The next day, mid morning Cecil noticed Pete’s patrol truck cross the cattle guard and head across the river to where Scotty’s place had been. You could still smell a faint traces of the fire from the day before yesterday which now seemed a long time ago. Cecil waited till he saw Pete’s truck heading back across the river toward his place and the highway and when the truck disappear into the Mesquite thicket he walked over to the cattle guard to wait for him to reappear. Pete stopped and the men exchanged greetings.
“What’s up with the Scotty business, anything new? I see you were over there looking around. What did you find, anything?”
Pete just shook his head and mumbled “Nope” wondering if he should reconsider Cecil more seriously as a suspect. After all, wasn’t it the cardinal rule of police work that everybody is a suspect when you don’t have a good candidate.
Cecil thought again about how no one seemed to be talking about the murder and that nobody but Pete had even come around which prompted him to ask, “Say Pete, you’re the only one who’s come around, ain't anybody else looking into this?” Pete didn’t answer and Cecil  pushed harder. “You aren’t the only one that can rub two sticks together, so where’s the Chiefs, too busy writing J-walking tickets and drinking coffee, aren’t they going to send some detectives from Phoenix?”
Feeling uneasy about these very same questions, questions he had asked himself, Pete tipped his hat back, mopped his forehead with his hand and said “It don’t look like anyone’s coming from Phoenix.”
Cecil exclaimed “No Shit?”
A little defensive and not much interested in having to admit to it, Pete replied  “Look a here
Cecil, it’s not like the towns folks are lighting bonfires outside the station demanding justice, hell most people didn’t even know who Scotty was except for the bartenders and they all got alibis cause they were working. And the old women took the bus tickets from the rail road and left for Prescott before we even found the body and we haven’t been able to locate them for questioning. Now, what do you suggest” This stopped Cecil in his tracks, prompting him to do what he least wanted, bring up the Dery grand kids.

Trying to mellow his tone in hopes of convincing himself as much as Pete that what he was about to say was probably wrong and didn’t deserve much consideration Cecil said “You know, I’ve seen those grand kids of old man Dery walking around with a shot gun all summer.” Pete gave him a quick glance and said “You’re not the first to mention that fact and I’ve already I checked, it turns out those kids went home to California on the Greyhound the morning before this whole thing got started, the ticket agent verified that the old man had put them on the bus, he saw it happen.” Pete answered, watching Cecil’s eyes for any reaction. 
Puzzled over two things, Cecil looked over at a passing truck on the highway, wondering first who had told Pete about the kids and the shot gun and second, what was Pete thinking about and why he had not brought it up himself during their previous conversation?
Pete put his truck in gear indicating he was about to leave and turned again to Cecil, “Is that all you got for me today? I gotta get back to town, you know, J-walking tickets to write, coffee to drink. And say, don’t make yourself scarce.”
As an after thought Cecil asked “When’s the funeral?” trying not to read too much into Pete’s throwing his words back into his face and saying don’t leave town with his scarce comment.
“Funeral, there weren’t no funeral. I think they put him in the ground this morning although I don’t know that for sure. You better check with the cemetery.”
Pete nodded his head, made a half assed check for traffic, knowing there wouldn’t be any and headed for town. Cecil was left watching him go with the thought, is that all there is to this? Scotty wasn’t the mayor or much of standing, but surely he deserved better that nothing. Feeling the intense sun that had been beating down on him for the past ten minutes and a tired dejected feeling of emptiness, Cecil walked back to the house and sat on the edge of the porch, lacking the strength to go inside. 
                       
The several years that had passed since Scotty’s killing had not been kind to Cecil Roberts, not professionally or personally. He had a hacking cough, food didn’t taste good, he felt weak, like he was getting old. These were all tough to deal with, but the constant worries, with every thing and every place a reminder of past events, unpleasant events mostly, was what kept him in a state of despair. These feelings of regret, guilt and remorse were especially heavy on this morning as Cecil drove out to his old ranch to take one last look as the bulldozers pushed over and hauled off the remains of his house, taken by the state to make room for a widening of the highway towards Phoenix. He barely got there in time to witness the adobe walls turned to dust and the later wood frame portions snapped like so much kindling. The old eucalyptus tree at the rear was a different matter, however, and would not yield to the cats, its six foot trunk wouldn’t budge, whether pulled or pushed. The crew eventually gave up for the day, most likely to return with chain saws or bigger tractors. There was no relief in seeing the old place demolished, the good memories and bad remained, reminders intact in the dust. On the way back to town Cecil thought again about requesting a transfer to a different section of Arizona, maybe Prescott Valley, where the air was better and the summers milder. It wasn’t fun being the cattle inspector around here any longer, a thankless job in the best of circumstances and most often resented by both the ranchers and the cattle buyers alike with the added wrinkle of his having to collect his fee from the same people he often disappointed by telling them their stock weren’t fit for market, the only saving grace being he was no longer required to shoot sick animals on the spot. The old man he’d replaced used to wear a gun and spit tobacco after every sentence to ward people off. It didn’t matter what you did or how you behaved, you were still a government man as far as the ranchers were concerned, sent to make their lives miserable. Back in town, Cecil pulled up in front of the Chicken In A Basket, figuring to have some coffee, no food, not hungry he thought as he walked around the front of the truck, coughed and keeled over on the sidewalk.   
 
Pete Hershkowitz thought about changing into his uniform before heading out to answer the concerned call earlier that morning from a women about a gun her grand children had found in Purdy Wash. He didn’t recognize the women’s name which meant she was probably a recent eastern transplant or snowbird fleeing cold winter climate or both. If he had recognized the name as one of the old Wickenburg families, he would know that they would know what to expect when a Hershkowitz approached the house, a four by four dark skinned Mexican probably dressed in cowboy boots and hat, like all the other five generations of Hershkowitz living in and around Wickenburg since before the turn of the century. To the unsophisticated locals, Hershkowitz was just one more Mexican name like Macias, Hernandez or Gonzales. The new arrivals to town had different expectations when they heard the name, expecting maybe a Jew from the Bronx, retired from the rag trade, or a detective in a suit, but not what at first glance appeared to be a bandit, an armed bandit no less, with bullet
belts crossing his chest coming to seek his revenge. Well, the crossed gun belts was an exaggeration, okay, but there was some truth to the rest of it. 
When he pulled up the lady came right out with no apparent fear and thanked him for coming so soon as she “did not know what to do about a gun in the wash.” She called to the two girls, her grand daughters, both pre teens with little interest in the adults or the gun they had found while playing. They offered without hesitation that they had poked it with a stick and dug around it a little expecting to find a hand and body attached, then got scared and ran to tell their grandmother. Pete asked them to show him where they found the gun and they led him down into the wash to the old original section of bridge next to the newer bridge build when the highway was widened. What he found buried in the sand was a badly rusted colt 44 pistol with a broken handle grip but otherwise intact. And no surprise, no hand attached. He slipped it into an evidence bag, zipped it shut and took a look around. Probably won’t amount to anything, the gun was in pretty bad shape, the lab would tell him what they could. It didn’t elude him that you could see where Cecil’s house used to sit up and over on the other side of the wash. He thought to himself that he would go see Cecil once he had the report on the gun.  
 
“Well, the thing about this gun is it has been used to fire buckshot.” was the first thing out of the lab tech’s mouth when he called about a week after Pete delivered it to Phoenix along with some other evidence on pending cases. All Pete could muster was “you don’t say?” along with “What else you got?”
“Not much” the tech said. “It was in pretty bad shape, probably been out there for several years. What I can tell you is the person that used this gun used it to shoot at birds, probably loaded his own shells with buck shot to keep birds away from the garden, stuff like that. The inside of the barrel is all pitted making this gun useless as a pistol.”
“Could you kill a man with a load like that?” Pete asked, wishing he could have asked in a different way.
The tech was quite for a few seconds as if thinking and finally answered, “Sure, I think you could if you got up close.”
“Don’t suppose you got any prints?” Pete asked hopefully.
“Naw, can’t tell you nothing definitive.” the tech answered.
“How about how long it has been out there?” Pete continued, counting back in his mind to the Scotty shooting.
“Couldn’t say. There was probably some rust and damage before this gun got abandon, so could be three years or thirty, just can’t say.”
“So, four to five years wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, then could you say that?” Pete asked.
“Sure, that’s reasonable. Four or five years, sure.”
He and the tech talked about several other cases and Pete asked him to send the gun back with the next deputy coming his way, he wanted to have it when he talked to Cecil, although that part he did not share with the other man.   
 
Pete parked his truck in the official parking area of the Community Hospital, a place he knew too well from numerous visits, both official and personal. If there wasn’t a Hershkowitz  currently in the hospital, chances are there would be one working there or at least one seeing a doctor at the clinic, so there wasn’t much need to identify himself here. Sure enough, the receptionist was a school friend of his daughters from high school that greeted him with a big smile and a “Hi Mr. Hershkowitz.” They swapped a little news about his kids and she directed him to the terminal section of the small hospital which amounted to two rooms and a nursing station that doubled for the intensive care rooms. The two nurses bent over some papers looked up when he approached the desk and appeared to know who he was or didn’t care one way or the other, but did manage to look puzzled when he asked to see Cecil. 
“Cecil Roberts?” the younger one asked.
“Yes, Cecil Roberts, that’s his name. He’s here, right?”
“Yes, he’s here, but” the second nurse interrupted, looking at the other nurse, toward Cecil’s room and back at Pete before adding “You know he’s not doing too well.”
“What do you mean by not too well, can he have visitors?” “Well, let me ask, does he have visitors?”
“No, not much anymore. Mostly he is not fully conscious, but you can see him if you want.” She then added “ Sometimes he opens his eyes and says things.”
“The second nurse got up the courage to ask, “Is this police business or are you his friend?”
Sure enough, they knew who he was.
“To tell you the truth, I couldn’t, I mean I shouldn’t say. Let me just see how he’s doing, will
you?”
Both nurses accompanied Pete to Cecil’s room which he felt was a little strange but tried not to let on. They were obviously curious about the reasons behind the visit and how he was going to react. The reality of what Pete encountered was un expected and stopped him at the open door through which he could see a small man laying motionless,  hooked up to an I V with an oxygen mask that seemed to lay on his face, the straps lose around a bald head that was so slight it barely sank into the pillow. If that was Cecil, gone was the leathery cowboy skin and sinew muscles of the man Pete had known, his vitality replaced by the gray blue color of oxygen deprivation and the slackness of death. The only thing that moved was Cecil’s right arm, which rose slowly toward his mouth where it would pause while he purse his lips, after which he would let his arm relax once again to his side, only to repeat the process a few moments later.
Pete watched this happened twice more and then asked the nurses, who were both watching him with amused looks on their faces “What the hells going on there, what’s he doing? Is he awake or what?
“He’s pretty drugged up for the pain.” the older nurse answered. “We don’t think he knows what’s happening around him.”
“What’s he doing with his arm?”
The younger nurse let out a quick giggle and then caught herself as the second nurse shot her a look. Both had to smile, however as the older nurse told him “We think he’s smoking.”
“Smoking” Pete repeated with a tone of  recognition in his voice. “Well, I’ll be damned. Do you think he can talk or hear me?”
“It’s hard to say,” the older nurse replied, “you can always try, it can’t hurt” and ended with,  “Stay as long as you like” motioning to the younger nurse to follow her as they went back to their station.
Pete sat with Cecil for about half an hour, trying several times to make conversation, even trying a couple of questions about could he do anything for him, get him something, but the most he got in response was something that sounded like “Merc or merca.” Cecil opened his eyes twice without showing any sign of seeing, just a blank stare. If he was saying mercy, like in have mercy, there was no way of knowing. If he wanted Pete to put him out of his misery, that too was out of the question. That was something he wouldn’t do even if the man begged him.
Pete rose, tipped his hat to the nurses and left knowing he would not learn anything here. When he got as far as the front of his truck he stopped, exhausted by what had transpired, his left hand resting on the fender, more to free up what faculties he had left than for support, the image of Cecil lifting his bony arm to smoke, no strength left in the man for Pete to pursue, only the realization that he would never have the answer, what the sheriff in him wanted  most, and since breakfast, the taunting lyrics of the country song stuck in his head, “cigarettes and whiskey and wild, wild women, they’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane.”