Free William W. Johnstone by Massacre Mountain Page B

you’re at two thousand seven hundred fortynine dollars.”
    The theater owner sighed. “Pour a rectangle of cement, and put his name in it, and I’ll pay twenty dollars.”
    “That’s seventy-nine for the concrete, and forty for the name in it, Mr. Ralston.”
    Ralston inflated like a bladder. “Cancel that. Some of us will pick up the body in an hour.”
    “And do what?” Maxwell asked.
    “Bury Pinky Pearl,” Ralston said.
    “I’ll get the deputies to pitch in. We’ve got a couple of spades,” I said.
    “But you can’t! It’s not legal.”
    “Ralston and I’ll pick up Pearl in one hour. Have him ready.”
    “I won’t let him go until I’m reimbursed.”
    “That killer stabbed the wrong man,” I said.
    Ralston moved briskly. “I’ll go rent a dray, Sheriff, while you get the deputies.”
    I didn’t expect to do much shoveling, not the way I felt, but I’d fetch two deputies with strong backs. Only trouble was, they weren’t in there. They’d been out to lunch for three or four hours. I did collect the spades, and by the time I got back to Maxwell’s, Ralston had one of Turk’s drays ready, and he also had four of the roustabouts bunking in Turk’s hayloft. We marched into Maxwell’s and found him back there with Pearl, who was wrapped in a winding sheet.
    “Where’s a coffin?” Ralston said.
    “I can’t release the deceased or supply goods or services without reimbursement.”
    “Well, bill the county,” I said, easing past the dapper little mortician.
    We eased Pearl into a box from a stack of boxes, and then carried him out to the dray, while Maxwell caterwauled behind us.
    “I’m going to talk to the county supervisors about you,” he said.
    “That’s fine. The line’s only a block long now,” I said.
    The roustabouts laid Pearl’s box on the dray, and led the horse toward the Doubtful cemetery, which was just west of town. We were a sorry bunch, in sorry clothes except for Ralston, who always wore something that suited his station in life.
    We pulled in there, just the six of us and that pine box, and we picked a good spot, next to Mrs. Stokes, the lawyer’s luckless lady. The roustabouts took over, carving the rectangle in the earth, prying loose a few rocks, and finally climbing out.
    With a nod from Ralston, they eased Pinky Pearl into the hard soil of Doubtful, and then shoveled that tan clay back into the hole, until there was only a mound.
    “I’ll say some words,” Ralston said.
    We stood there in the summer afternoon.
    “Some people don’t much care for show people. But Pinky Pearl was as fine a man as I’ve ever met. His handshake was his bond. Like all of us in the business. We try to brighten people’s lives, bring them the things that they never would see in their own worlds. We bring dreams to people. We bring them smiles and tears and beauty. We remind them that life is something to enjoy, no matter how hard it may be. Pinky Pearl was one of us. May he rest in peace. May God welcome him as one who spread happiness across the land, and brought beauty to those who had never known beauty.”
    Ralston looked like he was going to say more, but then subsided, and stood with head bowed, perhaps offering his own silent prayer.
    One of those roustabouts had found a wild aster, and now he placed it gently in the yellow clay, where it would serve as an honor and a blessing and a remembrance.
    We took the horse and dray back to Turk’s, and I checked in at the sheriff office, and found no one around, and my deputies out to lunch until supper. I was pretty worn out, and far from well, so I settled in the swivel chair and dozed. There needed to be someone watching over Doubtful.

C HAPTER T EN
     
    By the next morning my south half was healing up but my north half was worse. I had a mean cough and some sniffles. Given a choice, I thought that north-half disease was better than southhalf. My ma, she always told me to dose myself with cod liver oil, but I’m against