“Mort will start it, and Charlie and their pa will have to back him. If anybody is left, I’ll do the shooting.”
She paused. “Or you can. After all, Uncle Henri, blood is thicker than water.”
“Whose blood, Sarah? Surely not yours.”
“Don’t do it for blood then. Do it for the
money. It is better that we have it than that they should.”
“I’ll agree to that,” he said cheerfully. “But I will have no part of any shooting with that girl in there. She is the daughter of a friend. Get her out first, then we will see.”
She hesitated, and French Williams glanced toward the house. Soon they would be wondering what had become of her, and if they came out now …
“Wait. I’ll see what I can do,” and she turned and went back inside.
“Do you trust her?” Sparrow asked.
“Only to do what she thinks is best for her.”
The sky was gray in the east. The rain, which had
ceased, stood in pools like sheets of steel, and the leaves dripped. The clouds were breaking.
“They’ll be moving soon,” Sparrow warned. “They know that by this time the car has been missed, and the search will begin.”
Sarah emerged from the house again, Doris beside her. Right behind them was Hank Talrim. As they walked toward the trees, Talrim watched them, then he went back inside.
Sarah stopped suddenly and Doris continued to walk ahead, moving toward a point just to the right of the trees and out of the line of fire.
Harvey stepped out the door, followed by Hank Talrim. “Hey!” Harvey yelled. “Come back here!”
As he shouted, Doris threw herself to the ground and rolled over into the shallow cut that led toward the spring.
Harvey started to run toward them when Talrim called out, “Harv! Wait!”
As Harvey turned, Hank Talrim shot him. He fell, and rolled over, and men burst from the house, guns in hand.
Hank laughed, and tilted his gun. He was ready to fire when Frank Ruff’s big voice cut across the morning air with a shout. “No!” He pointed. “Look!”
All of them turned.
The morning sun had come from behind a cloud, and its
light was reflected from a pool of rain water near the trees. It was enough to draw the eye.
French Williams stood there, and Tom Chantry and Sparrow.
For an instant no one spoke. Then it was Chantry, hoping, but not believing, that a shoot-out might be avoided. “Leave the money,” he said clearly, “mount your horses, and ride out. We’ll call it quits.”
Frank Ruff ignored him. “Aren’t you on the wrong side, Sparrow?” he said. “Seems to me you should be over here with us.”
“I am where I always should have been, Frank.
You lied to me, you know.”
Chantry was cool. He had an empty feeling inside, but his mind was clear, his eyes appraising. These were men of violence, and they would shoot. Even if Frank Ruff, older and perhaps wiser, might see the sense in just riding off, the Talrims would not.
Hank and Bud were the ones nearest the house. The three Ruffs were at the other side, scattered out, watching.
On his own side, Williams was a known gunfighter, a man of tested ability. He himself … well, he could shoot. As for Sparrow, he knew nothing about him except that the man was calm, controlled, and ready.
“You’d better do like the man says,” Williams said, almost pleasantly. “You boys were never going to make it anyway. I’ve got four men between you and the hideout. They’re coming up the country right now, scouting for sign.”
They had forgotten Sarah.
Standing alone, she watched, her face cold and
still, her eyes measuring. All she had come west for, all she had bargained for, all she wanted was in that house. The first part of her plan had begun to work when Hank Talrim had shot Harvey … that was one less. She had talked to the Talrims in confidence, and she had talked to Mort. No matter how it turned out, there would be fewer among whom to divide the loot.
According to her thinking, when the Ruffs burst into the open and saw Harvey down, they should have turned their guns on Hank; and in turn Bud would have started shooting. With her own gun to account for Frank Ruff, if need be—or whoever survived. …
It could still work. Williams and Chantry and Sparrow … the Talrims and the Ruffs … when it was all over she might still be alone.
She stood for an instant, knowing that the slightest move might start the shooting. She was hesitating, trying to decide what could be done that would be best for her, when Chantry spoke again.
“There need be no shooting here,” he said quietly. “As you gentlemen know, I am against violence. Leave the gold, Ruff—just take your horses and ride out of here.”
“What about your pa?”
“My father faced his problems in his time. I shall
face mine in my time. What you did to my father was murder, Ruff. I have a feeling you will hang— if not for that, for some other crime. I see no reason for me to kill you, when your end is inevitable.”
“You talk mighty fancy,” Frank Ruff said. “All I hear is that you want to back out.”
“I did not come hunting you. That was your own idea. I came west to buy cattle, as these men can testify. I have bought my cattle.
“You now have two sons. No matter who wins, the odds are that when the shooting is over you will have one less, maybe two less. Is that what you want?”
“He’s right, Frank. It’s a Mexican stand-off,” Sparrow said.
Sarah saw only one thing. Frank Ruff was hesitating. The last argument had reached him. In a moment he might decide to quit, then there would be no shooting, and the gold would go to Chantry.
She knew the Talrims. Their first instinct, always, was to kill. If she moved at this tense moment, her move would draw the eyes of the others, and she knew what the Talrims would do then.
“Hank?” she said softly, and moved suddenly.
Eyes swung toward her, and the Talrims
grabbed for their guns.
All eyes had turned but Tom Chantry’s.
Even as the Talrims drew, his gun was coming up. His first shot caught Hank Talrim in the stomach and knocked him to the ground; the second hit Bud in the shoulder.
And then a thunder of guns, stabbing flame. A man running, a man falling … a grunt, a scream, and then silence.
How long had it been? Only a few seconds. Tom Chantry still held his gun up, ready. But it was all over. So many lives, so short a time.
He could hardly realize yet what had happened. From the corner of his eye he had seen French Williams … his gun had come out so fast it seemed almost to materialize out of thin air into his hand, spouting flame. Now Williams was down, hunched against a tree, his eyes still bright, his gun still ready, but his shirt was slowly turning crimson.
Sparrow was leaning against another tree, a trickle of blood on his cheek, more blood on his shirt.
Hank Talrim was dead. Bud was crawling toward his horse, but anybody could see he wasn’t going far. Frank Ruff was dead, literally shot to pieces by French Williams. Mort Ruff was seemingly unhurt, and was bending over Charlie, who was down.
Doris came from the ditch where she had been lying. “Tom, are you all right?” she asked.
“I think so. Take care of French.”
He went over to Sparrow. “Better get your
coat off, Mr. Sparrow. I’ll want to look at your side.”
“It’s just a crease. Tom, did you hear what Frank said? About me being on the wrong side?”
“So? I think you were on the right side.”
“You don’t understand, Tom. I want you
to understand. I was a youngster … only sixteen.
I’d been working with Frank Ruff and Harvey. They told me there was a man needed killing, that he’d killed a friend of theirs, and they wanted me to join them. I believed them, and I went along, and I didn’t know what I was shaped up for until it happened. I didn’t figure on an ambush, Tom. I didn’t even know your father, but I helped shoot him down, and it wasn’t until I read it in the papers and heard folks talking that I realized what I’d done.
“They lied to me, Tom, but I went along— maybe because I wanted them to think me a big man. I wanted to show them I had as much nerve as anyone. I didn’t know until afterwards that the man I had helped to kill was a good man, a better man than any one of us.”