She turned away from me. “If I were you,” she said, “I’d leave while I could. Curly is going to meet me here.”
Well, now. Common sense told me that I should go, but her throwing it up to me like that … well, I couldn’t go then. So I just turned and walked off feeling like I’d come off a pretty poor hand, but then I never was much at talking to women.
In the store I laid out to get the things we needed—flour, salt, coffee, and whatever. They had dried apples, so I laid in a stock of them, and this time I was able to pay. I’d lost whatever I had when the Indians taken me, but Galloway was carrying a good bit right then, as I had been, and whatever either one of us had the other could have. But these supplies were for all of us.
Adding to the list I bought four hundred rounds of .44-calibre ammunition.
The storekeeper, he looked up at me. “You planning a war?”
“No, sir, I ain’t. But if anybody comes a-looking I wouldn’t want them to go away disappointed. It ain’t in my nature to leave folks a-wanting. Meanwhile we have to hunt our meat.”
“The Dunns have been around. They’ve been talking against you.”
“Talk never scratched any hides,” I said. “They’ve got to do more than talk.”
“That’s what we came to town for,” Curly’s voice said from behind me. “I’m going to whip you right down to your socks.”
“You’d have trouble,” I said, “because I ain’t wearing any.”
And then he hit me.
He caught me as I was turning but he’d not been set proper and the punch never staggered me. I just unbuckled my gun and handed it to Berglund, who had just come in.
I think Curly was kind of surprised that I was so ready, and that I didn’t get flustered and mad. So he was a mite slow with that second punch and I saw it a-coming. Now I never did want to tear up any man’s store, so when that punch came at me I just ducked under it and taken him in the belly with my shoulder, wrapping one arm around his legs and rushing him right out the door.
At the edge of the porch I dropped him and he staggered so I hit him.
Now we Sackett boys grew up a-sweating with an axe, shovel, and plow. We’d worked hard all our lives and my fists were big and hard and backed by an uncommon lot of muscle, so when I fetched him a clout he went back into the middle of the street and fell down.
Stepping off the walk I walked toward him and he got up. He was big, maybe twenty pounds heavier than me, and he was in a whole lot better shape because he’d not been through what I had, but also he was a drinker, and drinking whiskey isn’t what you’d call proper for a fighting man.
He came at me, a little wiser now, because that clout he’d caught had carried some power. But he wasn’t worried. He’d won a lot of fights and saw no reason why he shouldn’t win this one.
Me and Galloway had grown up fighting in the mountains and then we’d knocked around on riverboats and freight outfits and most of what we knew we’d learned by applying it that way.
He came in and he taken a swing at me which I pulled aside from, and when I pulled over I smashed my fist into his belly. It taken him good—right where he lived. I saw his face go kind of white and sick and then I hit him again.
He went down hard into the dust, and the next thing I know there’s a crowd around yelling at him to get up. Without them I don’t think he would have done it. Meg was there, too, her face all kind of white and funny, staring at him like she had never seen him before, but she didn’t look scared, nor did she look altogether displeased.
What I didn’t know until later was that both Ollie Hammer and Tin-Cup were in that crowd, just a-watching.
Curly had his friends behind him and he’d made a lot of brags no doubt, so he had it to do. His first punch missed but the second caught me a rap alongside of the face and I staggered. He came on in, swinging with both hands and hit me again. We clinched and I threw him with a rolling hip-lock, and stepped back.
I was just learning how much that time in the woods had taken out of me, for I’d no staying power at all. He came at me, swinging. Again I made him miss one but caught the other one on the chin, and it hurt. So I bowed my neck and went to punching with both hands. I missed a few but some of them landed, and when they landed he gave ground.
We fought up and down in the dust for maybe three or four minutes, and then he remembered about my feet, and he stomped on my toes with his boot heel.
It hurt. It hurt me so bad I thought I’d go down, but I stayed up and seeing it had hurt, he came at me again. This time when he tried to stomp I hooked my toe under his ankle and kicked it up and around and he fell into the dust. When he did that I ran in and grabbed him by the collar and the belt, whirled him around and let go, and he hit the water trough all spraddled out.
He got up though, his face bloody and him shaken. Me, I was all in. I had to get him now or never, so I walked in and swang on him. I threw it from the hips and it caught him in the mouth and pulverized his lips. My next one split his ear and then I threw one to his belly. He pawed at me, but I had it to do now or never, and I brushed it aside and hit him with an uppercut in the belly.
His knees buckled and I went in on him, got my forearm under his chin and forced his head back, and then I swung on his belly.
Somebody grabbed me from behind and then Berglund yelled, “Lay off, Hammer! Back up now, or I’ll drop you!”
He was up there on the porch with my old Dance & Park in his fist and they taken him serious.
Well, I stepped back and let Curly fall into the dust, and he just lay there, his shirt all tore up and his face bloody, as much as I could see of it.
I staggered some, and almost fell into the water trough, but splashed water on my face and chest. When I turned around nobody in that crowd looked friendly. I could see by their faces looking like Curly that two or three of them were Dunns. “He asked for it,” I said. “Now take him home.”
A powerful big older man sitting a bay horse spoke up. He had a shock of hair on a big square head and he looked like he’d been carved from granite, “Boy,” he said, “I’m Bull Dunn, and that’s my boy. You get out of this country as fast as you can ride and maybe you’ll get away. If you stay on here, I’ll kill you.”
“Mister Dunn,” I said, “I’m staying, and you’ve got it to do.”
He turned his eyes on me and for a moment our eyes held. I was in almighty bad shape and not wishing for any trouble with him right now. My fists were sore from the fight and I wasn’t sure if I could use a gun if I had one, and I was afraid I was going to have to try.
It was Red who walked out of the saloon and leaned against a post. “Mister Dunn,” he said, “you’d better give it some thought. I was with an outfit one time that tried to buck these Sackett boys and we came out at the small end of the horn.”
Bull Dunn did not even seem to notice him. He merely repeated, “Get out while you can ride.” Then he turned his horse and the others followed. Right there at the end Ollie Hammer turned and grinned at me, but it was not a pleasant grin. And they rode on out of town.
The storekeeper he came out on the boardwalk. “You’d better get another hundred rounds,” he said. “It does look like war.”
Well, sir, I went on inside the saloon and dropped into a chair, and I was in bad shape. That fight had used me up. I was getting my strength back but I was a long way short of being the man I had been.