The gang leader frowned. “Let him talk for himself.”
“I'm talkin' for him,” Dunc called harshly. “And I say he's stayin'!”
Ike's frown deepened, then suddenly it disappeared and he smiled savagely. “Gabe, could you spot Dunc's position?”
Gabe Tanis cocked his head as if he were still listening to Dunc Lester's words. “I can't be sure, but he sounded like he was right behind the top shelf.”
Ike nodded. “That's what I figured, too. He's up there by himself, Gabe. The marshal's dead, or too weak to talk—it doesn't make any difference which.”
This possibility had occurred to Tanis, but he was a careful, suspicious man. “Maybe you're right. Or maybe he's just playin' possum.”
Ike Brunner laughed. “He's not playin' possum, Gabe. He's dead!” He checked his Winchester, moved to the end of the shelf, and fired three times toward the hilltop.
The gang leader's confidence seemed to affect very man on that rocky slope. They had listened to the exchange and had drawn their own conclusions. The marshal was dead. At the signal they leaped to their feet and began clawing their way toward that jagged cap of sandstone.
Ike Brunner forgot the pain in his leg. Drunk with the anticipation of victory, he fought his way from thicket to thicket, grabbing at roots and stones, his eyes always on that cap of rock. He grinned fiercely when Dunc Lester's pistol began its meaningless pattern of firing, first from one position and then from another. This, Ike Brunner knew, was the sound of panic. This was the lone coon nipping futilely at the pack of hounds.
Ike himself was the first to reach the top. And that was as it should have been. On his hands and knees, dragging hisWinchester, he saw Dunc Lester on the other side of the hill. On one knee, Dunc had his back turned to Ike, firing with his pistol at the men advancing from the west. Deliberately Ike kept his every movement slow and precise, savoring every minute detail of the moment. He lifted his rifle and, smiling, brought it to bear on the boy's straight, broad back. He had eyes only for Dunc Lester, the killer of his brother, and he did not see the marshal until Owen Toller spoke.
“Ike!”
And then it was too late.
The gang leader wheeled on his good leg, realizing that he had guessed wrong and that Gabe Tanis had guessed right. The marshal had played possum.
In that one split second Ike Brunner understood the situation as it actually was. He was alone and no one could help him. In that small fragment of time Ike saw the marshal standing there, his face pale and drawn, leaning against a massive boulder. He saw Owen Toller's shirt plastered with his own blood against his side, and he saw the deadly beauty of blue steel and polished walnut that the marshal had drawn from his holster and now held at his side. In that smallest part of a second Ike was aware of all these things and many more.
Toller said quietly, “Drop your rifle, Ike.”
The gang leader's position was awkward. He rested heavily on his good leg and his Winchester was pointed down at the ground. To kill this marshal he would have to shift his weight quickly to his bad leg, lifting the rifle's muzzle at the same time, and fire from the hip.
I can do it, he thought. I can swing the Winchester faster than he can lift the revolver. But he hesitated. He didn't like what he saw in the marshal's face.
Toller said, “Drop it, Ike. I'll not let you kill me the way you killed Mort Stringer. Or the freight agent and his wife.”
Ike darted a quick glance at the rocky ridge and saw that Gabe Tanis had reached the top behind Toller. Relief washed over him and he wanted to laugh. Gabe would kill the marshal, and Dunc Lester would be left for himself. Everything was working out perfectly!
But Gabe made no move to shoot. He merely stood there, waiting, a slow understanding appearing in his eyes. And at that moment Ike knew that he could expect no help from Tanis. He had heard what the marshal had said about Mort Stringer.
In sudden rage Ike wheeled to throw all his weight on his bad leg. In the back of his mind he could hear his men clawing their way to the hilltop, but none of them could help him now. At the start of the turn he felt his wounded leg begin to buckle. His shot went wide.
Nothing changed in Owen Toller's eyes as he lifted the heavy revolver and fired.
A sheet of numbness covered Ike as the impact of the bullet drove him to the ground. All thoughts, all hate, all anger left him. He fell into darkness.
Gabe Tanis stood like a gaunt, ragged statue and knew that the gang leader was dead before he hit the ground. All the fight seemed to go out of him. A bleakness, too profound for sorrow, took hold of him. He had lost his stomach for killing; so many of his people were already dead. What the marshal had said about Mort Stringer kept ringing in his ears. He felt as though the ground had been cut from under him and he had no place on which to stand.
“Drop your rifle, Gabe,” the marshal said, almost gently.
Gabe did not drop his rifle, but he did turn and called out in a hoarse, raw voice, “Hold it up, boys! Ike's been killed!”
Dunc Lester came running toward the marshal, but Toller motioned him back. A shocked silence fell around the hilltop. The king was dead.
Gabe Tanis rubbed his face as though he were coming out of a drugged sleep. He looked at Ike Brunner's lifeless body, then at Owen and Dunc.
Owen said, “I'll have to take you back to Reunion, Gabe.”
