Rafe

bung starter. He cut around, moving nearer. The mare showed the whites of her eyes.

'Look out,' Rafe warned. 'No tellin' what she'll do if you excite her.'

Mr. Dahl said viciously, 'You puttin' her out or ain't you?'

Rafe, tired of being shoved, yelled, 'No!' and Jack Dahl stopped in his tracks.

He took a long look at Rafe and, beckoning up two more of his hirelings, spat out his cigar. 'Take 'em, boys,' he grunted, and closed in behind to give them a hand.

The barkeep made a wicked pass with his bung starter. Rafe, sliding under it, put a boot against his belly and the barkeep's winds went out with a mighty whoosh, Bathsheba, ears flattened, began backing toward the bar, the crowd at that end making haste to move elsewhere. Rafe, as though reluctant, backed off some himself.

Beetle Brows, on his feet again, cracked an ugly grin. He had a gun in his fist—a short-barreled pocket pistol, and it seemed fairly well established he intended to use it. Dahl and the other pair, scrinch eyed and malevolent, were stepping farther apart to come in on the flanks.

'Look,' Rafe grumbled, 'I'm peaceful as hell when I'm left alone, but if you're goin' to play rough I won't be responsible.' He shook an admonitory finger under Dahl's nose. 'You fellers keep on—'

'And you'll do what?' Dahl said with his lip curled.

'Just remember,' Rafe told them, 'you been warned.'

Now Dahl was a man who had considerable pride. He had moved to Dry Bottom with a number of his friends who'd been in on that Jayhawking business along the Kansas border. He liked to be thought a pretty tough cookie; and besides all this the place was packed with galoots he needed to impress, hard-rock men and rough playing cowpokes, all watching with grins and filling the ozone with cheap advice. He couldn't afford to back down—not even if this drifter proved more fruity than he looked.

Dahl tugged an end of his black moustache, swung a hard look around and fetched up his chin. The barkeep took a fresh grip on his bung starter. Beetle Brow's grin, above the snub-nosed pistol, spread in pleased anticipation. The other pair, grunting, spat on their hands and then, all together, the whole push moved in.

The gaunt stranger, sighing, looked extremely reluctant—everybody afterward, agreed on that much. Some claimed he never actually moved so much as a finger until the barkeep's bung starter whacked against the mare.

Then everything seemed to happen at once. The Rebel's left boot, sailing up out of nowhere, took the barkeep under the jaw like a ball bat. He stretched six inches and went out like a light. Nobody saw the stranger reach for his iron, but suddenly the glint of it was slicing through the tangle like the knives of a dozen Injuns. It went whunk against something and Beetle Brows, without even time to let go of his pistol, popped out of the melee like he'd been shot from a cannon. Arms flailing wildly he went down with a thump, blood on his face, shirt hanging down like a tatter of doll rags. Bathsheba, with her head tucked between front legs, was kicking hell out of the bar when another of Dahl's bruisers went slamming head first into a wall and kind of wilted.

Dahl shook like the steam had run out of him, but only for a moment. Red necked and livid, he yelled in a fury, 'No secesh bastard that ever was foaled—'

Rafe's gun started pounding. When it quit all those beautiful mirrors plus a sizeable number of stacked bottles and glasses were in shards on the floor and Dahl's eyes looked like they'd roll off his cheekbones.

'This has gone far enough,' a new voice said crisply. A frock-coated gent in a stovepipe hat, whiskers curling out of his jowls like piano wires, pushed from the crowd to stop by Dahl's elbow. Even Bathsheba left off what she was doing as, avidly silent, all heads swung to watch. In his rusty garb of the backwoods politician he didn't look like a man who had this town in his pocket, yet he certainly had everybody's attention.

Dahl looked about ready to call out the troops. He was so mad he was shaking, but the other said coolly, 'Better let it drop,' and, skewered by that unwinking regard, the Cow Palace's proprietor managed after a fashion to get hold of himself.

He was still swelled up like a poisoned pup, the red from his neck surging into his cheeks. 'Very well, Mr. Chilton,' he said, like it choked him, 'but who's going to pay for all that smashed glass and bar?'

A soft pale hand rasped the mutton-chop whiskers. 'It can probably be arranged for some of the loss to be written off.' Chilton's cold eyes scaled Rafe in shrewd appraisal. 'Do you always react with such violence to stimulants?'

'Depends,' Rafe said, 'on the stimulant.'

Chilton smiled through his teeth. 'Would you be interested in a job?'

'We-ell, I wouldn't figure to put no widows and children out on the street.'

'Oh, it's nothing like that,' Chilton declared. 'I, ah, notice your mare has no bridle—she a cutter?'

'She's cut a few in her time.'

'I suppose,' Chilton said, 'you're familiar with cattle.'

'I been around 'em some,' Rafe admitted. 'You got cows you want moved?'

'Not exactly. I need somebody who can manage a ranch, only it isn't that simple,' Chilton said, looking thoughtful. 'If you'd care to step over to my office—' His fishbelly glance, shuttling across Dahl and his goggling understrappers, took on a trace of impatience. 'I expect I can dig up enough solid facts...'

Rafe, having also noticed their looks, cut in, 'I'm persuaded for that, suh. But my old pappy always told me the first rule of business is to know who you're dealing with.'

'Tsk, tsk—of course. I'm so in the habit of everyone—' Clucking again, he pushed out his chest. 'Alph Chilton at your service, president and general manager of the People's Bank & Trust. Capital assets eight hundred and fifty-four thousand, surplus one hundred—'

'Proud to meet up with you,' Rafe said heartily, grabbing the pale hand and vigorously pumping it. 'Just Rafe, here. Not much surplus but ample room for improvement as the feller said.'