Tanis shook his head sullenly. “I never killed anybody.”
“Goddamn it, Gabe!” Dunc Lester shouted. “You've been tryin' plenty hard to kill me and the marshal!”
Almost carelessly, Tanis cradled his rifle in the crook of his arm. “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Ike wanted it that way, and maybe we listened too close to what he said.” He turned his head and spat with the wind. “Boys,” he said loudly, “I guess it would be best if you all went back to your homes.”
Dunc Lester's eyes flashed angrily. “Marshal, you're not goin' to let them get away, are you?”
Owen smiled. He must have known that they were helpless to stop them.
Gabe Tanis wiped his mouth thoughtfully as he turned to go. “Dunc,” he said, the words coming with great effort, “I never felt right about burnin' your folks out like we did.”
Dunc glared with bitter eyes. At last Gabe turned, called again to the men, and began the slow descent to the bottom of the hill.
So this is the way it ends, Owen thought. His head was amazingly light; his side burned as though he had been branded with a running iron.
“Marshal,” Dunc Lester said, “are you all right?”
Owen nodded. “It's just a flesh wound.” He scanned the world around him in the light of a dying sun. “Son,” he said, “I think we have witnessed the end of an era. Ike Brunner, in his way, served a purpose here. I think he taught the people something.”
Dunc scowled, neither knowing nor caring what Owen was talking about. “What if they come back?” he asked. “We're not in much condition to fight them off again.”
“They won't come back.” He glanced at the sprawled body before him. “I believe that the days of brazen lawlessness are through. I believe these hills will see no more of gangs like Ike Brunner's.” He did not know how he knew this, but he knew. Perhaps it had been something he had seen in Gabe Tanis' eyes. There had been a great weariness there, and some of the bitterness had burned itself out.
Uneasy and restless, Dunc had walked to the far side of the stone cap and stood staring down at the gathering darkness.
“Marshal, come here!”
Owen turned suddenly and almost fell. He braced himself against the boulder for a moment, giving his head time to clear. “What is it, Dunc?”
“Horses, Marshal! Two of them!”
Owen walked with elaborate steadiness to where Dunc was standing, and near the base of the hill he saw the two horses. They were hobbled and grazing quietly in a sparse stand of blackjack.
Dunc could not believe the obvious. “It's a trick, Marshal!”
Owen took a long time answering, but at last he shook his head and said, “No, I don't think so.”
“You don't know this gang like I do!” Dunc insisted. “This is just the kind of thing they would try, leavin' those two horses down there to draw us off the hill. They're down there in some gully right now, I'll bet, waitin' for us!”
This was a possibility that Owen was forced to consider but he could not believe it. He walked heavily to the boulder and picked up Arch Deland's carbine. I won't believe it! he thought. I prefer to believe that Gabe Tanis left those horses for us, and that's what I'll believe.
“Where're you headed, Marshal?” Dunc called out in alarm.
“Down to see about those horses.”
“But I tell you it's a trick!”
Owen smiled. “We'll soon know.” He eased himself over the ledge, carefully favoring his wounded side. Dunc called out again, then cursed savagely and started down the hill beside him.
“Marshal, this is the craziest thing I ever heard of!”
And perhaps it is, Owen thought. But a time comes when a man must trust the instincts of others or the world becomes unbearable. He could not explain this to Dunc. If he had been asked to put his thoughts into words, he could not have done it. He only knew that he had done the job he had come to do, the job for which he had trained all his adult life; and he knew that now was the time to learn whether all his efforts and ideals had taught him anything about the millions of humans like himself who populated the earth. He had to know if Arch Deland had died for nothing.
When at last they reached the bottom of the hill, Owen walked directly to the horses, and no sound at all was made in the surrounding woods. No rifle fire, no voices raised in hate or anger. All was quiet.
Dunc Lester said, “Well, I'll be damned!”
Chapter Fifteen
The long ride back to Reunion was made almost in complete silence, for each man was deep in his own thoughts and plans for the future. Owen, despite his weakness and the nagging throb in his side, rode erect and felt almost young again. He was going home, this time to stay. His mind was filled with his wife and the boys, of the crops that had to be worked, of the shed that needed roofing and the fence that needed repairing. As in a world of sleep, the miles that fell behind were forgotten.
Dunc Lester's thoughts were more complex. He still found it difficult to believe that Gabe Tanis had not set a trap. This affected his thinking not only about Tanis, but about all the other people that he had known. Now that Ike was dead, perhaps the hills would be a different place; perhaps his folks would come back and begin again. But he did not try to convince himself that old times would return and things would be again as they had been before.
Time did not reverse itself any more than water ran upstream. Times would change. Maybe the railroad
