He dropped the Bible to the floor as if by accident, in his rage. As he stooped for it, on that instant, there was the crack of a revolver, a bullet from a six-shooter in the rear of the tent sang past the spot where his head had been, and there appeared in the white surface of the tent a tiny circlet of blue that was the Oklahoma sky. But before that dot of blue appeared Yancey Cravat had raised himself halfway from the hips, had fired from the waist without, seemingly, pausing to take aim. His thumb flicked the hammer. That was all. The crack of his six-shooter was, in fact, so close on the heels of that first report that the two seemed almost simultaneous. The congregation was now on its feet, en masse, its back to the roulette table pulpit. Its eyes were on one figure; its breath was suspended. That figure—a man—was seen to perform some curious antics. He looked, first of all, surprised. With his left hand he had gripped one of the taut tent ropes, and now, with his hand still grasping the hempen line, his fingers slipping gently along it, as though loath to let go, he sank to the floor, sat there a moment, as if in meditation, loosed his hand’s hold of the rope, turned slightly, rolled over on one side and lay there, quite still.
“—Lon Yountis,” finished Yancey, neatly concluding his sentence and now holding an ivory-mounted six-shooter in right and left hand.
Screams. Shouts. A stampede for the door. Then the voice of Yancey Cravat, powerful, compelling, above the roar. He sent one shot through the dome of the tent to command attention. “Stop! Stand where you are! The first person who stampedes this crowd gets a bullet. Shut that tent flap, Jesse, like I told you to this morning. Louie Hefner, remove the body and do your duty.”
“Okeh, Yancey. It’s self-defense and justifiable homicide.”
“I know it. Louis, … Fellow citizens! We will forego the sermon this morning, but next Sabbath, if requested, I shall be glad to take the pulpit again, unless a suitable and ordained minister of God can be procured. The subject of my sermon for next Sabbath will be from Proverbs 26:27: ‘Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein’ … This church meeting, brethren and sisters, will now be concluded with prayer.” There was a little thudding, scuffling sound as a heavy, inert burden was carried out through the tent flap into the noonday sunshine. His six-shooters still in his hands, Yancey Cravat bowed his magnificent buffalo head—but not too far—and sent the thrilling tones of his beautiful voice out into the agitated crowd before him.
“… bless this community, O Lord. …”
X
Mournfully, and in accordance with the custom of the community, Yancey carved a notch in the handsome ivory and silver-mounted butt of his six-shooter. It was then for the first time that Sabra, her eyes widening with horror, noticed that there were five earlier notches cut in the butts of Yancey’s two guns—two on one, three on the other. This latest addition brought the number up to six.
Aghast, she gingerly investigated further. She saw that the two terrifying weapons were not worn completely encased in the holster but each was held within it by an ingenious steel clip, elastic and sensitive as a watch spring. This spring gripped the barrel securely and yet so lightly that the least effort would set it free. Yancey could pull his gun and thumb the hammer with but one motion, instead of two. The infinitesimal saving of time had saved his life that day.
“Oh, Yancey, you haven’t killed six men!”
“I’ve never killed a man unless I knew he’d kill me if I didn’t.”
“But that’s murder!”
“Would you have liked to see Yountis get me?”
“Oh, darling, no! I died a thousand deaths while you were standing there. That terrible prayer, when I thought surely someone else would shoot you. But wasn’t there some other way? Did you have to kill him? Like that?”
“Why, no, honey. I could have let him kill me.”
“Cim has seen his own father shoot a man and kill him.”
“Better than seeing a man shoot and kill his own father.”
There was nothing more that she could say on this subject. But still another question was consuming her.
“That woman. That woman. I saw you talking to her, right on the street, in broad daylight today, after the meeting. All that horrible shooting—all those people around you—Cim screaming—and then to find that woman smirking and talking. Bad enough if you’d never seen her before. But she stole your land from you in the Run. You stood there, actually talking to her. Chatting.”
“I know. She said she had made up her mind that day of the Run to get a piece of land, and farm it, and raise cattle. She wanted to give up her way of living. She’s been at it since she was eighteen. Now she’s twenty-six. Older than she looks. She comes of good stock. She was desperate.”
“What she doing here, then!”
“Before the month was up she saw she couldn’t make it go. One hundred and sixty acres. Then the other women homesteaders found out about her. It was no use. She sold out for five hundred dollars, added to it whatever money she had saved, and went to Denver.”
“Why didn’t she stay there?”
“Her business was overcrowded there. She got a tip that the railroad was coming through here. She’s a smart girl. She got together her outfit, and down she came.”
“You talk as though you admired her! That—that—” Felice Venable’s word came to her lips—“that hussy!”
“She’s a smart girl. She’s a—” he hesitated, as though embarrassed—“in a way she’s a—well, in a way, she’s a good girl.”
Sabra’s voice rose to the pitch of hysteria.
“Don’t you quote your Bible at me, Yancey Cravat! You with your Lukes and your Johns and your Magdalenes!
