those little rocky ledges down there. They’re going to make this place get kind of warm.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than bullets began to come in through the windows and ricochet off the stone walls. Longarm was firing from a corner near the front door. He said, “Everybody keep down. I’m going to try to keep them the least bit busy here. Tom, you and Mr. Goodman go fetch Barrett and Myers. We’ve got to do something quick before we get drilled three or four times by the same bullet ricocheting around this room. Damn! There’s good things to be said about a stone house, but there’s also some bad things to be said. They’ll keep the bullets out, but if they get in, they’ll damned sure bounce around.”
Firing as fast as he could and reloading his rifle from the cartridges in his shirt pocket, Longarm was able to keep the return rifle fire to a minimum and also keep each end of the advancing line from flanking him. He knew that such tactics weren’t going to last long. Behind him, he heard a sudden cry and looked to his left. Young Rufus Goodman was squatting in the corner. He had his hand pressed to his right shoulder. Longarm could see blood. Longarm said, “Son, are you hurt?”
There was pain on the young man’s face. He said through gritted teeth, “Not so you’d notice. It just got meat, no bone. I’ll be all right.” With that, he stood up and fired three quick shots through the open window and then hunkered back down again.
There were still shells coming through the door and the window and the ones that didn’t bury themselves into the table or a chair bounced at least twice. It made it very dangerous to be standing up in the room. Hawkins was at the right-hand window. He’d pulled a chair over and was sort of wearing it like a turtle back. From time to time, he stood up and blindly fired a shot.
Longarm said, “Quit wasting that ammunition, George. You ain’t hit anything. I don’t think that last shot even hit the world, or at least in this county. Stay down under that chair. We might need you again.”
Longarm fired two quick shots and he saw one man suddenly stand up and fall backward. He calculated that they had depleted the ranks of their attackers by at least seven or eight men.
Just then, Hunter and Robert Goodman came out, prodding Barrett and Myers ahead of them. Tom Hunter said, “Here they are, Marshal.”
Longarm waved frantically. He said, “Get them over here in the door.
Myers said, “You go to hell, Mr. son-of-a-bitch Marshal. Now, you’re going to get yours. You’re going to see what it’s like.”
Longarm said, “Get in this door.”
Barrett said, “We ain’t going to do no such thing.” Just then, two slugs came whining through the left-hand window, struck the far wall, ricocheted off another wall, and then off the back wall and then off the floor and buried themselves in the ceiling. Both slugs passed within a foot of Barrett and Myers.
Longarm gave them a lean smile. He said, “All right, gentlemen. Just stand right where you are and you’re fixing to get hemstitched by about a dozen slugs from your own men.”
Myers suddenly moved, heading for the door. Barrett was right behind him. Longarm stood up, pressing his back against the wooden door. He grabbed each man and turned and stopped them right at the door. He shoved the Winchester into Myers’s back. He said, “Both of you, wave your arms. Start yelling for them to stop firing. Do it right now, or so help me, I’ll blow a hole through your kidney.”
Barrett and Myers both raised their arms and waved and took turns shouting, “Stop shooting! Hold your fire! Stop!”
Gradually, the firing stopped. The silence slowly became total. It sounded eerie inside the cabin where there had been so many explosions and so many twanging sounds from the slugs.
Archie Barrett looked back over his shoulder at Longarm and bared his teeth. He said, “Well now, Marshal. It looks like we’ve got you.”
“You ain’t looked real good, Mr. Barrett. This rifle of mine is pointed straight at you, and you ain’t going anywhere. You try to move, and you will be shot escaping.”
Jake Myers said, “Yeah, but you’re surrounded now, and you ain’t going nowhere.”
Longarm said, “They’re not going to shoot in here, not unless you want to get killed. Tell them to back off two or three hundred yards—they’re way too close. We need to have a talk, us three, so you yell down there, both of you, and tell them to back up.”
Barrett said, “What if we don’t?”
Longarm slapped him on the side of his head with the barrel of his rifle. He said, “If you don’t, it ain’t going to get pleasant. I’m willing for you to stand there in that door for the rest of your life. Now, if you want to talk, tell those men to back off.”
Reluctantly, both men, yelling and pushing with their hands, directed the men that worked for each of them to pull back. Each time they stopped, Longarm would say, “Farther.” Finally, they were a good four or five hundred yards away. He said, “They can sit down now. You two gentlemen can get back in here in this cabin.”
Tom Hunter and Mr. Goodman grabbed Barrett and Myers and jerked them back inside the cabin.
Mr. Goodman said, “What do we do with them? Shove them back in that room?”
Longarm shook his head. “No, we’re pretty near the time for a showdown. Set them down at the table. Either they’re going to sign now or they ain’t ever going to sign. I’ll be right with you.”
Longarm took the time to pour himself a glass of whiskey, very conscious that Barrett and Myers were both watching him, the desire for the whiskey clear in their eyes. He came over to the table and then sat down. He motioned for Tom Hunter to put both the confession and the terms of agreement for the Grit Settlement Association in front of the two men.
He took a slow sip of the whiskey and then took time to light a cigarillo. When he finished doing that, he said, “Now, let’s examine the situation. You think you’ve got me because you’ve got some hired hands out there. What are you paying them? Eighty dollars a month? One hundred dollars a month? One hundred and fifty dollars a month? Probably some of them are kinfolk, but that doesn’t matter. They’ve already seen that over a half dozen of their number have been killed, along with the number that I’ve killed on my own. You ain’t going to buy a man’s life for what you’re paying them. Pretty soon, they’re going to get tired of watching this rock cabin and waiting to see what we’re going to do. I know one thing that you’re not going to do, and that is walk out of here until you sign these
