Cold Harry
Arnold Ashford’s Journal Entry #19
Turns out Houston’s hunch was right; Dillon did have some ideas about where to find Beauville. Before leaving the Saloon, Harry growled to Dillon that the only reason he’s not dead right now is in case Beauville isn’t where he said he would be, and that if that turns out to be the case, he’d wish he had been killed. No one doubted him, The Beef Czar least of all.
I was planning to ask Houston if I could accompany him; I wanted to see Bret brought to justice as much as anyone. Turns out Houston told me that I was coming along, which suited me fine. Ever pushing forward, as we rode out of town, I could hear the work starting on a new Building Project, a Smokehouse if I’d heard right. The way these Abilene folk worked, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d had it done before we got back.
I tried as best I could to get Harry to open up a bit, talk about his past, his life experiences, even his preternatural hatred of Outlaws. He’d never answer more than a word at a time, and sometimes not even that. I remember asking him why he went beyond merely protecting a Town, as most Lawmen did, to actively pursuing Outlaws beyond what would be considered normal protocol. As we rode slowly, he just stared at me for what seemed to be a full minute before simply turning his gaze away. I don’t know if he was mad at me for asking the question or puzzled by the asking of it.
It was night, it was raining, and it was windy. I was miserable; Harry was always miserable. We came upon a cabin and Harry dismounted from his horse without a word. Without waiting to see if I’d do the same, he started skulking toward the cabin. As soon as I had lighted down, he burst through the door, two shots ringing out in the empty night like thunder.
One of those shots hit Bret Beauville in the knee, the other one in the upper thigh. Houston walked over and sat down next to him, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and watched him die.
— Check back next week for a new entry in Ashford’s journal —