By the time Blue Henry and the five from Laughlin's made it over to the parlor,three of the rough-and-readies were engaged in a vigorous debate with theSheriff, the rest watching and waiting from the safety of their indecision tosee who was going to break first. The five from Laughlin's were holdingshotguns like the rest, which they had borrowed from Laughlin himself, who wasnot present, but theirs were unloaded, for in their instinctive, desperate,almost manic hurry to reach the hub of so much civic controversy, they hadforgotten about ammunition. But there they were just the same, sidling up tothe clutch of waiting, nervous, expectant men and wondering how in the worldsomeone could shoot at Mr. Cavanaugh and miss. Blue Henry was standing rightalongside them, wondering pretty much the same thing, but without a shotgun.

"We gotta right, Sheriff, to see the body if we want to. How do we know he'sreally dead if we don't?"

"Take my word for it, boys," said the Sheriff. "He's as dead as they come."

"Now Sheriff, you know what Farley said."

"Farley was drunk," said the Sheriff.

"But what about our rights?"

"You all don't have any rights," said the Sheriff. "Not when it comes toeyeballing a deceased victim of an at-large criminal intelligence. You all knowbetter than that."

"Come on, D. W. Just one look through the back door can't hurt nothing."

"Don't push it, boys. You all can see him when they lay him out. Just likeanybody else."

"God damn it, D. W. How the hell long is that gonna be. They've been working onhim for two full days now."

"You all just have to wait."

From the shade of the porch there was an ominous sounding click, and thensilence, and Blue Henry thought it looked like the sheriff was grinning, but hecouldn't tell for sure with the glare from the sun, and neither could the dozenrough-and-readies plus five, who as a group had more or less collapsed inwardamong themselves in a furry of impotent confusion. Then the one who had donemost of the talking, an old fellow like the sheriff but with more hair, and abulbous paunch that lapped over his belt, he began shouting and cursing andthen he stepped towards the porch and raised his shotgun and two others filledin behind him and raised theirs as well, and Blue Henry couldn't tell exactlywhere they were aiming at, and most likely neither could they, because of theglare, maybe they figured D. W. Griggs had lived past his usefulness asSheriff, or maybe they were aiming at the columns, or even one of the whitestone flower pots. Nobody could tell. They raised their shotguns and beganfiring with simultaneous determination, but the first one, his gun jammedimmediately, and the other two had forgotten about ammunition, the same as thefive from Laughlin's porch, so all there was was a steady click, click, click,click, and then a couple of under-the-breath curses. Then the one with thejammed gun smacked it against the crumbling red brick walk and tossed it in thegrass and left it there, and before anyone said a word he had driven off in adull green Packard, the dust from his sudden departure settling unevenly on thewindows of the other cars.

Of course that ended the stand-off at Cooper's Funeral Parlor. The rest of themen sunk into a profound, embarrassed silence, and then slunk off in two's andthree's and the sound of car doors clacking shut and then motors puttering offinto the steamy, hazy, smothering heat of a late August morning.

And then Sheriff D. W. Griggs relaxed his grip on the shotgun he had beenholding the whole time and headed from the white of the parlor and the shade ofthe porch to his own car parked in the grass, and he too drove away. Only BlueHenry remained, for he had brought with him no shotgun or Winchester and sofelt no shame at being unable to get past a balding, age-spotted sheriff. Hedid not know how to feel. He had all but forgotten the need for a funeral suitand the twenty dollars in his pocket. Everything that had happened, from themen on the porch and their talk of shootings and murder and the mob and thesquelched raid on the funeral parlor, he had witnessed with a thrilling,shuddering, incredulous excitement, for though he had never heard of suchthings happening in Pokalawaha, at least not that he could remember, he hadalways imagined them possible, and as he stood there now in the silence of theothers having gone and the glare of the white building before him, all he couldthink about was Mr. Cavanaugh and how the man was surely dead, an incredibleshot, certainly, the gunman hiding in the branches of one of the live oaks onthe Dobbs place and then squeezing the trigger, but he was dead just the same,murdered.

Then Blue Henry closed his eyes, and he could actually see the thin, darkshadow of a Winchester stretching out before him, the sky becoming a deep,dark, blood-smeared red, and on the road he could see the unaware Mr. Cavanaughgrease-dusting the countryside in a black I-talian two-seater, a convertible,cloth covered seats, also black, the hum of the engine drifting up through theair, the smell of gasoline, of metal, then a crcrcrcraaaackckck, the bodystiffening, lurching forward, the automobile lurching forward also, then thebody tumbling to the bloodblackening ground, the body broken now, twisted,lying in the ditch, and the automobile also lying in the ditch, also twisted,the wheels spinning, spinning, the air growing heavy with darkness and smoke,and then the wheels not spinning. And this image became for Blue Henry a sortof memory, like pictures on a wall become memories, and so when Blue opened hiseyes he wanted to chase down the men who had rushed Sheriff Griggs and tellthem that Mr. Thomas Christian Cavanaugh was as dead as they come and he shouldknow because it was he himself, Blue Henry, who had pulled the trigger.