Rawlins began to cool down in a little while, seeing the ridiculousness of the situation. Peck was only a comedian, take him at his worst; he could not enact tragedy without a clowning grotesqueness that made it a joke. There was a laugh for the sheriff even in his method of killing a man.
"Peck, I'm going to let you live—just now," Rawlins told him, after holding him against the wall, hands up between the low joists, until he was stiff with fright. "But if I ever catch you with a gun on you again, anywhere, any time, I'll kill you on sight. Take off that belt!"
Peck fumbled at it, weak in the knees, trembling in every joint. Rawlins motioned him to throw it under the cot, which he did, staggering as he tried to stand straight again, terror had made such a drain on his strength. This business of killing men was not all he had thought. It seemed to have its drawbacks and humiliations, as well as its flashes of glory.
Rawlins kicked Peck's gun under the cot along with the belt that had sustained it in its brief days of swelling triumph and growing insolence. Peck's eye was on the greasy wallet and pile of greasy, sheepland money on the table.
"Rawlins," he appealed, turning in the supplication
