Turning away from the corral, I looked toward the lighted windows. It was late, and this was an early rising town, so it was early to bed. Only a few lights remained, the lights of folks I did not know.
How many such towns had I been in? A lone-riding man is a stranger wherever he goes, and so it had been for me until I met Ange, and so it was again.
There was a bit of a gully where run-off water had cut into the ground, and three times I’d taken care to step over it; but now, so filled I was by my own sorrow, I forgot it. Starting back toward the town I stepped off quickly, put a foot into that ditch, and fell flat on my face … and it saved my life.
When I hit the ground there was the roar of a shot in my ears, and then silence. Me, I just never moved. I lay there quiet, waiting and listening. Whoever had shot at me must have figured I was a dead duck, because he just let me lay. After several minutes had passed and I heard no further sound, I eased myself past the corner of the corral and crouched there, waiting. If anybody was going to risk a first move, it was not going to be me.
After some more time I began to feel sure that my unseen attacker had slipped away quietly and was no longer around. But that was a risk I was not prepared to chance. I backed up and got into some brush at the edge of town and circled wide around until I got back to the saloon. No other place in town had a light.
I pushed open the door and stepped in. There were three men inside.
The bartender looked up at me, and then his eyes sort of slipped over to the man at the end of the bar. Not that I mean that bartender was telling me anything, just that he naturally looked toward that man – probably because that man had come in last.
He was a tall man, but on the slender side, with a narrow, tough face.
Walking up to the bar, I held my Winchester in my right hand, and put my left on the bar. “I’ll have rye,” I said, and then under cover of the bar, I tilted my rifle muzzle past the corner of the bar and within inches of the tall man’s heart. And I held it there.
Nobody could see what my gun hand was doing, but when I took up my drink I looked over at this gent and said, “Somebody took a shot at me out by the corral.”
Now, I didn’t make a thing of it, I just said it mildly, looking at him. But there was another thing I’d noticed. That man had mud on his boot heels, and the only mud I knew of was alongside the corral where the water trough stood.
He looked right at me. ‘Wasn’t me,” he said, “or I’d have killed you.”
“I think it was you,” I said. “You’ve got mud on your heels.”
His fingers had been resting on the edge of the bar and when his hand dropped for his gun, I squeezed the trigger on my rifle.
That .44 slug knocked him back and turned him half around. I jacked another shell into the chamber and stepped around after him.
He was still standing, but he sort of backed up, going to the wall, and I cat-footed it after him, “Were you one of them that killed my wife?”
He stared at me, looking genuinely puzzled. “Wife? Hell, no. I … I … you tried to kill the boss. Back in the … Mogollons.” His words came slowly, and his eyes were glazing.
“He lied to you. You’re dying for nothing. Who is your boss?”
He just looked at me, but he never answered, nor tried to answer.
When I faced around to the others, the bartender had both hands resting on the bar in plain sight, and the others the same.
“You took advantage,” one of them said.
“Mister,” I replied, “my wife was murdered. She was strangled trying to defend herself. My wagon was burned, my mules killed, and forty men spent a week or more combing the mountains to kill me. One of them shot me in the back of the head. I’ll play this the way they started it. Wherever they are, whoever they are, they got to kill me, light out of the country, or they’ll die – wherever and whenever I find them.”
The man gave me a cynical look. “I’ve heard talkers before.”
“Mister, the last feud my family taken part in lasted seventy years. The last Higgins died with his gun in his hand, but he died.”
Nobody said anything, so I asked, “Who did he work for?”
They just looked at me. My troubles were my own, and they wanted no part of them, nor could I lay blame to them for it. They were family men and townies, and I had come in out of wild country, and was a stranger to them.
“You might take a look at his horse,” the bartender said. “There’s likely to be only two at the hitch rail, yours and his.”
There had been another horse at the rail when I tied mine, so I turned to the door and started through. A rifle bullet smashed splinters from the door jamb within inches of my face, and I threw myself out and down, rolling swiftly into the shadows with a second bullet furrowing the boardwalk right at my side.
In the darkness I rolled back and up to one knee, and I settled myself for a good shot. But nothing happened, nor was there any movement out in the darkness. Two frame buildings and a tent with a floor were just across the street from me; there was also a lot of brush close by, and another corral. I stayed still for several minutes, and then I suddenly thought of that other horse. I went to look, but he was gone.
The horse had been taken away before I came out to the street, but after I had killed the rider in the saloon. And then somebody had waited for me, shooting from the darkness across the street.
Back inside the saloon, the two townsmen were gone . . . through the back door, no doubt The bartender was wiping off the bar, taking a lot of time at it
A pot of coffee stood on the stove and a rack of cups was behind the bar. I picked up a cup, and filled it from the pot on the stove. The place I selected to stand was out of line of any doors and windows.
“I got to do some contemplating about you,” I said to the bartender.
He straightened up and gave me a slow, careful look. “About me?”
“You mentioned that horse in the corral. When I stepped to the door I nearly got myself killed.”
“If you think I’d set you up -” he began.
“I do think you might if you had reason enough. Now I got to decide what stake you have in this.”
He came across to me. “Mister, my name is Bob O’Leary, and I’ve tended bar from Dodge to Deadwood, from Tombstone to San Antone. You ask anybody, and they’ll tell you I’m a man of my word. I’ve done a few things here and there, and I ain’t sayin’ what they might be, but I never murdered no woman, nor had anything to do with those that would. Like I told you, you find your man, or men, and I’ll lend a hand with the rope … no matter who they be.”
“All right, Mr. Bob O’Leary, for the time being I’l1 take your word for it. All I’ll say is your timing was right.”
“Nobody needs timing for you, Sackett. You give it some thought, and you’ll see your number is up. You stand to be somebody’s favorite target.”
“Put yourself in his place. Suppose somebody who can command a lot of men did murder your wife. What’s he doin’ now? I’ll tell you. He’s scared … he’s scared to death. He’s not only scared of you, he’s scared of what his own men will believe.”
“He’s told them a story. He’s told them, judging by what that puncher said this evening, that you tried to kill him. They accepted that story. They are all trying to kill you, and you’ll have to admit it’s more exciting than punching cows.”
“Only now you’re talking. You’re telling a different story, and he’s got to shut you up fast.”
“Look at it this way,” he went on. “That man is riding through the rough country alone. He sees your wife waiting in that wagon. She’s a young, pretty woman. Maybe he hasn’t seen any kind of a woman in weeks … maybe months. He talks to her, he makes advances and she turns him down. He gets too brassy about it and they start to fight. Upshot is, he kills her. Chances are he had no mind to do such a thing when it all started, but now where is he?