Rafe

'I don't care what you think,' the banker snarled. 'It is certainly not my habit to mislay important papers! I'll give him a receipt marked 'paid in full' and the deed—'

'I reckon that'll be bindin' enough, long as we've got this flock of witnesses.'

Brownwater took the tow sack from Bunny and dropped it on the desk. The dull clink of metal was plainly audible. Audible too was the sound of hoof beats, and still Chilton stood there. 'Spangler,' Rafe said, 'won't be no help to you.'

The banker looked pretty wild, but he got pen and paper. The faint babel of outside voices swelled as the pen scratched into its final flourish. Chilton, sanding it, got up, dug into his safe, and, still clutching the paper, turned around with the deed. Rafe put a hand out.

'I'll count this first,' Chilton growled, pulling the string off the neck of the tow sack. He opened it up, took one look, and went rigid.

'Think careful,' Rafe grinned, 'before you lay down your character.'

'I'm not trading that mortgage,' the banker yelled, livid, 'for no bag of iron washers!'

Rafe looked at him coldly. 'You'll trade,' he said, 'or produce that note. You ain't dealin' with no ol' man now. Any damn fool can slap a X on a paper! What these folks'll be plumb anxious to see is how a gent smart as you can make thirty thousan' outa the five Pa borried.'

'Sparks!' Chilton shouted, beside himself. 'Arrest this man! At once—do you hear?' So wild did he look he seemed almost to be frothing.

The sheriff, peering over the bore of Bill's rifle, said, 'The worm has turned,' and showed a slow grin. 'What'd you do, forge the old man's name or change the amount?'

Whatever he had done, it was a cinch the banker had not expected to be faced with it. He looked to be standing on the brink of apoplexy. His mouth was working but no words came. There was a twitch in his cheek and the papers skidded out of his shaking hand. Brownwater, retrieving them, laid them in front of the dispassionate Pike who, considering them briefly, affixed his seal. Brownwater wheezed the papers over to Bender. 'There you are, sir. Lock, stock an' barrel.'

Chilton, glassy-eyed, sagged into a chair.

It was then that the silence outside became noticeable.

Spangler's harsh voice called, 'Sheriff, can you hear me?'

'Speak on,' Sparks said.

'I guess you know what we want. You sendin' him out or do we come in after him?'

'If you're yapping about Chilton—'

'I'm talkin' about that bank-robbin' Rebel what calls hisself 'Rafe'! We've got the place plumb surrounded! You givin' 'im up or ain't you?'

'He hasn't robbed any bank,' Sparks told them mildly.

'Don't give me that! The whole town seen—'

'Spangler,' Rafe called, 'is Duke Bender out there?'

'An' if he is?'

'You better tell him his father, in front of six witnesses, just made a will—his last will an' testament. Maybe we ought to have Pike read it to him.'

'You ain't pullin' no wool over my eyes!'

'Not fixin' to. Just tryin' to keep Duke from cuttin' himself out of what he's got comin'—'

'I'll look out fer Duke's interests!'

'Then you better help him listen.' Rafe, scowling, said, 'If you got the bank surrounded, another two-three minutes ain't goin' to make no never-mind, is it?'

A suspicious silence hung over the street. Then those in the bank heard the muttered sounds of a fierce altercation, after which Duke's prissy tones said, sneering, 'Go ahead. Let him read it.'

Pike, picking up a copy of the will, waddled over to the door, Sparks stepping aside for him. Rafe, while the surgeon-turned-notary was plowing through the whereases and aforesaids, slipped out the side door. The pair of rifle-packing punchers Spangler'd set to watch this exit had, the better to hear, drifted back to the bank's front corner, were now standing hipshot, faces half turned toward the notary's voice. Bathsheba, Rafe remembered, had been left behind the building.

A call would fetch her, ground-tied or not. It would also spin those rifles into focus. Rafe wasn't anxious to shoot those two fellers, and it wasn't very likely he could slip up behind them. He could probably a sight easier get to the mare.

The will would stop Duke, but it wouldn't stop Spangler. Someway Rafe had to get the drop on him; the crew would take Spangler's orders. Rafe doubted they would pay any attention to Duke. What was needed here, if a man wasn't craving to wade through blood, was another diversion. The terms of the will wouldn't be shock enough to keep Spangler's grip long away from his shooter.

Rafe skinned back to the mare, hardly believing even when he was slipping off her headstall he had actually reached her without triggering an alarm. He batted her nose away from his face, tossed reins and bridle against the wall of the bank. He had a terrible hankering to jump on her back when he thought of the odds he was fixing to buck. But he turned her around, hearing the drone of Pike's words, aimed her straight at the woods and, with a wild coyote yell, cuffed her hard with his hat.

Not waiting to watch, he ran on around the far side of the bank, coming into the street just as three of the crew, with shouted orders from Spangler, kicked their horses into a run. Though the unexpected sight of him obviously startled them, not one of them attempted to pull up or swerve. Reaching for their weapons they came,