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The others were standing almost in a line. Teachout and Ernie Ball, Ed Fisher and his partner and Verbiest.

Maybe this will straighten Fisher out, Corsen thought. He’s a man you’d buy a drink for, even after he’s robbed you. Verbiest made a mistake, but he knows it and he won’t make it again….

And then he did not think of them anymore. Katie was in the doorway and he walked toward the house.

18

Saint with a Six-Gun

Original Title: The Hanging of Bobby Valdez

Argosy, October 1954

INSIDE THE HOTEL café, Lyall Quinlan sat at the counter having his breakfast. Every once in a while he would look over at Elodie Wells. Elodie had served him, but now her back was to him; she was looking out the big window over the lower part that was green painted and said REGENT CAFÉ in white—looking across the street to the Tularosa jail. Horses and wagons were hitched there and down the street both ways, and behind the jailhouse in the big yard where everybody was now, that’s where they were hanging Bobby Valdez.

Out on the street there wasn’t a sound. Inside now, just the noise of Lyall Quinlan’s palm popping the bottom of the ketchup bottle until it flowed out over his eggs. Elodie scowled at him as if she was trying to hear something and Lyall was interrupting the best part. Lyall just smiled at her, a young-kid smile, and began eating his eggs. Elodie, like about everybody in Tularosa, had been excited all week long waiting for this day to come—a whole week while Bobby Valdez sat in his cell with Lyall Quinlan guarding him. Elodie was mad because she had to work this morning. Lyall felt pretty good, so he just went on eating his eggs….

BOHANNON, THE Tularosa marshal, brought in Bobby Valdez Thursday afternoon and right away sent a man to Las Cruces to fetch Judge Metairie. Bohannon didn’t have a doubt Valdez would not be bound

over for trial, and he was right. Friday morning a coroner’s jury decided that one Roberto Eladio Viscarra y Valdez did willfully commit murder—judging from the size hole in the forehead of one Harley Tanner (deceased) and the .41-caliber Colt gun found on the accused when he was apprehended the next day. A witness testified that he saw Bobby Valdez pull this same Colt and let go at Tanner in a fashion that in no way resembled self-defense.

Everybody agreed it was about time a smart-aleck gunman like Bobby Valdez was brought to justice and made to pay the penalty. The only ones who’d cry would be some of the girls who couldn’t see his handgun for his brown eyes. It was a shame he had to hang, being only twenty-two, but that’s what would happen. He didn’t have to be bad.

Saturday morning, Criminal Sessions Court, the Honorable Benson Metairie presiding, was called to order in the lobby of the Regent Hotel. The courthouse at Las Cruces would have been better, but that meant transporting Bobby Valdez almost a hundred miles. A year ago he’d gotten away when they were taking him there from Mesilla, and Mesilla was like just across the field.

VALDEZ WAIVED counsel, though there wasn’t an attorney in Tularosa to defend him if he’d wanted one. Judge Metairie said it was just as well. Since the case was cut and dried, why waste time with a lot of litigating?

The court called up a witness who swore he’d seen Bobby Valdez plain as day come out of the Regent Café that Wednesday evening, which established the accused’s presence in town the night of the shooting.

The star witness took the stand and said he was crossing the street to have a word with his friend Harley Tanner, who was standing right in front of this hotel, when Bobby Valdez came out of the shadows of the adobe building, called Tanner a dirty name, and, when Tanner came around, pulled his gun and shot him. Then Valdez lit out.

Bohannon suggested stepping outside to reenact the crime, but Judge Metairie said everybody knew what the front of the Regent Hotel looked like and the fierce sun this time of day wasn’t going to make it any plainer. “Just