No Life of Their Own And Other Stories

Cactus Colts

Jeff Jones stumbled when a loose board on the steps in front of the Silver Dollar buckled beneath him. Snarling huskily, he reached out and grabbed a porch post to save himself from falling. Savagely, he wrenched his foot free of the broken board and glanced around, waiting for the yell of laughter that would greet his stumble.

There was no laughter. There was no one to laugh. This Cactus City street drowsed dustily in the silent afternoon. The air was heavy with the heat, and the sunlight was something that came pouring from the molten bowl of sky, so brilliant it hurt one’s eyes. Jeff’s pony stood with drooping head beside the hitching post, the only living thing in sight.

Beyond the town marched the glassy plains, tan with sun-scorched grass.

Jeff strode across the narrow porch and through the batwing doors. For a moment he stopped, blinking in the shade that seemed almost like darkness after the sun-washed street.

A bartender, flour sack for an apron, mopped moodily. Three men were lined against the bar. At one of the tables a bearded drunk was sleeping. His battered hat had fallen from his head and lay canted on its brim.

Jeff moved to the bar and flipped a dollar down. The barkeeper set a bottle out and Jeff poured a drink. The liquor slashed down his throat, cutting the dust. His left cheek, the one with the scar, twitched nervously. He poured another drink.

A savage voice snarled behind him.

“Jones!”

Jeff spun around, hand to gun.

One of the men at the other end of the bar had stepped out into the room, stood spraddle-legged, hands above his butts.

Eyes still unadjusted from the blaze of sun outside, Jeff could not see the other’s face. It was no more than a smudgy blue of white. But there was no mistaking the meaning of the hands above those guns.

There was no time for thought, no space for wondering. Jeff’s mind clicked blank with sudden concentration, everything else wiped out but that spraddle-legged figure set for a double draw.

Chill silence had seeped into the room. The two men at the bar were rigid. The drunk was awake, clutching for his hat.

Jeff felt the breath rasping in his throat, wished for one wild moment that the light was better. Then the other man’s hands were moving and his guns were coming out.

With a swift flip of his wrist, Jeff brought his own gun free.

Twin eyes of red twinkled for a moment almost straight into Jeff’s face and he felt his own gun kicking against his arm, its muzzle drooling fire. Behind him glass crashed and tinkled like little silver bells.

The white smudge face twisted in sudden pain and the two guns clattered on the floor.

Jeff flipped his gun toward the silent figures at the bar.

“Anyone else?” he asked and his voice was so brittle he hardly knew it for his own.

One of the men stirred. “It ain’t our fight, stranger.”

The man out in the center of the room had made no move to pick up the fallen guns. He was bent over, like someone with the stomach ache, moaning softly, left hand clutching right wrist.

The man who had spoken stepped away from the bar and paced slowly forward.

“I’m Owen,” he said.

Jeff stabbed the gun at him. “Your name,” he said, “don’t mean a thing to me.”

Owen stopped short. He was a big man, a bear of a man, a sleek bear with shiny black coat and a black cravat in which a stickpin gleamed.

“I own the place,” he said. “Can’t imagine what got into Jim. One minute he was there talking with us. Next minute he was out there calling you.”

The wounded man straightened up. “He’s Peaceful Jones,” he screamed. “I’d know him anywhere by that scar across his face.”

Jeff slid the gun back into its holster. “Meaning which?” he asked.

“You know damn well what I mean,” yelled Jim. “Back in Texas …”

“Shut up,” snapped Owen. “By rights, you should be buzzard bait.”

“I don’t kill no man without he has his guns,” said Jeff.

“You, Buck, pick up them guns,” said Owen, “and put them on the bar. Jim, you better hightail it for the doc and get that wrist fixed up.”

The wounded man mumbled, started for the door, still holding his wrist, fingers stained with red. Buck picked up the guns, grinned wolfishly at Jeff.

“So you’re Peaceful Jones,” said Owen.

Jeff hesitated. His name was Jones, all right, but he wasn’t Peaceful Jones. Leastwise, he’d never been called that anywhere before.

“I been waiting for you,” Owen told him. He eyed Jeff speculatively. “Thought maybe we could talk some business.”

“I’m sort of busy,” Jeff declared. “Looking for someone.”

“Sure,” said Owen. “I know all about that. Come out in the back and kill a bottle with me.”

He reached out and took the bottle the bartender had set out for Jeff.

For a moment, Jeff hesitated. He wasn’t Peaceful Jones and maybe he’d save himself a heap of trouble by up and saying so. But he’d come to Cactus City looking for trouble and now that he’d found it …

“Guess I can spare some time,” he said slowly.

The drunk, he saw, had fallen asleep once more. His hat had fallen off again and lay on the floor.

The back room was a bare affair. An empty bottle, a few glasses and a deck of greasy cards littered the table.

Jeff slid into a chair while Owen poured liquor into two glasses.

“So Banker Slemp hired you,” Owen fired at Jim.

Jeff picked up a glass, twirled it between his hands. Owen stared at him.

“Lay down your cards,” said Jeff. “Face up.”

“You’re making it tough to deal with you,” Owen complained.

“Me,” said Jeff. “I got a job.”

“With Slemp,” said Owen.

Jeff nodded.

“That way you’re bucking me,” Owen told him flatly.

“I don’t know about that,” said Jeff. “Slemp has a job for me. That’s all I know about it.”

Owen drained his glass, thumped it on the table.

“Likely figuring on cheating you out of half your money,” he declared. “Same as he’s cheated all the ranchers.”

“What you figuring on doing about it?” demanded Jeff.

Owen hiked his chair forward, leaned across the table. “What if the bank happened to get robbed and Slemp got killed?”

Jeff stifled his gasp. He bent his head, staring at the glass, brain racing. Trying to figure it out, trying to find the answer.

“Slemp wouldn’t be underfoot any more,” he said.

“You catch on quick,” said Owen. “Quick on the trigger, quick on the savvy. That’s the way I like it.”

“Bank robbing,” Jeff pointed out, “is sometimes downright risky.”

Owen chuckled thickly. “Not the way we’d do it. With you inside and us outside it would be a cinch. Some night when Slemp was working on the books. And it would be blamed on the Hills gang.”

He chuckled again. “No one would even think of us.”

Jeff tilted the glass and swallowed the whisky, put the glass back on the table. He rose and hitched up his gunbelt.

“There’d be something in it for me?” he asked.

Owen guffawed. “Plenty. You needn’t worry. I ain’t interested in the money. Just Slemp.”

“I’ll be in to see you,” Jeff said.

“We’ll be watching you,” warned Owen.

“Just be careful,” said Jeff, “that you don’t crowd me none.”

On the street in front of the Silver Dollar, Jeff stood for a moment, looking down the street. One sign said RESTAURANT. Another said SADDLES. The third one said BANK.

The pony still stood with hanging head, switching lazily. A dog had come from somewhere and lay curled in the shadows at the corner of a building.

Jeff headed down the street. Little puffs of dust spatted around his boots. The dog watched him with sad, half interested eyes.

The bank was one room, divided in half by a counter topped by a black iron netting that formed a cage. There was one window. A man writing at a desk got up.

“You Slemp?” asked Jeff.

The banker nodded.

“I’m Jones,” said Jeff.

What passed for a smile glinted beneath the weedy mustache.

“You must have made good time, Mr. Jones. I hadn’t expected you for a day or two.”

“When I travel,” said Jeff, “I travel.”

“I’ll let you in, Mr. Jones,” said Slemp.

“The name,” said Jeff, “is Peaceful.”

“I’ll lock up,” said Slemp. “It’s almost closing time anyhow. Not much business these days.”

He pulled a chain from his pocket, selected a key and walked to the front door.

Jeff heard a lock click and Slemp was back again, holding open the door that led behind the cage.

“Have a chair,” he invited.

Jeff hooked a chair from under the desk with the toe of his boot and sat down.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

Slemp motioned. “Those guns? You handy with them?”

“Might say I was,” admitted Jeff.

“You may have occasion to use them,” declared Slemp.

“What’s the trouble, Slemp? Some of the ranchers on the prod?”

“What do you mean?” rasped Slemp.

Jeff grinned. “Some bankers ain’t too popular. Just a mite particular about foreclosure laws.”

“I’ve never had any trouble that way,” Slemp declared. “Whatever I’ve done was strictly legal. Any foreclosures I might have made were only carried out to protect the loan.”

“Naturally,” said Jeff.

“The man you have to watch,” said Slemp, leaning closer, lowering his voice, “is a man named Owen. Owns the Silver Dollar.”

“Yeah,” said Jeff, “I know. I stopped there for a drink.”

Slemp frowned. “Didn’t meet Owen, did you?”

“Me and him,” said Jeff, “had a drink together.”

“Know who you were?”

“Guess he did,” admitted Jeff. “Hombre in there recognized me. Came gunning for me. Claimed I’d crossed him down in Texas.”

“You killed him?”

“Nope, Just gun-whipped him some.”

Slemp shook his head. “Don’t like that, Jones. You should have come straight here.”

Jeff’s hand shot out and grasped Slemp by the shirt front, pulling the fabric tight with a vicious twist, dragging the man close to him.

“Don’t start telling me what I should of done,” he snarled. “Don’t start figuring you can treat me like a hired hand. Tell me what the layout is and tell me quick. Quit beating around the bush and tell it straight.”

“It’s Owen,” gasped Slemp. “I’m getting afraid of him. He’s planning something. I got ways of finding out.”

“Spies?”

The banker’s face twisted. “Yes, you might call them that. Men in Owen’s gang that tell me things I need to know. I pay them for it.”

“Why are you afraid of Owen?” rapped Jeff. “What’s he got against you?”

Slemp hesitated. Jeff shook him roughly.

“We were in some deals together,” Slemp said, eyes showing white with fear.

“And you double-crossed him?”

“No. No, Jones, it isn’t that. Between us we run this country. But Owen isn’t satisfied with that. He wants it all himself. I’m afraid …”

Jeff released his hold upon the shirt.

“You got a damn good right to be,” he said.

The banker reached out a hand for a chair, sat down in it carefully.

“So I’m supposed to save your hide,” said Jeff. “What do you want me to do? Just some plain and fancy guarding or gunsmoke Owen and his gang plumb out of town?”

Slemp gulped. “Just guarding,” he said. “Just a month or two. I’m fixing up a deal to run Owen out myself. Vigilante committee or a law and order association or something like that.”

Jeff spat in disgust. “You can do it, too. A solid citizen like you.”

“You bet I can,” the banker said.

“Figure all those ranchers you robbed are going to back you up, heh?”

Slemp flared. “I didn’t rob anyone, Jones. The boys all knew when they got their loans they had to have the payments here on time. I told them so before they got the money. Ain’t my fault they couldn’t make it.”

“Have it your own way,” said Jeff. “I’ll start work tomorrow.”

“You’ve already started,” declared Slemp. “From now on you stay with me. Eat with me. Sleep at my place. Stay …”

“Nope,” insisted Jeff. “Tomorrow. Me, I’m likkering up tonight. Never drink while I’m on the job and my throat is dusty.”

“I don’t like it,” protested Slemp.

“I don’t give a damn if you do or not,” said Jeff. “Haul out that key of yours and let me out of here.”

The sun was setting in the bloody welter of the west, throwing powdery blue shadows across the dusty street. A dog trotted between a couple of buildings. Several ponies were tied to the rack in front of the Silver Dollar. A man down the street called out a greeting.

Cactus City was coming to life.

At the hitching rail, Jeff untied the pony and headed down the street toward the livery barn.

There was no one at the barn, but Jeff led the pony in, chose a stall and unsaddled. From the bin he took a measure of oats and poured them in the box, set to work rubbing down his mount.

A shadow fell across the stall and Jeff looked up. A man stood there, staring at him. A man with a bandaged right hand.

Jeff straightened, dropped the brush into the straw.

The man grinned. “No need of reaching for your irons, stranger,” he said. “I made a fool mistake. It was that scar, I guess.”

“You didn’t give me no chance to set you right,” Jeff declared. “There wasn’t nothing left to do but smoke it out.”

“You do look some like Peaceful,” said the man. “But you ain’t. If you had been I’d be stone cold by now.”

He thrust out his good left hand. “I’d be plumb honored to shake,” he said.

They shook.

“Name is Churchill,” said the man. “Jim Churchill. I own this here barn. Got everything you want?”

“Everything,” said Jeff. “Found the oats. There’s just one thing you can do. I sure would appreciate it if you didn’t let on I wasn’t Peaceful Jones. For a while, at least.”

“Any way you want it,” Churchill said.

“Name really is Jones,” Jeff explained. “Jeff Jones. But I never heard of this Peaceful jasper. Looking for my brother, Dan. Use to have a ranch out east a ways.”

“Dan Jones,” said Churchill. “Yeah, I heard of him. Up and disappeared couple, three months ago. Slemp took over his ranch.”

“I know,” Jeff told him. “Rode past the place coming in. Feller there said he was minding it for Slemp. Seems Dan had a mortgage on it.”

“Lots of fellows around here losing their spreads to Slemp,” said Churchill. “Downright uncanny how it happens sometimes. Some of them get killed and some of them are robbed and some just naturally come up missing. Seems almost as if Slemp has luck plumb on his side. Ain’t a one of those places but is worth a sight more than the money owing on them.”

“Who did the killing?” asked Jeff.

“Bunch of riders out in the hills, I guess,” said Churchill. “Leastwise, that’s what we always figured. Hills gang, they’re called. Got the lawmen of ten counties fit to be tied.”

The layout was loaded with sudden death. There could be no doubt of that.

Maybe, Jeff told himself, he should get out before the shooting started. After all, he had deliberately stuck out his neck without proper thought. Had accepted the identity of Peaceful Jones, had listened to Owen’s cold-blooded proposition of robbery and murder, had gone to Slemp pretending he was the man that Slemp had sent for.

That he would be in the middle when the shooting started, Jeff knew all too well.

Both Owen and Slemp, he realized, were ruthless men. Owen was planning to wipe out Slemp who, with his planted spies, knew he was planning it. And neither one, Jeff felt, could be trusted for a fraction of a second.

Hunched above his plate of ham and eggs, Jeff stared out the window of the restaurant to the evening-softened street. A few men were riding in, probably heading for the Silver Dollar.

We had some deals together, Slemp had said in describing why he was afraid of Owen. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what sort of deals they might have been … not hard to understand why men who owed Slemp money were killed or robbed or simply disappeared.

Dan had had the money to pay Slemp. Jeff knew that, for he, himself, had sent part of it to him, had planned on coming out later on and going in with Dan. That, he remembered, had been something they had talked about for years … the day when they could own a spread together.

Jeff’s fingers tightened on the fork and it shook so that the piece of ham fell off.

Dan, most likely, was dead. That was a thing he had to face. A fact he must accept. Somewhere out here, Dan Jones, his brother, had been shot down, probably from ambush, with not a single chance of fighting back.

Jeff finished the ham, mopping up the egg yolk with the last few pieces, and drained the coffee mug.

Outside night had fallen and the dusky copper of lamplight had bloomed along the street. The stars were a faint, powdery drift in the black vault of the sky and a lonesome wind drummed above Cactus City with a hollow sound.

Jeff stumped up the street toward the bank. Slemp, he knew, must be at work, for the two windows glowed orange with light.

Opposite the bank, Jeff started to cross the street and then drew back into the shadows of the buildings. Someone was inside with Slemp.

Jeff glanced up and down the street. There was no one nearby. Down by the Silver Dollar a few horses were hitched to the rail and a couple of men lounged in front of the livery barn.

Swiftly Jeff strode across the street toward the bank. Through the window he could see Slemp and the other man, standing beside the open back door, talking together. Then the second man stepped out and Slemp closed the door, shot the heavy bolt.

But Jeff had recognized the other man. Tall, haggard, wolfish, there could be no mistake. The man was Buck … the one who had been in the Silver Dollar that afternoon, the one who had picked up the guns that Churchill dropped.

Jeff waited for ten minutes, propped against the building, whistling soundlessly. Then he rapped on the window and pressed his face against the pane. Slemp looked up from his books, peered over the caged-in counter like a startled rabbit. Jeff rapped again.

Slowly, uncertainly, Slemp came from behind the cage and moved toward the window. Then, seeing who it was, he motioned toward the door.

The door opened and Jeff stepped in.

Slemp rubbed his hands together. “So you decided to start the job right away,” he said.

“Get your hat,” said Jeff. “You’re coming with me.”

“My hat?”

“Sure, your hat. We’re going down to the Silver Dollar.”

Jeff stepped close and lifted the six gun from the banker’s holster.

“You won’t be needing this,” he said. He ran his hand over Slemp’s coat, making sure he had no shoulder gun.

The banker tried to speak, but the words dried up in his mouth and he only sputtered. Jeff reached up, took Slemp’s hat from the nail beside the door and socked it on his head.

“But the Silver Dollar,” yelled Slemp. “Owen …”

“That’s just what I thought,” said Jeff. “You and Owen will want a little talk.”

He drilled the gun muzzle into the banker’s stomach and motioned at the door.

“Out you go,” he said. “Walk ahead of me. Not too fast, not too slow. As natural as you can. If you try to get away I’ll fill you full of holes.”

“You can’t do this,” sputtered the banker. “I hired you to protect me. I’m the one …”

“You hired Peaceful Jones to protect you,” snapped Jeff, “and he ain’t got here yet. Me, I’m another Jones, no relative of his.”

“You aren’t Peaceful Jones!”

“Naw, I’m Jeff Jones. Had a brother name of Dan. Maybe you remember him. He had a mortgage with you.”

“But listen, Jones, all I did …”

“Yeah, I know. You didn’t do a thing except foreclose all legal like. He didn’t show up with the money, so you took his land. We’re going to find out what Owen knows about it.”

“You’ll be sorry for this,” stormed Slemp. “You’re way out on a limb.”

“Maybe so,” admitted Jeff. “We’re finding out.”

He prodded Slemp’s belly with the gun barrel. “Out the door and remember what I said.”

Slemp sidled out the door and Jeff followed.

From the Silver Dollar came the sound of voices, the clink of glasses on the bar, the tinkling music of a tinny piano.

Jeff grinned grimly. This was the payoff. If it failed, if it didn’t click, he had his neck way out and no time to pull it back.

Slemp marched ahead, not looking to left or right, his shoulders hunched as if at any moment he expected the impact of a bullet. At the steps to the saloon he turned and climbed to the porch. Jeff followed.

He stumbled, his foot tripping on the broken board.

In the dark beyond the porch a sixgun hammered and red flames splashed angrily. Jeff went to his knees, hands outflung, the bullet an angry drone above his head. The sixgun roared again and white splinters flew from the porch floor just in front of him.

Savagely, Jeff ripped out a gun, fired at the place from which the shots had come. The hidden Colt barked again and someone was running down the street.

Twisting around, Jeff lined his sights between the porch railing posts and fired. The runner staggered drunkenly, came to his knees in a slashing path of lamplight that spewed from the restaurant.

The ponies were snorting, rearing and jerking at their ties. The Silver Dollar’s batwing doors crashed open under the weight of rushing men. The piano stopped abruptly.

Jeff wrenched his foot free of the broken step, the step that had broken under him that afternoon. A broken step, he knew, that probably had saved his life. For it he hadn’t stumbled when he did, the killer’s bullet would have found him.

The man on his knees in front of the restaurant was leveling his gun. It bellowed and the slug raked across Jeff’s ribs with a blow that numbed his side.

Behind Jeff a sixgun crashed and the kneeling man tipped over, arms outflung, body bent at an awkward angle.

Jeff whirled, grabbed the arm that held the smoking gun and twisted hard. The weapon dropped.

“Someone swiped my shooting iron,” wailed a voice. “Snatched it plumb away from me. Just wait until I get my hands …”

“It’s on the ground,” Jeff said tersely. “Pick it up.”

He spoke to the man he held. “Right nice of you to save my life.”

Slemp squirmed in his grasp, terror on his face. “So you fixed it up,” said Jeff. “You had him planted here. I might have known when I saw him in there with you. One of your spies. Afraid of me, so you decided to scratch me out.”

Slemp tried to speak, but Jeff snarled at him.

“Shut up!”

Three men came back from the restaurant, carrying the limp body.

“It’s Buck,” said one of them. “He’s deader than a door nail.”

They laid him on the porch and someone brought a blanket to throw over him.

Jeff looked up and saw Owen standing on the porch, staring down at him and Slemp.

“I see,” said Owen, “that you’re taking your new job right serious.”

“I aim to,” Jeff told him. He nodded at the blanket covered form. “One of your men, wasn’t he?”

Owen shook his head. “Must be something wrong, Jones. Buck never would have climbed you.”

“He did, though.”

“And,” said Owen, callously, “he got what was coming to him.”

Owen turned away and headed for the doors. “Drinks on the house,” he called.

The men trooped in to line up against the bar.

“Get going,” Jeff told Slemp.

Together they climbed the steps and went through the doors, stopped just inside of them.

Everyone else was at the bar … except one man. The drunk still slept at the table, hat still canted on its brim. He snored and the snore made his whiskers flutter as if there were a wind.

“Owen,” said Jeff and his voice, edged with steel, cut through the voices at the bar, brought every man around, clapped the place in silence.

For a long minute the silence held, then Owen stepped out of the line.

“Yes, Jones, what is it?”

Jeff twisted his arm and sent the banker spinning into the center of the room. Off balance, Slemp tried to right himself, skidded and slipped, sat down hard and slid.

“Slemp here wants to ask you about some money,” said Jeff. “The mortgage money that never got to him.”

“He’s crazy,” screamed the sitting Slemp. “He don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I had a brother Dan,” said Jeff. “He started for Cactus City to pay up his mortgage. He never got here. He …”

At the bar a man moved swiftly, his arms a blur of motion, his gun a streaking thing that glinted in the light.

Jeff’s hands pistoned for his Colts, but he knew he’d be too late. The play had failed … it never had a chance ….

A crashing gun bark jarred the room and the man at the bar huddled forward, twisting, fighting to keep his feet. He staggered out into the room, his guns dropped from his hand and he sat down limply, one shoulder oozing red.

The drunk, drunk no longer, crouched behind his table, two guns out. One of them smoking.

The crowd at the bar surged forward, but Jeff swept the gun barrels at them.

“Stay where you are,” he yelled. “And reach for the sky.”

They halted, retreated until their backs were against the bar. Slowly their hands came up.

“Some of you hombres are all right,” said Jeff, “and some of you ain’t. I ain’t got no way of knowing. The ones that move, I’ll figure that they ain’t.”

The drunk spoke slowly, almost conversationally. “You take them from that side, kid, and I’ll take them from the other.”

“Dan!” yelled Jeff.

“Yeah, it’s me, all right. But keep your eyes peeled. That buckaroo on the floor must be one of them that dry gulched me that day. Can’t explain what he did no other way.”

The blood drummed through Jeff’s head, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. Dan was alive … alive and in this room with him. The two of them putting down the chips against Slemp and Owen.

The tableau held. The line of men against the bar were still and silent, hands high in the air. Slemp still on the floor, Owen standing just a few feet out in the room. The wounded man slumped on the floor, head hanging, hand clawing at his shoulder.

But it would have to break. It couldn’t last, Jeff knew.

He stared at the faces staring at him. Jim Churchill was the only one he knew. But there must be others here who were ready to fight Slemp and Owen.

The wounded man was babbling. “I was sure I got him. It was dark, but I was sure. His horse ran and it was dark. The money was in the saddle bags and I didn’t go back to look. I was …”

“Shut up, you fool,” yelled Owen.

“So,” snarled Jeff, “you don’t want him to talk.”

“Men,” yelled Owen, “are you going to stand for this? Are you going to let this hombre get away with it?”

A few of those at the bar stirred uneasily, but no one went for his guns.

Churchill, arms still high, moved out.

“Better explain yourself, Jones,” he snapped.

“Simple,” said Jeff. “Owen and his gang here has been killing off the ranchers when they’re coming in to pay their loans. Owen gets the money and Slemp gets the land.”

“I never had a thing to do with it,” yelled Slemp. “It was Owen thought it up …”

The line at the bar exploded. A gun roared and a bullet thudded into the door post behind Jeff’s head.

Owen was charging and Jeff brought up a gun, pressed the trigger. But the big man came on.

Shots were hammering and a lamp crashed, spraying oil across the floor.

Jeff leaped to meet Owen’s charge, but his foot slipped in the pool of oil and his hands slid off Owen’s body. The batwings flapped as if hit by a sudden wind and the man was gone.

A bullet thudded into the floor and flying splinters stabbed at Jeff’s face. A gun crashed directly above him. One of his own guns was lost, but he still had the other. With a heave he gained his feet and plunged for the door.

Owen was on his hands and knees in the dust of the street, like a trapped animal, with one foot fast in the broken bottom step.

With a yell, Jeff launched himself in a flying tackle even as Owen’s foot came free.

Warned by the yell, Owen twisted to meet him, flung up an arm that broke the swing of Jeff’s gun. Thudding into the man, Jeff felt his arm go numb, felt the gun fly from suddenly limp fingers.

A fist caught him in the jaw, rocked him back against the porch. In front of him, Owen was scrambling to his feet, hands reaching for the guns that dangled from his hips.

Desperately, Jeff leaped, good arm swinging. The blow caught Owen in the side of the head and staggered him. Jeff followed, left fist punching as Owen clawed for steel.

One of Owen’s guns was out and coming up. Jeff swung again, stepping in fast, putting every ounce of power into the blow. It connected with a thud that snapped Owen’s head back between his shoulders, sent him rocking on his heels against the hitching rail. A gun blasted and Jeff felt a sharp snarl of pain slash across his leg.

Owen was against the rail, groggy, weaving. Jeff stepped forward and his leg screamed with agony. The gun came up again, shaky, uncertain.

Jeff’s fist lashed out, straight to the chin. Owen slumped like a sack, gun tumbling from his hand.

Hanging onto the railing, Jeff stooped and picked it up, straightened up again, still clutching the rail. He couldn’t move, he knew. He had to hang to that rail.

He lifted his head, stared dully at the Silver Dollar. The place was a hum of voices, but there was no shooting. Light still spilled from the windows.

His head spun and he fought to keep his grip. But the railing seemed to writhe and twist and his hand slipped off. He knew that he was plunging to the street, flat on his face.

He awoke choking and coughing, clawing at his throat. Through bleary eyes he saw a glass half full of whisky in a fist before his face.

He fought his way to a sitting posture and looked around. Men were standing in a circle, among them a man with a bearded face.

“How about it, Dan?” he asked, his voice raspy.

“It’s all right, kid,” said Dan. “Slemp coughed up his guts. We got enough evidence to hang them all.”

“But you,” asked Jeff. “How did you get away with it?”

Dan laughed. “Slemp was the only one that ever saw me close. I was too busy on the ranch to spend much time in town. And then the beard fooled them, would have fooled even Slemp. And no one pays much attention to a floating drunk. I figured what the setup was and I meant to get the evidence. But you almost upset my plans. When you came barging in this afternoon, I nearly came dealing myself a hand when Churchill jumped you …”

“Lucky thing for me,” said Churchill, “that you didn’t.”

“Only thing,” said Dan, “I wasn’t even sure, myself. That scar of yours.”

Jeff’s hand went to his cheek, “Got it the week after you left home,” he said. “Bronc bucked me off into a barbed wire fence.”