Monument Rock (Ss) (1998) (10 page)

That made me laugh. "Leave a scrap when the Priest is in it? That I'd never do, Webb."

I stepped out onto the porch, moving toward them, knowing there's something abou
t
closeness to a gun that turns men's insides to water and weakness. "How are you
,
Sad? Forgotten me?"

He opened his scar of a mouth and said, "I've never seen you before-" His voice brok
e
off and he stopped. "
Race Mallin
..."

That made me chuckle. There'd been a change in his eyes then, for he knew me, an
d
I knew myself what was said about me, how I was a gun-crazy fool who had no brain
s
or coolness or anything, a man who wouldn't scare and wouldn't bluff and who woul
d
walk down the avenues of hell with dynamite in his pockets and tinder in his hair.

Now, no man wants to tackle a man like that, for you know when the chips are dow
n
and you've got to fight, he'll die hard and not alone.

Sad Priest was a fast hand with a gun, maybe faster than me, but there'd been othe
r
fast men who had died as easily as anyone.

"Right you are. And it looks like some of these boys here will be able to tell i
t
around the bunkhouses next year, the story of how Sad Priest and Yanel Webb die
d
with Race Mallin in an all-out gun battle! What a story that will make for thos
e
who yarn around the fires!

"Yanel Webb, all his cattle wasted, his ranch in other hands, his wife a widow, an
d
his baby son an orphan, and Sad Priest, the fastest of them all, facedown in th
e
dirt of a nester's yard with his belly shot full of lead bullets!"

Beyond them were the others and I grinned at them. "Oh, don't you lads worry. Som
e
of you favored ones will go along. How many is a guess, but you'd best remember I'v
e
ten good bullets here, and while I've gone down three times in gunfights, it wa
s
every time with empty guns!

"Tell them, Sad! You were on the Neuces that time when the four Chambers boys jumpe
d
me. They put me down and filled me full of holes and I was six weeks before I coul
d
walk, but they buried three of the Chambers and the other one left the country whe
n
I left my bed."

"You talk a lot," Webb said sourly.

"It's a weakness of the Irish," I said.

They did not like it. None of them liked it.
At such a time no man feels secure and each one is sure you're looking right at him. "What
are you doin' here?" Webb demanded.

"This i
s
no fight of yours." "Why, any one-sided fight is my fight, Yanel," I explained.

"I've a weakness for them. I could not stay out of it, and me with the Gleasons behin
d
me."

That I said for the smartness of it. I'm not so crazy as I sound, and wild as I ge
t
in a scrap, I knew they'd salt m
e
down if the guns opened here. But my deal was to bluff them, for no man wishes t
o
die, and once the bluff started, to offer them an easy out, a reason for delay.

The Gleasons made a reason. I knew they would figure that if the Gleasons were afte
r
me, all they had to do was sit back and let the Gleasons kill me-and any gain i
n
time was a gain for us.

Webb hesitated, soaking it up. He didn't like it, but it was smart, and Priest sai
d
something to him under his breath, and probably a warning to let the Gleasons come.

Then Webb said, "Why are the Gleasons after you?"

"Korry," I explained, "shot down an old friend of mine when I was down Del Rio way.

I hightailed it back and met him last night and he was a bit slow. He died back ther
e
and the Gleasons will be after me."

"That," Webb said, "I'd like to see. We'll camp out and see what happens."

Now, that I'd not expected. I'd believed they would ride out and leave us alone
,
but with them here . . . Maggie Ryan spoke beside me. "What will we do, Race? Th
e
others will be here soon, and they are not fighting men, they are quiet, sincer
e
men with families and homes. If there is a fight here, some of them or all of the
m
will die. Webb won't stop killing once he starts."

"It isn't Webb," I said. "It's that cold image of a buzzard beside him, it's Pries
t
that worries me."

Strange is the world that men are born to, and strange the ways of men when troubl
e
comes. Yanel Webb was not a bad man, only a hard man who thought cattle were th
e
only way of life and would stop all others who came into the country. And those wit
h
him-they were hard, reckless men, but cowhands, not killers. Fight they would, i
f
they must, but with a decent way out... and the Gleasons who were coming. Korry ha
d
been the only bad apple i
n
that lot. They knew it as well as I, but they were honor bound to hunt me down, bu
t
I'd no stomach for killing honest men.

Across the hard-caked earth of the yard on that morning after the rain I looked a
t
Sad Priest.

"Maggie," I said, "there's a chance that we can work it out, but only one chance.

What stake has Priest in this?"

"Webb's given him land and a job. He's the worst of them, I think."

"How was Webb before he came?"

"Angry, and ordering us off, but he wasn't so strong for killing."

"Maybe," I said, "if Priest were out of it, we could talk."

Then we heard the rattle of hooves on the bridge and the sound of riders and I looke
d
around over my shoulder and saw the Gleasons come into the yard.

There was the weakness from my wound, but no time for weakness now. There they were
,
the three of them, and they were looking around at what they had ridden into. An
d
then I took my gamble as a man sometimes must. I'm not a talking man when the chip
s
are down and the love of battle is strong within me, but there was more at stak
e
now than me or my desires, for there was a handful of kindly folks and their farm
s
and wishes.

There comes a time to every man when he must drop the old ways and look ahead, s
o
here was I, a man who had ridden and roistered and rustled a few head, who had sho
t
up the wrong side of town on a Saturday night. I'd killed a few hardcases and live
d
the life of a wild land growing, and now suddenly I could see a chance for my ow
n
life: a wife, my own home, my own green and growing land, my own children about th
e
door-maybe all of it lay out there beyond that hot, sunbaking yard where m
y
enemies stood. Twenty-odd men with reasons for killing me, and not one for helpin
g
me stay alive.

"Maggie," I said, "I'm a changed man. I'm going out there and talk. Pray if you can
,
for you're certain to have more of a voice with the Lord than I, for it's got t
o
be blarney rather than bullets if we come out alive from this."

So I walked out there and faced the Gleasons, three hard, tough, honest men. Thre
e
men who had ridden here to kill me.

"Pat,"

I said, "we rode a roundup together. Mickey, you pulled me out from under a stee
r
one time, down Sonora way, an' you, Dave, I've bought you drinks and you've bough
t
them for me. That's why I ran after I'd shot Korry. He had it comin', an' deep i
n
the heart of you, you all know it.

"Korry got what he asked for, and had it not been me, it would have been another
,
but I ran, for I'd no desire to kill any of you."

"Or to be killed, maybe."

Then I shrugged. "That's a gamble always, but the Chambers boys went down and a foo
l
knows no lack of confidence. Surely, I'm a fool, and a great one."

"Why the palaver?" Pat demanded. "What trick is this?"

"No trick," I said. "Only I've no wish to kill any one of you, nor to kill anyon
e
anymore but one man.

"These"-I gestured at the gathered riders-"are fine upstanding men who've come t
o
rob a girl of her home! To take the roof from a girl who's but recently lost he
r
father!

"They want to run out a lot of fine, homemaking men who are irrigating land and buildin
g
the country. And they've brought a killer to do their dirty work, a buzzard name
d
Sad Priest!

"I don't want to fight you. I've this fight to think of now. Never yet have I sho
t
an honest man, and I've no wish to begin.

"Only one thing I want now," and when I spoke my eyes went to Sad Priest across th
e
yard. "I want to kill the man who'd run a girl with no family from her house!"

Oh, I didn't wait for him! Nobody waits for Sad Priest! So when I spoke, I reached
,
but he drew so fast his gun was up and shooting before I'd more than cleared leather.

But I'd known he'd shoot too fast and he did. His bullet tugged at my shirt and I
t
riggered my six-gun, two quick, hammering shots, and then ran!

Right for him, his gun spitting lead and the blood of my bullets showing on his nec
k
and shirtfront, but my running made him miss and only one of the bullets hit me
,
taking me through the thigh, and I went down and felt another bullet whip past m
y
skull, and then I fired up at him and the bullet split his brisket and his knee
s
let go and he started down just as I rolled on my side and fired into him again a
t
eight feet of distance.

He hit ground then and lay there all sprawled out, and one of the Webb hands starte
d
for me and Pat Gleason levered a shell into the barrel of his Winchester. "Hold it
,
mister!" he said. "That was a fair fight!"

They stood there, all of them, nobody quite knowing what to do, and then Maggie Rya
n
ran to me and with her hands under my arms I got to my feet. I stepped away fro
m
her and pushed her back toward the house. This was not yet over. Blood was runnin
g
from my side where the other wound had started to bleed.

"Got you twice," Dave Gleason said.

"No," I told him, "the one in my side was Kerry's. Only he was a few inches too low."

"Korry got a bullet into you?" Mickey said. "If he did that he had a fair shake.

He wasn't fast enough otherwise."

"It's his," I said. "You can see the wound's not fresh."

Yanel Webb stood there with his hands at his sides, not sure of what to say. An
d
his hands waited for him, for he was their boss and they rode for the brand, bu
t
knowing their kind I knew their hearts weren't in it.

"Yanel," I said, "Priest was long overdue. Ride home. You've land enough, and whe
n
you want eggs and fresh vegetables, come down on the creek and trade with these people.

"You and me," I said, "we've got to grow with the times. The day of the gun and th
e
free range is past. We've got to accept that or go like the buffalo went."

He was reluctant to leave, and he stood there, knowing the truth of what I'd said
,
and knowing that nothing now stood between him and my first bullet.

"He's calling them fair," Pat Gleason said. "I stand with him on that."

Webb turned to his hands. "Well, boys," he said, "we'd best take Sad along and plan
t
him. I reckon we've played out our hand. These farmers best keep their crops fenced
,
though." It was his final chance to bluster. "If their fields are eaten or trampled
,
it's not my lookout!"