The Gun Fight

anymore.”

His eyes shifted to Sutton and he looked at him a moment without saying anything.

He didn’t have to say anything.

Without another word, he walked past the two of them and turned left at the end of the alley, a thin smile playing on his lips. Flannel mouth, he thought.

Then the smile was gone and he walked in long, regular strides until he’d reached the foot of Taylor Street.

John Benton stepped down from the sidewalk and walked out onto the edge of the square.

His eyes moved slowly around the edge of the square until they settled on the two figures far across from him, standing in front of their gunsmith shop.

Benton felt his heart start pumping heavily and he pulled out his watch. Two seconds after three o’clock. He was on time.

He’d stand right there, the idea came. He wouldn’t move; then it would take Robby longer to reach him and maybe Bond could get back in time to stop it.

He put his watch away and took a deep breath. Far across the square, Robby Coles left the side of his father and started walking slowly toward Benton.

Benton felt his fingers twitch and then felt that indicative tensing of his right arm muscles.

But it was different. A look of tense uncertainty flitted across his face. The heat of anger wasn’t there, the confidence-inspiring knowledge that the man he was about to face deserved to die.

His heartbeat faltered. It’s different, he thought, it’s different. He hadn’t even conceived it could be like this. It had always been so definite before, so clearly defined. He’d had a job to do and there had been a badge on his chest that gave him the permission to kill. And, deep inside he’d known that, if he killed, the man who died deserved no more.

Until the Grahams . . .

He almost backed away. There was a cold lacing of sweat across his brow and Julia’s words hit him again. It’ll be murder. Murder! His throat moved nervously and he began to look around for Bond. He had to get to the girl in time, he had to!

Desperately, he tried to tell himself it was self defense, he was forced into it. But he couldn’t convince himself. And now his hands were shaking, something that had never happened before. Dear God, how could he fire on someone he had no reason to fire on?

He felt a shudder run down his back. It’ll be murder. He blinked and brushed away the sweat drops that ran into his eyebrows and over his upper cheeks. One salty drop of it ran into his mouth. He clenched his teeth and looked across the square at the approaching figure of Robby. How far away was he? A hundred yards? No, less, less.

He stood there rigidly, throat tightening as he watched Robby come closer. Go back, he thought suddenly, go back! Again his glance fled to all the street openings of the square, searching. Where was Bond!

His eyes shifted again. How far now? Seventy-five yards. No, it wasn’t that far.

Should he turn and leave? What could they do? By the time they found him, Louisa could be forced to tell the truth.

No. He couldn’t do that, he knew he couldn’t. It didn’t matter how desperate he was not to fight Robby, he couldn’t run. It just wasn’t in him to run. But what was he going to—

All right! His face grew taut in the instant he made his decision and, with a slight lurch, he began walking across the wide square toward Robby.

There was no noise at all. It was so quiet, the sound of his boots pressing down on the earth sounded clearly. He walked slowly and unhesitantly, eyes focused on the approaching boy.

Now he could see Robby’s face. It was tight and without expression of any kind—a white mask of rigidly held determination.

Sixty yards now, fifty-nine, eight, seven. Benton felt his arm muscles tightening, readying. I’ve got to let him draw first, he ordered himself, I’ve got to let him draw first.

His boot heels crunched over the hot, dry ground, his eyes were fastened to the hands of Robby Coles.

Fifty yards.

Benton suddenly tensed as Robby’s hand flew up to his pistol and he fought down the instinct of muscles to draw at the same time.

The roar of the Colt cracked a million jagged lines of sound in the silence of the square. Dirt kicked up two yards in front of Benton. Good God, what’s wrong with him?—the question lanced across his mind. It was an easy shot.

He had his hand on his pistol butt just as the second blast of gunfire sent echoes rocking through the square. Dirt kicked up at his feet and he heard the slug whine ricocheting into the air.

The gun was in his hand then, suddenly. He stopped walking and twisted himself a half turn so he could extend his arm and aim. The third shot roared and he saw Robby’s lips jerk back from clenched teeth as the bullet struck him in the right arm. He saw Robby’s gun fall and hit the ground and, slowly, he lowered his arm.

Then he stiffened again, his breath catching. Robby had fallen to his knees and was trying to pick up the pistol, his face twisted with pain and terror.

The pistol fell from Robby’s numbed right hand and, with a sob that Benton could hear, Robby grabbed at the Colt with his left hand. And, as Robby looked up, it seemed to Benton, in that instant, that he could see, in Robby’s eyes, the same agonized dread he’d seen in Albert Graham’s eyes just before he’d shot him.

Benton’s shout filled the square.

“Robby! Leave it alone!”

But Robby had already thrown up the pistol, forced back the hammer and fired again. Benton heard the slug whistling by his right shoulder and, jerking up his pistol automatically, he thumbed back the hammer and fired.

The shot was too rushed, too shaken. The bullet only creased the edge of Robby’s left arm and he was so numbed by fear that he didn’t feel it. He jerked at the trigger and the silence was shattered again.

Benton staggered back with a startled grunt as though he’d been struck across the chest with a club. The Colt slipped from his suddenly lax fingers and, before it hit the ground, another slug drove into his chest, knocking him back further. With a sharp gasp, he fell to one knee, face dazed, dumbstruck eyes staring at the white-face boy who was sitting on the ground fifty yards away, the Colt still clutched in his left hand.

Then the square began to waver before his eyes and there was a terrible burning in his chest. Blinking, he looked down at himself and saw red blood spilling out between his clutching fingers. He tried to speak but he couldn’t; his throat was clogged.

He looked up again dizzily and watched the wave of blackness rush at him across the square, break over him, followed by another and another.

That was when the buckboard reached the square. The woman in it dragged back the reins and braked suddenly, standing up. The people coming out from behind locked doors could see the look of stupefaction on her face. They watched how she half climbed, half fell from the buckboard and started walking across the square, then broke into a stiff, weaving run.

They saw too, the Reverend Bond’s wife come rushing down St. Virgil Street with Louisa Harper. They watched the white-faced girl as she stood on the edge of the square, staring open-mouthed at the four figures on it. And they wondered.

He was still on his knees when Julia reached him. Both his arms were crossed tightly over his chest and stomach like those of a little boy who had eaten too many green apples and fallen sick. His blood was running over his arms and dripping on the ground.

She stood before her husband for several moments, one hand covering her lips, in her throat a sickened moaning as she looked down at him.

Abruptly, then, she gasped his name and fell to her knees beside him.

Slowly, in tiny, jerking movements, he raised his face to her. It was the face of a man who could not understand what had happened to him. For almost ten seconds, he stared at her, eyes dazed and unmoving, mouth hanging open.

Then, without a sound, he fell against her, dead.