The Ghost of a Model T : And Other Stories

No More Hides and Tallow

Lieutenant Ned Benton pulled the buckskin to a halt, sat a little straighter in the saddle, as if by sitting thus he might push the horizon back, see a little farther.

For here was a thing that he had hungered for, a thing that he had dreamed about through four years of blood and sweat, fears and hunger, cold and heat. Dreamed it in the dust of Gettysburg and the early morning mists of Mississippi camps, through the eternity of march and counter-march, of seeming victory and defeat that at last was deadly certain. A thing that had been with him always through the years of misery and toil and bitterness he had served with the Army of the South.

For this at last was Benton land…Benton acres stretching far beneath the setting sun of Texas. Benton land and Benton cattle…and no more hides and tallow. For there were wonderful things astir in the new towns to the north, towns with strange names that had sprung up beyond the Missouri’s northward bend. Towns that wanted Texas cattle, not for hides and tallow, but for meat. Meat for the hungry east, meat that was worth good money.

He had heard about it before he crossed the Mississippi…about the great herds streaming northward, braving wind and storm and blizzards, crossing rivers, moving with a trail of dust that mounted in the sky like a marching banner. And it was no more than the start…for Texas was full of cattle. Half wild cattle that no one had paid much attention to except to kill for hides and tallow when there was need of money. Not much money…just enough to scrape by on, to maintain a half dignified poverty.

But that was changed now, for the herds were going north. Herds that spelled riches. Riches that would give the old folks the comforts they had always wanted, but had never talked about. Money for the house that he and Jennie had planned when he came home from the war. Money for the horses and the painted fence around the house….

He clucked to the buckskin and the animal moved forward, down the faint trail that ran through the knee high grass running like a moving sea, stirred by the wind across the swales.

Only a little while now, Benton told himself. Only a little while until I ride in on the ranch buildings. He shut his eyes, remembering them, as he had shut his eyes many times before in those long four years…seeing once again the great grey squared timber house beneath the cottonwoods, hearing the excited barking of old Rover, the frightened scuttering of the chickens that his mother kept.

He opened his eyes, saw the horseman coming down the trail…a horseman who had topped the swale while he had been day dreaming of the house and cottonwoods.

Squinting his eyes against the sun, Benton recognized the man. Jake Rollins, who rode for Dan Watson’s Anchor brand. And remembered, even as he recognized him, that he did not like Jake Rollins.

Rollins urged his big black horse to one side of the trail and stopped. Benton pulled in the buckskin.

“Howdy, Jake,” he said.

Rollins stared, eyes narrowing.

“You spooked me for a minute, Ned,” said Rollins. “Didn’t look for you…”

“The war’s over,” Benton told him. “You must have heard.”

“Sure. Sure I heard, all right, but…” He hesitated, then blurted it out. “But we heard that you was dead.”

Benton shook his head. “Close to it a dozen times, but they never did quite get me.”

Rollins laughed, a nasty laugh that dribbled through his teeth. “Them Yanks are damn poor shots.”

It isn’t funny, Benton thought. Nothing to make a joke of. Not after a man has seen some of the things I have.

“They aren’t poor shots,” Benton told him. “They’re plain damn fools for fighting. Hard to lick.”

He hesitated, staring across the miles of waving grass. “In fact, we didn’t lick them.”

“Folks will be glad to see you home,” Rollins told him, fidgeting in the saddle.

“I’ll be glad to see them, too,” Benton replied soberly.

And he was thinking: I don’t like this man. Never liked him for his dirty mouth and the squinted, squeezed look about him. But it’s good to see him. Good to see someone from home. Good to hear him talk familiarly about the folks one knows.

Rollins lifted the reins as a signal and the horse started forward.

“I’ll be seeing you,” said Rollins.

Benton touched the buckskin with a spur and even as he did the warning hit him straight between the shoulder blades…the little dancing feet that tapped out danger. The signal that he’d known in battle, as if there were something beyond eyes and ears to guard a man and warn him.

Twisting swiftly in the saddle, he was half out of it even before he saw the gun clutched in Rollins’ hand and the hard, blank face that had turned to ice and granite beneath Rollins’ broad-brimmed hat.

The spur on Benton’s left boot raked viciously across the buckskin’s flank as he pulled it from the stirrup and the horse reared in fright and anger, hoofs clawing empty air, bit chains rattling as he shook his head.

The gun in Rollins’ hand spoke with sudden hate and Benton felt the buckskin jerk under the impact of the bullet. Then his feet were touching ground and he was dancing away to give the horse room to fall while his hands swung for his sixguns.

Rollins’ guns hammered again, but his horse was dancing and the slug went wild, hissing ankle high through the waving grass.

For an instant the ice-hard face of the mounted man melted into fear and within that instant Benton’s right gun bucked against his wrist.

Rollins’ horse leaped in sudden fright and Rollins was a rag doll tied to the saddle, flapping and jerking to the movement of the horse…a wobbling, beaten, spineless rag doll that clawed feebly at the saddle horn while crimson stained his bright blue shirt.

Rollins slumped and slid and the horse went mad. Leaping forward, Benton seized the dragging reins, swung his weight against its head while it fought and shied and kicked at the dragging, bumping thing that clung to the off-side stirrup.

Still hanging tightly to the reins, Benton worked his way around until he could seize the stirrup and free the boot that was wedged within it. The horse calmed down, stood nervously, snorting and suspicious.

Rollins lay sprawled grotesquely in the trampled grass. Benton knew he was dead. Death, he told himself, staring at the body, has a limpness all its own, a certain impersonality about it that is unmistakable.

Slowly, he led Rollins’ horse back to the trail. His own horse lay there, dead, shot squarely through the throat where it had caught the bullet when it reared.

Benton stood staring at it.

A hell of a way, he thought, a hell of a way to be welcomed home.

Benton pulled up the big black horse on top of the rise that dipped down to the ranch buildings and sat looking at them, saw that they were old and dingy and very quiet. Once they had seemed large and bright and full of life, but that might have been, he told himself, because then he had not seen anything with which he might compare them. Like the plantations along the Mississippi or the neat, trim farms of the Pennsylvania countryside or the mansions that looked across Virginia rivers.

A thin trickle of smoke came up from the kitchen chimney and that was the only sign of life. No one stirred in the little yard, no one moved about the barn. There was no sound, no movement. Only the lazy smoke against the setting sun.

Benton urged the black horse forward, moved slowly down the hill.

No one came out on the porch to greet him. There was no Rover bounding around a corner to warn him off the place. There was no call from the bunkhouse, no whooping from the barn.

Once Benton tried to yell himself, but the sound dried in his throat and his tongue rebelled and he rode on silently.

One dreary rooster looked up from his scratching as he reached the hitching post, stared at him for a moment with a jaundiced eye that glared from a tilted head, then went back to scratching.

Slowly, Benton climbed the rickety steps that led to the porch, reached for the front door knob, then hesitated. For a moment he stood, unmoving…at last lifted his fist to knock.

The knocking echoed hollowly in the house beyond the door and he knocked again. Slow footsteps came across the floor inside and the door swung open.

A man stood there…an old man, older than Benton had remembered him, older than he had ever thought he’d look

“Pa!” said Benton.

For a long instant the old man stood there in the door, staring at him, as if he might not recognize him. Then one hand came out and clutched Benton’s arm, clutched it with a bony, firm and possessive grip.

“Ned!” the old man said. “My boy! My boy!”

He pulled him in across the threshold, shut the door behind them, shutting out the empty yard and silent barn, the scratching rooster and the rickety steps that led up the slumping porch.

Benton reached out an arm across the old man’s shoulders, hugged him close for a fleeting moment. How small, he thought, how stringy and how boney…like an old cow pony, all whanghide and guts.

His father’s voice was small, just this side of a whisper.

“We heard that you got killed, Ned.”

“Didn’t touch me,” Benton told him. “Where’s Ma?”

“Your ma is sick, Ned.”

“And Rover? He didn’t come to meet me.”

“Rover’s dead,” said his father. “Rattler got him. Wasn’t so spry no more and he couldn’t jump so quick.”

Silently, side by side, walking softly in the darkening house, they made their way to the bedroom door, where the old man stepped aside to let his son go ahead.

Benton halted just inside the door, staring with eyes that suddenly were dim at the white-haired woman propped up on the pillows.

Her voice came to him across the room, small and quavery, but with some of the old sweetness that he remembered.

“Ned! We heard…”

He strode swiftly forward, dropped on his knees beside the bed.

“Yes, I know,” he told her. “But it was wrong. Lots of stories like that and a lot of them are wrong.”

“Safe,” said his mother, as if it were something that defied belief. “Safe and alive and home again. My boy! My darling!”

He held her close while one thin hand reached up and stroked his hair.

“I prayed,” his mother said. “I prayed and prayed and…”

She was sobbing quietly in the coming darkness and her hand kept on stroking his hair and for a moment he recaptured the little baby feeling and the security and warmth and love that lay within it.

A board creaked beneath his father’s footsteps and Benton looked up, seeing the room for the first time since he had entered it. Plain and simple almost to severity. Clean poverty that had a breath of home. The lamp with the painted chimney sitting on the battered dresser. The faded print of the sheep grazing beside a stream. The cracked mirror that hung from a nail pounded in the wall.

“I have been sick,” his mother told him, “but now I’m going to get well. You’re all the medicine that I need.”

Across the bed his father was nodding vigorously.

“She will, too, son,” he said. “She grieved a lot about you.”

“How is everyone else?” asked Benton. “I’ll go out and see them in the morning, but tonight I just want to…”

His father shook his head again. “There ain’t no one else, Ned.”

“No one else! But the hands…”

“There ain’t no hands.”

Silence came across the room, a chill and brittle silence. In the last rays of sunlight coming through the western window his father suddenly was beaten and defeated, an old man with stooped shoulders, lines upon his face.

“Jingo Charley left this morning,” his father told him. “He was the last. Tried to fire him months ago, but he wouldn’t leave. Said things would come out all right. But this morning he just up and left.”

“But no hands,” said Benton. “The ranch…”

“There ain’t no ranch.”

Slowly, Benton got to his feet. His mother reached out for one of his hands, held it between the two of hers.

“Don’t take on, now,” she said. “We still got the house and a little land.”

“The bank sold us out,” his father said. “We had a little mortgage, your mother sick and all. Bank went broke and they sold us out. Watson bought the place.”

“But he was right good about it all,” his mother said. “Old Dan Watson, he let us keep the house and ten acres of land. Said he couldn’t take everything that a neighbor had.”

“Watson didn’t have the mortgage?”

His father shook his head. “No, the bank had it. But the bank went broke and had to sell its holdings. Watson bought it from the bank.”

“Then Watson foreclosed?”

“No, the bank foreclosed and sold the land to Watson.”

“I see,” said Benton. “And the bank?”

“It started up again.”

Benton closed his eyes, felt the weariness of four long, bitter years closing in on him, smelled the dust of broken hopes and dreams. His mind stirred muddily. There was yet another thing. Another question.

He opened his eyes. “What about Jennie Lathrop?” he asked.

His mother answered. “Why, Jennie, when she heard that you were…”

Her voice broke off, hanging in the silence.

“When she heard that I was dead,” said Benton, brutally, “she married someone else.”

His mother nodded up at him from the pillows. “She thought you weren’t coming back, son.”

“Who?” asked Benton.

“Why, you know him, Ned. Bill Watson.”

“Old Dan Watson’s son.”

“That’s right,” said his mother. “Poor girl. He’s an awful drinker.”

The town of Calamity had not changed in the last four years. It still huddled, wind-blown and dusty, on the barren stretch of plain that swept westward from the foot of the Greasewood hills. The old wooden sign in front of the general store still hung lopsided as it had since six years before when a wind had ripped it loose. The hitching posts still leaned crazily, like a row of drunken men wobbling down the street. The mudhole, scarcely drying up from one rainstorm till the next, still bubbled in the street before the bank.

Benton, riding down the street, saw all these things and knew that it was almost as if he’d never been away. Towns like Calamity, he told himself, never change. They simply get dirtier and dingier and each year the buildings slump just a little more and a board falls out here and a shingle blows off there and never are replaced.

“Some day,” he thought, “the place will up and blow away.”

There was one horse tied to the hitching rack in front of the bank and several horses in front of the Lone Star saloon. A buckboard, with a big gray team, was wheeling away from the general store and heading down the street.

As it approached, Benton pulled the black to one side to make way. A man and a girl rode behind the bays, he saw. An old man with bushy, untrimmed salt and pepper beard, a great burly man who sat four-square behind the team with the reins in one hand and a long whip in the other. The girl wore a sunbonnet that shadowed her face.

That man, thought Benton. I know him from somewhere.

And then he knew. Madox. Old Bob Madox from the Tumbling A. Almost his next door neighbor.

He pulled the black to a halt and waited, wheeling in close to the buckboard when it stopped.

Madox looked up at him and Benton sensed the power that was in the man. Huge barreled chest and hands like hams and blue eyes that crinkled in the noonday sun.

Benton reached down his hand. “You remember me?” he asked. “Ned Benton.”

“Sure I do,” said Madox. “Sure, boy, I remember you. So you are home again.”

“Last night,” Benton told him.

“You must recall my daughter,” said Madox. “Name of Ellen. Take off that damn sunbonnet, Ellen, so a man can see your face.”

She slipped the sunbonnet off her head and it hung behind her by the ties. Blue eyes laughed at Benton.

“It’s nice,” she said, “to have a neighbor back.”

Benton raised a hand to his hat. “Last time I saw you, Ellen,” he said, “you were just a kid with freckles and your hair in pigtails.”

“Hell,” said old Madox, “she wears it in pigtails mostly now. Just put it up when she comes to town. About drives her mother mad, she does. Dressing up in her brother’s pants and acting like a boy all the blessed time.”

“Father!” said Ellen, sharply.

“Ought to been a boy,” her father said. “Can lick her weight in wildcats.”

“My father,” Ellen told Benton, “is getting old and he has lost his manners.”

“Come out and see us sometime,” said Madox. “Make it downright soon. We got a few things to talk over.”

“Like this foreclosure business?”

Madox spat across the wheel. “Damn right,” he said. “Figure we all got taken in.”

“How do the Lee boys feel?” asked Benton.

“Same as the rest of us,” said Madox.

He squinted at the black. “Riding an Anchor horse,” he said and the tone he used was matter-of-fact.

“Traded,” said Benton.

“Some of the Anchor boys are down at the Lone Star,” said Madox.

“Thanks,” said Benton.

Madox snapped his whip and the team moved on. Ellen waved to Benton and he waved back.

For a moment he sat in the street, watching the buckboard clatter away, then swung the horse around and headed for the Lone Star.

Except for the Anchor men and the bartender the place was empty. The bartender dozed, leaning on the bar. The others were gathered around a table, intent upon their cards.

Benton flicked his eyes from one to another of them. Jim Vest, the foreman, and Indian Joe and Snake McAfee across the table, facing toward him. Frank Hall and Earl Andrews and the one who had looked around. That one had changed, but not so much that Benton didn’t know him. Bill Watson was a younger portrait of his florid father.

As if someone had tapped him on the shoulder, Bill Watson looked around again, staring for a moment, then was rising from his chair, dropping his hand of cards face down upon the table.

“Hello, Bill,” said Benton.

Watson didn’t answer. Around him, back of him, the others were stirring, scraping back their chairs, throwing down their hands.

“I’m riding an Anchor horse,” said Benton. “I trust there’s no one who objects.”

Young Watson wet his lips. “What are you doing with an Anchor horse?”

“Got him off of Rollins.”

Vest, the foreman rose from his chair.

“Rollins didn’t show up last night,” he said.

“You’ll find him on the old cutoff trail straight north of where you live,” said Benton.

Bill Watson took a slow step forward.

“What happened, Ned?” he asked.

“He tried to shoot me in the back.”

“You must have give him cause,” charged Vest.

“Looks to me like someone might have given out the word I wasn’t to get back,” said Benton. “Got the idea that maybe the cutoff trail was watched.”

None of them stirred. There was no sound within the room. Benton ticked off the faces. Watson, scared. Vest, angry but afraid to go for his gun. Indian Joe was a face that one couldn’t read.

“I’ll buy the drinks,” said Watson, finally.

But no one stirred. No one started for the bar.

“I’m not drinking,” Benton told him sharply.

The silence held. The silence and the motionless group that stood around the table.

“I’m giving you coyotes a chance to shoot it out,” said Benton.

Watson stood so still that the rest of his face was stony when his lips moved to make the words he spoke.

“We ain’t got no call to go gunning for you, Benton.”

“If you feel a call to later on,” said Benton, “don’t blame me for anything that happens.”

For a long moment he stood there, just inside the door, and watched them. No one moved. The cards lay on the table, the men stood where they were.

Deliberately, Benton swung around, took a swift step toward the swinging door, shoulders crawling against the bullet that he knew might come.

Then he was on the street again, standing in the wash of sunlight. And there had been no bullet. The Anchor had backed down.

He untied the black, walked slowly up the street, leading the animal. In front of the bank he tied the horse again and went inside.

There were no customers and Coleman Gray was at his desk beyond the teller’s wicket.

The man looked up and saw him, slow recognition coming across his face.

“Young Benton,” he exclaimed. “Glad to see you, Ned. Didn’t know you were back.”

“I came to talk,” he said.

“Come on in,” said Gray. “Come in and have a chair.”

“What I have to say,” Benton told him, “I’ll say standing up.”

“If it’s about your father’s ranch,” said Gray, smoothly, “I’m afraid you don’t understand.”

“You and the Watsons engineered it.”

“Now don’t get your back up at the Watsons, son,” Gray advised. “Maybe it seems hard, but it was all pure business. After all, the Crazy H wasn’t the only one. There was the Madox place and the Lees. They lost their ranches, too.”

“Seems downright queer,” said Benton, “that all of this should happen just when beef began to amount to something besides hides and tallow.”

Gray blustered: “You’re accusing me of …”

“I’m accusing you of going broke,” snapped Benton, “and ruining a lot of folks, then starting up again.”

“It’s easily explained,” protested Gray, “once you understand the circumstances. We had so many loans out that we couldn’t meet our obligations. So we had to call them in and that gave us new capital.”

“So you’re standing pat,” he said.

Gray nodded. “If that’s what you want to call it,” he said, “I am standing pat.”

Benton’s hand snaked across the railing, caught the banker’s shirt and vest, twisting the fabric tightly around Gray’s chest, pulling him toward him.

“You stole those ranches, Gray,” he rasped, “and I’m getting them back. I’m serving notice on you now. I’m getting them back.”

Words bubbled from the banker’s lips, but fright turned them into gibberish.

With a snort of disgust, Benton hurled the banker backward, sent him crashing and tripping over a waste paper basket to smash against the wall.

Benton turned on his heel, headed for the door.

In front of the Lone Star the Anchor riders were swinging out into the street, heading out of town. Benton stood watching them.

“Ned,” said a quiet voice, almost at his elbow.

Benton spun around.

Sheriff Johnny Pike lounged against the bank front, nickel-plated star shining in the sun.

“Hello, Johnny,” said Benton.

“Ned,” said the sheriff, “you been raising too much hell.”

“Not half as much as I’m going to raise,” said Benton. “I come back from the war and I find a bunch of buzzards have euchered the old man out of the ranch. I’m getting that ranch…”

The sheriff interrupted. “Sorry about the ranch, Ned, but that ain’t no reason to raise all the ruckus that you have. I was looking through the window and I saw you heave that banker heels over teakettle.”

“He was damn lucky,” snarled Benton, “that I didn’t break his neck.”

“Then there was that business,” said the sheriff, patiently, “of busting up the card game down at the Lone Star. You ain’t got no call to walk in and do a thing like that. You hombres come back from the war and you figure you can run things. You figure that all the rest of us citizens have to knuckle down to you. You figure just because you’re heroes that we got to…”

Benton took a quick step forward. “What are you going to do about it, Johnny?”

The sheriff scrubbed his mustache. “Guess I got to haul you in and put you under a peace bond. Only thing I can do.”

Footsteps shambled down the sidewalk and cracked voice yelled at Benton:

“Got some trouble, kid?”

Benton swung around, saw the scarecrow of a man hobbling toward him, bowed legs twinkling down the walk, white mustaches dropping almost to his chin, hat pushed back to display the worried wrinkle that twisted his face.

“Jingo!” yelled Benton. “Jingo, Pa said you left the place.”

“Your Pa is batty as a bedbug,” Jingo Charley told him. “Couldn’t run me off the place. Just come into town to get liquored up.”

He squinted at the sheriff.

“This tin star talking law to you?”

“Says he’s got to put me under a peace bond,” Benton told him.

Jingo Charley spat at the sheriff’s feet.

“Ah, hell, don’t pay no attention to him. He’s just a Watson hand that rides range in town. Come on, we’re going home.”

The sheriff stepped forward, hands dropping to his guns.

“Now, just a minute, you two…”

Jingo Charlie moved swiftly, one bowed leg lashing out. His toe caught the sheriff’s heel and heaved. The sheriff’s feet went out from under him and the sheriff came crashing down, flat upon the sidewalk.

Jingo Charley stooped swiftly, snatching at the sheriff’s belt.

“Danged nice guns,” he said, straightening. “Engraved and everything. Wonder if they shoot.”

“Give them back,” the sheriff roared. “Give them back or…”

Deliberately Jingo Charley tossed them, one after the other, into the mudhole that lay in the street. They splashed and disappeared.

“Guess that’ll hold the old goat for a little while,” said Jingo Charley.

He shook his head, sadly. “Shame to muddy up them pretty guns. Engraved and everything.”

The tangle of the Greasewood hills lay across the trail, soaring heights that shimmered in the heat of afternoon and short abrupt canyons that were black slashes of shadow upon a sunlit land.

Jingo Charley jogged his horse abreast of Benton. “Want to keep an eye peeled, kid,” he warned.

Benton nodded. “I was thinking that, myself.”

“Just because them Anchor hombres folded up back in that saloon,” said Jingo, “ain’t no sign they won’t get brave as hell with a tree to hide behind.”

“Can’t figure out that backing down,” said Benton. “Went in figuring on a shootout.”

“The Watson bunch will do anything to duck trouble now,” the old man told him. “Getting together a bunch of cattle to drive north. Some of their own cattle, I suppose. But likewise a lot of other stuff.”

“They’ll be starting soon?” asked Benton.

Jingo spat. “Few days. That is, unless something happens.”

“Like what?”

“Like if them cows got spooked and hightailed it back into the brush.”

“Someone’s up there,” said Benton quietly. “Someone riding hard.”

They pulled their horses to a halt, watched the horse and rider plunging down the tangled hill. The rider sat the horse straight as an Indian and the sun caught the flash of calico fluttering in the wind.

“It’s that gal,” yelled Jingo. “Old Madox’s daughter.”

Benton whirled his horse off the trail, touched spurs and tore up the hill. She saw him coming and raised an arm in a swift gesture.

She rode without a saddle, with her dress tucked beneath her, legs flashing in the sun. She had lost her sunbonnet and as she came opposite Benton, he saw the red welts across her cheeks where whipping brush had raked her face.

Benton leaned down and grasped the bridle of the blowing horse, pulled it close, asked sharply: “What’s the matter, Ellen?”

“They’re waiting for you at the Forks,” she gasped.

“Watson?”

She nodded, went on breathlessly. “They passed up on the road and Dad spotted them when we were driving through. But we made out as if we didn’t see them. Then when we got out of sight, we pulled up and unhitched.”

“You took a big chance,” Benton told her, solemnly.

She shook her head. “One of us had to ride back and warn you. And Dad can’t ride worth shucks without a saddle. Getting too fat. Me, I can ride any way at all.”

Benton scowled. “Sure they didn’t see you riding back?”

“No, they couldn’t have. I came a roundabout way. Through the hills.”

Jingo Charley looked at the heaving horse. “You must have done some riding.”

She nodded. “I had to. There wasn’t much time. I didn’t know how soon you’d be leaving town.”

Thinking of it, Benton felt shivers walking on his spine. There at the Forks the trail split three ways, the left hand one going to the Anchor spread, the right hand to Lathrop’s Heart ranch, the center one to the Crazy H and Tumbling A. The trail went steeply up a gorge to the high plateau where the trail divided. He and Jingo would have been walking their horses up the gorge, taking it easy. They would have been picked off like sitting birds by the hidden gunmen.

“They’ve got their horses down in the mouth of Cow Canyon,” Ellen was telling them. “One man guarding them. I saw them when I went past.”

Jingo Charley grinned wickedly. “Plumb shame,” he said, “to set them boys afoot.”

Benton said gravely: “Maybe you’d ought to go back, Ellen. The way you came. That way you’d be in the clear before anything could happen.”

“I thought maybe you would want to go with me,” said Ellen. “There isn’t any reason why you have to tangle with them.”

“Can’t pass up a chance like this,” Jingo Charley declared, with finality.

Benton considered. “We can’t duck out on a thing like this,” he said. “We got to fight them sooner or later and it might as well be now. There’s only two things to do. Fight or run.”

Jingo spat viciously. “I ain’t worth a damn at running,” he declared.

“Neither am I,” said Benton.

The girl slowly gathered up the reins.

“Be careful,” cautioned Benton. “Don’t let them see you. We’ll wait a while so that you can get through.”

She wheeled her horse.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Ellen,” Benton said.

“We have to stick together,” Ellen told him, simply.

Then she was pounding away, back up the tangled hill.

Jingo Charley stared after. “Saved our hair, that’s what she did,” he said. “Lots of spunk for a gal.”

They waited, watching the heights above them. Nothing stirred. The day droned on in sun and sound of insects.

Finally they moved on, skirting the trail, heading for the mouth of Cow Canyon.

Jingo Charley hissed at Benton. “Almost there, kid. Take it easy.”

“What’s that?” Benton suddenly demanded. Something had gleamed on the heights above them, something dancing like a sunbeam all at once gone crazy. And even as he asked it, he knew what it was.

“Look out!” he shouted at Jingo Charley. With tightened rein and raking spur, he plunged his horse around.

A rifle cracked where the sunbeam danced and smoke plumed on the hillside. Another gun belched at them from just below the first.

Benton spurred his horse and the animal, leaping in fright, went tearing through a clump of whipping brush, skidded over a cutbank, went clattering up a rise.

Ahead of him, Benton saw the old cowhand, urging his horse into a dead run; behind him he heard the thunder of galloping horses, the hacking cough of handguns.

Bullets whispered through the brush around him, some of them so close he heard the whining whisper in the air.

Jingo Charley lurched in the saddle, swayed for a moment and then was riding on. Benton saw a bright red stain spring out upon his sleeve, just above the elbow.

Benton snaked a quick look behind him. Riders with smoking guns were spread out in the brush. A branch caught him across the face with stinging force as he clawed one gun out of the holster.

The horse stumbled, caught itself and then went on. A bullet droned like a lazy bumblebee above Benton’s head.

Twisting in his saddle, he pumped his gun, feeling the jerking jumpiness of it in his hand. The leading Anchor man sailed out of his saddle, flying over the horse’s head, a whirling tangle of flying arms and legs. The horse whirled swiftly, frightened by the sight of a man in mid-air in front of him, crashed into the second rider, upsetting the plunging horse to send it rolling down the hill.

A yell of triumph was wrenched out of Benton’s lungs. The other Anchor riders shied off and Benton’s horse reached the ridge top, was plunging down the slope, stiffened forefeet plowing great furrows in the ground.

Jingo Charley was far ahead, almost at the bottom of the slope, swinging his horse to head for a canyon mouth. Benton hauled at the reins, brought the black around to angle down the hill in an effort to catch up with Jingo.

From the ridgetop came a single shot.

Benton looked back. Two or three horses were milling around up there.

Don’t want to push us too close, thought Benton, exultantly, after what happened back on the other side of the ridge.

At the bottom of the slope, he was only a few yards behind Jingo Charley. Looking back, he saw the Anchor riders, plunging down the slope.

Got their nerve back, he told himself.

The canyon walls closed in around them, dark and foreboding. Boulders choked the tiny trickle of water that meandered down the stream bed. Brush grew thick against the banks.

Ahead of him Jingo Charley was dismounting, slapping the pony’s rump with his hat. Startled, the horse charged up the stream bed.

Jingo yelled at him. “Get off. We can hole up and hold them off.”

Benton jumped from his horse and the black went tearing after Jingo’s mount.

“You take that side,” Jingo yelled at him. “I’ll take this.”

“But you’re hit,” Benton told him. “Are you…”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Jingo told him. “Bullet went through my arm slick as a whistle. Nothing to it.”

Below them, down near the canyon’s mouth, came the clatter of hoofs on stones, the excited yell of riders.

Turning, Benton plunged into the brush, clambered up the talus slope beneath the grim wall of the canyon.

Behind a boulder he squatted down, gun held across his knee. Below him the canyon spread out like a detailed map.

Looking at it, he grinned. With him here and Charley over on the other side, not even a rabbit could stir down there that they couldn’t see. And with the canyon walls rearing straight above them, no one could get at them from any other direction. Anything or anyone that came into that canyon were dead meat to their guns.

The sun slanted down the canyon’s narrow notch and squatting by the boulder, Benton felt the warmth of it against his shoulders.

It made him think of other times. Of the tensed hush when a Yankee column was trotting down the road straight into a gun trap. Of the moments when he crouched beneath a ridge, waiting the word that would send him…and others…charging up the hill into the mouths of flaming guns.

This was it again, but in a different way. This was home without the peace that he had dreamed about in the nights of bivouac.

Far below a horse’s hoof clicked restlessly from a bush somewhere nearby, a rasping sound that filled the afternoon.

Something went wrong, Benton told himself. Some of them must have seen Ellen riding back to warn us and they set a new trap for us. Or it may have been the same trap all along. Maybe they meant for old man Madox and Ellen to see them…

But that was too complicated, he knew. He shook his head. It would have been simpler for them just to have waited at the Fork.

The minutes slipped along and the sun slid across the sky.

Benton fidgeted behind his boulder. There was no sign of the riders, no sound to betray their presence.

“Jingo,” he called softly.

“Yes, kid, what do you want?”

“I’m coming over.”

“O.K. Take it easy.”

Cautiously, Benton slid down the hillside. At the trickle of water in the streambed, he wet his handkerchief, clawed his way up the opposite bank.

“Jingo?”

“Right over here. What you got?”

“Going to fix up that arm of yours,” said Benton.

He slipped into the bushes beside the old man, rolled up his sleeve, baring the bloody arm. A bullet had ripped through a muscle. Not a bad wound, Benton declared.

Jingo chuckled. “Got them stopped, kid. They set a trap for us and now we got one set for them. And they ain’t having none of it.”

“What about our horses?”

“Blind canyon,” said Jingo. “Can’t get out less they grow wings.”

Swiftly, efficiently, Benton washed and bound the arm. It was not the first wound he had tied up and taken care of in the last few years.

“We better be getting out of here,” he said.

Jingo hissed softly. “Something moving down there.” He pointed with a finger and Benton saw the slight waving of a bush, just a bit more than the wind would stir it.

They waited. Another bush stirred. A stick crunched.

“It’s Indian Joe,” Jingo whispered. “Figuring to sneak up on us. Only one in the whole bunch that could of got this far.”

Squinting his eyes, Benton could make out the dark face of a crawling man on the opposite bank…a dark, evil face that almost blended with the foliage…almost, not quite.

“Flip you for him,” said Jingo softly.

Benton shook his head. “I got mine today. You go ahead and take him.”

Suddenly he felt calm, calm and sure. Back at the old business again. Back at the job of the last four years. Back at the work of killing.

Slowly Jingo raised his gun, the hammer snicked back with a soft metallic sound.

Then the gun roared, deafening in the bush-shrouded canyon, the sound caught up and buffeted about, flung back and forth by the towering walls of stone.

“Got him!” yelled Jingo. “Got him…no, by Lord, just nicked him.”

The bushes had come to life.

Jingo’s gun blasted smoke and flame again.

“Look at him go!” yelled Jingo. “Look at that feller leg it!”

Whipping bushes advancing swiftly down the bank marked Indian Joe’s going.

“Damn it,” said Jingo, ruefully, “I must be getting old. Should of let you have him.”

The silence came again, silence broken only by a tiny wind that moaned now and then high up the cliff, broken by the shrilling of an insect in the sun-drenched land.

They waited, hunched in the bushes, studying the canyon banks. No bush moved. Nothing happened. The sun sank lower and the shadows lengthened.

“Guess they must of give up,” Jingo decided.

“I’ll scout down the canyon,” said Benton. “You catch up the horses.”

Moving cautiously, Benton set out down the canyon, eyes studying every angle of the terrain before advancing.

But there was no sign of the Anchor riders, no sign or sound.

At the mouth of the canyon he found the hoof-trampled spot where they had milled their horses and leading out from it were tracks, heading back into the hills.

Something white fluttered in the wind and he strode toward it.

It was a piece of paper, wedged in the cleft of a stick that had been left between two rocks.

Angrily, Benton jerked the paper loose, read the pencil scrawled message:

Benton’s father was out in the yard, chopping wood, when they rode in. At the sight of them, he slapped the axe into the chopping block, left it sticking there, hobbled toward the gate to meet them. Benton saw there was worry on his face.

“I come back again,” said Jingo.

“Glad to have you,” Benton’s father said.

To Benton, he said: “There’s someone in the house to see you, son.”

“You go ahead,” Jingo told the younger man. “I’ll put up the horses.”

Benton vaulted off the black.

“How’s mother?”

“Some better,” said his father. “She’s sleeping now.”

The sun was slanting through the windows of the living room, making bars of golden light across the worn carpeting.

In the dusk of one corner, a woman rose from a chair, moved out into the slash of sunlight.

“Jennie!” said Benton. “Jennie…”

“I heard that you were back,” she told him.

He stood unmoving, staring at her, at the golden halo that the sunlight flung around her head, at the straightness of her, and wished that her face were not in the shadow.

“You came for something?” he asked and hated himself for it. It was not the way, he knew, to talk to a woman that he had intended to marry. Not the sharp, hard way to speak to a woman whose memory he had carried through four long and bloody years.

“I came to ask you to take care of yourself…to stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble?” he asked. “What do you mean, trouble?”

She flushed angrily. “You know what I mean, Ned. Trouble with the Anchor. Why don’t you leave, there’s nothing for you here.”

“Nothing but the land that was stolen from me.”

“You’ll be killed. You can’t fight them, all alone.”

“Did Bill Watson send you here to ask me this?”

Her voice rose until it was almost shrill. “You know he didn’t, Ned. You know I wouldn’t do a thing like that. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

He gave a short, hard laugh.

“You’re a bitter man,” she told him.

“I have a right to be,” he said.

She moved toward him, two hesitant steps, then stopped.

“Ned,” she said softly. “Ned.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t wait.”

“You thought that I was dead,” Benton said, heavily. “There was no use of waiting then.”

“Bill was the one who told me,” she said. “He was the one that started the story. Said he heard it from a man who had been with you.”

“So you married him,” said Benton. “He told you I was dead and then he married you.”

She flared at Benton. “I hate him. Do you hear? I hate him. He’s a beast…a dirty, drunken beast.”

For a moment Benton saw this very room as he remembered it. A shining place with a warm glow to it. A shining room and a laughing girl. But the room was dingy now, dingy with the shafts of sunlight only adding to its dreariness.

A room with a laughing ghost. And the ghost, he knew, didn’t square with the woman who stood before him.

The room was cold and empty…like his heart and brain. Nothing matters, he thought, watching her. Nothing matters now. A cause broken on a bloody battlefield that stretched across four years, a dream shattered by a woman who wouldn’t wait, land that one had thought of as a home stolen by those who stayed at home while he went out to fight.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m sorry that I said anything about it.”

“You won’t make trouble then? You will leave?”

A dull rage shook him for a moment and then flickered out, leaving dull gray ash that was bitter on his tongue.

“You shouldn’t have come here at all,” he said.

Standing without moving, he heard her walk toward the door. For a moment she stopped and he thought she was going to speak, but she didn’t. She stood there for a few long seconds and then moved on.

The door creaked open and his father’s voice was speaking.

“Leaving so soon, Jennie?”

“Yes, it’s getting late. They will wonder where I’ve been.”

“Jingo will get your horse for you.”

“No thanks. I can get him myself. He’s in the stall next to the door.”

The door closed and his father’s heavy feet tramped along the porch. Voices sounded for a moment and then he came back in again. Benton walked out into the hall.

“Jingo tells me he got hit in the arm,” his father said.

Benton nodded. “Ran into some trouble. The Anchor gang jumped us at the Forks.”

The old man stood silent for a moment. “Your mother’s feeling lots better today,” he finally said. “Happy about you being back. If anything happened now, Ned, I think that it would kill her.”

“I’ll be careful,” Benton promised.

Out in the kitchen he could hear Jingo rattling pans and poking up the fire.

He tiptoed to the door of his mother’s room and looked in. She was asleep, with a smile upon her face. Quietly he tiptoed back again, out to the kitchen.

“Slow down a bit,” he said to Jingo. “Mother is asleep.”

Jingo looked at him quizzically. “What you aiming to do, kid?”

“That herd the Anchor’s gathering,” said Benton, quietly. “We can’t let them start. Some of them are our cattle they’re figuring to drive north.”

“Ain’t no trick at all to spook a cow,” Jingo told him.

Benton’s father spoke quietly from the doorway. “Some of the others would help.”

“Might need some help,” Jingo admitted. “Probably quite a crowd of Anchor hombres out watching them cows.”

“Madox and his boy would give us a hand,” said Benton’s father. “And the two Lee brothers over at the Quarter Circle D.”

“You’re going, too?” asked Jingo.

The elder Benton nodded. “I’ll get Mrs. Madox to come over and stay with Ma.”

He looked at his son. “Sound all right to you, Ned?”

“You’ll have plenty without me,” said Benton. “I’m going to ride over and have a talk with Old Dan Watson.”

Benton sat his horse on the windy ridge top, staring down at the chuck wagon fire a mile or so away. Vague, ghostly forms were moving about it and at times he caught the snatch of bellowed words, carried by the wind, mauled by the whipping breeze until they made no sense, but were only sounds of human voice.

Out beyond the fire a dark lake was massed on the prairie…a dark lake that was the trail herd gathered for the north. Occasionally Benton heard the click of horns, a subdued moo, but that was all. The herd had settled for the night, was being watched, no doubt, by circling riders.

In the east the sky was lighting, signaling the moon that was about to rise. Starlight glittered in the sky and the wind talked with silken voices in the grass.

Benton whirled his black, headed south.

Half an hour later the Anchor ranch buildings came in sight.

The bunk house, he saw, was dark, but lights blazed in the front room of the big ranch house.

Benton pulled the black to a walk, went in slowly, half prepared for the challenge or the bullet that might come out of the dark.

The plopping of the horse’s hoofs against the earth sounded loud in Benton’s ears, but there was no stir around the buildings, no signs of life at all except the lighted windows.

One horse was tied at the hitching post and before he dismounted, Benton sat there for a moment, watching and listening. The sound of voices came through the window that opened on the porch. But that was all.

He tied his horse, walked softly up the porch steps, crossed to the door.

Then, with knuckles lifted to knock, the sound of a voice stopped him. A loud, arrogant voice that boomed through the window. A voice that he had heard that day.

“…He’s on the prod, Dan. We can’t have him stirring up a fuss. I’d never agreed to the deal if I hadn’t thought you’d take care of things.”

Benton froze. The voice of Coleman Gray, the banker, coming from the window!

Old Dan Watson’s growl came: “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Ned Benton…and any of the others that start raising hell.”

Slowly, Benton let his hand drop to his side, shuffled softly from the door, pressed his body tight against the house.

“You got me into this,” Gray whined. “You were the ones that figured it all out.”

“You were damn quick to jump at it,” growled Dan Watson’s voice, “when you figured there wasn’t any chance of being caught. But now that young Benton’s come back, you got cold feet.”

“But you said he wouldn’t come back,” Gray yelled. “You said you’d see to it that he never did.”

Quick steps sounded on the porch and Benton whirled, but he was too slow. A hard finger of metal jammed into his back and a mocking voice spoke.

“Damned if it ain’t the hero, come back from the war.”

Benton choked with rage.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Your old friend,” said the voice back of him. “Snake McAfee.”

“Look, Snake. I was just coming over to see Dan.”

“Just a friendly visit,” snarled Snake. “Damn funny way to go about it, listening at a window.”

He jabbed the gun into Benton’s back. “In you go. The boss will want to see you.”

Urged by the gun, Benton turned toward the door. Snake McAfee yelled and the door swung open. Bill Watson stood on the threshold, wonder on his face at the sight of Benton.

“Good evening, Bill,” said Benton.

Behind him McAfee jabbed with the gun and growled. “Get on in, damn you.”

Bill Watson stood to one side, triumph flaming across his face. His lips parted in a flabby, oily smile.

Benton stepped across the threshold, on into the living room. McAfee, gun still in his hand, slid along the wall, stood with his back against it.

Old Dan Watson sat stolid, red face turning purple, strong, pudgy hands gripping the arms of the rocking chair in which he rested. The banker’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut again, like a steel trap closing. Behind his back, Benton heard young Watson snickering.

“Found him listening just outside the window,” Snake McAfee told the room.

“What did you hear?” Old Dan Watson asked and his words were slow and ponderous, as if he had all the time in the world to deal with this situation and would not be hurried.

Benton flicked a look at Gray and saw the man was sweating, literally sweating in terror.

“No use of talking about what I heard,” said Benton. “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do.”

“Sensible,” Watson grunted and rocked a lick or two in the rocking chair.

“The two of you fixed it up between you to rob your neighbors,” said Benton, bluntly.

Gray half sprang from his chair, then settled back again.

“You can’t prove that,” he snapped.

Old Dan grumbled derisively. “He don’t need to prove it, Coleman. He won’t even have a chance.”

He twisted his massive head around to Benton.

“What did you come here for, anyway?”

“I came to make a deal.”

Old Dan rumbled at him. “Let’s hear your proposition.”

“You got the Crazy H for a couple thousand measly dollars,” said Benton. “You got cattle that were worth twice that or more, let alone the land.”

Old Watson nodded, eyes cold and hard.

“You got cattle in your trail herd out there that don’t wear your brand,” said Benton. “Take the ones you need to pay what the ranches around here cost and hand the ranchers back their deeds.”

Gray wiped sweat from his brow with a nervous hand.

“That’s fair,” he burst out. “That’s fair. After all, we can’t take advantage of a man who went out and fought for us.”

Watson shook his head. “No, the deal was legal. When I took over those cattle weren’t worth a dime because there was no place to market them. It’s not my fault that the cattle market changed.”

“Except,” said Benton, quietly, “that you knew it was going to change. You had word of what was going on up north. So you moved fast to take over everything that you could grab.”

Feet shuffled over by the window and Benton looked toward it. Snake McAfee leered back at him, gun half raised.

“I have just one thing to say to you,” said Watson, slowly. “Get out of the country. You’re a trouble-maker and you’ve had your warning. If you stay we’ll gun you down on sight like a lobo wolf.”

His hands pounded the arms of the rocking chair, his voice rising in old-man querulousness.

“You’ve been back just a bit more than a day, Benton, and you’ve already killed two of my men. I won’t stand for anything like that.”

“I killed them,” said Benton, coldly, “because I was faster on the gun than they were. And if you stay pig-headed, a lot more of them will die.”

Watson’s eyes narrowed in his monstrous face. “You mean that, don’t you, Benton?”

Benton stared straight at him. “You know I do, Dan. And what’s more, you’ll not move a single cow….”

Watson leaned forward, bellowing. “What’s that…”

Hoofs suddenly hammered in the yard outside the house, hoofs that skidded to a stop. Feet thumped across the porch and the door slammed open.

A disheveled rider blinked in the lamplight.

“The herd!” he yelled. “They stampeded it! It’s headed for the hills! Gang of riders…”

Dan Watson heaved himself upward with a grunt of sudden, violent rage. Snake McAfee was standing with gun arm hanging, staring at the rider.

Benton whirled, took one quick step, fist swinging to explode on Snake’s jaw. Snake crashed into the window as Benton leaped for the door, hands clawing for his guns. Behind him glass tinkled, smashing on the floor.

Benton saw the rider leaping at him, chopped down viciously with his gun barrel, but too late to stop the man. The gun smacked with a leaden thud across the hunched down shoulder, then the shoulder hit him in the stomach and sent him reeling back so violently that his hat blew off.

Stars exploded in Benton’s head. Stars and a bursting pain and a roaring wind that whistled at the edges. He felt himself falling forward, like a great tree falls, falling through a darkness that was speared with jagged streaks of pain.

And through the roaring of the wind that whistled through his brain he heard the high, shrill, excited voice of Young Bill Watson:

“That’s the way to kill the dirty son…”

Awareness came back. Awareness of the seep of light that ran along the boards, awareness of the hard lump that the gun made beneath his chest, where his arm had doubled and he had fallen on it, awareness of the rumble of voices that droned above him…voices that at first were misty sounds and then became words and finally had meaning.

“…You better put a bullet through him.”

That was the banker’s voice, hard and suspicious, but with a whine within it.

The elder Watson’s voice rumbled at him. “Hell, there ain’t no use. He’s deader than a fence post, as it is. Look at that head of his…split wide open.”

Young Bill Watson snickered, nastily. “When I hit ’em, they stay hit.”

“Still, just to be safe…”

The puncher’s frantic voice broke in. “Boss! The cattle!”

Old Watson’s voice bellowed. “Yes, damn it, I almost forgot.”

Feet tramped across the floor, jarring it.

“You riding with us, Gray?” Bill Watson asked.

The banker’s voice was hesitant. “No. Think I’ll head back for town. Got some business…”

The slamming door cut off his words.

Silence stalked across the room, a deathly, terrible silence.

A dark drop dripped down on the floor no more than an inch from Benton’s left eye. A drop that hit and spattered…and was followed by another.

Blood, thought Benton. Blood! Dripping from my head. From where Bill Watson’s gun butt got me.

His hand twitched beneath him and he gritted his teeth to keep it where it was, to keep it from reaching up and feeling of his head, feeling to see just how bad the head wound was.

A wave of giddiness swept over him and beneath him the floor weaved just a little. The blood went on, dripping on the boards before his eye, forming a little puddle on the floor.

A glancing blow, he thought. A glancing blow that ripped my scalp half off. Head must be in one hell of a mess to make them think I’m dead.

Only the banker isn’t sure I’m dead. He was the one that wanted to put a bullet into me to be sure and finish it. And he’s still in the room here with me.

Pain lanced through his brain and across his neck, a livid finger of pain that etched an acid path along his jangled nerves. A groan came bubbling in his throat and he caught and held it back, held it with teeth that bit into his lip.

Feet shuffled slowly across the floor and in his mind Benton could imagine the slouching form of the banker stalking him, walking softly, warily, watching for some sign of life.

Play dead. That was it. Lie still. Be careful with your breathing, just sucking in enough air to keep your lungs alive. The way he’d done it on the night when the Yank patrol was hunting for him down in Tennessee.

The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece hammered through the room…a fateful sound. A sound that measured time, that sat and watched and didn’t care what happened. A sound that ticked men’s lives away and never even hurried.

The boots walked past and then turned back, came close. Benton felt his body tensing, fought it back to limpness.

A toe reached out and prodded him…prodded harder. Benton let his body roll with the prodding toe.

An inner door squeaked open softly and someone gasped, a hissing gasp of indrawn breath that could only come with terror.

The boots swung around and Benton knew that in the little silence the two of them were looking at one another…Gray and the person who had come into the room.

“I’m sorry, madam,” said the banker, “that you happened in.”

A woman’s voice came from across the room…a remembered voice.

“It’s…it’s…who is it?”

Gray’s voice was at once brutal and triumphant. “It’s young Benton.”

“But it can’t be!” There was a note of rising horror in the words. “It simply can’t be. Why, only this afternoon he promised me…”

The outer door slammed open and boots tramped harshly across the floor, passed close to Benton’s head.

“So you talked to him,” said young Bill Watson’s voice. “That’s where you were today.”

“Bill!” screamed the girl. “Bill, it’s not…”

Watson’s voice shrieked at her, lashed with blinding fury. “Just as soon as my back is turned, you go crawling back to him.”

“Listen, Bill,” said Jennie Watson. “Listen to me. Yes, I did talk to him…and I’m leaving you. I’m not living with a man like you…”

Something in his face wrenched a shriek from her, something in his face, something in the way he walked toward her.

“So you’re leaving me! Why, you damned little tramp, I’ll…”

She screamed again.

Benton heaved himself upward from the floor, gun clutched in his hand.

Watson was wheeling around, wheeling at the sound behind him, hands blurring for his guns.

“Bill,” yelled Benton, “don’t do it! Don’t try…”

But Watson’s guns were already out, were swinging up.

Benton chopped his own wrist down, pressing the trigger. The gun bucked and shook the room with thunder. Through the puff of powder smoke, he saw Watson going down.

Another shot blasted in the room and Benton felt the gust of wind that went past his cheek, heard the chug of a bullet crunching through the wall beyond.

He swung on his toes and swept his gun around. The banker stood before him, smoking gun half raised.

“So it’s you,” said Benton.

He twitched his gun up and Gray stared at him in white-faced terror. The gun dropped from the banker’s hand and he backed away, backed until the wall stopped him and he stood pinned by the muzzle of Benton’s gun. The man’s mouth worked but no words came out and he looked like he was strangling.

Benton snarled at him in disgust. “Quit blubbering. I won’t kill you.”

Blood trickled from his right eyebrow and half blinded him. He raised his free hand to wipe it off and the hand came away smeared a sticky red.

“Lord,” he thought, “I must be a sight.”

At a sound behind him, he swung around.

Watson was sitting up and Jennie was on her knees beside him. Both of them were staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” Benton told the girl. “I tried to stop him. I didn’t want to shoot him. I didn’t shoot until I had to.”

The girl spoke quietly. “You used to be kind and considerate. Before you went off to war and learned to kill…”

Watson bent from his sitting position, reaching out his hand, clawing for a gun that lay on the floor.

Benton jerked his own gun up and fired. Splinters leaped shining from the floor. Watson pulled himself back, sat hump-shouldered, scowling.

“Try that again,” invited Benton.

Watson shook his head.

Benton nodded at the girl. “You have her to thank you’re alive right now. If I could have brought myself to kill Jennie Lathrop’s husband, you’d been dead a good long minute.”

He wiped his face again, scrubbed his hand against his shirt.

“After this,” he said, “be sure you hit a little harder when you want to kill a man.”

“Next time,” Watson promised, “I’ll put a bullet through your skull.”

Benton spoke to the girl. “Better get that shoulder of his fixed up and get him in shape to travel. I don’t want to find him around here when I come back.”

Feet scuffed swiftly and Benton whirled about. Gray was leaping for the window, arms folded above his head to shield his eyes against the flying glass, feet swinging outward to clear the sill and crash into the already shattered panes.

Benton snapped his gun up, but before his finger pressed the trigger, gray had hit the window in a spray of showering glass and splintered wood.

Benton’s shot hammered through the broken window, a coughing bark that drowned out the tinkle of the falling shards. Outside, on the porch, a body thumped and rolled, crashed into the railing, flailed for a moment as Gray thrashed to gain his feet.

Benton bent his head, ran two quick steps, hurled himself after Gray, went sailing through the broken window, landed on the porch floor with a jar that shook his teeth.

Out in the moon-washed yard the banker was swinging on his horse at the hitching rack. And as he swung up, his hand was clawing at the saddle, clawing for something hidden there…a metallic something that came up in his fist, gleaming in the moonlight, and exploded with a gush of flame spearing through the night.

Benton, staggering to his feet, ducked as the showers of splinters leaped from the railing of the porch and the whining bullet chugged into the window sill behind him.

Gray’s horse was rearing, wheeling from the rack, puffs of dust beneath his dancing feet.

Benton snapped up his gun and fired, knew that he had missed.

Cursing, he vaulted the porch railing, ran for his own mount while Gray hammered off into the night, heading south, heading for the hills.

Moonlight made the hills a nightmare land of light and shadow, a mottled land that was almost unearthly…a place of sudden depths and crazy heights, a twisting, bucking land that had been frozen into rigidity by a magic that might, it seemed, turn it loose again on any moment’s notice.

Ahead of Benton, Gray’s horse crossed a ridge, was highlighted for a single instant against the moonlit sky. Then was gone again, plunging down the slope beyond.

Gaining on him, Benton told himself, gaining all the time. He bent low above the mighty black and whispered to him and the black heard and responded, great muscles straining to hurl himself and his rider up the slope.

Faint dust, stirred by the passing of the pounding hoofs ahead, left a faintly bitter smell in the cool night air.

Another couple of miles, Benton promised himself. Another couple of miles and I’ll overhaul him.

The black topped the ridge and swung sharply to angle down the trail that led toward the blackness of the canyon mouth below.

Ahead of them, halfway down the slope, Gray’s horse was a humping shadow that left a dust trail in the moonlight. A shadow that fled before them in the tricky shadows that laired among the hills.

A shadow that suddenly staggered, that was a pinwheel of dust spinning down the hill…a pinwheel that became two spinning parts and then was still. The horse lay sprawled against the slope. Probably dead with a broken neck, thought Benton.

But the man was running…a tiny furtive rabbity shadow that scuttled across a painted landscape.

With a whoop, Benton spurred the black horse off the trail, went plunging after the running figure in a shower of rocks and talus. For a moment Gray halted, facing about. Flame blossomed from his hand and the flat crack of his gun snarled across the night.

Benton lifted his gun, then lowered it again. No sense of shooting at a ducking, dodging figure in the shadowed light. No sense in wasting time.

Gray faced about again and once more the gun barked an angry challenge. Far above his head, Benton heard the droning of the bullet.

Then the man was just ahead, dodging through the brush that covered the lower reaches of the slope. Benton drove the horse straight at him and Gray, seeing the gleam of the slashing hoofs above him, screamed and dived away, caught his foot and fell, skidded on his shoulder through the silty soil.

Benton spun the horse around, leaped from the saddle. He hit the ground and slid, ground crumbling and skidding beneath his driving boots.

Gray clawed his way to his feet, stood with his hands half raised.

“Don’t shoot,” he screamed. “Don’t shoot. I lost my gun.”

Benton walked toward him. “You always manage to lose your gun,” he said, “just when it will save you.”

The banker cringed, backing down the slope. Benton followed.

“We’re going to have a talk,” he said. “You and I. You’re going to tell me a lot of things that will hang a lot of people.”

Gray babbled, wildly. “I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you all about…”

Suddenly a rifle cracked from somewhere beyond the ridge…a high, ringing sound that woke the echoes in the hills. And cracked again, a vicious sound that cut through the night like a flaming scream of hate.

Benton stiffened, startled by the sound, startled by the knowledge that other men were close.

A pebble clicked and a boot scraped swiftly through the sliding sand. Warning feet jigged on Benton’s spine and he flicked his attention from the rifle shots to the man before him.

Gray was charging, shoulders hunched, head pulled down, long arms reaching out. Coming up the hill with the drive of powerful legs that dug twin streams of pebbles from their resting places and sent them pouring down the hill in a rattling torrent.

Benton jerked up his gun, but the shoulders hit his knees before he could press the trigger and steel arms were clawing at his waist, clawing to pull him down even as the impact of the driving shoulders hurled him off his feet.

His body slammed into the earth and his gun went wheeling through the moonlight as his elbow hit a stone and his arm jerked convulsively with pain.

Above him, Gray loomed massive in the night, hunched like a beast about to spring, face twisted into a silent snarl of rage. Benton lashed up with his boot, but as he kicked, Gray moved, was running down the hill after the gun that had been knocked from Benton’s hand.

Benton hurled himself to his feet, strode down the slope. Gray was on his knees, clawing under a bush where the gun had lodged, mumbling to himself, half slobbering in his haste. Then he was twisting around, a brightness in his hand.

Benton flattened out in a long, clean dive that smothered the gun play, that sent Gray crashing back into the bush. The man fought back, fought silently with pistoning fists and raking fingernails and pumping knees that caught Benton in the stomach and battered out his breath.

Clawing for the second gun that should have been in his belt, Benton’s fingers found the empty holster. The gun had fallen out somewhere, perhaps when Gray had first tackled him farther up the slope.

The other gun also had disappeared. Gray had lost his hold upon it at the impact of Benton’s charge and it lay somewhere beneath the battered, tangled bush.

The knee came up again and plunged into his stomach with a vicious force. Retching, Benton slid forward, rolled free of the bush, crawled on hands and knees. The hill and moon were swinging in gigantic circles before his eyes and there was a giant hand inside of him, tearing at his vitals.

Off to one side a tattered form struggled up into the moonlight, took a slow step forward. Benton wabbled to his feet and stood waiting, watching Gray advance.

The man came on slow and stolid, like a killer sure of the kill but careful to make no mistakes.

Benton sucked in careful breaths of air, felt the pain evaporating from his body, sensed that he had legs again.

Six feet away Gray sprang swiftly, right fist flailing out, left fist cocked. Benton ducked, countered with his right, felt the fist sink into the banker’s belly. Gray grunted and let loose his left and it raked across Benton’s ribs with a searing impact.

Benton stepped back, trip-hammered Gray’s chin with a right and left, took a blow along the jaw that tilted his head with a vicious jolt.

Gray was coming in, coming fast, fists working like pistons. Benton took one quick backward step to gain some room to swing, brought his right fist sizzling from his boot tops. It smacked with a terrific impact full in the banker’s face, jarred Benton’s arm back to the elbow. In front of Benton, Gray was folding up, fists still pumping feebly, feet still moving forward, but folding at the knees.

Strength went out of the man and he slumped into a pile that moaned and clawed to regain its feet.

Benton stepped away, stood waiting.

Painfully, Gray made it to his feet, stood staring at Benton. His clothes were ripped and torn and a dark stream of blood bubbled from his nose and ran black across his mouth and chin.

“Well?” asked Benton.

Gray lifted a hand to wipe away the blood. “I’ve had enough,” he said.

“Talk then,” said Benton. “Talk straight and fast.”

Gray mumbled at him. “What you want to know?”

“About the ranches. It was a put-up game?”

Gray shook his head. “All legal,” he protested. “Everything was…”

Benton strode toward him and the man moaned in fright, putting up his hands to shield his face.

“All right, then,” said Benton. “Spit it out.”

“It was the Watsons that thought it up,” Gray told him. He stopped to spit the blood out of his mouth and then went on. “They knew about the market up north and they wanted land and cattle.”

“So you fixed it up to go broke,” said Benton.

Gray nodded. “The bank really didn’t go broke, you see. We just doctored up the books, so there’d be some excuse to foreclose on our loans.”

“Then what?”

“That’s all,” said Gray. “I foreclosed and the Anchor brand took over. Paid the bank the money and took the land.”

“And you’ll testify in court?”

Gray hesitated. Benton reached for him and he backed away. He wiped his mouth again. “I’ll testify,” he said.

Suddenly Gray straightened to attention, head cocked to one side, like a dog that has suddenly been snapped from sleep by an unfamiliar sound.

Then Benton heard it, too. The click and rattle of horses’ hoofs, somewhere across the ridge.

Gray whirled about, staggered up the slope.

“Help,” he yelled. “Help!”

Benton leaped after him, swift rage brimming in his brain.

“Help!” yelled Gray.

Benton reached him, grasped his shoulder, hauled him around. The man’s mouth was opening again, but Benton smashed it shut, smashed it with a blow that cracked like a pistol shot. Gray sagged so suddenly that his falling body ripped loose the hold Benton’s hand had upon his coat.

This time he did not moan or stir. He lay huddled on the ground, a limp pile of clothing that fluttered in the wind.

The hoofs across the ridge were speeding up and heading for the top. Frantically, Benton explored the ground for a gun. Three guns, he thought, and not a one in sight.

For a single instant he stood in indecision and that instant was too long.

Mounted men plunged over the ridge top, black silhouettes against the moon and were plunging down the slope. Dust smoked in silver puffs around the horses’ jolting hoofs and the men rode silently.

Benton ducked swiftly, started to run, but those on the ridge top saw him, wheeled their mounts, tore down upon him.

Faced about, he waited…and knew that final hope was gone. Gray had yelled when he heard the hoofs, but he could not have known that the riders were from the Anchor ranch. He had only taken a chance, gambling on the fact that they may have been.

And they were.

Four men, who wheeled their horses in a rank in front of Benton, reined them to a sliding stop, sat looking at him, like gaunt, black vultures perching on a tree.

Benton, standing motionless, ticked them off in his brain. Vest, the foreman of the Anchor spread, Indian Joe, Snake McAfee and old Dan Watson himself.

Watson chuckled in his beard, amused.

“No guns,” he said. “Can you imagine that. The great Ned Benton caught without no guns.”

“I shoot him now?” asked Indian Joe and lifted up his gun.

Watson grunted. “Might as well,” he said.

Indian Joe leveled the gun with a grossly exaggerated gesture of careful aiming.

“I nick him up a bit,” said Joe.

“None of that,” snapped Watson, peevishly. “When you fire, give it to him straight between the eyes.”

“No fun that way,” complained Indian Joe.

Watson spoke to Benton. “You got anything to say?”

Benton shook his head.

If he turned and ran, they’d stop him with a storm of lead before he’d gone a dozen feet.

On the hillside above a rock clicked and Vest stiffened in his saddle.

“What was that?” he asked.

Snake laughed at him. “Nothing, Vest. You’re just spooky. That’s all. Shooting at them shadows back there.”

Slowly, deliberately Indian Joe raised his gun. Benton stared straight into the ugly bore.

The gun flashed an angry puff of red into his eyes and the wind of the screaming bullet stirred the hair upon his head.

“Missed, by Lord!” yelped Indian Joe in mock chagrin.

Watson yelled angrily at him. “I told you none of that!”

Indian Joe was the picture of contriteness. “I do better next time.”

He leveled the gun again and Snake growled at him. “You take too damn long.”

“Got to hit him this time,” said Indian Joe, “or boss get awful mad. Right between the eyes, he said. Right between…”

Up the hill a rifle snarled and Indian Joe stiffened in his saddle, stiffened so that he was standing in the stirrups with his body tense and rigid.

Vest yelled in sudden fright and Indian Joe’s horse was pitching, hurling the rider from his back, a rider that was a tumbling empty sack instead of a rigid body.

With a curse, Snake swung his horse around, reaching for his gun. The hilltop rifle spoke again and Snake was huddled in his saddle, clawing at his throat and screaming, screaming with a whistling, gurgling sound. Blackness gushed from his throat onto his clawing hands and he slumped out of the saddle as the horse wheeled suddenly and plunged toward the canyon mouth.

Benton dived for the shining gun that fell from Snake’s hand, heard the hammer of the rifle talking on the hill. A horse screamed in agony and far off down the slope he heard the hurried drum of hoofs.

Scooping the weapon up, Benton whirled around. A sixgun roared and he felt the slap of the bullet as it sang across his ribs.

In the moonlight Dan Watson was walking toward him, walking slowly and deliberately, gun leveled at his hip. Behind him lay the horse that he had been riding, downed by the rifle on the hill.

Watson’s hat had fallen off and the moon gleamed on his beard. He walked like an angry bear, with broad shoulders hunched and bowed legs waddling.

Benton snapped Snake’s gun up, half fumbled with the unfamiliar grip. A heavy gun, he thought, a heavier gun than I have ever used. Too heavy, with a drag that pulls the muzzle down.

Watson fired again and something tugged at Benton’s ear, a thing that hummed and made a breeze against his cheek.

By main strength, Benton forced Snake’s gun muzzle up, pulled the trigger. The big gun jolted in his hand…jolted again.

Out in front of him, Watson stopped walking, stood for a moment as if surprised.

Then his hand opened and the gun fell out and Watson pitched forward on his face.

From up the hill came a crash of bushes, a cascade of chattering rocks that almost drowned out the beat of plunging hoofs.

Benton swung around, gun half raised. Two riders were tearing down upon him.

One of them waved a rifle at him and screeched in a banshee voice.

“How many did we get?”

“Jingo!” yelled Benton. “Jingo, you old…”

Then he saw the second rider and his words dried up.

Stones rattled about his boots as Ellen Madox reined in her horse less than six feet from him.

Jingo stared at the three bodies on the hillside.

“I guess that finishes it,” he said.

“There were four of them,” said Benton. “Vest must have got away.”

“The hell he did,” snapped Jingo. “Who’s that jigger over there?”

He pointed and Benton laughed…a laugh of pure nervousness.

“That’s Gray,” he said. “I got him and he coughed up everything, He’ll testify in court.”

“Dead men,” said Jingo, sharply, “ain’t worth a damn in court.”

“He isn’t dead,” protested Benton. “Just colder than a herring.”

“Young Watson should be around somewhere,” said Jingo. “What say we hunt him up?”

Benton shook his head. “Bill Watson is riding and he won’t be coming back.”

Jingo squinted at him. “Gal riding with him?”

“I suppose she is,” said Benton.

“Did a downright handsome job on them cows,” said Jingo. “Take a good six weeks to get them all together.”

“You had good help,” said Benton, looking at Ellen Madox. She no longer wore the dress that she had in town, but Levis and a flat felt hat that must have been her brother’s, for it was too big for her.

Jingo snorted. “She wasn’t supposed to come. Sneaked out after the rest had gone and joined up with us.”

He spat disgustedly. “Her pa was madder than a hornet when he found out about her being with us. Told me off to take her home.”

He spat again. “Always something,” he said, “to spoil a man’s good time.”

Benton grinned. “I’ll take her off your hands, Jingo. You take care of Gray over there and I’ll be plumb proud to see Ellen home.”