Clay got to his feet and settled his guns in place. With Coffin he walked to the door, where they conversed in low tones, then Clay turned and left Coffin standing at the door. He walked back through the room and as he passed Colleen he dropped his hand to her shoulder and squeezed gently. Then he went on, without speaking.
When he was gone there was silence in the room. Sam Tinker could feel the sweat on his face. His mouth felt dry. He looked at Coffin standing in the door, his back toward the room. The blond cowhand was smoking a cigarette.
Somewhere a dog yelped . . . then there was silence. The town seemed to be without movement. Far across the hills, a train whistle sounded. It was still miles away.
Judge Riley cleared his throat and looked across at Colleen. Neither spoke.
A spoon rattled on a saucer and someone gasped and turned, half in irritation. The slight rustle of the man’s clothing was loud in the stillness.
Stag Harvey had planned well. Jack Kilburn was posted in an empty building between the blacksmith shop and the Piddle Saddle Works.
Harvey pulled his hat brim low and stepped out into the street, and as he did so he saw the tall, black-hatted figure in a gray wool shirt and black neckerchief step from the Tinker House.
Stag Harvey felt a curious elation. This was as it should be. No ducking, no dodging, two men meeting as men should meet. Killer he might be, but he was a product of the Code Duello.
The man up the street walked to the center of the thoroughfare and did an abrupt left face, looking down street, the sun in his eyes.
Stag Harvey started to move, a glow of satisfaction going through him. He walked on, taking his time and judging his pace and that of the man coming toward him so they would finally have their showdown with the Piddle Saddle Works at right angles to Bell.
The distance narrowed. Stag felt sweat on his cheeks. A dust-devil spun crazily in the street and played itself out against the steps of a building up ahead. Little puffs of dust lifted from his boots as he stepped off the distance.
A fleeting black shadow passed over the street and involuntarily Stag glanced up.
A buzzard. . .
He felt a faint chill, then his eyes came to focus on the man before him. He stopped dead still. There was something odd about . . . Why, that wasn’t—
“Stag!”
Clay Bell’s voice rang clear and unmistakable in the empty, sunlit street.
“You looking for me?”
The voice was behind on his right. Stag Harvey wheeled, drawing as he turned, but even as he drew he realized he had been outmaneuvered. Jack Kilburn was now behind him and out of the play!
Clay had stepped from between the buildings, and as Stag turned, Clay Bell palmed his guns.
He stood very straight in the street and his right-hand gun came up. Looking across the distance into the blazing gray eyes of the killer, he began to fire.
The sound of his gun was like a roll of drums in the narrow street, the sound rolling back from the false-fronted buildings. Flame spouted at him from Harvey’s guns, but Stag jerked suddenly as if by a hidden wire and on his shoulder there was a blotch of blood that had not been there before.
Clay walked forward, the acrid smell of gunsmoke and street dust in his nostrils. The hammers slipped under his thumbs as he fired. He saw Stag back up through a blur of smoke and he fired again, then shifted guns as Harvey went to his knees.
But Harvey came up and started on a stumbling run toward the Homestake, feeding shells into his gun. In the silence following the roll of guns, Clay Bell could hear the gunman panting hoarsely.
He felt cold and steady. The instant was sharp with clarity. He fired again, but the man turned and Clay knew it was a clean miss. Spreading his feet apart he heard a sound of firing from up the street, but he did not turn his eyes from the weaving figure of Harvey.
Before shifting guns he had fired twice from his left-hand gun. Two shells left. . .
Feet apart, he lifted the gun. Stag was blood to the waist, his face haggard, but his eyes seemed blazing with an unholy fire. Stag’s gun came up and Clay fired. His bullet struck Stag under his uplifted arm and came out his back.
Stag’s gun slipped from his fingers, and using his right hand he reached over and took the left-hand gun from an arm that would no longer support it.
One bullet left, Clay Bell waited, not wanting to shoot again.
“Drop it, Stag! You’re done!”
The man was dying on his feet, but reason no longer lived behind his eyes. The last thought within that brain was the thought to kill. The brain willed the hand and the gun lifted. Through the gunsmoke and the fog that was beginning to cloud his eyes, Stag Harvey attempted to fire one more time.
Grim and bloody, weaving on his feet, blood darkening his jeans, he painstakingly got the gun into position.
“Drop it, Stag! You’re too good a man to die doing another man’s dirty work!”
He held his fire, knowing he could place the bullet where he wanted it now.
There was no need. The gun slipped suddenly, too heavy for the gunman’s hand. Teetering, with all the slowness and patience of a man very drunk, Stag Harvey stooped to reach for the gun. And when he stooped he fell headlong.
Clay crossed to him and kicked the gun away. Harvey’s eyes were glazing, but as Clay stepped into his line of vision they seemed to clear.
“Clay”—he gasped the words hoarsely—”this here’s a—hell of a way to make—to make a—a livin’!”
People crowded forward. Bell looked around. “Get Doc McClean!”
“He’s with Montana,” Shorty Jones said. “He caught a slug. Not too bad.”
“Kilburn?”
“Shot to doll rags.”
Hank Rooney had knelt beside Harvey. He got to his feet. “You won’t need a doctor here,” he said. “He’s gone.”
Clay Bell turned away. Surprisingly, he was unhurt. His first shot had turned Harvey, and the gunman had never got lined up again. Men waited, listening for the word they expected. Finally Coffin put it into words. “What about Devitt? He hired these killers.”
The train whistled.
Sam Tinker glanced up the street. On the platform Noble Wheeler would be waiting, ticket in hand.
“Let Devitt alone,” Bell said. “I’ll talk to him, myself.”
“Schwabe came to town,” Tinker said. “He saw what was happening an’ he turned right around and rode out.”
“He was encouraged,” Rooney said. “Rush Jackson an’ me—we sort of showed him the error of his ways. We figured he had him a choice . . . He didn’t like it much.”
Clay Bell unbuckled his gun belts. He handed them to Coffin.
“Without a gun?” Shorty was unbelieving.
“His way,” Clay said quietly. “Fists are his style. He made his brag.”
He turned abruptly, lifting his eyes over the heads of the crowd to the girl on the walk. Their eyes met.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said, and over the babble of voices he heard the words as if no others were spoken.
He lifted his hand to his hat, and then he turned and walked up the street.
Chapter 20
Alone in his office, Jud Devitt heard the sound of guns, the sound of the guns with which he bought death. It was a strange sensation. Despite his arrogance and brutality of method, Jud Devitt might be called a civilized man. A month before, had it been suggested that he would have paid men to kill, he would have regarded the speaker as insane. Yet now, when he heard the sound of the guns, he felt a curious sensation of power, of triumph. He had won! His fingers trembled as they rubbed his unshaven jaws.
It was over then . . . And the man who had fought him, who had dared to fight him, that man was dead.
There was no place in the thinking of Jud Devitt for the possibility of one man defeating two, or of Clay Bell’s escape. He possessed that curious respect for guns often owned by men who have not used them against other men. He did not know how easy it is for even an expert marksman to miss. Nor did he guess what an amazing amount of lead a human body can absorb without dying, or even falling.
He had been resisted. One of his men—no, more than one—had been killed. His wagons had been upset, his donkey engine and sawmill burned. But he had won. Defeat was behind him then.
He got out the remaining twenty-five hundred dollars and placed it upon the desk.