a watch from his vest pocket and looked at it. It was almost noon, yet there were few people about. He wondered about this and asked himself if it was unnaturally quiet for a Saturday noon in Contention...or if it were just his nerves....
He studied the man standing under the wooden awning across the street, leaning idly against a support post with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his flat-crowned hat on the back of his head. There was something familiar about him. And each time Scallen had gone to the window--a few times during the past hour--the man had been there.
He glanced at Jim Kidd lying across the bed, then looked out the window in time to see another man moving up next to the one at the post. They stood together for the space of a minute before the second man turned a horse from the tie rail, swung up, and rode off down the street.
The man at the post watched him go and tilted his hat against the sun glare. And then it registered. With the hat low on his forehead Scallen saw him again as he had that morning. The man lying in the armchair...as if asleep.
He saw his wife, then, and the three youngsters and he could almost feel the little girl sitting on his lap where she had climbed up to kiss him good-bye, and he had promised to bring her something from Tucson. He didn't know why they had come to him all of a sudden. And after he had put them out of his mind, since there was no room now, there was an upset feeling inside as if he had swallowed something that would not go down all the way. It made his heart beat a little faster.
Jim Kidd was smiling up at him. 'Anybody I know?'
'I didn't think it showed.'
'Like the sun going down.'
Scallen glanced at the man across the street and then to Jim Kidd. 'Come here.' He nodded to the window. 'Tell me who your friend is over there.'
Kidd half rose and leaned over looking out the window, then sat down again. 'Charlie Prince.'
'Somebody else just went for help.'
'Charlie doesn't need help.'
'How did you know you were going to be in Contention?'
'You told that Wells Fargo man I had friends...and about the posses chasing around in the hills. Figure it out for yourself. You could be looking out a window in Benson and seeing the same thing.'
'They're not going to do you any good.'
'I don't know any man who'd get himself killed for a hundred and fifty dollars.' Kidd paused. 'Especially a man with a wife and young ones....'
Men rode into town in something less than an hour later. Scallen heard the horses coming up Commercial, and went to the window to see the six riders pull to a stop and range themselves in a line in the middle of the street facing the hotel. Charlie Prince stood behind them, leaning against the post.
Then he moved away from it, leisurely, and stepped down into the street. He walked between the horses and stopped in front of them just below the window. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, 'Jim!'
In the quiet street it was like a pistol shot.
Scallen looked at Kidd, seeing the smile that softened his face and was even in his eyes. Confidence. It was all over him. And even with the manacles on, you would believe that it was Jim Kidd who was holding the shotgun.
'What do you want me to tell him?' Kidd said.
'Tell him you'll write every day.'
Kidd laughed and went to the window, pushing it up by the top of the frame. It raised a few inches. Then he moved his hands under the window and it slid up all the way.
'Charlie, you go buy the boys a drink. We'll be down shortly.'
'Are you all right?'
'Sure I'm all right.'
Charlie Prince hesitated. 'What if you don't come down? He could kill you and say you tried to break.... Jim, you tell him what'll happen if we hear a gun go off.'
'He knows,' Kidd said, and closed the window. He looked at Scallen standing motionless with the shotgun under his arm. 'Your turn, Marshal.'
'What do you expect me to say?'
'Something that makes sense. You said before I didn't mean a thing to you personally--what you're doing is just a job. Well, you figure out if it's worth getting killed for. All you have to do is throw your guns on the bed and let me walk out the door and you can go back to Bisbee and arrest all the drunks you want. Nobody's going to blame you with the odds stacked seven to one. You know your wife's not going to complain....'
'You should have been a lawyer, Jim.'
The smile began to fade from Kidd's face. 'Come on--what's it going to be?'
The door rattled with three knocks in quick succession. Abruptly the room was silent. The two men looked at each other and now the smile disappeared from Kidd's face completely.
Scallen moved to the side of the door, tiptoeing in his high-heeled boots, then pointed his shotgun toward the bed. Kidd sat down.
'Who is it?'
For a moment there was no answer. Then he heard, 'Timpey.'
He glanced at Kidd, who was watching him. 'What do you want?'
'I've got a pot of coffee for you.'
Scallen hesitated. 'You alone?'
'Of course I am. Hurry up, it's hot!'
He drew the key from his coat pocket, then held the shotgun in the crook of his arm as he inserted the key with one hand and turned the knob with the other. The door opened and slammed against him, knocking him back against the dresser. He went off balance, sliding into the wardrobe, going down on his hands and knees, and the shotgun clattered across the floor to the window. He saw Jim Kidd drop to the floor for the gun....
'Hold it!'
A heavyset man stood in the doorway with a Colt pointing out past the thick bulge of his stomach. 'Leave that shotgun where it is.' Timpey stood next to him with the coffeepot in his hand. There was coffee down the front of his suit, on the door, and on the flooring. He brushed at the front of his coat feebly, looking from Scallen to the man with the pistol.
'I couldn't help it, Marshal--he made me do it. He threatened to do something to me if I didn't.'
'Who is he?'
'Bob Moons...you know, Dick's brother....'
The heavyset man glanced at Timpey angrily. 'Shut your damn whining.' His eyes went to Jim Kidd and held there. 'You know who I am, don't you?'
Kidd looked uninterested. 'You don't resemble anybody I know.'
'You didn't have to know Dick to shoot him!'
'I didn't shoot that messenger.'
Scallen got to his feet, looking at Timpey. 'What the hell's wrong with you?'
'I couldn't help it. He forced me.'
'How did he know we were here?'
'He came in this morning talking about Dick and I felt he needed some cheering up; so I told him Jim Kidd had been tried and was being taken to Yuma and was here in town...on his way. Bob didn't say anything and went out, and a little later he came back with the gun.'
'You damn fool.' Scallen shook his head wearily.
'Never mind all the talk.' Moons kept the pistol on Kidd. 'I would've found him sooner or later. This way everybody gets saved a long train ride.'
'You pull that trigger,' Scallen said, 'and you'll hang for murder.'
'Like he did for killing Dick....'
'A jury said he didn't do it.' Scallen took a step toward the big man. 'And I'm damned if I'm going to let you pass another sentence.'
