We’ll show this bunch what we’re made of.” “All right,” Clatt said impatiently.
“Let’s gol” Klondike hesitated.
“Monny, what about that train? I didn’t like the looks of it.” “Forget itl just shiftin’ a stockcar in to pick up some cattle. Let’s gol” Borden Chantry was in his office door with the jail behind him. Big Injun was at the window.
Hyatt Johnson, up at the bank, had been a major in the Confederate cavalry, and George Blazer at the express office had been a sharpshooter with Sherman and was a veteran of a number of Indian battles. He glanced down the street.
Here they were, three men riding abreast, coming right up the street. A trail of dust where one man had cut over behind the saloon.
“Big Injun?” He spoke over his shoulder.
“There’s one cumin’ up behind the Corral. You take him.” Borden Chantry stepped out of the door and went to the edge of the boardwalk.
Down the street Tyre] Sackett, his badge in plain sight, stepped out from the shadow of the McCoy house as the last two riders rode into town. The others were a good fifty yards ahead of them and intent on the street and the town.
“Boys? I’m Tyrel Sackett, and I’d like to talk to you. Get down off those horses and come over here. And boys? Keep your hands in sight.” Tyrel Sackett? The Mora gunfighter?
Denny Dinsmore felt himself go a little sick in the stomach. What the hell was this? Sackett here?
He hesitated. Sweat broke out on his brow.
Clyde Bussy was beside him, and Clyde was a good, tough boy, but—“What “What is this?” he protested. Sackett’s tone was sharp. “Get off those horses and get over here. Novel” “You want us to drop our gunbelts?” Denny asked.
Sackett seemed to smile, but it was not a smile Denny liked. Why did he ever want to be an outlaw, anyway?
“Oh, not Keep your guns on! I’d never like it said that I shot an unarmed marl” Clyde wasn’t offering any argument. Slowly and carefully, the two men dismounted.
When the three advance riders drew almost abreast of Chantry, he lifted his left hand. “Just a minute, boys! I’m Borden Chantry, the sheriff. I’d like a word with you.” Something clicked in Monson’s brain.
Chantry? It was his place where the horses were. What had happened? An old man named Riggin was supposed to be marshal here.
Monson laughed. “Sorry, mister sheriff, we ain’t got time to talk. Supposin’ you just shuck them guns an’ walk ahead of us. Walk slow, up to the bank. That all right with you?” Monson turned in his saddle. “Anybody shows along the street, shoot “eml” Monson was cocky, and he was sure of himself. No hick-town sheriff- He never saw the draw. Borden Chantry had stood there, big, formidable, his gun in his holster. Monson went for his gun but as Chantry drew he stepped to the left, and Monson shifted his gun to cover him, firing as he did so, and he shot his horse, the bullet grazing the black’s neck.
The horse plunged and Monson was already falling.
There was a burst of gunfire all along the street, the stab of flame from pistols, plunging, rearing horses, the smell of gunsmoke. Riding from behind the Corral Saloon to become the horse holder while the robbery took place, Klondike heard the shots, saw Monson down, his horse racing away up the street. Somebody was shooting from the bank, and he saw a man kneeling in front of the express office with a Big Fifty Sharps. This was no place for a man who wanted to spend his old age sitting in the sun. Klondike wheeled his horse and headed for the shelter of a barn, from which point he hoped to make the wideopen country beyond. Klondike had never heard of Big Injun, a big, slowmoving, quiet man who rarely smiled. He did not know that the year Klondike was born Big Injun had taken his ninth scalp. All Klondike knew was that things had exploded all around him and he wanted to get away from there, and fast. He turned his horse to go and the horse made at least two jumps in the right direction. Big Injun, kneeling in the doorway, fired his Sharps, and the bullet, because of the movements of the horse, was a little low. It grazed the cantle of Klondike’s saddle and, badly deformed, careened upward. The jagged metal took off the back of Klondike’s skull. What remained of Klondike stayed in the saddle for a quarter of a mile before it fell, toppling into the dust. The horse ran off a little way and, missing its rider, stopped, trotted off a few steps, and waited. Klondike lay where he had fallen. Klondike, a tough man, was tough no longer. He stared up at the sky. “I wish . . . I just wish . . .” The sun faded and a grasshopper leaped to his shirtfront, then hopped again. A few yards off his horse started to graze. Back in the street Clatt, who had always been proud of his silver belt buckle, had no chance to regret it. Up the street George Blazer was kneeling beside a post on the boardwalk in front of the express office.
His days with Sherman were long since gone, but his skill with a rifle was not. The belt buckle flashed an invitation and George accepted it. He was a quiet man who liked to read his newspaper over coffee in the evening, but he did not like a bunch of would-be tough men shooting up his hometown. You could have laid a silver dollar over the spot where the two rifle bullets went in, but you couldn’t have covered with a bandana the place where they emerged.
Clatt was down, and nobody knew who accounted for the other two, as several men were shooting and all showed evidence of skilled marksmanship.
Suddenly the thunder of guns, suddenly the flashes of gunfire, the plunging horses, the shouts, cries, dust, and then silence with the smell of dust and gunsmoke.
A horse walked away up the street.
Another ran away between the buildings. Others, faithful to their training, stood where their reins had fallen.
Borden Chantry thumbed cartridges into his almost empty gun. People emerged on the street.
Prissy came from the post office. “Sheriff Chantryl You should be ashamed of yourself! What did we elect you fort So this sort of thing wouldn’t happen! What will people say?” “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Borden said. “We tried to spread the word that this was a quiet town. I’m afraid somebody didn’t get the message.” Big Injun, his rifle across the desk, came outside. “I’ll get the buckboard an” pick “em up.” Tyre! Sackett came up the street with two frightened outlaws. They stared at the fallen bodies, faces gray. Denny Dinsmore felt like throwing up. He didn’t want to, not in front of all these people. Clatt and Monson, dead.
Kim Baca was looking at his gun. He had fired two shots and could not remember when or how.
He had no idea whether he had even hit anything.
Denny licked his dry lips. “What’s for us?” he asked, glancing at Chantry.
Men who tried to steal the money others worked hard to earn got no sympathy from him. “For you?
If you’re lucky you may get no more than twenty years.” Denny stared at him. Denny was twenty-two.
He had thought an outlaw’s career would be wild and exciting. He turned and stared at the bodies in the street. He had never really liked any of ^th’men, especially Monson. He had always been a little afraid of Monson, but he had eaten with them, told stories and talked, he had slept in bunkhouses with them and in camps.
Now they were dead.
Twenty years? Why, he would be over forty when he got outl His youth gone. He’d be an old man, he’d- What about Mag? Why, she would never even know what happened to him! And after a little while she wouldn’t care. “Mister,” he pleaded. “I- “You put your money on the wrong card,” Chantry said. “You dealt your own hand, and in this life a man pays to learn. You just didn’t learn fast enough.” He walked away and held out his hand to Sackett. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks very much.” “I’ll buy you a drink,” Tyrel said, “or coffee.” “Later,” Borden said. “I’d better go speak to the wife first. She’ll have heard all that shootin”.” She was standing waiting, her face white and still.
“Borden? Bord? Are you all right?” “All right, Bess. They were going to rob the bank. We had to stop them before somebody got hurt.
We stopped them.” “You’re all right? You’re sure?” “I’m all right, Bess. I will have to go back and see everything straightened up, though. There was some shooting. was “I heard. Was anybody-his I mean, was.-?” “Some outlaws. Tyrel Sackett arrested two of them. There were some pretty bad men among them.