Langly had his own .38 out now. “You bet I have, Pappy. I've got it going my way and that's the way it's going to stay.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself. “You didn't think your old friend Jim Langly would be the one to bring you to your knees, did you? Well, you were wrong, Pappy. You haven't got any friends— not even that kill-crazy kid you've been riding with. Sooner or later he would have turned on you, because he's just the same as you are.”
He was enjoying himself now. Him with a pistol in his hand and Pappy's .44's on the floor. And me with a gun in my back. He wasn't afraid of anything now. He was a hero and enjoying every minute of it. But the crowd in the saloon was still too stunned to be sure that is wasn't a joke.
“You know what you are, Pappy?” the marshal smiled. “You're a mad dog. You kill by instinct, the way a mad dog does. I'll be doing the whole country a favor by locking you up and turning you over to the Texas authorities.”
My stomach sank. I might as well die here as on a carpetbag gallows.
But Pappy didn't move. He said, “I don't suppose the price on my head had anything to do with it.”
Langly went on smiling. He could afford to smile now. He got up from the table and said, “All right, Bass, take the kid's guns and we'll lock them up.”
The man behind moved around in front. When he got around to face me I was too startled to guess what was going on in Pappy's mind. The man was Bass Hagan.
He must have come into Abilene right behind me and Pappy, but he hadn't used the same trail we had. He stood there with the pistol in my belly, grinning that wide grin of his.
“The pistols,” he said. “Hand them over, kid.”
And then I began to get it. Pappy still had his back turned to me, but I knew what he must be thinking. I reached very carefully for my right-hand pistol, slid it out of the holster.
“Butts first,” Hagan grinned. He was the careful kind. He was standing back far enough so that I couldn't rush him, even if I was
If he had known more about guns and gunmen he would have done as Langly had done, ordered me to unbuckle my belts. But he didn't know. I took the pistol by the barrel, slipping my finger into the trigger guard, and held it out. It had been a beautiful maneuver when Pappy had done it. But this time it wasn't Pappy. And the gun in my belly was loaded and cocked.
Maybe I would have handed the gun over if he hadn't been grinning. But he kept on grinning and I thought, There never would have been this trouble if it hadn't been for you. And my hand did the rest.
The pistol was just a blur as it whirled forward. The hammer snapped back as it hit my thumb on top of the turn, and fell forward.
I think Bass Hagan began to die before the bullet ever reached him. I could see death in his eyes even before the muzzle blast jarred the room, before the bullet slammed into his chest and he reeled back without ever pulling the trigger.
The shot affected the saloon customers like a stunning blow of a pole ax on a steer. They stood dumb, watching Hagan go to his knees and die, then fall on his face. Even Langly couldn't seem to move.
But Pappy could. He sliced across with the edge of his hand and sent the marshal's little .38 clattering to the floor. A split second was all it took. I wheeled instinctively to turn my pistol on Langly, but Pappy said sharply:
“No, son!”
For some reason, I held my fire. Nobody but Pappy could have stopped me then. But Pappy's voice did it. I held the hammer back and my finger relaxed a little on the trigger.
Pappy said, “He's not worth wasting a bullet on.” But his eyes, not his voice, put the real bitterness into the words. “Come along, son,” he said, picking up his guns. “I guess Abilene's not our town after all.”
Well, if that was the way Pappy wanted it... I started toward the doors, moving sideways, trying to keep my eyes on both sides of me and on the bar mirror on the opposite wall. Then Pappy said:
“Just a minute, son. The marshal will be going with us.”
I began to get it then. With the marshal dead, our chances of getting out of Abilene would be cut down to nothing. But with the marshal going with us, under the threat of sudden death if anybody tried to stop us, then maybe we could do it.
I waited, covering Pappy's retreat. Langly's mouth was working again. He looked as if he was going to be sick on the floor.
“Pappy, for God's sake, can't you take a joke?” he said quickly. “You don't really think I'd turn you over to the Texas police, do you?”
Pappy's face didn't show a thing. He reached out with a clawlike hand, grabbed the front of the marshal's ruffled shirt, and gave him a shove toward the door. Then he paused for just a moment to address our stunned audience.
“I don't guess it will take a lot of figuring,” he said, “to guess what will happen to the marshal if anybody tries to follow us out of town.” He waited another moment to make sure that they had it clear. Then he said, “All right, son, let's be moving.”
I waited at the doors, keeping the crowd covered, while Pappy got our horses in the street. He said something under his breath and Langly got on a gray mare that had been hitched beside Red. It was funny, in a way. Men with guns on both hips, pushing and shoving in both directions on the plank walk, and none of them bothering to give us a second look. I slammed the batwings then, turned and vaulted up to Red's back.
We fogged it down Texas Street in a wedge formation, Langley in the point and me and Pappy on both sides. Pappy let out an ear-splitting yell like a crazy man, then drew one pistol and emptied it in the air. But Pappy wasn't so crazy. The crowd in the street, thinking we were drunk trail hands, scattered for the plank walks, and we had a clear road to travel out of Abilene.
