Harris trailing along, before anything could be accomplished.
But Rufe decided Harris would probably drift right along with them, and with a firm conviction that he was not going to allow this to happen, if he could possibly prevent it, he picked up his beer glass and also shuffled up in the direction of the upper end of the bar, except that he turned in midway, just below the food dishes, and leaned there.
Jud made his approach casually. Rufe saw Chase look around as Jud addressed him. Harris, too, looked around, but Harris had already made his assessment of Jud, the worn-looking, down-and-out range rider, and Harris turned back to the bar to hoist his beer glass and drink.
Chase listened to Jud. Rufe saw the cowman’s harsh brutish profile relax as he listened, the heavy mouth begin to tilt slightly with condescension, with scorn, and finally Chase gave a short answer to Jud, and Rufe’s partner smiled. Evidently the cow-man had either agreed to hire Jud, or offered that kind of encouragement. Jud then spoke again, and this time Chase finished his drink, and turned away from the bar—and Rufe held his breath.
Chase was going to walk out of the saloon with Jud. Harris looked around, eyed the pair of men a moment, then turned back to finish his beer. Rufe’s right hand sank gently down to his hip holster. He braced himself to keep Harris inside—then the gun-fighter casually reached for another pair of bread slices and went to work making another sandwich, while Chase and Jud crossed the room.
It was going to work!
Rufe forced himself to turn very gradually, very indifferently, to watch the pair of men heading for the door.
Outside, someone let off a high yelp. Several other loud voices suddenly erupted too. Rufe could feel perspiration popping out beneath his shirt. Bull Harris, half-made sandwich in one hand, twisted to look toward the door. So did just about everyone else inside the saloon.
Arlen Chase took two swift strides, grabbed the doors, and shoved through, then stopped dead in his tracks. Rufe could not see much past the cowman’s frame, but he saw enough. Several excited men were leading a pair of filthy, limping, utterly bedraggled men down the center of the roadway. Rufe recognized them both. Ruff and Abe Smith!
Rufe felt like swearing. Evidently Jud had recognized the rescued prisoners from the bootleg hole, too, because, without warning, he suddenly reached and gave Arlen Chase a violent punch, knocking him out through the doors and into the roadway.
Rufe was turning when he saw Bull Harris drop his sandwich and suddenly whip around to lunge clear of the bar to face Jud. Rufe stepped away and called.
“Harris!”
The gunfighter whirled, struck instantly by the menace in that shout. Somewhat southward, behind Rufe, two quick-thinking men, lunging frantically to be out of the line of Harris’s fire, knocked over two chairs and a table.
Harris was reaching for his gun as he whirled on Rufe. No one could fault Bull Harris’s draw. Rufe was already drawing when he shouted, and, although his Colt was clear of leather and tilting into position, the gunfighter’s weapon was coming around to bear even faster—then Harris’s Colt with its shiny ivory handle slipped in his palm, just as Rufe fired.
Bull Harris was knocked half around by solid impact. He fell against an iron stove, knocking it away from the stovepipe. Soot billowed around as the gun-fighter went down and rolled half under a card table.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Throughout the barroom men were frozen in position, staring, most of them with no inkling any-thing at all was wrong until Rufe’s gun went off. Even the barman, who had been alerted by Rufe’s shout, hadn’t had time to reach for the scatter-gun beneath his countertop, and now it was too late.
Rufe stepped sideways to be well clear of the bar, and faced half around so he could keep most of the patrons, and the bartender, in sight. Not one of them moved a hand, least of all the barman.
An old man, wearing a long coat despite the rising summer heat, shuffled ahead from shadows along the back wall, and leaned down, staring at Bull Harris. He looked like the Grim Reaper himself, until he put down a hand to touch the ivory-stocked Colt of the dead gunfighter, then he raised up, rubbing his fingers together and said: “Butter. By God he had butter on his fingers. It’s all over the handle of his gun.”
That, then, accounted for Harris’s fatal slip when he was swinging his weapon to bear on Rufe.
No one said a word, but they all watched the old man pick up Harris’s six-gun by the barrel, amble to the bar, and drop it there “Look for yourselves,” he cackled. “Butter, by God!”
From the roadway men were shouting, and Rufe used the small distraction along the bar to hurry outside. There was no sign of either Arlen Chase or Jud, but a lot of men were heading for the saloon to see what that gunshot had been about. Even the men who had found Pete Ruff and Abe Smith in the old shed were deserting their rescued men to hasten forward.
Rufe headed out through the throng, grabbed Ruff’s arm, swore at old Smith, and aimed them in the direction of the jailhouse at a gun-prodded run, expecting any minute for someone to bounce forth from the saloon, yelling for townsmen to stop that man with the gun in his hand.
It did not happen, but, when Rufe was unlocking the jailhouse, a lanky range rider walked out of the saloon and stood there, looking left and right, until he saw Rufe shove the two men into the jailhouse, then the cowboy watched, still without opening his mouth, until Rufe also went inside, then the range man turned back into the saloon to carry the news that they wouldn’t have to go on a manhunt, at least, because that feller who killed Bull Harris just entered the jailhouse with a couple of other fellows.
Rufe was wringing wet, but calm. He barred the door from inside, snarled for Ruff and Smith to back away, then got the cell-room keys and took his latest prisoners down to lock them into cells, also. Neither man offered so much as a single word of protest. Both of them knew a man primed to kill when they saw one.
Constable Bradshaw yelled at Rufe: “What was the shooting about? What the hell you and your partner done? By God, when we get out of here…!”
“Shut up!” snapped Rufe, glaring past the bars. Homer Bradshaw said no more, but the look of hatred and defiance upon his coarse face was an epitome of malevolence.
It was Matthew Reilly, from a seat upon the bunk in the adjoining cell, looking from Pete Ruff and old Abe Smith to Rufe, who seemed to be more worried than defiant. He did not make a sound, but Pete Ruff did. He peered out at Rufe as though sunlight pained his eyes, and swore.
Rufe ignored them all and returned to the front office, outward bound. He did not get very far. There was an angry crowd marching down the road from the direction of the saloon, some of them brandishing rifles.
Rufe looked around, found the gun rack, picked out a shotgun with a two-foot barrel, checked the breech, snapped the gun closed, and stepped back to the window. He had no intention of hurting any-one. All he wanted was a way out, so that he could find Jud.
On the rear skirts of that angry mob the old man in the long coat was shuffling along, happy as a clam and grinning from ear to ear. He did not have a gun in sight, but he had a half-empty quart bottle of some-one’s whiskey clutched in one of his mottled talons.
There were range men in the front of the crowd, but it consisted mostly of townsmen in shoes in-stead of boots. The range men halted at the tie rack, in tree shade, looked steadily at the brick wall, and called for Rufe to come out.
Rufe eased the double-barrels around into sight. Someone saw them, squawked like a wounded eagle, and men scattered every which way except for a grizzled, hard-looking old cattleman, and all he did was lean down upon the tie rack flintily staring back. He hardly more than raised his voice when he said: “What the hell you figure to do with that silly thing, cowboy? It don’t have a range of over a hunnert and fifty feet.” He spat, then said: “You better come out of there. So far, you ain’t done nothing that maybe should have been done long ago. Bull Harris’s no loss. But you shoot anyone else, and that’s going Tomake a heap of difference, so you’d better just walk out of there.”
Rufe listened, and pondered, then called back: “I got a better idea, mister,
The old stockman chewed, spat, looked left and right where the wary crowd was beginning to creep up again, then he said: “All right, I’ll come inside. But I got to warn you…we got a constable here in Clearwater, and, as soon as folks can find him, he’ll be along to arrest you.”
