'Well,' Finn said, 'times are changing around here.' He put his cup down. 'Powis, Red Eason is headin' for California and expects to make a lot of distance before sundown. He might like a traveling companion.'
The barber stared from one to the other. 'But my business!' he protested. 'Everything I've got is here!'
Finn Mahone looked at him levelly. 'You. don't need anything you can't carry. Start traveling.'
Nick James had been standing by the window, holding the cup of coffee he had poured. 'Logan just came out,' he said.
Dowd finished his cup, and got to his feet. 'Ma,' he said, 'that sure is good coffee.' The sound of his boot heels echoed on the floor.
They sat very still, and the slam of the screen door made them all jump a little.
Pierce Logan was crossing the street to Ma Boyle's when a door slammed, and he looked up. Texas Dowd, tall in his blue jeans and gray shirt, was standing on the step in front of Ma Boyle's. Instantly, Logan was apprehensive, for there was something in Dowd's whole appearance that warned him of trouble.
As he stood there on the step before his office, looking diagonally across the street at Texas Dowd, a peculiar awareness of life came over him. Somehow, he had never seemed to think of the sun's easy warmth, the gray dust in the street, the worn, sun-warped and wind-battered frame buildings. He had never thought much of the signs along the streets of Laird, their paint cracked and old. Now, he seemed aware of them all, but mostly he was aware of the tall, still figure standing over there, looking up the street at him.
Then, the feeling passed. After all, there was no way his part in all this could be known. He was simply getting jumpy, that was all. He was being foolish. After he had his morning coffee, he would feel better. Why should just the appearance of Dowd startle him so?
'Cashman!'
The voice rang like a great bell in the silent, empty street, and Logan jerked as though stabbed.
'Cashman! Start remembering before I kill you! Start remembering a girl on a plantation in Louisiana! That girl was my sister!'
Pierce Logan stood very still. This alone he had not expected. This past was over. It was gone. That girl ... Dowd's sister? He shook his head suddenly, remembering that awful, bloody afternoon. His lips tightened and a kind of panic came over him, but he stiffened suddenly. That finished it, then. It finished it all, unless he could kill Dowd. His hand flashed for a gun and he drew in a single, sweeping movement, and fired as his gun came level.
His face gray, he crouched in the street, knowing he had missed, and the tall Texan in the gray shirt walked toward him, his long lantern jaw and his face very still, only his cold gray eyes level and hard. In a surge of panic, Logan fired two quick shots. One of them kicked up dust at Dowd's feet, and the other plucked at his sleeve.
Texas Dowd stopped, no more than a dozen feet away) and fired. The sound of his gun was like the roll of a drum, and at each shot, Logan jerked as if struck by a fist. Then, slowly, he sank to the dust, the pistol dribbling from his fingers.
Feeding shells into his gun, Texas Dowd backed slowly away from the fallen man, then turned and walked back to Ma Boyle's. Judge Gardner Collins, cleared his throat as Dowd came in, and Finn Mahone poured a fresh cup of coffee. At no time had he risen from the table. He didn't have to. He knew Dowd.
Chapter 8
Finn Mahone and Texas Dowd reached the Lazy K, riding slowly for the last few miles. Both men rode with rifles ready, uncertain as to whether they would find the ranch safe, or besieged. As they drew near, the two men let a gap widen between them and rode warily up to the ranch. Jody Carson was the first person they saw.
'Howdy,' he said, grinning at them. 'You two missed the fun.'
'We had some our own selves What happened here?'
'That Rawhide bunch bit off more'n they could chew. Montana Kerr, Ringer Cobb, Banty Hull, and Leibman rode in here this mornin' about sunup. They were loaded for bear an' looked plumb salty, an' I reckon they was.'
'Was?'
'That's what I said.' Jody put a hand on Finn's saddle horn. 'You know, I never rightly had the boss figured. He lazed around up there to the house, takin' it easy, an' lettin' Texas here an' Remy run the whole shebang, but when we heard the place was liable to be attacked, he rared up on his hind legs, strapped on some guns, an' then he told us what was what.
'Well, sir! You should have seen them hard cases They rode in here big as life an' tough as all get-out. You could see it stickin' out all over them. They was just a-takin' this here spread over, an' right now. Dowd was gone, an' he was the salty one of the crowd, they reckoned. Well, I reckoned so, too.
'When they rode up they swung down and started for the house, but the boss, he stepped out on the porch. 'Howdy, boys he says, big as life an' slick as a whistle, 'lookin' for something'?'
' 'Well, I reckon!' Kerr tells him, 'we've come to take over this here place, an' if you don't want no trouble, you stay the hell out of the way!'
' 'But s'posin' I want trouble?' the boss says, an' he says it so nice that they don't take him very serious.
JXUSlLbK ROUNDUP
' 'Don't you be foolish Kerr says, 'you can come out of this alive if you're smart!'
' 'That's what I was fixin' to tell you Kastelle says, 'you boys crawl back in those saddles an' light out of here, an' you can go your way. We'll just make like it never happened he says.
'Montana, he still can't figure Frenchy Kastelle makin' any fuss. Never guessed he was the fightin' type. He starts to say something' when Cobb opens his big face. 'Let's get 'em, Monty. Why stand here palaverin'?' Then he went for his gun ...
'It was a bad thing to do, Tex. Too bad them boys couldn't have lived long enough to know their mistake. I tell you, we had our orders, an' we were a-layin' there all set with our rifles an' shotguns. There was Pete, Rif, Wash, an' me, with Remy up to the house. Cobb, he reached, but he was a mite slow. The boss shot him so fast I didn't even know what happened. He'd told us aforetime. He says, 'If they ride off, let 'em go. If they fire one shot ... wipe 'em out!'
'Mister, we wiped 'em! When Cobb went for his gun, the boss drilled him, an' then the whole passel of ours cut loose on 'em an' I don't think they ever knowed what hit 'em. They must have figured we was either gone, or so skeered we wouldn't fight none.
'Pete, he and Rif are out back now, diggin' graves for the lot of them.'
'Anybody hurt?'
Jody chuckled. 'Nary a one! They never had a chance! Hell, if this don't scare all the outlaws out of Laird Valley, they just ain't the smart folks we figure 'em for.'
He looked up at Finn, then at Tex. 'What happened to you-all?' x Dowd explained briefly about the fight at the Brewster ranch, the killing of Alcorn and Hibby, and the subsequent raid upon Rawhide and how it had been left in flames. Mahone went on from there to tell about the killing of Pierce Logan, and how Eason and Powis had left town.
Carson chuckled. 'Well, now! Ain't that something'? This will sure make believers out of those bad hombres! This will be a place to leave alone!' Suddenly, he frowned. 'What about Sonntag?'
Mahone shrugged. 'Neither Sonntag nor Frank Salter have shown up. Sonntag is plenty bad, and Salter is a fit partner for him. The two of them are poison, and while they may have left the range, I doubt it. They'll stick around.'
Finn Mahone's eyes had been straying toward the ranch house. Finally, he shoved his hat back on his head, and his face flushed as he suggested, 'I expect I'd better go up and tell Frenchy what happened.'
Dowd chuckled. 'Sure. You might tell Remy, too!'
As Finn trotted the stallion toward the house, he heard them both laughing at him, and he grinned in spite of himself.
Remy Kastelle came out the door as he mounted the steps. 'Finn! Oh, it's you! And Tex is back! What happened?'
Frenchy had come into the doorway behind her, and Mahone explained the situation as quickly as possible.
It was Remy who repeated the question. 'What about Sonntag?'
