'Three of them?' He studied the situation awhile. 'That's our money, boy. We were trusted with it.'
We drank our coffee, and neither of us talked much, but it gave me time to sort of get things settled down inside me. A man doesn't always know what to do when things happen quick-like and when for the first time he's faced up with gun trouble and no way accustomed to it. But this was showing me a few things and one of them was that Pa had been right about Doc and Reese.
When it came right down to it those two shaped up like a couple of two-by-twice tinhorns. Neither of them had nerve enough to talk up to Bob Heseltine ... but neither had I.
'I got to go back,' I said, 'I got to go back and make my fight. Else I'll always think I was scared.'
'You and me, Ed,' Pa said, 'we've had our troubles but you never showed anything but sand. There's scared smart and then there's scared stupid. I think that you did the right thing.' Pa reached for a stick lying among the branches of a fallen tree, and he had out his bowie. 'We're going back, boy, but we're going together.'
We'd taken our time. Pa had a pipe after his coffee and while he smoked he worked on a crutch. My mouth was all dry inside and my stomach was queasy, but once we decided to go back I felt a whole lot better. It was like I'd left something unfinished back there that just had to be done.
And I kept thinking of Sites, not willing to face up to it, and Reese, who was supposed to be my friend, wanting to kill me.
'You did right, Ed,' Pa told me, speaking around his pipe stem. 'You did the smart thing. They will think you were scared off.'
'That Heseltine ... they say he's killed a dozen men. He's robbed banks and he's got a mean reputation.'
'I like to see a mean man,' Pa said. 'Most of them don't cut much figger.'
Pa had finished working out his crutch. It wasn't much, just a forked stick trimmed down a mite so he could use the fork to hold under his armpit. I helped him to the horse, and once he got a foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn he was in that saddle. Meanwhile I smothered our fire. Nobody wants to turn fire loose in grass or timber unless he's a fool.
'A bank robber don't shape up to me,' Pa said. 'When he goes into a bank with a gun, he don't figure to get shot at. If he expected it he'd never take the first step. He threatens men with folks depending on them and steals money he's too lazy to work for.
'The James boys swaggered it mighty big until a bunch of home folks up at Northfield shot their ears off, and the Dalton gang got the same thing in Coffeyville. The McCarty boys tried it in Colorado, and all those bold outlaws were shot down by a few quiet men who left their glass-polishing or law books to do it.'
Well, all those outlaws had seemed mighty exciting until Pa put it that away but what he said was true. Pa was a little man himself, only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, though he had the strongest hands I ever did see. Strong hands from plowing, shoeing horses, and wrassling steers.
Close to midnight we fetched up to their fire.
'Help me down, Ed,' Pa said, whispering. 'I want to be on the ground.'
We walked up to the fire, our boots making small sounds in the grass. Pa was carrying my Colt in his right hand, and I carried a shell under the hammer of my Henry rifle. Those boys weren't much account at keeping watch; they were setting around a blanket playing cards for our money.
'You boys are wasting time,' Pa told them. 'You're playing with money that don't belong to you.'
Pa had that crutch under his left shoulder, but he held that Colt in one big hand and it pointed like a finger at Heseltine.
'Hear you're a killing man,' Pa said to him, 'but you size up to me like a no-account, yellow-bellied loafer.'
'You got the drop,' Heseltine said. 'You got a loud mouth when you got the drop.'
'The drop? You figure we're in some kind of dime novel? Ed, you keep an eye on those others. If either of them make a move, shoot both of them and after they're laying on the ground, shoot them again!'
Deliberately Pa lowered the muzzle until it pointed into the grass beside his foot. 'Now, Ed tells me you're a fast hand with a gun,' Pa said, and he limped forward three steps, his eyes locked on Heseltine's, 'but I think you're a back-shooting tinhorn.'
Heseltine looked at Pa standing there on one leg and a crutch, and he looked at that old pistol. He looked at Pa again and he drew a long breath and held it. Then he let his breath go and stood there with his hands hanging.
'Nobody's got the drop now, Heseltine.' Pa spoke quietly but his pale eyes blazed in the firelight. 'I'm not going back without that money. And if you try to stop me either you're gonna die or both of us are gonna die!'
Sweat was all over Bob Heseltine's face, and it was a cool evening. He wanted to go for his gun the worst way, but he had another want that beat that one all hollow. He wanted to live.
Kid Reese and Doc Sites stood there looking at the big man and they couldn't believe it, and I'm sure I couldn't. A body didn't need to read minds to guess what they were thinking, because here was a poor old gray- haired caprock rancher on one leg with his gun muzzle down calling the bluff of a gunman said to be among the fastest although, come to think of it, I never heard it said by anyone but Doc or Reese.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Pa standing there; for a little man he looked mighty big, and I suddenly found myself thinking about how it was that my pa had come back with Uncle Bud's scalp. No Comanche warrior ever left a trophy like that beside the trail. Surely no Comanche warrior would ever let a trophy like that go without a fight to the death. It seemed all Bob Heseltine had to do to die was lay hand on his guns.
Pa's pistol swung up. 'You had your chance. Now unbuckle your gun belt and step back.'
Heseltine did what he was told and I went forward and gathered his guns. Then I picked up all that money and stuffed it in the saddlebags, and I went through their pockets checking for more.
'Time you learned a lesson, Edwin,' Pa said to me. 'Time you learned that it's what's inside a man that matters, not how fast he can draw a gun.'
Pa backed off a few careful steps and without looking' at me, he said, 'Ed, you and him are going to fight. He needs a whoppin' and you're going to give it to him, do you hear?'
Pa gestured with the Colt. 'You others stay out of this ... it's a fair fight, between the two of them.'
Well, I looked over at Heseltine; he was six or seven years older than me an' he outweighed me by more than a few pounds. I thought of that story where he killed the sheriff, and then I remembered that he'd just backed down to a crippled-up old man who'd been armed with little more than a fiery force of will and my old Colt.
I put down my gun.
Heseltine took off his calfskin jacket and spat on his hands, looking over at me. 'Why, you weak-kneed little whelp, I'll !'
Another thing Pa taught me: If you're going to fight ... fight. Talk about it after.
Lifting my left fist I fetched him a clout in the mouth with my right, and right then I saw that a mean man could bleed.
He came at me swinging with both hands. He was strong, and he figured to put the sign on me. He moved well, better than me, but he hadn't put in all those years of hard work that I had.
He walloped me alongside the jaw and it shook me some, but not like I figured it would. He hit me again and I saw a kind of surprised look come into his eyes, and I knew he'd hit me as hard as he could so I fetched him right where he'd been putting all that whiskey. He grunted, and I spread out my legs and began whopping him with both fists ... and in that regard I take after Pa. I've got big hands.
He went down to his knees and I picked him up by the collar and looked him over to find a place that wasn't bloody where I could fetch him again, but the fight was all out of him and Pa said, 'Let him go, Ed. Just drop him.'
Seemed like he would go down easier if I fetched him a clout and I did, and then I walked back to get my gun, blowing on my sore fists.
Pa looked over at Doc Sites and Kid Reese who were staring at Heseltine like it was a bad dream. 'You two can keep your guns,' he said. 'This is Indian country, and I just hope you come after us.
'Whatever you do,' he added, 'don't ever come back home. There will be too many who'd like a shot at you.'
Neither of us felt like camping that night with home so far away, so we rode on with the north star behind us. Pa's leg must have been giving him what for, but he was in a good mood, and my fists were sore and my knuckles
