Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/155

"No use wasting good lead on that greaser," said John Kinney as Boyle was about to press the trigger; "he's dead."

So Boyle did not fire.

Jimmy Dolan touched with the tip of his boot a dead man lying near the kitchen door. He turned him over.

"Here's McSween!" he shouted.

The others crowded round. They laughed, they hurrahed, they shook hands. Old Man Pearce produced a whisky flask.

"Have one on me, boys," he yelled.

The bottle went round and everybody took a swig.

"What's this?" Dolan poked with his rifle at something lying beside the corpse. He stooped over and looked more closely.

"The Bible!"

There was a roar of laughter.

"Where's his gun?"

"Don't appear to have none. Died with his Bible in his hand."

"Now ain't that a hell of a note?"

"His Bible in his hand!"

Again they roared with laughter.

So died McSween, enigma and paradox of the Lincoln County war; a man of the Christ-complex owning the allegiance of murderers and desperadoes; an apostle of peace and the leader of a fighting faction in a deadly feud; intellectual, yet a child in his understanding of men and life; filled with human kindness, yet innocently fomenting war and drawing upon himself the bitterness of lethal hatreds; a futile shadow among relentless realities; a pathetic marionette caught in a whirlwind and swept to destruction; a Sir Galahad of the vendetta, moving with