“Served him right,” they said. One added, ‘Only next time make it a mite lower. We don’t need his kind.” We heard nothing of Heseltine or Reese.
It seemed likely they had pulled their freight.
Con had business in town so I nosed about, keeping the thong off my sixshooter just in case.
Con cautioned me, ‘Let them run and hide.
Ruby won’t like that, and we both know it.
Money’s no good unless they can spend it, and she will get tired of being holed up with two jumpy outlaws.” “What I can’t figure,” I said, “is why they’re so scared.
Heseltine is surely better than me with a pistol, and for that matter, Reese must be too.” Con shrugged. “When they knew you back in Texas you were just a shave-tail kid, and when they braced you back on the trail you weren’t much more.
They had orAy contempt for you, Shell. Men will often take advantage of anyone they believe is helpless to retaliate.
“The change in their thinking started when you took after them.
That worried them, because it showed you weren’t afraid to meet them.
They probably didn’t know who I was, and they were worried because you were no longer alone.
‘Despite all the talk you hear about gunmen, most of them stay in their own district and avoid people on the other side of town. When you came to Leadville you seemed to have connections, and that would worry them.
You can bet they heard talk; they knew you had cleared yourself with Duggan, and you seemed to be friendly with businessmen around town.
You were no longer somebody to be treated with contempt.
“Then after somebody took that shot at you, that put them in the wrong.
It was a shot from the dark-and it was a damn fool thing to do because it put them on record for the kind of men who would dry-gulch a man, and it also showed they weren’t sure of their own position.” It made sense, of course. Nevertheless, I was worried about that money. If they had hit the trail I might never get any more of it, and I didn’t like the thought of that.
Anyway, town was a-fretting me.
I’d been raised where the long wind blows and the short-grass plains roll away to the edge of the sky. I was used to the smell of a buffalo-chip fire and the feel of a saddle. I’d had it in me too long to get quickly weaned away by fancy grub and store-bought clothes.
So I said nothing, but laid in a stock of traveling grub and a couple hundred rounds of .44’s that would fit either my Winchester or my hand gun.
“You figurin” on startin’ a war?” the man there in the hardware store asked me.
“Well, sir,” I said, “those men taken money we’d been paid for cattle gathered by pa and his neighbors. Those folks sweat hard for that money.
They made their gather in rain or shine or hail, and they held those cattle, come storm or stampede.
Those folks back yonder trusted us. I figure if it has to be a war, it’n be a war.” He reached under the counter and come up with a six-shooter. It was mighty close to being new, and it was a fine weapon, fine as a man could wish.
“Boy,” he said, “that gun you’re packin” looks mighty used up, and I like the way you shape up. You take this here gun in place of the one you’ve got, and welcome.” “I can’t afford it.
“Maybe. But I can. If you get your money, you ride by here and pay me; if you don’t, forget it.
I wouldn’t want to see a man go up against Bob Heseltine with a woreout gun.” “Thanks,” was all I could say.
That gun had a feel to it, the right kind of feel.
I held it in my hands and felt the balance of it, and I tried it in my holster and they fit as if they were made for each other.
comMaiCs a fine piece,” I commented, “and it’s had some use. Is it yours?” “My brother carried that gun. He was a good man, but the morning he was killed he wasn’t carrying it, but an old one he was takin” to be fixed.” “What happened?” “He’d had words with a man, a good time back.
He met the man on the street, and my brother was killed. We buried him two years ago outside of Tin-Cup.” was Sorry.” “He knew that man was hunting” him. He bought this gun for the purpose, and he had used it some. He loved the gun, and carried it a lot, but that morning he’d promised to get a gun fixed for our nephew, and it was easier to carry in his holster.
Heseltine wasn’t even supposed to be around.” “Heseltine?” “Bob Heseltine killed him. My brother might have beaten Heseltine, because he was a good man with a gun, but he hadn’t a chance. “This here gun that I’ve given you was meant to be used against Heseltine.” I drew the gun again, and looked at it.
It was like any other Peacemaker Colt, but-well, it felt different.
Maybe it was different.
Some guns had a different feel to them, some guns felt right to a man.
Usually, it was the getting used to a gun.
A man could always shoot a mite better with his own weapon, but this feeling was something different.
“Thanks,” I said again, and walked out into the street where the morning sun was bright.
It was warm out there where the sun was shining, but the wind was raw when a man stepped from shelter.
The gun rested easy in my holster … a gun bought to kill a man.
Or rather, for a man to defend himself”.
Crossing the street, I picked my way around the mudholes and across the ruts cut deep by freight wagons. Some of them had water standing in them.
Clouds were bunching over the peaks. Some of the peaks you couldn’t even see, but the sunshine was still on the street. I turned and looked along it. I would have to be careful now; I could walk nowhere without thinking of who might be waiting for me, or who I might come on unexpectedly.
I had had my first gun battle. I was still alive, and Doc Sites was down.
Nothing in me wanted to kill Kid Reese, or even Heseltine. All I wanted was my money, and then to ride free, o make a place somewhere for myself.
When I was a few steps shy of the Clarendon, a man stepped out from the wall. He was wearing a short sheepskin coat, and his black hat had a torn brim.
“Are you Shell Tucker?” he asked.
“Yes.” He was a stranger, a narrow-faced man with shifty eyes, and I did not like the looks of him very much.
He smiled at me. “Heard about you an” that shootin.
Heard about them fellers making off with your money.
That there don’t seem right.” “It wasn’t.” “That Reese now, him an’ Heseltine-they’ve skipped town. They’re scared of you.” Maybe I was a kid, but I didn’t believe that. Not for a minute.
When I remembered the hard, leather ” coml face of Bob Heseltine and his cold eyes, I felt a chill. He might be many things, but he was not afraid of me.
“I know they’ve skipped,” he said. He glanced up and down the street and stepped a little closer. “I know they’ve skipped and I know where they are.” “You do?” “They’re holed up in a shack the other side of Independence Pass.
Sets back in the quakies.” I knew that mountain folks often called the aspens “quakies,” from their name of quaking aspen. “Good run of water close by,” he added. “Figured you’d want to know.” Thanks Con Judy was not in the room when I entered, nor was he in the bar. There was a restlessness in me, and I did not want to wait. They were at the Pass … suppose they left there? How long might it be before I found them again?
In our room I quickly wrote a note, then taking up my rifle, my saddlebags and blanket roll, I went down the steps and across the lobby.
My horse was standing three-legged in his stall, and he rolled his eyes at me when I came in, and laid back his ears when I threw the saddle on his back and tightened the cinch. All I was thinking was that they had gone from here, and if I was to have my money back I must follow. Con Judy had his own affairs, and this was mine. Was I a child that I needed him to guide me?
Dueldng my head as I rode through the wide door, I turned my horse down the trail.