Six moved on soft feet, aiming to intercept the gunman in mid-timber. Once he lost Peso’s position and froze until movement and sound drew him forward; once again, the guns behind him opened up. Men’s voices started calling back and forth in the timber. He recognized a few, but none belonged to Madden or any of Madden’s chief henchmen. They must have been shooting at Sarasen, for none of the bullets came anywhere within Six’s view.

  Ahead of him Peso had stopped, perhaps in fear, perhaps to scout. Six halted, moved around behind a pair of trees, and suddenly lost Peso. The man was nowhere to be seen. Six turned his head slowly, to catch little sounds against the flats of his eardrums. He thought he heard heavy breathing, but for a third time the shooting began again in back of him and he could not be sure. Nonetheless he moved forward.

  Peso started off again, breaking wood underfoot. Six stepped on exposed roots and rocks as much as possible, to avoid sound. There were sporadic volleys of gunfire in the forest. He had occasional views of Peso moving along in jerks—now halting, now trotting ahead on his horse. Whenever the other stopped, Six slowed his pace cautiously. His course of travel was calculated to meet Peso’s not far distant, but all the time had had to watch his flanks and back to make sure no one else was boxing him.

  He was coming up from behind Peso’s right shoulder. Presently, with a clear twenty-five foot shot at Peso between trees, Six halted and lifted the Hawken rifle. “Hold it, Peso.”

  Peso froze awkwardly, bent forward in the saddle. His head began to turn. When he picked up Six in the corner of his vision, he suddenly dived off the saddle into the brush. Six’s shot missed him.

  Cursing, Six reloaded. Peso had dropped flat, rolling over, drawing his six-gun. The maneuver dropped Peso’s vital parts out of sight behind the thick bole of a pine; with his clear shot spoiled, Six had to wheel back behind cover. It was just as well; at least the contest now was fair. Not that it made much difference where a man’s life concerned—once dead you didn’t much care how you had been killed. But the rules and the badge were buried deep in his nature and it was hard to fight against them.

  He could see Peso’s boots from his concealment; to shake the man up he sighted the Hawken on one bootheel and fired. The gunshot roared in the forest corridors; the heavy heel spun deliriously away from the boot. Legs jarred, Peso drew his feet up protectively. Six could hear his high-pitched Spanish cursing on the thin flat air. Then, over that sound, he heard the crush of horse-hoofs. Men were yelling back and forth.

  “Peso, where in hell are you?”

  “Jimmy, you back there? I got one of ’em bottled up over here. Come on over.” That was Walt Smiley, one of Madden’s erstwhile partners.

  “Wait a minute ... something funny, Walt. I can’t rouse Peso.”

  “I’m right here,” Peso called out, laughing. “Hey, Six, you hear that? Mexican stand-off, we got. That’s fine with me. Wait till the boys come up.”

  It lent a sudden urgency to the moment. Six knew he had to wrap it up quickly, or face a murderous crossfire. He drew his revolver and put a quick flurry of shots into the earth around Peso’s position, hoping to rattle Peso enough to make him do something foolish. But Peso was not stupid. He stayed put and in a moment Six heard him chuckling.

  Six pinched his mouth firmly tight; his jaw lay forward in a grim line. He looked all around. Horse sounds were louder, only a few hundred yards away. Someone called, “Peso? You got him yet?”

  It was no time for caution. Six ducked out from behind the big pine. Hoping to spoil Peso’s aim by surprise, he dodged forward, angling toward Peso’s position, and threw himself flat, sprawling into a shallow depression of earth just as Peso’s quick shot split twigs overhead.

  Peso’s head and shoulders were in view; the scene began to move very slowly for Six: Peso bunched himself, starting to draw back to cover like a tortoise into its shell, and Six watched the big Hawken rise in his own hands. Peso’s eyes were wide. The Hawken went off, very loud in the dim forest, and Peso’s head jerked slightly. The bullet had taken him through the throat, possibly snapped his neck, for his head lolled strangely and he flopped, mouth open.

  A voice, startlingly close, cut forward impatiently, “Peso. Peso, you got him? What the hell is going on?” And a moment later, “Walt?”

  “Over here,” called a more distant voice. “I thought I had this jasper pinned, but now I ain’t so—” The words were cut off in the middle by a gunshot. Pistol, Six thought. Sarasen’s? Walt did not speak again.

  In a rising tone of panic, Jimmy called, “I got his horse. Walt? Peso? Hey, where is everybody?” Farther back in the trees there was a sudden crashing as a horse went galloping away.

  Six pointed himself toward Jimmy’s voice and sloughed forward through the forest. For a long time he saw and heard nothing. Then, behind him, a new voice opened up, “Jimmy ... watch yourself. Peso bought out!”

  “Judas Priest!” Jimmy ejaculated. Six placed the sound of the voice now to his right, and changed direction accordingly. His feet quietly pressed down the forest floor. Soon he came in sight of Jimmy, a short squat man standing still with a revolver lifted hesitantly, holding the reins of two horses—his own and Six’s. Jimmy was looking straight ahead and for a moment Six was sure Jimmy was looking right at him, but Jimmy made no motions of recognition. The stranger’s voice back in the timber called again, “Hell, I’m gettin’ out of here. Look out for yourself, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy’s mouth opened and he bawled plaintively, “Where’s Walt?”

  “Gone home—wing busted. That Goddamn Sarasen’s prowlin’ around here somewhere. I’m clearing out.” The horse clattered to a gallop and faded from earshot.

  Jimmy’s mouth dragged shut. Six lifted his rifle before he spoke, in a low tone that was meant to carry no farther than Jimmy’s ears.

  “Drop the gun, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy jumped. Reaction tightened his fist on the six-gun and it went off, plowing a trench in the earth six feet before his boots. He dropped the gun as if it were a red-hot iron. His hands shot up. Six strode quickly forward, shouldered around behind Jimmy, yanked the man’s hands down and handcuffed them together behind Jimmy’s back. Then he boosted Jimmy onto the horse, mounted his own, and called out, “Ben. Ben Sarasen. All clear.”

  In a very short time, Sarasen appeared, leading his horse, pistol in hand. His face was flushed, his clothes awry. He said, “I skinned one of them. He went home. They had me boxed for a while. Sorry I couldn’t buy in over here.”

  Six regarded him suspiciously. Had it all been an act? Had the rest of them, calling back and forth, merely been mouthing words Sarasen had put there for them? But if so, what would be the reason for it? He couldn’t decide whether to trust Sarasen or not. It struck him as mighty suspicious that none of the big guns of Madden’s outfit had put in an appearance.

  Sarasen was holstering his gun and gathering the reins to mount. Six said, “We’d better go after that wagon, though I didn’t hear any shooting from that direction.”

  “I have a feeling they wanted us first, then the wagon,” Sarasen said. “When the bushwhack didn’t work, it spoiled their raid on the silver.”

  Sure, Six thought. But where were Madden, the Boltons, Faro Price? None of it made any sense. He put his foot in the stirrup and climbed up.

  Chapter Ten

  Habitually, Hal Craycroft never needed more than five hours sleep in a night. After closing the Drover’s Rest, usually around one o’clock, except on Saturdays, he would go upstairs to his rooms on the floor above the big saloon, undress, bathe, eat a sandwich, and go to sleep. In the morning he would be up by six o’clock, whereupon he would put in two hours’ work at his account books before going downstairs. Paperwork in recent years had consumed ever greater portions of his time, for with the coming of the railroad to Spanish Flat, Craycroft’s fortunes had improved steadily, so that today he was not only the owner of the town’s biggest and plushiest saloon, but also had a finger in several pies: real estate, cattle buying, banking, and freight. He was not wealthy but he was comfortably well-off, and the only reason he tended bar almost every night was because he liked people, and bartending gave a man wonderful opportunities for socializing with his friends.

  Reflecting on the many good things that had come to him in life, Craycroft was in a mild, pleasurable mood when he came down this morning and walked the four blocks to the Dutch Kitchen, where it was his habit to eat a strong heavy breakfast to fortify himself for the coming day. Afterward he stopped at the Tonsorial Parlor for his morning shave, bought a copy of the two-day-old Tucson Star, and went back to the Drover’s Rest with the newspaper under his arm, touching his hat brim to ladies he passed on the street.

  Once inside the saloon, he made polite greeting to young Charley Toms, the youth who swamped out the saloon every morning. Charley was pushing his mop with vigor, and Craycroft thought, That boy will go places—he’s willing to work. Going around behind the bar, Craycroft hung his hat on its usual peg, took out a clean apron, tied it around his middle, and began to check the bar stock. He made a mental note to go down to the warehouse later in the day to replenish his dwindling supply of port wine, which was a favorite of Bones Riley, the foreman of Spur ranch; Riley was due in tonight for his weekly game of poker, and Craycroft never forgot to have plenty of port on hand for him.

  When the place was tidied up he paid young Charley for his morning’s work, thanked the boy, and followed him outside to get a breath of air, but he found that on the street it was even hotter than it was inside. The sun boiled the dust in the powder-loose street; farther away he could see the undulating ripples of suspended heat-waves above the ground. Little mirages made the far street look like a shallow puddle of clear blue water.

  He was mopping a sleeve on his brow, to squeeze away oil-sweat, when the eight riders entered town at the head of the street, drumming forward with resolute grimness, all eight abreast. Two of them peeled off toward the jail; the other six thundered up past Craycroft, wheeled their horses in a vast swirl of dust, and swung down before the bank. Among those riders, Craycroft recognized Oakley Madden, Faro Price, Jed and Creed Bolton.

  Craycroft needed no stronger hint than that to know precisely what was happening. None of the outlaws seemed to have any interest in watching him, and it angered Craycroft to have his harmlessness taken for granted. As a proud citizen of Spanish Flat, and as a man who felt his pride had been rubbed the wrong way, Craycroft acted accordingly. He turned back into the empty saloon, walked to the bar and around behind it, and brought out his drunk pacifiers: a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun, and a nickel-plated, five-shot Smith & Wesson .38-40 revolver. Ramming the revolver into his pants pocket, he cocked the scattergun and strode to the door.

  Most of the outlaws apparently had entered the bank. There was no violence. Two men waited outside the bank with the horses, watching the street. One of them was Faro Price. Across and down the street, two horses stood outside the marshal’s office. At the foot of the street, several blocks away, the water wagon was moving slowly north, sprinkling down the dust. Craycroft hesitated. It would be foolhardy to go rushing toward the bank, into the teeth of half a dozen armed, deadly killers. He gritted his teeth and found his knuckles had gone white on the shotgun.

  At the marshal’s office there was a sudden turmoil. Several shots went off inside the close confines of the office, echoing in loud booms along the street. An outlaw, obviously dead on his feet, stumbled through the door in little jerks like a puppet on strings, and abruptly collapsed, his body across the doorway. Manny Gutierrez came backing out of the door, stepping over the dead man, his pistol up and firing into the office. A shot went off inside the office and Gutierrez wheeled, turned all the way around by the impact of the bullet. As Gutierrez turned, Craycroft saw the grim white set of his lips and the wicked shine of his dark eyes. Gutierrez sank to his knees, holding his gun in both hands, and fired once more. The second outlaw pitched outward to fall limply across the body of the first.

  That was when, across the street at the bank, Faro Price coolly lifted his six-gun and deliberately shot Gutierrez in the back of the head. Gutierrez flopped forward and lay still, his knees bunched awkwardly under him, making a hump in the street like a man praying with his face on the ground.

  Enraged, Craycroft fought away the red film over his blazing eyes and trained the shotgun on Faro Price. Without uttering any warning, he pulled the trigger.

  The scattergun roared. Its recoil knocked him back against the doorjamb. But the range was too far; the few pellets that struck Price only stung him. He wheeled, mouth drawn back in a savage grin, and Craycroft saw his gun coming around.

  The shotgun’s single chamber was empty. Craycroft had the presence of mind to let it fall and claw for the pistol in his pocket. No gunfighter, he knew with a sinking feeling in his belly that he was not going to make it. And then Faro Price’s gun went off.

  Craycroft was distinctly aware of the yellow tongue of flame that licked out of Price’s gun-muzzle. He felt the jar against his right shoulder, like a powerful fist driving him back, spinning him half around. He stumbled back inside the saloon, his right arm numb from shoulder to fingertips. Looking down, he saw with an expression of dumbfounded awe the thick red glisten of blood pulsing at his shoulder. In blind anger, he reached around clumsily with his left hand to try drawing the revolver from his pocket. The hammer snagged on fabric; he yanked desperately, tore a rent in his pants, and had the revolver upside-down in his left hand, a little piece of broadcloth hanging on the serrated surface of the hammer. Deliberately he hunkered down on his haunches, put the gun on the floor, and turned it around so that he could pick it up. He cocked it and stood up. His vision swirled and he felt dizzy; he gritted his jaws tightly together. There was no pain from the wound in his shoulder, only numbness; the arm dragged, a dead weight, useless.

  Bringing his left hand up with the cocked pistol, he pushed his feet ahead and went one step at a time back to the door. The street was milling confusion. Shopkeepers and passersby, coming out to see what the ruckus was, were scrambling back to shelter; outlaw guns were spraying the street indiscriminately. The four in the bank, Madden in the lead, came spilling out, their left hands clutching heavy sacks, and went rushing toward their horses, held by Faro Price and the other man. None of them spared second glances for Manny Gutierrez and the two dead outlaws at the front of the marshal’s office. An insistent question kept repeating itself crazily in Craycroft’s mind: where the devil was Jeremy Six?

  Out of the marshal’s office, treading on the dead bodies, rushed three men, gunbelts over their shoulders and rifles in hand: Drake Ivy and the Holliday boys. These three went rushing up the street toward the nearest tethered horses, and leaped into the saddles.

  Tears of pain and anger welled up in Craycroft’s eyes. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried once more to aim the gun. Its muzzle wavered across Oakley Madden’s torso, but Madden was never still. The outlaws were all asaddle now, still shooting to keep people off the streets. Madden shouted a cool command and bent low over his horse, ramming northward at a dead run. When he rushed past Craycroft’s door Craycroft pulled the trigger, and knew with sickening frustration that he had missed by several yards. The Boltons and three others galloped past in a bunch, shooting in all directions, driving him back to cover. When he looked out again, the Hollidays and Ivy were just running by. He lifted the Smith & Wesson and jerked off shots rapidly until the gun clicked empty. With savage satisfaction he saw Luke Holliday throw up his arms and pitch wildly from the swaying saddle. Holliday crashed to the dust and lay inert.

  Ivy and Chris Holliday hesitated. Then, with a curse, Ivy whipped up his horse and drove on, ramming out of town on the heels of Madden’s bunch. Holliday, with a cool display of courage, turned his horse and cantered back to his prone brother. A gun in each hand, Holliday leaped from the saddle and fired several shots toward the saloon. Craycroft whipped back against the wall, flattening himself to it. His eyes closed involuntarily, but none of the searching bullets found him. The smell of sulfur smoke was acrid in his nostrils. Where in hell was Six? For a moment he was chilled by the thought that some of those shots he had heard from within the marshal’s office might have cut Six down.

  Summoning courage, he looked around the doorjamb. Holliday had his stricken brother across the saddle, belly-down; Holliday climbed up behind the saddle, still firing his guns, and kicked the horse savagely into a lope, and in that manner disappeared from town.

  The street was suddenly quiet with the stillness of a tomb. Dust slowly settled over the prone bodies of three dead men outside the marshal’s office. Craycroft dragged his left arm across his eyes and felt the weight of the empty gun in his hand. He let it drop. Dizziness overcame him and he sank slowly to the floor, his arm throbbing at the shoulder. A wave of blackness loomed and he went down under it.

  Jeremy Six’s eyes were dark with grim determination. He stood just inside his office, looking down at the three corpses that the townspeople had laid out on the floor. Baker, the town’s carpenter-undertaker, was standing off to one side, considering the bodies with a detachment that suggested he was making visual measurements for their coffins. Six knew the townspeople had not intended it as such, but he could not help feeling that the presence of the three dead men in his own office was testimony to his own negligence, a grim rebuke. I should have been here, was the thought that kept running through his mind. I should have guessed.

  Sarasen was at his shoulder, eyes very bleak and dismal, expression giving away nothing. Six wheeled on him and said with measured quiet words, “Did you know about this?”

  “No. But I should have suspected it. I should have known Madden’s reason for tolling me up to his hideout couldn’t have been as flimsy as the story he told me. It was a trick, to get you and me out of town; he sent his crew after me to make sure I’d come back and warn you. He knew I would, if he got me mad enough.”