“Thanks, Trent. I appreciate this.”
“Sure.” Kilkenny stepped out into the street. If there was going to be trouble there was little sense in delaying action and allowing the Tetlows to get too firmly situated. He wanted no trouble, but he knew now there would be no avoiding it. If Ben had been the boss—that fellow could be talked to. Maybe it would be worth attempting.
Three men were standing in front of the stage station. They were the same men he had seen in the hotel dining room. The big man with the lumbering gait was staring at him truculently. Suddenly, he yelled, “Hey, you!” Kilkenny ignored him and the man yelled again, then wheeled and started for Kilkenny, who came along and stepped up on the walk in front of the Westwater. There the big man reached him. “When I call, yuh stop!” he bellowed, thrusting his face at Kilkenny.
Suddenly, Lance Kilkenny was coldly, bitterly furious. The attitude of the man, his bullying voice, the attitude of the Forty outfit toward the sheriff, all of it had culminated in this. His right jerked up, not in a close fist, but striking up with the butt of his palm. The movement was so swift the big man had no chance to avoid it and the hard butt of that palm smashed under his jaw, slamming his head back on his neck. The man tottered, and Kilkenny stepped in and struck him a slashing blow across the side of the face with the edge of his palm. The blow laid the man’s cheek open for four inches, showering him with blood. Then Kilkenny looked up, facing the other two men. The man with the white eyes and the gun tucked in his waistband and the man with the missing ringer and scarred face. Both stared down at the big fellow on the ground and then looked at Kilkenny unbelieving. “Never even closed his fist!” somebody said from the gathering crowd.
“This gent’s hunting trouble, Grat,” the scar-faced man said softly. “He’s askin’ for it.”
“Then we’ll give it to him, Red.” Grat started to move, but he was too late. Kilkenny had seen the situation developing and preferred it to be settled with fists rather than guns. Infinitely more experienced at this sort of thing than the average cowhand, he struck swiftly. The blow caught Grat high on the face, and as his hands came up to protect his face, he whipped an underhand blow to the wind. Grat’s knee caved and he pitched forward into the cracking left hook that Kilkenny had ready for him.
When he stepped in to meet Grat he had turned in such a way as to put Grat between himself and Red. It gave him just time enough to put Grat out of the running, and as Red rushed him, Kilkenny vaulted over the hitch rail into the street. Red brought up short and in the split second of hesitation, Kilkenny grabbed his outstretched arm and threw his back under him, jerking him over the rail and off his back with a flying mare. Stunned, Red stared up, gasping for breath at the man who stood over him.
“I’m not hunting trouble,” Kilkenny said, “but it’s time somebody showed you where to head in. If you’ve picked me for the job, I’m the man who can do it.” Jared Tetlow shoved through the crowd, his face flushed and angry. “Here! What goes on here?”
Kilkenny turned sharply at the authority in the voice. His head dropped a little, his hands went wide. “Tetlow!” His voice rang in the narrow street. “You came into this country hunting trouble and you brought a bunch of no-good troublehunters with you! These hands of yours jumped me!” A devil was driving him now and he was cold with fury. He stepped toward the older man, his hands ready to his guns. He felt it building inside him but was helpless to stop it. He was berserk with fury and ready for anything, heedless of anything. He could not have stopped had he faced the whole Forty outfit. “Take ‘em and get out of the country! Move ‘em out! You’ve come looking for trouble and here it is! And if you don’t like what I say—fill your hand!” Jared Tetlow was appalled. Accustomed to command, surrounded by tough gunhands who protected him from every danger, it had been years since he had personally faced a gun. In company with his men he faced up to them readily, but now, suddenly, he felt lost, alone. He fought for words and none would come. Suddenly, he knew with cold certainty that if he reached for his gun he would die.
Never had he been so aware of the imminence of death. This man would kill him. That realization shook him to the depths of his being. Normally courageous, he had been so protected in the past years that now, naked and alone, he was helpless to move.
Slowly, Kilkenny relaxed. “So that’s how it is?” he said contemptuously. “Nerve enough to order a man killed but not nerve enough to face it yourself!” Deliberately, he turned his back and walked across the street and into the hotel, leaving behind him a blanket of silence. Jared Tetlow stared around him as if coming out of a trance. Realization came to him. He had been challenged, had been dared to draw and he had made no move. There were thinly veiled smiles on some of the faces, worry on others. Around him the crowd was melting away.
His definite, known world seemed suddenly shaky. He had grown to manhood in a family that fought as a unit. He had trained his sons and his riders the same way. It was always the Forty against everything and everybody, but one man had thrown a challenge into their teeth and he himself had backed down. Grat got to his feet, sullenly beating the dust from his clothing. The wide cut on Jess Baker’s face seeped blood. Red, at the hitch rail, was being violently sick. Tetlow glanced around and saw Ben standing in front of the harness shop. His emptiness filled with fury. “You!” he roared. “Where were you? Why didn’t you do something?”
“What could I do? If I had made a move he would have killed you—just like he killed Bud.”
Jared Tetlow went stiff with shock. “That… it was… he killed Bud?” “That’s the man,” Ben said quietly, “and if anyone had made a wrong move he would have killed you!”
Chapter 4
Kilkenny entered the hotel to find Leal Macy waiting for him. The sheriff seemed unusually quiet. “That took nerve,” he commented, “what if he had tried it?” “He wouldn’t,” Kilkenny said, “He’s a cinch killer. I saw them work against Lott the other day.”
“But he might have.”
“Yes, I thought he would, to be honest. Or maybe I just didn’t think. Their kind get in my craw.”
“Mine, too. But you’d better get out of town for a few days at least. They’ll never rest now until they get you.”
“What about the hearing?”
“We’ll have it.” Macy spoke flatly. “We’ll have it and we’ll see what a local jury does. The fact is, your stand here in the street may make all the difference. They may not hesitate to bring in a bill against them. Or against Havalik.”
“You’ll have a fight if you try to arrest him.”
“Then I’ll have it.” Macy was grim and quiet. “There are a few good men in town.
Early is one of them, Doc Blaine is another.”
“Doc?” Kilkenny was surprised.
Macy nodded. “Oddly enough, he’s a fighter. Plenty of sand and a fine rifle shot.”
“You can count on Dolan.”
“Dolan?” Macy stared, half angry. “You think I’d call on him for help?”
“Why not? It doesn’t look to me like you have much choice. I’d say call on him.
Dolan,” he added, “is a former Army man. He was a soldier for quite some years. Despite the fact that he’s on the edge of the law now, such a man is deeply marked with his former experience, and against mob action. Dolan will stand hitched, and keep his boys so. Also, he considers the Forty as fair game.” Macy considered that. It went against the grain to ask help or even accept offered help from a man of Dolan’s stamp, yet Macy had been a soldier himself, and he knew how deeply the years of training were imbedded in a man’s nature. And Dolan had not been a citizen soldier, but a Regular Army man, a sergeant of long experience, accustomed to order and discipline. He still bore the mark of it in his neat dress, his square shoulders and his walk, and the sharpness of his actions. It was possible that Kilkenny was right. “I’ll stay if you want,” Kilkenny volunteered. He admired the stand this man was taking. It was such men whom the West needed if ever there was to be peace and order.