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Clete was hit. Ain't likely this is the piece that hit him, but I'm betting it's a piece like the one that did. Now, I need an answer. And if you can't give me one you're a hundred percent sure of, at least give me your best guess. Is or ain't this a piece of one of them exploding things?"
    John Tate picked it up again and studied on it 'til I wanted to hit him, he took so long. He carried it over to his bench and filed on it and bit it and I don't know what else.
    Finally, he come back. "If I must say yes or no, I'll have to say yes. You see here where-"
    I didn't listen to the rest of what he said. I saddled my horse and was out in the hills beyond the livery pretty quick. After looking down at that stable a long time, I got it fixed in my mind where Clete must of been standing when he got shot. I walked back and forth and up and down, and I was about ready to give it up 'til I had better light, when I saw where someone'd laid on his rubber sheet or whatever. And he wasn't so careful about picking up his butts this time, but there were no more exploding shells to be found.
    About thirty yards off, down in a shallow ravine, is where he had tethered his horse to some sage, and judging from the piles of horseshit, he'd stayed here some time. Two days, it looked like. I could see the rings where he'd set a bucket, a canvas one likely, so I guess he'd brought feed and water along. This boy knowed what he was about. I followed his trail north and east but it come night pretty fast and I stopped. I wasn't prepared for no chase through the countryside and I didn't know if I ought to go anyway.
    I sat my horse for a while and just listened to the night sounds. Those two shots I heard while I was in the bar with Jenny and Corrie Sue, they was really only one shot, I saw, after thinking on it there in the peace and quiet of the evening. The loud one, the one I heard first, that would of been that damn shell exploding. I knew then why Bill James thought he'd heard an echo. The second shot, that would of been his rifle– whose rifle? Who in the hell would be trying to kill Jesse Mcleod and Clete Shannon both?
    Some bird I didn't know the name of was finishing his sundown song and before he was done, a poor-will started in. I got to pitying myself some, I admit, over how my friend lay hurt and how everyone was waiting for me to do something about it, and I didn't know what to do. My, the world seemed a dark and lonely place. Like standing in a hole where you could barely see the rim up above. In a minute I seen how unmanly that kind of thinking was and put those thoughts aside. A coyote commenced to howl a time or two. I reined my horse around, kicked him good in the flanks and headed back to Two Scalp.

Chapter Five
    Next morning, Doc Plummer said Clete had come out of it a little, late in the night. Mary was sitting there beside him when I went in the back room, and I wisht then that Doc had told me she was there. I don't like busting in on a man and his intended bride, even if they was only holding hands, which they was. More truthful, she was holding his hand, but it didn't seem like he was holding hers much, because he was still out.
    "He's going to be all right," Mary whispered to me, her face one big smile and runny with tears. I stood there just hanging on to my hat for a while. I couldn't see any difference in him, but I guessed Mary knowed what she was talking about. After a minute, I went out to see Doc.
    "Is Mary right? Is he going to be okay now?" I asked, pretty quiet.
    "More than I can say," Plummer told me, fiddling with the tools of his trade. "He comes in and he goes out, but he doesn't seem to get fully awake before he slides out again." The frown on his face worried me. "And he doesn't seem to hear me when I talk, even when he is a little awake. Oh, she's happy, but that's more than I am."
    I asked him some more things, but I didn't understand much of what he told me. A bad bang on the head scrambles your brains