'Oh, my God!' Fisher had seen them.
From the house, 'They're coming!' and the hurried report of a rifle. A pause, now a staccato of rifle fire and suddenly the station yard erupted into wild sound--whining gun reports and the fullthroated scream of the Mescalero war cry and the whinnying of horses.
Down the carbine barrel Corsen squinted at three warriors coming zigzagging toward the shed. Then the outside two were out of vision and he fired. The Mescalero fell in his tracks. As he levered, the other two tuned abruptly and were back to the wall as he aimed again. One of them was on the wall, and he brought the barrel up an inch and squeezed the trigger, and the warrior dropped to the other side. The third one was over, out of sight. And as suddenly as the firing had started, it stopped.
Corsen glanced both ways, surprised. Two, three, four of them were down and the rest had retreated. They're feeling us out, he thought. Seeing how many guns we have. Fisher exhaled a long sigh. 'We drove them off.'
'The first time,' Corsen said. 'Now Bonito knows what we have and he'll scratch his head till something comes out of it.'
Fisher looked up suddenly. 'There!'
It was the Apache Corsen had hit first, now crawling toward the wall, dragging his left leg. Fisher raised his pistol.
'Hold it!' Corsen squinted hard at the Apache.
'That's Bil-Clin's boy!'
Corsen waited until Sunshine reached the wall. Then, as the Apache raised himself slowly, painfully, with his weight on his right leg, Corsen raised the carbine and fired.
The bullet sang, ricocheting off the wall, and white dust spattered above the boy's head as he sank down.
Corsen levered a shell into the breech, his eyes on Sunshine. Watch him. Watch him like a hawk. He's got a broken leg, but he can be over that wall in one jump.
The next moment Sunshine was pushing up with his arms and his one good leg. But it was a feint, for he lunged suddenly to the side. Corsen was ready. He swung the barrel and placed the next shot a foot in front of Sunshine. Pieces of adobe splattered on the Apache's hair, and now he sat down and stared toward the shed.
Corsen said, 'Watch along the wall, Ed. I'm going out. You edge toward the house.'
Fisher said, 'What?'
'If this works,' Corsen said hurriedly, 'I'll give you a signal. When I do, bring the men out. Just the men!'
Sunshine had not moved, and now Corsen said, 'Here we go.' He handed the Winchester to Fisher and pushed over the straw bales. Going over them, he drew his pistol and walked out into the open yard with the handgun pointed toward Sunshine. When he was in the middle of the yard he stopped.
'Bil-Clin!'
There was no answer, though he knew they were on the other side of the wall.
He shouted again, 'Bil-Clin!' Then he said in Spanish, 'My gun is on your son!' His eyes shifted above Sunshine. Stillness. A bare line of adobe- and then Bil-Clin was standing a dozen paces to the left, head and shoulders above the wall. Corsen's eyes went to him.
'Come over the wall.' Bil-Clin's arms came up and he raised himself to the top of the wall and dropped to the inside. He did not look at his son, but approached Corsen.
'Bil-Clin,' Corsen said, 'call Bonito and the others.'
The Apache said a word in Mescalero and suddenly his warriors were at the wall. They had stood up and were now a line of bare chests and war paint and thick blue-black hair with cloth bands over the foreheads. Bonito stood among them, but he was alone. He lifted his Maynard and rested it on the wall.
'Come in, Bonito,' Corsen said. And when the renegade did not move he glanced at Bil-Clin, then cocked his pistol. 'Order him to come in--if you're still the chief.'
Bil-Clin looked at his son now, for the first time. The boy's eyes, between stripes of yellow paint, were on Corsen. Bil-Clin spoke again in Mescalero and it was evident that his words were for Bonito. But Bonito did not answer.
Corsen tightened. He could feel it in his stomach, but he made his voice sound calm. 'Bonito, you are now chief?'
Still the Apache said nothing.
'Yesterday you told me that chieftainship of the Mescalero is not a thing of heredity, but a position earned by the one most capable in war. In fighting. So, Bonito, are you chief?'
Bonito did not move. Corsen was looking at him now, but he glanced away momentarily toward Ed Fisher, and nodded to him.
'Let me tell you something, Bonito. There are others who live here now--some with authority that seems to contradict yours. How can you be a chief if you have opposed only this old man, Bil-Clin?'
He glanced toward the house and saw them coming out now.
'What about the government man, Bonito? He tells me you are a woman--a filthy pig of a woman with the diseases of animals. Unfit to live. And he has much authority. Perhaps he is the true chief here?'
Bonito's eyes had gone to Sellers as he appeared in the doorway. The eyes held on the man, narrowing, and then Bonito was over the wall.
'How would you have it, Cor-sen?'
'Whatever is customary.'
'With the knife, then.'
'I'll tell him.' Corsen turned to the men in front of the station house. 'Sellers, Bonito says you're afraid to fight him alone.'
Sellers was startled. 'You're crazy!' 'Ask him.'
'Fight him with what?'
'Knives.'
'Now I know you're crazy.'
'You want to convince him you're boss, don't you? Beat him in a fair fight, the way they have to pick their chiefs sometimes.'
Fisher moved a step toward Sellers and, as he did so, brought the Winchester up and down in a short motion and Sellers's pistol was out of his hand. He looked at Fisher with complete surprise, watching the outlaw pick up the pistol.
'I'll hold it for you while you're teaching that red son a lesson.'
'Corsen! Tell him I won't fight him, that we don't do this in our government.'
'Bonito,' Corsen translated, 'he says he does not have a knife.'
Bonito reached behind him and drew a dullgleaming blade from his waistband. His arm swung low. The knife scraped, bouncing over the sand to stop near Sellers.
'Corsen, tell that savage--'
'Listen,' Corsen said, 'this started because of you and Bonito. So you and he are going to finish it.'
'He's fought this way all of his life. I wouldn't have a chance!'
Corsen shrugged. 'You can't tell.'
Bonito was handed a knife and without hesitating he stepped toward Sellers. Fisher stooped, picked up the knife at Sellers's feet, and put it in his hand. 'If you make it, I'll buy you a drink.'
'Wait a minute, Ross!' Sellers backed up.
'Ross, tell him I won't do it--'
But Bonito was in front of him now.
The Mescalero lowered his head, hunching his shoulders, and brought the knife up in front of him, looking up at Sellers's face through halfclosed eyes.
'Ross!'
The blade flashed, a short swipe of naked arm that was out and in before anyone could see what had
