MY GUN IS THE LAW


Sheriff Maury Chance looked out the curtained window into the night. He could see nothing except the glow of distant lamps, but he could hear it well enough. They were throwing a big one tonight down at the Legal Tender. Resentment simmered in him, but there was nothing he could do about it now—nothing legal.

A sympathetic hand touched his shoulder. “Come on over and sit down, Maury. Don’t let them get to you this way.”

Chance turned away from the window, but the shadow of slow anger still lay in his face. It was a square face, older in experience than in years, with something in it that was always tense, always expectant. Most noticeable were his restless eyes that never missed a thing.

The man who had spoken to him lifted a box from a table and pushed up the lid. “Cigar, Maury? Help take your mind off what happened today.”

Chance took it. He reached for his shirt pocket to get a match, and encountered instead the coat of his suit. The suit felt unnatural to him now. He hadn’t worn it much the last few years. The most unnatural thing about it was the absence of the gun that usually rode his hip. Thought of the gun made him look for it urgently, before he remembered. He had taken it off in deference to his host. His gun belt dangled from a nail near the door.

His host spoke again. “Like I said, Maury, I regret what happened today. But as a judge, I have to rule according to the verdict of the jury.”

Maury Chance nodded. “I understand, Ashby. It’s not your fault we can’t raise an honest and impartial jury in this town.”

Judge Ashby Dyke drew deeply on his cigar, his heavy brows knitted in thought. He was a large man in his fifties, his hair rapidly graying, the first deep lines of age beginning to gully his strong face.

“It’s always hurt me when I had to send a man to the gallows,” the judge said, “but I believe it hurt me worse today when I had to turn Joe Lacey loose.”

Maury Chance frowned. “You don’t know how long it took me to get Joe Lacey where he was today. You don’t know how many cold camps I made, how many miles I rode, how many times I almost got myself shot. I didn’t want to settle for Joe Lacey alone. I wanted to get his big brother Boyd, and Hugh Holbrook, and their whole cow-stealing, throat-cutting bunch.

“But I had to start somewhere, and I started with Joe. I thought if I got him and sent him away, maybe hanged him, it’d scare off a lot of the other riffraff that’s been hanging on around here. What was left I could take care of. Now Joe Lacey’s loose, and the riffraff is making the most of it.”

Far down the street someone fired a gun, a saloon girl squealed, and half a dozen voices lifted high in laughter.

A young woman walked into the doorway that led from the judge’s small, comfortable parlor back into the equally small kitchen and dining room. She wiped her hands on her apron and said, “Dinner is ready, Dad.”

The judge stood up smiling. “Thelma stayed in that school too long, Maury. She calls dinner ‘lunch’ and supper ‘dinner.’ Keeps me so mixed up I’m never sure whether I’ve eaten or not.”

He motioned Maury into the dining room. The sheriff paused a moment and looked at the judge’s daughter. She was a striking young woman, not altogether pretty, but more attractive than a man usually found out here on the frontier of Texas. She had been born in Missouri somewhere, when that, too, had been frontier, and her father had been a struggling young lawyer. She had followed the frontier all her life until her father had sent her east four years ago to attend school, to become the kind of lady her mother had been.

The school had been successful, Maury thought. She had the grace of the grand ladies he had known as a boy and a young man, in the South before the war. He liked the way she wore her black-and-white lace dress. But her manner and her dress seemed out of place here. They were incongruous with the raw town, with that raucous mob he could hear at the Legal Tender, with the hand-polished .44 in his gun belt against the papered wall.

Her dark blue eyes met his, and in them he sensed disapproval. She had a disturbingly frank way of staring at him, as if she could see into his soul and didn’t like what she saw there.

Thelma Dyke’s slender hands gripped the back of a chair and pulled it out. “Your place, Mr. Chance.”

Her lips smiled, but it was a smile without warmth.

Maury bowed. He wished she didn’t dislike him, but he never wondered why she didn’t. He could see the reason himself, when he looked into a mirror. He could see the bitter lines cut into a face that seldom smiled any more, a face that once had known genteel ways but now was better acquainted with harshness and sudden violence.

As they ate, Maury tried to make conversation with her. “I believe Ashby said you went to school in Boston.”

“Philadelphia,” she corrected him.

Judge Dyke broke in. “Maury had some schooling in Philadelphia too, Thelma. He took some of his law work there.”

That surprised her a little. “Law work? I thought you were only a peace officer.”

Maury said, “I used to practice law as an attorney. But that’s a long story. You wouldn’t be interested.”

She didn’t contradict him. But Ashby Dyke said, “Sure, she’d be interested, Maury.”

“I’ll tell her some other day, if she wants to hear it. Not now.”

Maury hoped she would never want to hear. It was a hard story to tell, or even to think about.

* * *

They ate quietly awhile. Thelma Dyke finally broke the silence. “I should think, Mr. Chance, that it would be a hard transition to make, from attorney to gun-carrying lawman.”

He looked levelly at her. “You don’t approve of the gun, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Neither do I, Miss Dyke,” he told her quietly. “On the contrary, I hate it. I never knew how hard a man could hate until I learned to hate that gun.”

“Then why keep on wearing it?”

“Because it’s necessary, Miss Dyke. Those law books of your father’s are useless out here unless there’s a set of guns somewhere to back them up. There are many men here who have no respect for the law, but they do have respect for the gun.”

She said, “I suppose you’re right. But I can’t respect the gun.”

“Nor the man who wears it,” said Maury Chance.

Judge Dyke broke in. “She didn’t say that, Maury. You’re in a terrible mood tonight, even for you. She didn’t say that or mean it.”

Maury managed a smile. “I’m sorry, Miss Dyke.”

Hard knuckles rapped on the front door. The judge stood up quickly, then walked to the door and opened it. A thin-framed man in worn clothes walked in. He wore a badge on his dusty vest.

“Maury,” he said, excitement rippling in his voice, “things are taking a bad turn down at the Legal Tender. Old Vic said I’d better tell you.”

Maury pushed away from the table and walked out into the little parlor. “What is it, Calvin?”

Deputy Calvin Quillan remembered he still had his hat on, and he took it off as Thelma Dyke walked out of the kitchen. “Joe Lacey’s down there tanking up on Vic’s liquor. He’s got a crowd of his friends with him. I guess you’ve been able to hear that.”

Maury nodded.

“He’s getting real brave now. He’s telling them he’s going to hunt you down and make you run. He’s telling them that what happened in court today showed that the Laceys have the law hog-tied. He’s saying that from now on the Laceys will run this county.”

Maury’s lips went hard in anger. He clenched his fists and cast a glance at his gun. “I guess I’d better put a stop to it, then.”

Ashby Dyke caught Maury’s shoulder. “Don’t pay any attention to it, Maury. It’s drunk talk. It’ll wear off and be forgotten tomorrow.”

Maury shook his head. “No, Ashby, it won’t wear off. If I don’t do something about it, that riffraff will get to thinking he’s right. There won’t be any stopping them then, not until it’s gone too far. So I’ll stop it now, tonight.”

The judge said, “The decent people around here know where you stand, Maury.”

“It’s not the decent people I have to worry about.”

He buckled his gun belt around his waist and reached for his hat. Then he bowed. “My apologies, Miss Dyke, for spoiling the dinner. Maybe I can do better another time.”

She said, “Perhaps.” But she was looking at the gun, and her eyes said that she hoped there wouldn’t be another time.

Ashby Dyke got his hat and reached into a desk drawer. He pulled out a .38 pistol and shoved it into his coat pocket. “I’ll go with you, Maury.”

“No, Ashby. This isn’t your fight.”

The judge was adamant. “I turned him loose.”

Thelma Dyke tried vainly to stop the judge. When she couldn’t, she turned angry eyes on Maury Chance.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Maury said. “It’ll be all right.”

They walked out into the darkness. It was cool and there was a faint fragrance from the green grass that had risen after the spring rains.

Enough lanterns burned at the Legal Tender to light half the houses in town. The roar of laughter and the harsh voices carried far up the street. Maury Chance and Judge Ashby Dyke walked abreast. Deputy Quillan followed a pace behind them. But as they stepped up onto the porch and shoved through the door, he moved to his place beside them. Small in frame, Calvin Quillan was not small in courage.

A sudden and complete hush fell over the saloon. Maury’s gaze swept the room, found Joe Lacey, and stopped there. Lacey set down his glass and began to laugh.

“There it is, boys,” he said, “the whole law of Reynoldsville in one package—sheriff, deputy, and judge.”

He picked up his glass again and held it high. “Here’s to the law, for it won’t be with us long.” He took a liberal swallow, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

Joe Lacey hadn’t been shaving for more than two or three years. Drunk or sober, the devil was always looking out of his eyes. He was a good man with a gun, and with a rope—especially on other people’s cattle. He wasn’t simply a cowboy gone bad; he had been brought up that way. It ran in the family.

Maury started walking toward him. Though his eyes were on Lacey alone, he knew the judge and Quillan were with him. Two paces from Lacey, he stopped.

“You’ve made some big talk here tonight, Joe,” he said evenly. “But that’s all it was, just talk. Now you’re going to leave and go home.”

Joe Lacey said, “I’m not ready to go home yet, Sheriff. You had your chance at me today in court, and all you got was a kick in the britches. Now get out before you get another.”

Ice was on Maury Chance’s words. “I’m not going, Joe. You are. You’ve had your laughs. Now go.”

Joe Lacey lost all pretense at humor. His eyes glowed with a long-built hatred. “I’ll go when I’m ready, Chance. And I’ll be ready when I’ve knocked you off of your high horse. You had your chance at me, and you flopped. Now I’m giving you another chance. Draw that gun, if you’re man enough. Kill me if you think you can.”

Maury made no move for his gun. Instead he eased a little closer to Lacey. “I won’t draw on you.”

Lacey’s lips drew up defiantly. “I told them you wouldn’t. I told them I’d show them what a yellow coyote you really are.” Lacey was tasting triumph, and it had a heady, intoxicating flavor.

“Try me, Chance, if there’s any manhood left in you at all!”

Maury’s voice remained calm but still. “I’m not going to draw because I know I could beat you, Joe. I don’t want to kill you and make a martyr out of you. I want to be able to keep hounding you, to put you behind steel bars and make you look like the cheap, common crook you are.”

Every word made the red flush of fury grow deeper in Joe Lacey’s face. When his hand started to the gun at his side, Maury Chance was ready. With a fast forward stride he grabbed Lacey’s hand as it drew the gun. He gripped the gun barrel, gave it a savage twist. Lacey cried out and jerked his hand away, blood running where the sharp trigger guard had chewed into his fingers.

Maury lifted Lacey’s gun by the barrel and swung the butt of it at Lacey’s face. The outlaw cried out again as he slid back against the bar. His hand went up to his cheek, where the gun had ripped a raw gash.

A long-held fury was driving at Chance. He hadn’t wanted it this way, but now he had to show these toughs that he meant what he said. He slashed at Lacey again. The outlaw spun and fell.

Lacey’s gun barrel in his fist, Maury whirled on the rest of the crowd. “Anybody else?”

Nobody made a sound. He had taken them by surprise, and now his animallike fury held them cowed.

“Maury, look out!” The cry came from Calvin Quillan.

Maury whipped around, and saw a gun come up in Lacey’s hand. But before Maury could change his grip on Lacey’s weapon, Quillan stepped in front of him, an old .45 swinging into line.

Lacey’s shot roared like a dynamite blast. Quillan heaved backward. A second shot came from Judge Dyke’s .38. It whipped Lacey around. The outlaw slumped onto the floor, his shoulder shattered.

Quillan swayed, then began to fold at the knees. Maury grabbed him and eased him to the floor. He glanced at the splotch of blood high in Quillan’s chest. A glance was enough.

“Calvin,” he said hoarsely, “you shouldn’t have.”

Quillan tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. In a moment he was dead.

Maury’s burning eyes lifted to the crowd. A knot tightened painfully in his throat. He looked with hatred at Joe Lacey, who was doubled up in a knot, blood spilling around the hand he held to his shoulder.

“I had his gun, Ashby,” Maury said to the judge. “Where did he get another?”

“Somebody passed it to him. I didn’t see who.”

Maury stood up, gripping Lacey’s gun as if he meant to crush it in his fist. “Who was it?” he demanded. “Who gave him the gun?”

No one answered. His gaze searched hotly from one face to another. Then he started looking for empty holsters. He found one. He looked up into the man’s face. He saw guilt there, and fear.

The man whirled and ran for the door, desperately shoving people out of his way.

“Stop!” Maury ordered.

The man kept going. Maury raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. The man fell like a sack of rocks. He lay on the floor sobbing, holding his bleeding leg. The fury drained out of Maury then. Calmness slowly came back to him.

He turned to old Vic, the man who owned the saloon. “Take care of Calvin for me, Vic.”

The whiskered old man nodded. Though the violence had taken place in Vic’s saloon, Maury could not look upon the old man as an enemy. Vic stayed neutral, siding no man, blaming no man.

Roughly Maury took Joe Lacey by his good shoulder and jerked him up. “Come on, Joe. You might’ve gone free today, but you won’t get loose any more. You’ve just hung yourself!”

His blood-smeared face blanched in shock, Joe Lacey was sobering fast. He was crying. “Get me to a doctor. I need a doctor.”

Maury gritted, “You’ll get a doctor in jail.” He jerked Joe Lacey along toward the door, then paused beside the man who lay on the floor, gripping his wounded leg.

“I need somebody to help me get this man to jail, too.”

A couple of cowboys stepped out of the crowd. Maury knew them as punchers from Jess Tolliver’s Rafter T. They had been watching the excitement, taking no hand in it. “We’ll bring him, Sheriff.”

Quickly they commandeered a wagon from the street and loaded the two wounded men into it. One of the cowboys took up the reins. Maury kept looking back over his shoulder, expecting trouble to come boiling out of the Legal Tender.

Judge Dyke read his thoughts. “It came too quickly, Maury. They’re still in a sort of shock. I don’t believe there’ll be any trouble.”

A woman came running toward them from out of the shadows. She stopped in a shaft of lantern light to watch the wagon come by. Thelma Dyke’s face was tight with fear. She looked at Maury Chance first, then saw the judge.

“Dad, are you all right?” The judge nodded, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips. Her shoulders sagged a little. She followed the wagon afoot.

Maury looked back at her once. He was glad he had no one to worry about him, to wonder fearfully if he would walk home tonight or be carried in. If Maury Chance were to die, there’d be no one to mourn him but a few scattered friends. Even they wouldn’t think of him long. It was a satisfying feeling.

But sometimes, in the dark of night and in the quiet of his own room, in his sleepless bed, a terrible loneliness moved in upon him like the wail of a blue norther. At such times he would have given his life to have turned back the years for just a little while to know the comfort of his family back home, the mother, the father, the brother, who was four years older than he.

But they were gone now. The brother was lost on the battlefields of Northern Virginia, the mother and father long since buried. There was no one now to care whether Maury Chance lived or died.

The doctor arrived at the jail within a few minutes. He was a gruff little man of short patience who lived alone and seldom shared his thoughts with anyone. If he ever had any emotion other than perpetual cynicism, he kept it well buried.

“Looks like a lot of useless work to me,” he grumbled, repairing Lacey’s shoulder. “I patch him up and get him healed so you can hang him. Would’ve been better if you’d killed him in the first place.”

“I didn’t do it, Doc,” Maury said. “The judge did.”

He wished immediately he had bitten off his tongue instead of talking. He saw the sudden surprise, then the deep disappointment in Thelma Dyke’s face. “Dad, you didn’t!”

The judge nodded. “I did. That man killed Quillan, the deputy, and he was about to kill Maury. So I shot him.”

She stared at her father as if she still couldn’t believe it. Gently the judge placed his big hands on her slender shoulders. “Don’t fret over it, Thelma. There’s no reason why I should feel sorry about it. I don’t.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “Maybe you did have to do it, but you certainly shouldn’t act as if it were nothing.”

The judge made no reply. Maury Chance moved over beside the young woman. “Don’t blame your father, Miss Dyke. He did the only thing that could be done, and you’ll realize it when you’ve had time to think it over. You were brought up on the frontier. Surely those four years in the East didn’t make you forget everything you learned as a girl.”

Her dark blue eyes leveled on his. “You think I learned to hate guns while I was in the East, Mr. Chance, but you’re wrong. I learned it a long time before that. I was just a little girl. Did Dad ever tell you how I lost my mother?”

Pain came into Ashby Dyke’s eyes. “Thelma, please.”

She went on, “There was a bank robbery in the little Missouri town where we were living. The bandits had a hard time getting out. Bullets started flying everywhere. My mother threw me down onto the floor. Then a stray bullet smashed through a window and struck her.

“We never did know whose bullet it was. It might have been from a bandit, or it might have been from a lawman. It didn’t make much difference. She was dead.”

Her eyes burned with a quiet hatred as she looked at Maury’s .44. “It makes little difference whose hands they’re in. Guns make trouble for everybody. Do you think Joe Lacey’s friends will forget that Dad shot him? They won’t. He’s put himself in line for trouble. And what did it? That gun, Mr. Chance.”

That whipped Maury Chance. He knew no answer and tried none.

Thelma Dyke’s slender shoulders were squared and aloof as she walked out the door with her father and disappeared into the darkness.

Basically, she was right. He granted her that. She was just carrying the idea to an extreme, Maury thought.

Long after she was gone, he found himself still watching her in his mind, still thinking of those proud shoulders, of the ease and grace with which she walked. Most of all, he thought of her face. It could be a pretty face if she smiled. He knew that she must smile a lot. It showed in the little crinkles at the edges of her blue eyes, at the corners of her soft mouth.

But there had never been a smile for him. And he wanted very much to see one.

Joe Lacey’s lawyer was late in learning about the shooting. But as soon as he heard, he came on the run. Maury let him into Lacey’s lamp-lighted cell. A few minutes later, when the lawyer came out, Maury explained the situation briefly.

“Looks like there’s no way for you to wiggle him out of it this time, J.T.,” Maury said, with a hint of satisfaction.

J. T. Prosise wasn’t exactly a crooked lawyer, but he could teeter on the brim of crookedness as expertly, without falling in, as anyone Maury had ever seen.

Prosise eyed him narrowly. “Are you sure you’re not just harboring a grudge because of what happened in court today?”

Maury shook his head. “No grudge, J.T. You did your job, and I can’t hold that against you. But I can’t forget it, either. I know that next time you’ll try to discredit my evidence just like you did today. But next time it won’t work. There was a whole roomful of witnesses tonight.”

“You had a gun in your, hand,” Prosise pointed out. “You had struck him twice. I think my client would be justified in pleading self-defense.”

Maury managed to keep the growing anger out of his voice. “You can try it, but it won’t hold water, J.T. It won’t suit a jury.”

Prosise smiled wisely. “I think it would suit a jury in this county,” he said pointedly. “Don’t you?”

Maury’s jaw went hard in anger. Prosise’s point was plain enough. There were too many of Joe Lacey’s kind in Reynoldsville, and there would be plenty of them on any jury panel that might be made up.

“I’m going to convict him, J.T.,” Maury said stubbornly. “This time I’m going to get him.”

Prosise only smiled. “We’ll see, Chance. We’ll see.”

Next morning the town was extra quiet. Maury made a tour of the saloons, just to look around. He found them almost empty. Old Vic’s was like the rest.

“How does it look, Vic?” Chance asked.

Old Vic was polishing glass with a clean white cloth. He took a long time sizing up Maury, but his gray eyes expressed no judgment.

“They’re waiting, keeping their eyes open,” he said. “They’re waiting to see if you try to make it stick. If you could, they’d start drifting out. They’d know their day was about over. But you won’t make it stick, and they know it. They know you’ll stick by the law, and the law in this case happens to work for Joe Lacey.”

Maury gritted his teeth. “So I’m going to lose. What happens then?”

Vic said, “Some say you’re going to die. Joe Lacey’s a young, hotheaded fool. His brother Boyd is just about like him. When Joe gets out …

“But most say it won’t happen that way. Most of them are thinking about Hugh Holbrook. It’s Hugh that really runs the Laceys, and he’s a smart man. Talk is that the toughs are going to run him for sheriff this summer, against you. And they’ll run J. T. Prosise against Ashby Dyke. They’ll win. There are too many of them not to win.”

Maury pondered that, keeping his face blank. “How do you stand, Vic?”

The old man’s face was as expressionless as the bare walls of his saloon. “It’s not my place to worry about it, one way or the other. But I’m glad I’m not you.”

* * *

Maury expected it, but he didn’t know in what manner the visitation would come. He was considerably surprised, then, when Boyd Lacey and Hugh Holbrook came riding up the middle of the main street in broad daylight. Not a person in town missed their coming. All along the street men stood and stared. But as the two riders reached the courthouse square and dismounted, the spectators began to pull back, to watch from doorways and windows.

Maury had seen them from the window of his office in the jail building. Hitching his gun belt, he stepped out into the doorway and waited.

He caught the hot hatred in Boyd Lacey’s eyes, and thought he saw a sudden impulse to try to kill him then and there. But Lacey changed his mind. Like his younger brother, he was a man of impulse. But unlike Joe Lacey, Boyd didn’t follow every impulse that came to him.

Maybe the calmness of Hugh Holbrook had something to do with that. Holbrook was a man of cool thinking, of long deliberation, then of positive movement. More than once, Maury had seen a disapproving glance from Holbrook stop the Lacey brothers from launching into some hasty, ill-considered notion.

It was Holbrook’s leadership that had built one of the smoothest-operating bands of rustlers and all-around thieves in the Texas Panhandle.

The two men stopped three strides from Maury Chance. “I’ve come to see my brother,” Lacey said at length.

“You can see him,” Maury answered, “but I take the guns first.”

Lacey started to make some protest, but Holbrook calmly unbuckled his gun belt and held it out. Lacey looked at him, then grudgingly followed suit.

Holding the belts, Maury stepped back inside the doorway to give the two men room. “You know the way, Boyd,” he said. “You’ve been here before.”

Lacey’s eyes flickered at the insult, and he said something under his breath. A thin smile played on Holbrook’s lips.

Where Boyd Lacey was carelessly dressed and left an odor of tobacco and sweat as he walked by, shoulders hunched, Hugh Holbrook carried himself erectly. His military bearing betrayed him. Anyone could tell he had been a soldier—an officer.

He was freshly shaven. His clothes were clean, except for a few dust streaks gained on the ride to town. He was a handsome man, older than forty. When he spoke, it was evident that he was well educated.

An awful waste, Maury always thought when he saw Hugh Holbrook. With the Laceys it was a case of their following their natural bent. They’d never been anything but outlaws. That was all they could ever be.

Who then merited the most contempt, Maury had asked himself many times—the men who were outlaws because it was their nature, or this man who would have been something better, had been something better?

Maury said, “I’m a little surprised you came in this way, Hugh. I’d expected you, all right, but I was afraid it might be different.”

Holbrook grinned. “It could have been, but I prevailed on Boyd to do it this way. I’ve always believed men could talk things out over a calm cup of coffee much better than over the point of a gun.”

Maury nodded. “That’s sensible. But there’s not much to talk out. Yesterday there might have been; today it’s gone too far.”

“It’s never too far gone, Maury. Stop and look at it objectively. If you take this to court, what chance have you?”

“I have plenty of evidence.”

Holbrook grinned. “You had evidence yesterday, too. Joe still won acquittal. He’ll win next time, and you know it. Where will you stand in this town then? After two defeats in a row you’ll be finished here.”

Maury’s eyes narrowed. “What would you want me to do?”

“Don’t ever let it come to trial. Talk your friend the judge into setting a reasonable bail. Let Joe out. Keep putting the trial off. In time the fuss will die down and you can forget about the trial altogether.”

Maury said, “I know what you’re working at, Hugh. Keep putting the trial off until you’re the new sheriff and J. T. Prosise is the judge.”

Holbrook’s eyes were smug in triumph. “It’s not a question of choice, Maury. There isn’t any choice. This is the only thing you can do and save your face. Take another whipping and you won’t be able to make a stray dog run from you.”

Maury stared angrily at Hugh Holbrook a long moment before he answered. Then he clenched his teeth hard and slowly shook his head.

“No dice, Hugh. Sink or swim, I’m going to take him to trial. I’m going to do my best to hang him. If I fail, it won’t be because I didn’t try.”

Holbrook’s grin was gone. His eyes had gone the color of gun steel. “Then try your damndest, Maury. I’ll see you leave this town like a cur dog, with your tail between your legs.”

* * *

Anger was still roiling in Maury Chance when he walked into the judge’s house. Ashby Dyke put down a heavy law volume and stood up to greet him. Maury told of the visit of Boyd Lacey and Hugh Holbrook.

“We can’t get a jury that’ll convict him, Ashby,” Maury said bitterly. “I know that now. And we can’t afford to lose again.”

The judge nodded agreement. “I’ve done lots of thinking about it.”

Maury said, “I know of only one way out, Ashby. I’ve decided to take it. We have a lot of support from the ranches that Holbrook and the Laceys and the rest of this mob have been preying on. Jess Tolliver of the Rafter T was in to see me this morning, as soon as he heard about Calvin Quillan.

“We have only one chance to win this trial, Ashby. That’s to clean out this town first—drive out the cow thieves, the gamblers, the small-time crooks, the whole bunch. They outnumber us, but we can do it if we move fast and hit them by surprise. The ranchers are already champing at the bits.”

Ashby Dyke frowned, a deep worry in his eyes. “You’d have no legal footing, Maury. We would be nothing better than vigilantes.”

Angrily Maury replied. “There is no legal way to do it. And it’s got to be done some way, legal or otherwise.”

Thelma Dyke walked into the room unseen. Maury turned at the sound of her voice.

“You’re a lawyer, Mr. Chance,” she said rigidly. “You should have more respect for the law than anyone else has. You should know better than anyone else what happens when you start taking things into your own hands and acting outside of the law.”

Maury tried to meet her level accusing gaze, but had to drop his eyes. The color began to rise in his face. “There won’t be any law here, the way things are headed. If we can’t convict Joe Lacey, we might just as well pull out of Reynoldsville. And we can’t convict him the way things are here.”

Ashby Dyke firmly nodded his gray head. “That’s it exactly, Maury. We can’t convict him here. We can’t even try.”

Maury looked up in sudden alarm. “You don’t mean you’d turn him loose?”

“No, we’ll convict him. In any county but this one a conviction would be easy to obtain. So I’m going to order a transfer of the trial.”

New hope surged into Maury. “Can we get away with it?”

The judge said, “It won’t be hard to do. After all, I witnessed the murder of Calvin Quillan. I even shot the defendant. That is more grounds than I need to disqualify myself as judge in the case. And if I am disqualified, the trial will have to be moved.”

Thelma Dyke stepped closer to Maury, her eyes pleading. “It’s what we need, Maury.” She hadn’t used his first name before. “We don’t want armed mobs running this town, whether they’re for us or against us.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you, Maury,” the judge broke in. “I was going to go out and make the arrangements first. I don’t want word of this to leak out before we’re ready.”

Maury shook his head. “No. They’d break Joe Lacey out of jail, or die trying.”

“As soon as I arrange a place for the trial, we’ll move Lacey. If it’s possible, we’ll have to do it before his friends know what’s happening.”

“I hope we can make it work.”

The judge said, “It’ll be the test of us all, Maury. We have to make it work.”

Maury was at the livery stable the next morning to see Judge Dyke leave town on the mail hack that pulled out before sunup. Cautious, they said nothing about their plan. Maury kept his eyes on two saloon bums stretched out in the hay.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” the judge said, as the hack driver swung his team.

“Good luck,” Maury called after him. As Maury turned back toward the jail, one of the bums walked out of the livery stable and hurried up a side street.

An hour later, lawyer J. T. Prosise eased into a chair at Maury’s table in Oscar Bruton’s little cafe.

“Do you mind?” he asked politely. Several other tables were vacant.

Maury shook his head. “Table’s big enough. What’re you doing up this early?” He thought perhaps he knew.

“Couldn’t sleep well,” Prosise answered. “Always restless when I have a big case on my hands, such as the Joe Lacey trial coming up.”

Oscar came to the table. Maury and Prosise both ordered eggs. When Bruton returned to the kitchen, Prosise leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve been wondering when the judge would set the trial date. Have you heard him say?”

Maury answered with a negative shake of his head.

Prosise continued, “I understand the judge left town at the crack of dawn today. I’m a little upset that he did so without notifying me. As defense counsel, there are several things I needed to check over with him.” Prosise leaned forward, unable to mask the eagerness in his eyes. “Where was he going?”

Maury answered, “I didn’t hear him say.”

Frowning, Prosise looked down at the table. He smells a dead mouse in this thing somewhere, Maury thought.

“Did the trip have anything to do with the trial?” Prosise queried.

“I didn’t hear him say,” Maury repeated.

He felt Prosise’s eyes boring into him, trying to read what was in his mind. But Maury could keep a poker face when he wanted to. Worry rose in the lawyer’s eyes, slowly growing into alarm.

Suddenly Prosise slid his chair back, stood, and walked hurriedly out the door. Maury leaned toward the window and watched the lawyer make long strides down the street. Oscar Bruton walked out of the kitchen with a plate of eggs and bacon in each hand, stopped abruptly and stared at Prosise’s vacant chair.

“Where did old Long Shanks get off to?”

“I think something happened to his appetite,” Maury said.

Just an hour later Maury himself began to worry. Reports reached him that Prosise had left town. At the livery stable a hostler told Maury about it.

“He asked me if I heard the judge say where he was going,” the hostler said. “I told him no, he just went off with the mail hack. Prosise up and rented a buggy from me and took out down the road.”

“Same way the hack went?”

The hostler nodded. Maury turned and walked back up the street, a worried frown creasing his face.

The days dragged by with a painful slowness while Maury waited for some word from the judge.

Maury saw Thelma Dyke several times during those few days. Usually he met her walking down the street, going shopping or visiting. He found himself watching for her, hoping for a chance to walk a little way down the street with her.

On the fourth morning after the judge had gone, Maury stepped out and intercepted Thelma as she walked up the street with a basket on her arm.

“That looks heavy,” he said. “May I carry it for you?”

“It’s not, but you may,” she answered, smiling.

The smile brought a pleasing warmth to him. He walked beside her, not talking, content with her company.

They passed Jess Tolliver on the street. The rancher tipped his hat. Tolliver still nursed disappointment because Maury hadn’t let him organize a posse of his own and clean out the town.

Thelma asked, “Maury, have you heard anything from Dad?”

He shook his head. “No. He thought he would be gone four or five days. I’m not worried.” But he was worried.

“Maury,” she went on, “I hope you’re not sorry you decided to let Dad handle this his way, instead of going along with Jess Tolliver.”

“I’m not sorry, Thelma. If it works out—and I think it will—it’s better this way.”

“No mob, no guns?”

“No mob. But it may take some guns when we move Joe Lacey.”

She turned in at her front steps and took the basket. “Maybe not, Maury. Maybe not.”

He heard the clatter of horse’s hooves, the ring of wheels, and a shout in front of Vic’s saloon. A tingle of alarm started in him. He tipped his hat to Thelma and hurriedly turned away.

Out in the main street, he saw Prosise standing in front of the saloon, excitedly talking to a loafer there and pointing westward. In a moment the man swung onto a horse and spurred out. Prosise turned and stared with open hostility at Maury. Then he strode hurriedly toward his own little office, two doors from Vic’s.

A buzz of excitement started in Maury. Prosise knew. Everybody would know before they had a chance to move Joe Lacey out.

The news spread over town like fire through tall dry grass. It was only a few minutes until Jess Tolliver hurried up to the jail.

“I just heard the judge is getting the trial moved,” he said excitedly. “Is that right?”

Maury nodded. “That’s what he left here to do.”

Tolliver grinned broadly. “In any other county, Joe Lacey won’t stand a chance. I’ll take off my hat to the judge.”

Maury said, “We had hoped to get Joe Lacey moved before the word leaked out, but Prosise got back before the judge did. We’re liable to need some help, Jess.”

Tolliver said, “You can have every man on the Rafter T.”

“I can use six or eight. You pick them and bring them to me.”

Judge Dyke came in with the mail hack at noon. He hurried to the jail.

“I’m sorry, Maury. Prosise tracked me down. He was right there when I made arrangements with the Tom Green County judge to move the case to his jurisdiction. There was no way I could get back before he did.”

Reassuringly, Maury laid his hand on the judge’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Ashby. We’ll make it all right. Jess Tolliver is bringing some good men as deputies. As soon as it’s dark, we’ll head out.”

Worry weighted the old judge’s face. “They’ll know they’re whipped if we get Joe Lacey out of this county. So they’ll tear the jail down to get him free.”

Impatiently Maury Chance paced the jail office floor, pausing now and again to watch the lowering sun. Nervousness grated at him like a whetstone.

Joe Lacey jeered at him from his cell. “They’ll bust me out of this crackerbox jail like it was an eggshell.”

Maury would have hurled an angry reply, but he knew it was futile. He mustn’t let Joe Lacey rattle him.

* * *

Two Rafter T cowboys sat in chairs in front of the door. Behind the building somewhere there were three more. A couple of others, including Jess Tolliver, were out in town, watching and listening. There wouldn’t be trouble before dark, Maury told himself. And after dark there wouldn’t be a chance for trouble.

At six thirty Judge Ashby Dyke walked up to the jailhouse, nodded at the cowboys in front, and beckoned to Maury. The sheriff cast a nervous glance at Joe Lacey, who lay relaxed in his bunk, whistling softly. Then he stepped out and fell in beside the judge. They walked away from the building, out of earshot of anybody.

Quietly the judge said, “I’ve got it arranged for the wagon to come at eight thirty. It’ll be good and dark by then. Maybe Lacey’s friends won’t try anything earlier than that.” He frowned then. “But they will try. Don’t you think so?”

Maury said, “Boyd Lacey won’t stand by and let us hang Joe without making a try. Hugh Holbrook’s held him back so far because Hugh was certain we wouldn’t get a conviction. Now he’ll probably drop the reins and let Boyd do what he wants to. He may even help him.”

“They’ll be in for a surprise when they find Joe Lacey’s cell empty,” the judge said. “But I wish it were over. I wish we already had him moved.”

Confidently Maury said, “We’ll get the job done, all right.” Then he changed the subject. “Would you go over to Oscar’s cafe and order supper brought for us, Ashby? These men had better eat before this starts.”

“Supper’s already on its way,” the judge replied. “Thelma’s cooking. She’ll be here directly.”

Maury smiled at the thought of Thelma. “Thanks, Ashby. We’ll all appreciate it.”

Thelma came soon, two baskets on her arms. Maury helped her spread the food out on the table. The cowboy deputies came in, filled plates, and walked out again to their places. Maury dished out a portion for Joe Lacey and carried it to his cell, then filled a plate for himself.

Maury ate silently, his eyes on Thelma most of the time. Finally he said, “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for a bunch of gun-carrying lawmen.”

Thelma’s eyes held no criticism. “What you’re doing tonight is to stop violence, not cause it.”

Earnestly Maury said, “Everything I’ve done with a gun was meant either to prevent violence or to put an end to it, Thelma. That’s all any honest lawman wants.”

She was giving him a long, silent appraisal. “I realize that now, Maury.” She was silent a while. Then she said, “You told me once you’d explain sometime why you became an officer. You were an attorney once. What happened? What caused the change?”

Maury looked away from her. He studied his nervous hands.

After a bit he said, “I was a little too young for the war. After it was over, I went east and worked my way through law school. It wasn’t easy, but I finished. I went home to Virginia then. It wasn’t the way I liked to remember it. The war had ruined it for me. So I came west, to Texas.

“You know how it was during the years after the war. There was a country full of Yankee carpetbaggers, trying to rob Texas blind. They ran things pretty much to suit themselves. Then, when the Yanks pulled their troops out of Texas and everybody got to vote again, things started to change. But all the carpetbaggers didn’t go. Some stayed and thought they could go on doing as they always had.

“I’d been here two years when I took a land case. A sharp Yankee promoter had swindled a man out of his property. The judges were all Texans again, and I won. But this Yankee swore to kill both my client and me. Well, I’d learned about guns as a boy in Virginia. The sheriff knew it was likely to come to a shooting, and he made me a deputy to protect me, in case it ever came to court. When the Yank came, I was ready for him.

“Texas was wild in those days. Still is, of course, but not like it was then. Anyway, that shooting won me a reputation of sorts. Like a fool, I kept that deputy’s badge. There were more shootings. As time went on, I found myself more and more a peace officer and less and less an attorney.

“It finally reached a point that I couldn’t stop. Wherever I went, I drew lightning. And finally I wasn’t a lawyer any more, I was only a gunman.”

In Thelma’s blue eyes Maury could see understanding. She said, “The day of the gun is almost over, Maury. One day soon you’ll be able to lay yours down, if you want to.”

He reached out and touched her hand. “I’ll want to, Thelma. Believe me, I’ll want to.”

Eight thirty. Only a quarter moon was out tonight. Outside the jail it was so dark that Maury could hardly distinguish the building’s bulk against the black sky.

Maury fingered his watch, a current of excitement tingling in him. No reason to be so fidgety, he told himself. But he wished that wagon were here.

For an hour now the noise had been rising in old Vic’s saloon. Something was brewing down there. Maury could feel it in the air. It was high time that wagon was getting here, before this night erupted into violence.

The minutes dragged by, and still no wagon. The noise was swelling. Some sort of violence had begun. Maury could hear it, but he couldn’t afford to leave here now. He couldn’t even afford to send a man to the judge.

He heard the quick footsteps of a man running. Someone burst into the light of the lantern hanging over the front door. It was old Vic himself.

“Sheriff,” Vic called excitedly. “Sheriff!”

Maury stepped out of the shadows. “What is it?”

“You’d better get over to my place. They’ve got Jess Tolliver and one of his cowboys in there. They’re beating them half to death.”

Maury clenched his fists. What a time for a thing like this! He listened intently, half expecting to hear the wagon. But all he heard was the noise down at Vic’s.

“Chuck, Pete,” he called. “Come along with me.” To the other men he said, “If the wagon comes, you know what to do. We’ll catch up with you.”

Maury and the deputies struck a brisk trot down the sandy street, old Vic following them. They hit the porch and shouldered through the swinging doors abreast. Maury took in the whole scene at a glance.

One of his deputies lay unconscious on the floor. Two of the town toughs had a half-conscious Jess Tolliver backed up against the bar. They were methodically beating him with their fists, not hard enough to grind him out completely but hard enough to grind him down. A sizable crowd stood watching, making no move to stop it.

Maury gave the deputies a glance that said to cover his back. Then, boiling with anger, he strode forward and grabbed one of the toughs by the shoulder. He spun him around and clubbed him with his pistol butt. The man fell like a rock.

The other man dropped Tolliver and stepped back, defensively lifting his big fists to chest level.

“No you don’t, Chance. You don’t pistol-whip me.”

“You’re under arrest,” Maury gritted. He swapped ends of his .44, and leveled it at the man. He glanced down at Jess Tolliver. The rancher was bent over painfully, white-faced, his hands tight against his stomach.

Maury looked back at the tough. He knew him. He’d seen him around here off and on for several months. The man would hang around and gamble, but he was a poor gambler and inevitably he would go broke. Then he would disappear. After a time he would be back, fresh money in his pockets. Maury knew where he had been—riding with the Laceys and Hugh Holbrook.

The tough said, “Supposing you do arrest me—and mind you, I’m not saying you can—what’ll you do with me?”

“Let you sweat in that jail for as long as it takes Jess Tolliver to get over this beating you’ve given him.”

The tough grinned. “From what they tell me, you aren’t going to have much of a jail after tonight. They tell me Boyd Lacey’s going to make kindling out of it. And he’s going to make hash out of you, Chance.”

Gunfire exploded up the street. Maury’s heart leaped. The jail! For a second he stood, frozen. Then he whirled and ran for the door. Outside, he saw the flashes where guns were popping on the courthouse square. He heard a sudden ripping sound, a squealing of rusty nails and a splintering of lumber. Hoofbeats drummed. Men shouted. Then there was a rush of horses into the street.

The two deputies were right behind as Maury Chance made a run toward the jail. The lantern by the jail door had been smashed and the front of the building was dark. But from inside a reddish glow was growing, spreading. They had set fire to the jail.

Horses broke into a run. Again there were flashes of gunfire, as their riders sent last spiteful bullets at the defenders of the jail.

Somewhere at the edge of town Maury heard the horses stop. He heard a man’s voice call out, but he couldn’t catch the words. There was a volley of shots, the shrill scream of a woman. Then the hoofbeats drummed again.

At the jail, Maury found one of the deputies fighting a crackling blaze that spread across half the floor. He grabbed a blanket from his cot and helped fight the flames.

“What happened?” he shouted. But he could see most of it. A gaping hole torn in the side of the jail, into Joe Lacey’s cell. And Lacey was gone.

“The wagon came,” the deputy answered, slowing up in his battle against the blaze. “I saw too late that it wasn’t our men. They got Jim. I’m afraid he’s dead. They clipped Alcorn, too. Had a team of work horses with them. Threw a rope around the window bars and yanked the whole side of the jail out.”

In a few minutes they had the blaze under control. A crowd had gathered. Men brought buckets of water to splash over the smoldering floor. The fire died.

Immediately there was a cry to go after the riders. Maury shook his head. “Too dark. All they’d have to do would be to stop, and we’d go right by them. We’d mess up the tracks so badly that we couldn’t follow them at all. We’ll wait till daylight.”

Someone brought in the prisoner who had passed Joe Lacey the gun in the saloon. Wounded in the leg, the man hadn’t been able to ride. The Laceys had left him to shift for himself out in the darkness.

They found that the deputy Jim was not mortally wounded after all. And Alcorn had a flesh wound that would soon heal. So, from the looks of it, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, Maury thought.

Someone caught Maury’s shoulder. He turned. “You’d better get over to Judge Dyke’s house, Sheriff,” a man said solemnly. Maury recognized him as the man who lived next door to Ashby.

“What’s happened?”

“The worst, I reckon. You’d better go.”

The long day with its mounting tension, and the grueling action of the night, had brought a deep weariness to Maury Chance. But he walked hurriedly toward the judge’s house, a dark foreboding tightening his stomach.

He stepped up onto the little porch, then stopped in his tracks. On the front porch lay a body, covered by a blanket. The solemn-faced man knelt and pulled the blanket back for Maury to see. Maury’s jaw dropped in shock. The judge!

“I heard the shooting at the jail,” the neighbor said. “Then a bunch of riders came loping up to the judge’s house. Somebody called him. By that time I was standing on my porch. I saw the judge come out his door.

“They cut him down, Sheriff. I saw them in the lamplight that came through the judge’s door. It was the Lacey boys. Joe Lacey came in closer then. I could see his shoulder all white where it was wrapped up. He came closer and fired two more shots into the judge’s body. He was cussing as he did it. Then they all spurred their ponies and left here in a run. They headed west.”

Maury was kneeling beside the body, his eyes burning, his teeth clenched tight. “How many were there?”

“Five. The Laceys for sure, and I’m pretty certain I saw Hugh Holbrook. He rode through the light for a second as they pulled out. The other two I didn’t see very good.”

Inside the house, a woman was crying. Maury knew it was Thelma. Stiffly he pulled the blanket back into place and stood up. Ice chilling his stomach, he stepped through the door.

Thelma lay on a bed, weeping. Two solemn neighbor women sat beside her. One of them was gently patting her shoulder, but neither woman was trying to talk. At a time like this there wasn’t anything helpful that could be said.

Maury walked up beside the girl. “I’m sorry, Thelma,” he said, hardly above a whisper.

She raised up, leaned her head against his chest, and gripped his arms, crying. “Maury,” she said huskily, a deep bitterness in her words, “I was wrong. You were right. There’s only one way to stop them, and that’s with a gun. It’s the only way they know. I want you to go and get them. I want you to kill them, all of them. Organize your vigilantes. Drive the riffraff out of town, like you said. If they don’t go, shoot them!”

Maury stared at her in surprise. But he knew that right now, in her bitterness, she meant it.

Fury crackling in her eyes, she said, “It was my fault. I talked you into waiting, trying it the legal way. Well, we waited. And for what? For this!” Her slender shoulders began to heave. “Go on, Maury. Do it your way.”

He squeezed her hand gently. “We’ll get them, Thelma. I promise you that. We’ll get them all.”

In a way, it was a good thing he had the whole night to get ready. Instead of having to take a raw, possibly worthless posse on the spur of the moment, he had time to choose his men. He didn’t want to take too many. The more there were, the slower they traveled, the more trouble they were likely to have in closing with Holbrook and the Laceys. He chose five Rafter T men, all of whom he knew and felt he could depend on to do what might be needed when it needed to be done.

At the doctor’s office he found Jess Tolliver sitting up on the edge of a cot, one hand against his stomach.

“They kept punching me in the belly,” he said tightly. “They meant to cripple me that way. Otherwise I reckon I’m not so bad off.”

“Are you still on the warpath, Jess?” Maury asked.

“You’re damn right!”

“Then I’ve got a job for you. The same one you asked for the other day. I’ll deputize you and give you the right to organize your own posse from your own ranch hands and the men from the other ranches.

“I want you to round up all the toughs, the gamblers, the known cow thieves, and the rest of the riffraff that hangs around here. I don’t want anybody hung and I don’t want anybody shot unless it’s necessary. But if you have to, go ahead and shoot. I’ll back you up.

“I want these men scattered to the four winds. Tell them that if any one of them ever pokes his head into this county again, we’ll slip a rope over it. It’s come to a showdown, Jess. It’s either them or us now, and we can’t afford to let it be us.”

Jess Tolliver smiled painfully, without any humor. “I’m glad you’re turning us loose, Maury. We’ll do it right. No hanging and no shooting, unless they force it. But we’ll get this place as clean as a hound’s tooth for you, don’t you worry.”

Maury got his five possemen bedded down at the livery stable, with their horses, equipment, and supplies ready for use at dawn. Then he headed back toward the jail in a slow walk, his head down.

He wanted to see Thelma Dyke again, but a visit now would serve no purpose, he knew, except perhaps to satisfy his growing compulsion to be near her. He resisted the urge to go to her. Maybe the neighbor women had gotten her to sleep by now, and she needed sleep.

In the jail the smell of charred lumber was strong, and he moved his cot outside. Lying there sleepless, he had a long time to ponder over what had happened tonight. Somehow they’d gotten wind of the plan to smuggle Lacey out of here. They’d intercepted the wagon and used it to get them close to the jail. That business at Vic’s saloon had been a decoy to draw away as many lawmen as possible.

Boyd Lacey hadn’t thought this up—Maury was reasonably sure of that. Boyd thought in straight lines. It would have been like him to lead a direct assault on the jail and try to haul Joe Lacey out by sheer force.

No, it hadn’t been Boyd Lacey’s idea to do it this way. Hugh Holbrook had planned this maneuver. It showed his brand of clever timing, his shrewd strategy.

But the murder of Judge Dyke hadn’t been part of Holbrook’s plan, Maury theorized. It had been a vicious afterthought, and likely had been done over Holbrook’s protest. Hugh Holbrook was not a back-shooter, a killer of unarmed men. There was that much to be said for him.

Maury managed only to doze a little, off and on. When the first sign of light began to rise in the east he was up and watching, his eyes a little raw from want of sleep.

He walked over to the cafe and roused Oscar. While Oscar put on a big coffee pot and prepared to cook breakfast for the posse, Maury went on to the livery stable. In a few minutes the men were up and had their horses ready. They ate silently, sleep still heavy on them.

Outside of town they began circling, each man’s gaze on the ground, searching for horse tracks. Presently a cowboy named Pete Ringer let out a whoop. The other riders gathered.

Ringer said, “I’ve followed it a hundred yards or so to be sure. There are five horses.”

Maury nodded and set out in the lead, following the plain tracks. But Pete Ringer was the real tracker in the bunch. They had been riding for about an hour when Ringer suddenly reined up and stepped down. He picked up something Maury’s eyes had missed. It was a long strip of white cloth.

“Piece of a bandage, isn’t it?” the cowboy asked.

Maury nodded. “Looks as if that heavy binding around Joe Lacey’s shoulder might be starting to bother him.”

Ringer grunted. “Rubbing, I expect. But it’ll bother him a lot more if he takes it all off.”

Urgency burned in Maury. The Laceys had a long start, and he wanted to make up for it. But common sense held him down to a stiff trot. If they started running now, the horses wouldn’t last out the morning.

The trail led down into a running creek and disappeared. All morning the riders had been working south. The creek ran from northwest to southeast. Maury stared uneasily at the water, wondering which way to turn.

“They’ve been heading south all the time,” a cowboy said. “Looks reasonable they’d take off downriver, pretty much the way they’d been going.”

Maury frowned. “Maybe. It’s the most logical thing, and it’s what the Laceys would do. But Hugh Holbrook’s with them.”

The fugitives would know that their trail from town was easy to follow to this point, Maury reasoned. They had made no effort to hide it. Riding in the dark, they’d had little chance. But now they were making their first move to throw off followers. And Hugh Holbrook wouldn’t do the obvious.

“We’ll head back up the creek,” Maury said.

Followed far enough, the creek would take them back within five miles of town. Chances were Holbrook and his men wouldn’t have followed it that far. But then, with Holbrook, you never could tell.

Maury made a sweeping motion with his arm. “Spread out. Pete and I will ride the creek bottom. The rest of you watch for sign where anybody might have pulled out along the banks.”

They took it slowly from there, walking some of the time, sometimes managing an easy jog trot where the going was good. They rode a mile, two miles, maybe three, but there was nothing.

Maury felt the eyes of some of the other riders touching him again and again. Their glances told him they thought he’d made a mistake. Maybe he had. Surely by this time someone among the fugitives would have made a slip, and let his horse step far enough out of the water to leave a hoofprint in the mud at the edge.

Pete Ringer finally put the thoughts into words. He said, “It isn’t right. There’s no sign at all. It isn’t soldiers we’re following.”

“Not soldiers, Pete, but they have a military officer leading them. And you can bet he’s kept up a strict discipline.”

Ringer shrugged. “Maybe. It won’t hurt to follow them another mile. If we don’t find anything by then, it seems to me we’d better turn back and not waste any more time.”

“Another mile, Pete.”

Maury’s heartbeat quickened as they rode. It looked bad. Everything indicated that he’d judged wrong. Yet deep within him he had an indefinable certainty that he was right.

They covered most of the mile, and Maury could feel the growing restlessness of the other riders. They were convinced that every step they took was a step away from the fugitives.

Then he saw it. Snagged on a half-buried mesquite limb at the edge of the creek—another strip of bandage. Joe Lacey more than likely had sneaked it off and dropped it while Holbrook wasn’t looking.

Pete Ringer’s face broke into a broad grin. “You called the turn, Sheriff,” he said. “Lead on.”

At noon they found where two riders had pulled up out of the creek bed. It was on a gravelly spot, and the men probably thought they could get out without leaving sign. But one of the horses had slipped and fallen. His thrashing had left marks that couldn’t be covered up. Maury dismounted and looked past the creek bank, wondering where the tracks would lead.

Ringer was bending over the gravel bar, examining it closely. He called, “Hey, Sheriff, come take a look.” He knelt and placed his stubby finger on a rock. “See that stain there? Blood! I told you Joe Lacey would be sorry for taking the wrapping off that shoulder. The fall from that horse must have opened the wound and started it bleeding.”

Maury felt his pulse quicken again. “Then these tracks leading off must belong to Joe and Boyd Lacey.”

One of the cowboy possemen said, “Well, they’re the ones we want the worst. Let’s go get them.”

The two fugitives had made an effort to stay as much as possible on ground that wouldn’t show big tracks. But it was hard to do for very long at a time. And where Maury sometimes couldn’t see the trail, Pete Ringer could. They managed to ride fast now, sometimes breaking into an easy lope.

Pete Ringer leaned low over the side of his horse. “Sign’s getting fresher. Joe must be wearing out. They’re slowing down.”

They had trailed the men twelve or fifteen miles, far west of the creek. Maury’s eyes were burning, and fatigue had added fifty pounds to his shoulders. It was that sleep he’d lost, he knew. Ahead of them were some cedar brakes where the rolling rangeland suddenly broke into steep slopes, deep washes and brushy draws.

There was no warning. One of the possemen spun and dropped out of the saddle. Immediately afterward came the belated slap of a rifle. In a second all five of the other men were out of their saddles. Maury and a cowboy grabbed the wounded man and dragged him toward a protecting cut bank, leading their horses as they hurried afoot. Two more bullets whizzed over their heads.

They eased the man onto his back. Maury tore the shirt open. The bullet had gone high into the cowboy’s shoulder. In Maury’s saddlebags were clean bandages and a bottle of whisky he had brought, knowing this might happen. He fumbled the saddlebag open. He had his hand on the bandages when another bullet, meant for him, dropped his horse.

Cursing under his breath, Maury crouched and hurried back to the wounded man. He gave him a long drink of the whisky, noting to his relief that the bullet had gone all the way through. No probing was necessary; that was one good thing. When he had the blood stopped and bandage in place, Maury said, “Think you can hold out awhile, till we take care of our job?”

White-faced, the posseman nodded weakly.

Maury did not have to signal the other posse members to spread out. They had already done it, and they had been cautiously working their way toward the outlaws, keeping on their knees as they edged through the brush. Occasionally an angry bullet searched through the cedar, showering leaves and dust upon the lawmen. But the posse, wisely, were holding their fire until they saw something to shoot at.

On his knees in the sand, Maury worked away from the cut bank, around the end posseman. He began a cautious circle around the bushwhackers. Like an angry hornet, a bullet buzzed by his face, and he dropped to the warm ground. He started crawling then, low against the ground, rifle cradled in his arms. He wanted one good shot at the Laceys.

They stopped firing then, and a new urgency sped him on. They realized they were being outflanked, he knew. They were pulling back. If they got away, all this would have to be done again.

Maury pushed to his knees. “Let’s get ’em,” he shouted. Crouching, he began to run. He looked toward the other possemen. They were doing the same.

The outlaws were being pushed too hard. They fired a few hasty, ill-aimed shots, for now they were more interested in getting away. One of the men showed himself over the tops of the low cedars as he swung into the saddle. Three possemen’s rifles cracked. The man toppled back out of sight.

Maury’s heart was drumming. He couldn’t see the outlaws now. One was hit, maybe dead. But the other one might be waiting, gun ready, and that gun might be aimed at Maury.

But a quavery voice called from somewhere in the brush, “Don’t shoot any more. I’m throwing my gun away and coming out.”

Maury stopped. He held his rifle at his hip and waited. A man stepped unsteadily out of brush, one hand in the air, the other hand inside his stained shirt. Maury’s heart dropped into a deep pit. This man was not a Lacey.

He advanced cautiously, half afraid the outlaw would pull the hand out of his shirt and reveal a gun. But when he came closer Maury saw that the shirt was caked with dried blood.

“What about your partner?” Maury asked, carefully checking the man’s pockets and boot tops for hidden weapons.

“Dead. You cut him to pieces when he got on his horse.”

The outlaw’s face was drawn. A sick blue color had spread beneath his eyes. Maury knew the man was running a fever from his wound.

“You got that last night?”

The man nodded. “At the jail.”

Maury’s lips drew tight. He hadn’t known there’d been two wounded men among the five outlaws. That blood spot, then, had been from this man. Not from Joe Lacey.

“What do you think, Sheriff?” Pete Ringer asked solemnly.

Maury looked toward the western sky. “We’ve lost several hours here. But you can bet your boots the Laceys and Holbrook haven’t lost any time. Sun’ll be down in a few minutes. We’re through tracking for today.”

“We could ride back to the creek, so we’d have a fresh start in the morning,” Ringer suggested.

“We could, but Dan yonder is in poor shape to ride. We’d better leave him and this outlaw here. Let Curly stay with them. We’ll send a wagon back.”

Two men were gone now from a posse of five. It would take another man to go after a wagon, and that left only two possemen and a sheriff—even odds against the Lacey brothers and Hugh Holbrook.

Maury put his saddle on the dead outlaw’s horse. The moon was high when the men reached the creek. Maury scooped creek water into a can and added coffee grounds. Silently they ate a cold supper and drank scalding black coffee. Maury never realized how terribly tired he had been until he stretched out on the ground. He dropped off to sleep without trouble.

Next morning they started riding up the creek as soon as it was light enough. The tracks would be older now, and the night wind might have smoothed out any of them that had been on soft sand. Each time Maury came upon a gravel bar he stopped and studied it closely. It was a cinch that when the fugitives left the creek bed they would do it in such a place, where tracks could not easily be seen.

The close scrutiny finally paid off. Two hours after sunrise, Ringer found the place. “Angling west now,” Ringer said.

They pulled out of the creek bed and headed west. The tracks were not easy to follow. But as had been the case last night, there was always enough sign, always enough tracks, to keep the posse on the trail. It led westward and southwestward, toward the broken land.

“Headed for the outlaw country, all right,” Ringer said. “They’ve got the advantage on us there. They’ve put enough stolen cattle through there to stock the biggest ranch in the country. They’ll know every foot of it, and we don’t.”

“Then we’ll learn to know it,” Maury Chance said grimly. “We’re going to keep riding ’til we find them.”

All morning they rode, sometimes losing the trail and hunting an hour before they found it again. Other times the trail was plain. Now the country was changing. Where it had been fairly open rolling range, now it was brushy country, cut across by gullies and ragged slopes.

The time would come when this would be good cow country, Maury mused. It would be good winter range, affording protection from the howling northers that swept across the open range to the north and east, and there was water enough here.

But it was outlaw country. With men like Holbrook and the Laceys on the loose, a man who scattered a herd into this brush was the same as turning it over to the thieves.

Noon came and went. The sun began its long westward arc. The three lawmen found where the fugitives had stopped to rest. There was a small, hand-scooped pit with dead ashes of a tiny fire. And there was something else.

“What do you make of this, Pete?” Maury asked, pointing to a place where boot heels had dug into the ground, where the sand had been smoothed as if men had sat or fallen on the ground. A couple of tree branches were broken. On one of them hung a small triangular piece of blue shirt cloth.

“Fist fight, looks like,” Ringer said, “they’ve had a falling out.”

“It had to be Boyd Lacey and Hugh Holbrook. Joe Lacey wouldn’t be in shape to fight.”

Ringer searched the ground. “Well, whoever it was, they all rode off together again. Looks like they changed course a little and cut to the south a shade more.”

From here on there was little effort to hide tracks.

“Holbrook lost,” Maury commented. “He’s been leading till now, and he’s kept a pretty strict discipline. Now the Laceys are doing it their own way, and they don’t care.”

“We’ll get them, then,” Ringer said confidently. “They should’ve stuck with Holbrook.”

They made much better time now that the trail was easier to follow. They alternated between a slow lope and a good stiff trot, riding as fast as they dared to without wearing out the horses that already had put in two days’ riding.

Sign was getting fresher. Late in the afternoon Pete Ringer swung down, looked a moment, then climbed back into his worn saddle. “They’re traveling slow now. Joe’s having trouble, most likely. And they’re not much ahead of us anymore. There’s a good chance we’ll catch them before sundown.”

Sundown came, though, and they hadn’t caught up. Darkness crept around them. Grudgingly, Maury Chance reined up.

“We’d better stop here. No use riding blind.”

They dismounted and unsaddled, staking their horses. There was no coffee tonight, and Maury missed it. He stretched out wearily on the ground, and in a moment was half asleep.

Suddenly restless, Hodge Isham, who hadn’t said six words in the two days, excitedly shook Maury’s shoulder. “Come look at what I’ve seen,” he said.

Isham led Maury and Pete Ringer up over a rise and pointed. Ahead, Maury couldn’t estimate how far, a pinpoint of light flickered in the brush. Nobody said anything. Nothing needed to be said. Quietly they threw the saddles back onto their horses and remounted, touching spurs gently and reining toward the light.

When he thought they were close enough, Maury pulled up and dismounted. He loosened the cinch and tied the reins to a bush. Ringer and Isham did the same. Maury took off his jingling spurs and tied them to his saddle. He slipped the rifle out of his saddle scabbard and started, the other two men beside him.

They walked a hundred yards. Then they could see it. “Shack,” Ringer muttered. “They have a lamp lit in there.”

“Pretty sure of themselves,” Maury said. He could hear a low murmur of voices, rising now and again in argument.

He thought of crashing into the shack, and the idea set the hair tingling at the back of his neck. It would be like stepping into a hornets’ nest. Somebody was bound to be killed. And if they captured the Laceys and Holbrook, they would have them on their hands through a long night.

“We’ll wait till morning,” he said at last. “We’ll get them as they step outside.”

They set up a guard shift, one man watching while two men slept. The lamp in the shack went out. Quiet settled over the little clearing in the brush. It was another pitch-dark night. Once, near morning, Pete Ringer shook Maury’s shoulder.

“Thought I heard somebody moving around over yonder,” he said.

Maury quickly arose. He made a slow, silent circle one way, while Ringer circled the other. They found no one, but they did find where the outlaws’ horses were staked. There were only two.

“Holbrook must have slipped away,” Maury guessed.

Holbrook had been shrewd enough to know what the Laceys, in their supreme self-confidence, had not been willing to consider—that they could and would be followed. Now, unable to control the Laceys any longer, he must have gone out on his own.

“Time enough for him later,” Maury said. “We’ll get the Laceys first.” They went back to where Hodge Isham was waiting.

About dawn the door was flung open. Boyd Lacey strode outside, gun in hand, and took a hurried look around. “Holbrook’s gone, Joe,” he said. “He lit out.”

Joe Lacey stepped to the door. He looked haggard and drawn. Foolishly, he had removed the tight and chafing bandages from his wound. The dried stains on his shirt showed what the consequences had been.

Boyd Lacey began to stiffen. Some animal instinct was working in him. “Get back in the shack, Joe,” he said. “Something’s wrong out here.”

He began to back toward the door, his desperate eyes searching the brush, his gun raised and ready.

Restless, Hodge Isham made his play. He raised up and fired at Boyd Lacey. Lacey jerked, but his .45 exploded in his hand. Isham bent at the middle and fell on his face.

Maury fired a quick shot at Boyd. A bullet from Pete Ringer’s rifle ripped a gash in the door facing as Lacey ducked back inside. The door slammed. There was a loud thump as a bar was thrown into place.

For a long moment, then, there was silence. Maury ran to Isham, but Pete Ringer was there ahead of him. Isham wasn’t dead, but it would be only a matter of time. The bullet had caught him in the stomach. He lay in agony, dying a death that might drag on for hours.

No use now in saying that it was Isham’s own fault, that he should have stayed down. Pete Ringer’s jaw hardened. He clenched his fists and looked toward the shack.

“Anyway, I think Hodge hit him.”

Maury waited until his own anger had settled enough so that his voice was steady. He called, “Joe! Boyd! We’ve got you pinned in. You can’t get away now. Come on out and give up!”

He got the answer he expected. A gun muzzle appeared at a window and a bullet droned angrily through the brush. Maury’s lips flattened in bitterness. It would be a waiting game, and they didn’t have time to wait if they were to get Hugh Holbrook.

But what else could they do? He lay in the sand, rifle to his shoulder, watching for a glimpse of either of the Laceys at the window. Occasionally a gun muzzle appeared long enough to fire a quick shot. Then it would withdraw before Maury had time to answer it.

He had a long time to think, to ponder ways to flush the Laceys out. But he could only figure one way—setting fire to the shack.

That old shack was tinder-dry and would go up like a box of matches. But how to set fire to it? The angry guns of the Laceys wouldn’t let a man get within fifty feet. Maury frowned, considering a dozen different schemes. Suddenly he thought of a way that could work.

“Keep them pinned down for me, Pete. I’m going to try something.”

He went back to where they had tied their horses, and took the ropes off each of the three saddles. Then he circled to where the Laceys’ horses were. He took their two ropes and looped the ends together until he had one rope about a hundred and thirty feet long.

He searched until he found several dead cedar trees. Set afire, they would build to searing flame that wouldn’t be easily extinguished. He broke the trees down, stacked them, and tied the end of the rope around them securely. He dragged them as close to the rear of the shack as he could safely go.

Then he started back around to Pete, leading one of the Lacey horses and playing out the rope as he went. He kept jerking up the slack, flipping the rope as near to the shack as he could.

He had only about ten feet of free rope left when he got to Ringer. The red-bearded cowboy stared curiously. “Now what the deuce…”

Maury explained, while he whipped the rope closer to the shack, trying to take the bend out of it, trying to get it where Ringer could have a straight pull at it.

“I’m going back around there now. When I get it burning, I’ll fire two shots in the air. Then take this horse and pull that rope for all you’re worth. Get that burning brush up against the shack.”

At the back side again, Maury struck a match to the dead brush. It began to smoke, then broke into flame. He moved to another and repeated. In a few moments the blaze was big and strong. Maury drew his gun and fired twice. He watched the brush pile begin to move, to drag toward the shack.

Twice he thought Pete had struck a snag, that the rope would burn away before the job finished. But the brush began to drag again at the end of the long rope. It piled up against the shack. Then the rope jerked away as the flame burned it in two.

Holding his breath, Maury watched the blaze. Slowly it began to die back as the brush burned away. For a moment he thought it would burn out without setting fire to the dry lumber of the shack. Then the flames brightened. The shack was going!

Crouching, Maury ran back to Ringer. “You did fine, Pete. Now all we’ve got to do is wait.”

It seemed they waited an hour. Flames crackled up all sides of the shack. Brown smoke curled and billowed around it.

“Aren’t they ever coming out?” Ringer gritted.

Then the door flew open. The Laceys stepped out together, both wounded but both holding guns. The brothers made a savage, unforgettable picture of fury as they stood side by side before the blazing shack, their hostile eyes searching for a target, defying the death they had lived with so long.

They saw the lawmen and started walking toward them, guns barking, faces twisted in hatred.

It lasted only a few seconds, but it might have been an eternity to Maury Chance. Four men faced each other amid the thunder of guns, the crackling of fire, the swirling clouds of smoke.

Then it was over. Flames billowed and sparks showered as the shack collapsed. The angry crackling of the flames began to die down. Arm lowered but the gun still in his hand, Maury Chance cautiously moved out toward the figures of the Lacey brothers, now sprawled grotesquely in the sand.

He looked down at them a moment, then up at Pete Ringer. He felt no triumph. In him was only revulsion against what he had to do. Looking at Pete, he saw it reflected in the cowboy’s eyes. They went back to Hodge Isham. He was still alive.

“He won’t last much longer,” Ringer said, “but we can’t just go off and leave him.”

“Stay with him, Pete,” Maury said. “Stay till it’s over. I’m going after Hugh Holbrook.”

Picking up the trail wasn’t much trouble. Perhaps Holbrook had sensed what was coming. At any rate, he seemed more concerned with speed now than with covering his trail. It was a good thing for Maury, because he wasn’t the tracker that Pete Ringer was.

He spurred into a slow lope. He knew he was risking wearing down the horse, but now that he was this close to Holbrook he felt he had to try to close with him. He slowed sometimes, giving the horse a chance to breathe. Then he pushed him again. There was no way of knowing for sure, but he felt he was closing the gap.

The afternoon wore away. Another night was coming on. Impatience arose in Maury, raw and galling. Then he broke out over a rise and saw his man a quarter of a mile ahead. And Hugh Holbrook saw Maury Chance.

From there on it was a race through the brush, and the men had little to do with it. It was one tired horse pitted against the other, a race to see which horse could hold out the longest. Slowly the gap narrowed. Maury could feel his horse’s breath coming harder, and the long strides became more and more labored. But Holbrook’s mount, too, was tiring. It was giving out faster than Maury’s.

The end came quicker than Maury had hoped. Holbrook’s horse stumbled, and Holbrook went rolling in the sand. He came up stunned, grabbing for his gun. The horse struggled to its feet and went trotting off, limping.

Holbrook ran for the cover of brush. Maury spurred after him. He slid his horse to a halt as a bullet screamed past him. He jumped out of the saddle, fell to one knee, got up, and scrambled for cover. He crouched down, watching, listening.

For a long time, then, it became a stalking game, each man stealthily hunting for the other in the thick brush. Occasionally Maury’s boot crushed a twig. The snapping of it was like a gunshot to him. He would drop, expecting a bullet to smash into his back. But it didn’t come.

It was not long before it would be dark again. Maury felt he couldn’t let this go on until sundown. There would be no chance of finding Holbrook then.

He stepped out from behind a thick cedar and suddenly found himself face-to-face with Hugh Holbrook. Each man had his gun lowered. For an eternity they stood staring at each other, neither lifting his gun.

Finally Maury spoke. “You’d better drop it, Hugh. You’ve come as far as you can go.”

“You’re by yourself, Maury,” Holbrook pointed out. “If I shot you there’d be no one else to hunt for me.”

“But you’d have to beat me to do that. I don’t think you can do it, Hugh. Do you?”

Holbrook’s lips pulled back with a suggestion of a grin. “I can beat anybody in this country.” But fear lurked behind his eyes.

“You’d better not try, Hugh.”

For a moment a wildness crept into Holbrook’s eyes. Maury thought the man was going to try, but he didn’t.

“I didn’t think you would, Hugh,” Maury spoke calmly. “I know the whole story about you. It wouldn’t fit.”

Holbrook’s eyes narrowed, but the fear was still there. “What do you mean?”

“I found out about you a long time ago, Captain Hugh Holbrook Jameson. I found out that you had been in the United States Army, and that you had earned a reputation for shrewd strategy. You were good at sending others out to win. But one day you got caught in the thick of battle yourself, a battle against a superior force of Comanches.

“It was a little too close for you then. There was a big difference between planning a maneuver and fighting it. You took it as long as you could, and then you ran. You’d had a good reputation until then, so they didn’t court-martial you, Hugh. They let you resign for the good of the service.

“In spite of that, you could have been a useful citizen, Hugh. You had a great potential. You could have been a real builder out here. But instead, you wasted all that. Why?”

Holbrook was silent a long moment, the gun still in his hand. Finally he said, “I tried, but always the truth came out. Somebody always discovered it, just as you did. So I took to the gun, Maury, just like you did.”

Holbrook grinned ironically, as if remembering a grim joke. “Just like you, Maury,” he repeated. “We’re a real pair, you and I. I was a good soldier; you were a good lawyer. We’ve both wasted ourselves. Now it’s too late to change.”

“It’s never too late, even for you. Come along peacefully, Hugh. You’ve never killed anybody, so far as I know. There’s a chance you can get off with a light sentence. A few years and you’ll be a free man.”

Holbrook pondered a moment, his eye steady on Maury’s. Then he shook his head. “No, Maury. My mind would rot in a penitentiary. You know that. It’s better to die here, fast, than to die a slow death in a cell.”

Maury’s lips went dry. He watched Holbrook’s eyes, watched for the signal that meant the man was going to make his try. He saw the flicker. Holbrook brought the gun up halfway. Then he stopped. His hand trembled. Holbrook’s face fell, and fear shoved into his eyes—open, pitiable fear. The gun barrel wavered, dipped forward, then the gun fell out of his shaking hand.

Maury was holding his breath. He had brought his own gun up and started pressure on the trigger. Now he released the pressure. Stepping forward, he kicked the gun away from Holbrook’s feet. Holbrook’s trembling legs gave way under him. He fell to his knees in the sand and began to sob.

“Better get up, Hugh,” Maury said quietly after a while. “It’s a long, long ride back to town.”

* * *

When Maury Chance had had a bath and a shave, and a change of clothes, he squared his clean brown hat in front of the barber shop’s cracked oval mirror and walked out into the street. It was a quiet street now. He had never seen it so quiet before.

To Jess Tolliver and his posse went the credit for that. Like Jess had promised, they had made the place as clean as a hound’s tooth. The way Maury heard the story, Jess and his men had accomplished the job through swiftness and surprise. They had done it peacefully. Only one man had been shot, and he had merely gotten a load of buckshot where it would keep him from sitting around the saloons for a while.

Maury stopped a moment at Vic’s Legal Tender Saloon. The old man sat on a chair outside the door. Maury had thought Jess probably would force Vic out of town, too. He hadn’t, and somehow Maury was glad.

“Looks like business is quiet,” Maury said. The old man nodded. “It’ll get better someday. The town will grow now, and we’ll get a solid class of trade as the country grows.”

Old Vic thoughtfully stroked his beard. “Looks to me like you’re about out of a sheriffing job. The only thing a sheriff’ll have to do around here from now on is collect the taxes.”

Maury smiled. “That’s the way it should be.”

He stepped down into the street again. He headed for the little frame house that had been Judge Dyke’s home. On the narrow path he paused to straighten his tie and to take off his hat. He knocked on the door. In a moment Thelma Dyke came. She smiled.

“Come in, Maury.”

He stepped inside the door and turned to face her. He had given much thought to what he was going to say to her, but suddenly he couldn’t remember a word of it. He stood uncertainly, embarrassment bringing a flush of red to his face.

She was wearing black; that was to be expected. But she seemed to have found herself again, Maury thought. The worst of her grief spent itself while he was gone.

She looked levelly at him. Her eyes were soft. “I heard about all that happened,” she said.

He nodded. He was glad he didn’t have to tell her himself.

She hesitated a moment, then said, “I didn’t mean what I said the other night, Maury. I was out of my mind in grief. I didn’t realize what I was saying.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad you brought Hugh Holbrook in alive.”

“So am I, Thelma. There’s no pleasure for me in killing anyone. There never was. There’s never been any pleasure for me in carrying my guns.”

She made no reply.

She waited, appraising him with her calm blue eyes.

Maury said, “I won’t need my guns here anymore, Thelma. I’m going to take them off and hang them up.”

She smiled. “I’m glad, Maury. But what will you do?”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking. I’m still an attorney. As people begin moving in here and building up this country, they’ll need attorneys.”

She said, “They’ll need judges, too.”

His eyes widened in surprise. That thought hadn’t come to him.

She said, “The elections will be coming soon. They’ll want someone to fill Dad’s place. You’d be a good judge, Maury. They’d elect you if you’d run.”

He thought, liking the idea but shaking his head.

“I don’t know. It’s a big job, and it’s been a long time.”

“You want to get away from the gun. It would be your chance.”

He crushed his hat in his nervous hands. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

“It’s a big job for a man to start alone.”

Something came into her eyes then, something he’d never seen there before. They were soft, and they were warm. “You don’t have to be alone, Maury. I’ll be here.”

He took an uncertain step forward. “Thelma,” he whispered. He touched her arm, then gripped it tightly. He pulled her to him, leaned down, and kissed her gently. He felt the answering warmth of her lips, and her arms circled about him, strong and compelling.

No, he would never be alone again. Wherever he was, whatever he did now, there would always be someone to care, someone whose strength would double his own. It was a good feeling.


Copyright © 2018 by Elmer Stephen Kelton Estate