was clear of the shed he turned and made for one of the saloons that lined the square on its western side. He had a choice of several such places; the whole row was given over to saloons, barring only a couple of cheap john clothing stores and a harness store, and two or three small dingy pawn shops. Pistol stores these last were, in the vernacular of the darkies, being so called because the owners always kept revolvers and spring-back knives on display in the show windows, along with battered musical instruments and cheap watches.
The spectators followed old Ranees figure with their eyes until the swinging doors of the nearest bar room closed behind him. When they looked back again toward Stall No. 3 young Jim was gone too. He had vanished silently; and Emmy Hardin was alone, with her face buried in her arms and her arms stretched across the counter, weeping as though she would never leave off.
From the next stall there came to her, comfortingly, a middle aged market woman, a motherly figure in a gray shawl with puckered and broad red hands. She lifted Emmy up and led her away, calling out to her nearest neighbor to watch her stall and the Faxon stall until she got back.
Theres liable to be trouble, she added, speaking in a side whisper so the sobbing girl wouldnt hear what she said.
I reckin not, said the man. It looks to me like Jimmy Faxon is plumb cowed down and feared of that there old bush whacker it looks like he aint got the spirit of a rabbit left in him. But you take her on away somewheres, Mizz Futrell me and my boys will tend stand for both of you, and you neednt worry.
Under such merciful guardianship little Emmy Hardin was taken away and so she was spared the sight of what was to follow.
Old Ranee stayed in the nearest saloon about long enough to take one drink and then he came out and headed for the next saloon along the row. To reach it he must pass one of the pawn-brokers shops. He had just passed it when a sort of smothered warning outcry went up from behind him somewhere, and he swung round to look his finish square in the face.
Young Jim Faxon was stepping out of the pawn-brokers door. He was crying so the tears streamed down his face. His right arm was down at his side stiffly and the hand held clenched a weapon which the Daily Evening News subsequently described as a Brown & Rogers thirty-eight calibre, nickle plated, single-action, with a black rubber handle, and slightly rusted upon the barrel.
Old Ranee made no move toward his own hip pocket. It came out at the inquest that he was not carrying so much as a pen-knife. He half crouched and began stumbling backward toward the front of the building with his arms out and his hands making empty pawing clutches behind him as though he were reaching for some solid support to hold him up in his peril. But before he had gone three steps, young Jim brought the pistol up and fired just once.
Once was enough. If you had never before this seen a man shot, you would have known instinctively that this one was mortally stricken. Some who were near and looking right at him told afterward how the loose end of one overcoat sleeve, dangling down on his breast, flipped up a little at the shot. A slightly pained, querulous look came into his face and he brought his arms round and folded them tightly across his stomach as though taken with
a sudden cramp. Then he walked, steadily enough, to the edge of the sidewalk and half-squatted as though he meant to sit on the curbing with his feet in the gutter. He was half way down when death took him in his vitals. He pitched forward and outward upon his face with his whiskers flattening in the street. Two men ran to him and turned him over on his back. His face had faded already from its angry red to a yellowish white, like old tallow. He breathed hard once or twice and some thought they saw his eyelids bat once; then his chest fell inward and stayed so, and he seemed to shrink up to less than his proper length and bulk.
Young Jim stood still ten feet away looking at his handiwork. He had stopped crying and he had dropped the pistol and was wiping both hands flatly against the breast of his wool sweater as though to cleanse them of something. Allard Jones, the market-master, who had police powers and wore a blue coat and a German silver star to prove it, came plowing through the ring of on-lookers, head tilt, and laid hands upon him. Allard Jones fumbled in his pocket and produced a pair of steel nippers and made as if to twine the chain round the boys right wrist.