The two at the bar and the man at the table were studying him closely, taking in his wide-brimmed Stetson, the Kiowa work on his coat and the jinglebob spurs chiming on the heels of his boots, the rowels cut from Mexican silver pesos. The boots themselves were custom-made, the expensive leather sewn sixty stitches to the inch, using an awl so fine that if it had accidentally pierced the boot maker’s hand the wound would have neither hurt nor bled.
Tyree knew that his outfit spoke loudly of Texas, and this was confirmed when the bartender smiled and asked, “Fair piece off your home range, ain’t you, Tex?”
“Some,” Tyree admitted, prepared to be sociable if that was what it took. He was aware that the towhead’s intent gaze was slowly measuring him from the top of his hat to the tip of his boots. The man was on the prod. A combination of belligerence and meanness bunched up hot and eager in his pale eyes.
Tyree had run into his kind before, a would-be hard case, probably with a local reputation as a fast gunman. Such men were not rare in the West. Boot Hills from Texas to Kansas and beyond were full of them.
Tyree, mindful of his decision to leave gun violence behind him, made up his mind right there and then to have no part of him.
“What will it be?” the bartender asked.
“Anything to eat around here?”
The bartender scratched under a thick sideburn, then nodded to a glass-covered dish at the end of the bar. “What you see is what I got. You like cheese? I got cheese and soda crackers.” He glanced behind him. “Maybe I got soda crackers.”
“It’ll do,” Tyree answered. “And a cold beer.”
“All I got is warm beer.”
“Just so long as it’s wet.”
The bartender found a plate, dusted it off on his apron and moved to the end of the bar. He fingered some chunks of yellow cheese onto the plate, added a handful of soda crackers, then set the plate in front of Tyree. From somewhere at his feet he came up with an amber bottle of beer, thumbed it open and laid it alongside the plate.
Tyree took a sip. It was warm and flat, but it cut the dust of the trail in his throat. The cheese smelled strong and the soda crackers were stale.
The man watched Tyree eat for a few moments, then asked, “Where you headed, Tex?”
Tyree shrugged as he picked a cracker crumb off his bottom lip. “No place in particular. Just passing through.”
“That’s a damn lie.”
The voice had come from behind him, that quick. That raw.
“What did you say, mister?” Tyree asked, his hazel eyes, more green than brown, moving to the towhead who was now standing square to him, straddle-legged, thumbs tucked into his gun belts.
“You heard me plain enough. I called you a damned liar.”
There was a vindictive challenge in the towhead’s words, the voice of one who had killed his man and was anxious to kill again.
A man can step away from a woman’s insult. He may feel that he’s all of a sudden shrunk to three feet tall, but he can swallow his pride and walk away from it. An insult from another male is a different matter entirely. There’s no walking away from that, not if a man wants to hold his head high and be judged and counted among other men.
This Chance Tyree knew, and he felt a familiar anger burn in his belly. The towhead was a reputation hunter acting out a timeworn ritual Tyree had seen before. This man would not be turned aside by talk, yet Tyree knew he had to make the attempt.
He popped a piece of cheese into his mouth and chewed, looking at the towheaded gunman reflectively, unhurried, seemingly lost in thought, like a man pondering the frailty of human nature. Finally he slowly shook his head, turned to the bartender and made a rubbing motion with his fingers. “Towel? Your cheese must have been feeling the heat because it was sure sweating considerable.”
The bartender laid both hands on the counter, his alarmed eyes slanting to the towhead. “Dave, I want no trouble in my place. You heard the stranger. If he says he’s passing through, then he’s passing through. Hell, he ain’t even carrying a gun.”
“I don’t believe that. He’s got one hid away fer sure.” The rat-eyed man at the table stood. He stepped beside the man called Dave. “We know why he’s here, don’t we, Dave? I say he’s tryin’ to fool us.”
“Sure we know why he’s here, Charlie,” Dave answered. “But he ain’t fooling nobody and that’s why he’s got two choices—ride on back the way he came or die right where he stands.”
Charlie smiled, showing prominent green teeth wet with saliva. “Better make your choice, stranger. This here is Dave Rinker. He’s killed more men than you got fingers. He’s fast on the draw, mighty fast.”
Tyree ignored both men and again turned to the bartender. “Where’s that towel?”
The man threw Tyree a scrap of dirty dishrag, then watched as the tall stranger wiped off his hands. He leaned across the bar, his mouth close to Tyree’s ear. “Now fork your bronc and ride on out of here, Tex, like the man says,” he whispered. “The food and the beer are on the house.”
“Much obliged,” Tyree said. He turned to face Dave Rinker, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “Now all Mr. Rinker has to do is apologize for that ill-considered remark about my honesty, and I’ll be on my way.”
To Rinker, this was the grossest kind of affront. He was a man used to bullying lesser men, who spoke and acted respectfully, wary of his low-slung Colts. Tyree’s quiet demand had thrown him. The big gunman’s jaw almost dropped to his chest and his pale blue eyes popped. “Me, apologize to you? Apologize to a two-bit hired bushwhacker? The hell I will.”
“Owen Fowler sent for you, didn’t he?” Charlie asked, a taunting note in his voice. “Admit it, Tex. Didn’t that no-good preacher killer send for you?”
The other man at the bar, the gray-haired oldster in puncher’s clothes, stepped away, opening space between him and Rinker. “I ain’t waiting for apologies or otherwise,” he said, his wary eyes lifting to Tyree standing cool and ready. “I’m ridin’.”
Rinker laughed. “You scared, Tom? Hell, I can shade this saddle tramp.”
“Maybe,” Tom said. “Maybe not. Either way I don’t plan on sticking around to find out.”
After the old puncher swung quickly out of the door, Tyree said, “Care to make that apology now, Rinker?”
A tense silence stretched between the two men, the saloon so still that the soft rustling of an exploring rat in the corner was unnaturally loud. Then the bartender spoke, his words dropping into the taut quiet like rocks into an iron bucket. “Maybe he’s telling the truth, Dave. Maybe Owen Fowler didn’t send for him. He could be just passing through like he says.”
“Zack, you shut your trap,” Rinker said. “I know why he’s here. He’s sold his gun to Fowler all right. You know I got no liking for Fowler, so now this is between Texas and me.”
“The worst and last mistake you’ll ever make in your life, Rinker,” Tyree said, his voice suddenly flat and hard as he moved his coat away from his gun, “is to keep pushing me. So go back to your drinking and just let it be.” He smiled, forcing himself to relax. He decided to make one final attempt to get this thing to go away. “But just to show there’s no hard feelings, I’ve decided to pass on the apology. I’m going to let bygones be bygones.” He nodded toward the door. “Now will you give me the road?”
“Sure,” the big gunman said, full lips stretched wide in a cruel grin under his sweeping yellow mustache, “you can go through that door—with four men carrying you by the handles.”
Rinker was ready, his hands close to his guns. There was a strange light in the man’s eyes, a glowing mix of sadistic joy and the urge to kill that Tyree recognized only too well from past experiences. He knew right then that this man would not let it go.
Then Dave Rinker went for his gun.
Tyree drew fast from the waistband, and his first bullet hit Rinker square in the chest. Another, a split second later, crashed into the man’s forehead, just under the rim of his hat.
The big towhead convulsively triggered a round that thudded into the sod roof. Then his Colt dropped from his hand as he slammed backward onto the table, sending Charlie’s bottle and glass flying. Rinker tumbled off the table and fell flat on his back, his stunned eyes wide, unable to believe the manner and the fact of his dying. The gunman
