Peso turned away from the stove. Warmed up and brought back to life, Peso now turned his hot hungry glance against the marshal and peeled his lips back in a soft, cruel smile. Peso walked up to stand by Jack Lime and said, “I wish the pleasure.”
“Not now,” Lime said, not looking at him. “Plenty of time later, Peso. Right now we leave the marshal alone, because he’s our safe-conduct ticket.” Lime grinned. “Well, Marshal—what about it?”
Quirt Ross came to flank Lime on the other side. Quirt was turned to face Dominguez: the three toughs had the whole room covered, but no one had drawn a gun. Peso was fingering the hilt of a knife in his belt.
Six didn’t say anything. His cold triangular eyes moved unhurriedly from Quirt Ross to Lime to Peso, and back to Lime. Quirt Ross looked around and one of his eyebrows shot up: he said, “Howdy, now—that’s Will January sittin’ there. What do you know?”
January dipped his head and said very drily, “Gentlemen.” He seemed abstractedly amused by the scene, but then Quirt Ross said:
“January’s got three thousand dollars on his head up in Utah—dead or alive. How about that, now, Jack?”
January said, “I’ve got no interest in your hostage or your game here, friend, so don’t make the mistake of thinking that would make me hesitate. Pull a gun on me and I’ll down at least two of you, possibly all three before you wink a bullet in me. Think about that while you’re thinking about three thousand dollars. You can’t do much with a bounty when you’re dead.”
Jack Lime said easily, “That’s true enough.” He grinned. “But how do I know you’re as fast as you claim to be?”
“There’s one way to find out,” January murmured, not stirring. His hands both lay against his gunbelt, inches from his guns. His half-hooded eyes stared without malice at Jack Lime.
Quirt Ross said carefully, “He’s fast enough, Jack. I seen him down Chuck White in Tuolumne. Chuck never got his gun clear of leather.”
Six’s teeth were grinding together. There were quiet crystals of agony in his eyes. January was staring at Lime: January had the attention of the three toughs. It was then that Jeremy Six drew his six-gun and leveled it on the three toughs.
He said:
“I’ll take your guns. You’re under arrest.”
Not speaking, Dominguez backed the play by drawing his gun. Dominguez cocked the revolver and Quirt Ross looked slowly around toward him.
Jack Lime said in a gust of breath: “You stupid damned fool!”
“Your guns,” Six said in a dead-flat tone of voice.
Lime shouted, “Do you know what will happen to that girl?”
Six said, “I’m the law. This is the badge talking, Lime. Drop your gunbelts or so help me God I’ll shoot the three of you in your tracks.”
Will January was looking at Six with unconcealed admiration. “Guts,” was January’s one-word comment.
Keene, the rancher, was frowning and moving forward toward Six. “Wait a minute, Jeremy. You’re not the only one worried about Clarissa’s skin. Maybe you ought to—”
“Shut up,” Six said savagely. His eyes were pinned against Lime and his thumb eared back the hammer of his revolver; his left hand curled around to draw the backhanded revolver at his waist and he cocked the second gun as well, training it on Peso.
Jack Lime’s eyes grew wide. “All right, all right.” He unbuckled his belt. The gun butt clattered when it hit the floor. Quirt Ross dropped his gun at his feet. Peso’s narrowed eyes glittered fiercely and he seemed half-willing to draw against Six’s two leveled guns when Dominguez took two steps and rammed his pistol harshly into Peso’s back. Peso stiffened and unhooked his gunbelt. Dominguez took it away from him and backed up.
Dominguez drawled, “Ain’t much point trying to hike them down to the jail. They’d likely bust loose in the storm.”
Craycroft came out from behind the bar. He had a single-bore bung-starter shotgun in his hands; evidently he had been holding it all along, out of sight beneath the bar. Craycroft said, “Lock them in my storeroom until the norther’s gone. Only one way out of there, and it’s through that door.” He indicated the door in the back of the room.
Jack Lime said maliciously, “You just signed that girl’s epitaph, Marshal. I reckon you know that. Anybody goes in after Orozco without giving the proper signal, Orozco’s going to have a knife in her throat, and ain’t no way you can stop him. And you can be good and damn sure we’re not about to tell you what that signal is.”
Will January said casually, “I could get it out of you with no trouble at all, friend.”
“Stay out of this,” Six told him. He nodded to Dominguez. “Lock them up back there. Better go over Peso for knives before you do.”
Dominguez paraded the three men back toward the storeroom. Craycroft went with him, holding the shotgun ready. Jack Lime had begun to chuckle without mirth. Dominguez said, “Take it careful, boys, because it wouldn’t take much to anger me. You just look like you’re thinking about making a break, and I’ll shoot you good and dead.”
Keene moved back to the poker table and gripped the back of an empty chair with both hands. His knuckles whitened and he lowered his head. “I’ve heard of some rotten stunts, but this one takes the prize. Jeremy, I’m glad I wasn’t in your boots. I doubt I’d have been able to make that decision, especially knowing how you feel about Clarissa.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt Clarissa,” Jeremy Six said softly. His face was grim: determined and set. His bleak eyes swept past Keene and the others, past Will January, down the length of the room to the back, where Craycroft was frisking Peso under the watchful gun of Dominguez. Six raised his voice and sent it flatly across the room, slapping his words into Jack Lime’s face:
“If any harm comes to Clarissa Vane, all four of you will hang. Think about that for a while, Jack.” Six nodded to Dominguez and Dominguez shoved the three toughs into the darkened storage room and locked them in.
January had not stirred in his seat. He looked up now and spoke to Six. “Tough talk’s fine, but how do you expect to get the girl out of it?”
Six made no answer. He dropped his guns into their holsters, pinched imaginary moisture from his mouth corners with thumb and forefinger, and looked up from under lowered eyebrows, staring at the storeroom door, deep in thought. Without saying anything, the rancher Keene went over to the wall pegs, got down his revolver and took it back to the card table. Keene laid the gun on the table and sat down facing the storeroom door. Craycroft stood beside the door with his shotgun, looking at nobody in particular.
Will January’s face was an unreadable mask. He reached for the cards and began to shuffle them. The stagecoach division manager nervously lighted a cigar and took quick little puffs on it. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
Six’s head had been lowered. Now he lifted it, indicating that he had reached a decision. He walked back to the storeroom door and nodded to Craycroft. Craycroft cocked an eyebrow, and then unlocked the door. Six pulled it open and stood in the doorway and said to Craycroft, “Hand me a lamp.” Six had a gun in his fist.
Craycroft lifted a lamp down off the wall, turned up the wick, and gave it to Six. Dominguez stood by, looking on, making no comments. Six walked into the storeroom, faced the three toughs, and said without looking around, “Close the door, Hal.”
The door shut behind him. Jack Lime, sitting cross-legged against the wall, tipped his head back against the wood and grinned coldly.
Six said, “I’ll ask this once and I want an answer. Where’s Orozco and what arrangements did you make with him?”
Peso spat on the floor. He stood in the far corner like a rat at bay. Quirt Ross was sitting on a beer keg. Lime’s grin steadied and nobody said anything. Six murmured, “In a minute one of you is going to try to make a break for it. It would be a shame if I had to shoot all three of you for resisting arrest and running.”
“Ley de fuga, eh?” Peso said, and curled his lip defiantly.
Lime said in an unruffled way, “It won’t work, Marshal. The badge makes the rules and you’ve got to stick by them. We ain’t making a break, and you ain’t shooting anybody.” He grinned again. “Next time don’t try to run a bluff on a smart man.”
Six murmured, “Are you so sure I’m bluffing, Jack?”
His eyes bored into Lime’s. Lime did not lose his composure. He said, “I’m sure.”
Six cocked his revolver. He turned it toward Lime. Light, reflected from the lamp in his left hand, raced along the barrel in little swift glints. Lime said quickly, “Don’t say a word, boys, and don’t move a whisker. He ain’t going to shoot us unarmed.”
Six shifted the gun toward Quirt Ross and pulled the trigger. The gunshot stabbed a tongue of flame toward Quirt Ross. The sound boomed, round and deafening in the small room. Its concussion made the lamp flicker and almost go out.
Six’s eyes glittered bleakly. Quirt Ross had turned half around on his seat, twisted by the force of the big bullet. He straightened, his eyes going wide. Blood welled from his wounded right shoulder. Six cocked his gun again and spoke through gritted teeth:
“Am I bluffing, Jack?”
Someone latched the door and Dominguez’ voice lifted. Six said quickly, “Stay out there and leave the door shut.” He could hear confused, querulous talk rising in the saloon. Strain made the muscles around his jaw-hinges ripple. He said, “I want an answer, Jack. Otherwise the next one goes between your eyes.”
Quirt Ross was weaving with pain. “You Goddamn son of a bitch,” he groaned.
Six was still looking at Lime. “I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep, Jack.”
Peso said, “Tell him nothing. Nothing, the pig.”
Six’s gun came to bear on Jack Lime’s forehead. Peso sneered and Lime said mildly, “All right. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Peso cursed and launched himself forward from the corner. Six snapped a shot at his feet. Echoes rammed around the room; dirt sprayed up around Peso’s boots and the man stopped in his tracks. Six said, “Get back in the corner and stay there.”
Peso backed up slowly, like a big cat. Lime wiped his face. Dominguez’ voice hurled in from outside: “You all right?”
“I’m all right,” Six said. “Stay outside. Well, Jack?”
Lime shifted his position and scratched the back of his head. He looked up with speculatively lifted eyebrows and finally shrugged. “Orozco’s got the girl in the back office of the Glad Hand. Best place for it—no back door. The room’s a natural fort. Only one way in or out. There’s one little window, but a man couldn’t even crawl through it, and it’s shuttered up against the storm. You got to give the right number of knocks on the door, or Orozco’ll know it ain’t me. He’ll slice up the girl long before you get that door open.”
“All right,” Six said. “How many knocks?”
Lime shook his head. “Figure that out for yourself. I’ve said all I’m going to.”
“Do you still think I’m bluffing?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But if you kill me you’ll never find out how many times to knock. Kill me, and you kill Clarissa Vane.”
Six said, “I’ve got four left in this gun and another full cylinder on my hip. I can cripple you up pretty bad with that much ammunition, Jack. Both elbows, both knees.” Six gestured toward Quirt Ross. Ross had slid down to the floor and was swaying back and forth, mumbling, half delirious with pain. “I put that slug through his shoulder joint. It won’t work right, ever again.”
Lime whispered, “You bastard!”
“How many knocks, Jack?”
“Four and a pause and then three.”
Peso said defiantly, “But he will not fall for it, Mariscal. He will see it is you and he will put his knife at the woman’s throat.”
“Maybe,” Six said. His dismal glance gave away nothing. He backed to the door and spoke over his shoulder: “Open up, Hal.”
Craycroft opened the door. Six stepped out and handed the lamp to Craycroft. “Go in there and see if you can patch up Ross’ shoulder. I just creased him under the armpit but you’d better try and stop the bleeding. Take care with that bunch—Dominguez, you’d better keep them covered.”
Jack Lime was laughing. “Why, you lying bastard!”
Peso snarled at him, “I told you he was lying. He was bluffing. You should have said nothing!”
Lime said crankily, “Oh, hell, shut up, Peso.”
Six walked to the front of the room, took down his coat and slid into it. He glanced at the card table. All the players were staring at him except Will January, who was playing a game of solitaire, all locked up in his own solitary world. Six waited by the door until Craycroft and Dominguez came out of the storeroom and Craycroft locked the door and picked up his shotgun. Dominguez came forward to join Six. Keene said, “We’ll keep that bunch bottled up, Jeremy. Good luck.”
Six finished tying down his hat and glanced at Dominguez. “All set?”
“I reckon.”
“Grab my sleeve and hang on. Otherwise we’ll get separated and lost; you can’t see a thing out there. All right? Let’s go.”
They breasted the storm, feeling their way through the streets, blinded and wind-buffeted. The wind cried like a stricken animal, without pause. It almost lifted them off their feet. Dominguez was massive and rock-hard and seemed invulnerable: he never uttered a sound of complaint.
Staggering like mortally wounded men, they stopped to gather warmth and energy in a small Mexican cantina. There was an old man playing the guitar in the back of the room but the wind, whipping around the building, drowned out all sound of the music. Six gave Dominguez terse instructions; Dominguez asked no questions. They battened down and went outside again. Six’s face, unseen in the flashing kaleidoscopic storm, was gaunted and determined. He had an image of Clarissa; and while he fought the blizzard, he fought down his own rage and forced himself to collect his composure.
They went along slowly, blindly. Dominguez gripped Six’s coat and Six kept one hand along the wall until the wall came to an end. This was a narrow alley to be crossed. The wind sluiced down through it and almost knocked them flat when they stepped before it. Six lurched back, put his shoulder against the blast, and finally found shelter on the far side of the alley. They climbed onto a boardwalk and went along, half-sheltered by an overhanging roof—this was the front of Hop Sing Lee’s café. When they reached the end of it they would have to go around the corner and up the street, flat into the north wind. He went around with his head down against his chest. They had to crouch to make headway. Once the wind knocked Six’s feet out from under him and he fell on his shoulder. The fall ripped him out of Dominguez’ grip and when he got up he turned around full-circle with his arms outstretched. Dominguez wasn’t there, nothing was there, and he had a moment’s knotted panic.
He turned the circle again, calming himself. Dominguez was strong as a Clydesdale; there was no danger. But a driving impatience gripped Six and the accident and delay irritated him unreasonably.
Something slapped his arm. He reached for it and found Dominguez’ hand. Dominguez took hold on his coat again and Six plowed forward into the teeth of the wind, stamping his boots hard with every step against the encroaching frigid numbness in his feet. Dragging one hand along the long adobe wall, he could hardly feel the scrape of the plaster through his glove. His face stung as if it were burning.
At the end of the wall they had to cross an empty plot of ground where the Cavendish stables had burned down a few years ago. Here there was no guide but the direction of the wind. Six braced himself and pushed off like a man in a tiny open boat casting off into a great raging sea. Dominguez kept up, never dragging on him. Six began to stumble: his nerves were becoming insensitive and he was uncertain of his balance. The driving wind seemed to tilt the earth. Dominguez tugged on his coat and gripped Six’s wrist and went on ahead to break the wind with his massive body. Too numbed to resist, Six let the deputy lead the way.
Crimson colors pulsed before his tight-shut eyes. It was impossible to breathe: the wind cut across his face and dragged hot saws through his lungs. Dominguez yanked him forward and they plunged into a room. Six had a glimpse of lamps wildly flickering and then the lamps went out, blown out by the wind. Six stood weaving; he heard Dominguez wheel back past him and shoulder the door shut, and someone struck a match.
A lamp bloomed, the wick went up, and Six saw through a blurred haze of vision that Dominguez had dragged them into Fat Annie’s plush parlor. Dominguez said, “Time to take a break.”
Six nodded and moved woodenly toward the stove. Fat Annie handed a box of matches to one of the girls and sent her around the room to light the blown-out lamps. She waddled over to the stove and clapped her pudgy hands gently against Six’s cheeks. “Can you feel that?”
“Stings,” he muttered.
“Then you’re all right,” she said. “What the hell are you two doing down here?”
“Just out for a stroll before supper,” Dominguez drawled.
“Jesus,” said Fat Annie.
Six let himself warm up, standing precariously close to the stove. The moisture in his clothes began to smell steamy. Dominguez was batting his arms together and Six began to hop up and down, going around in a stationary circle by the stove like an Indian doing a war dance; the blood slowly began to flow through his feet again.
Someone came heavily down the stairs, and Six looked up to see the cowboy who had been stranded there on Six’s last visit. The cowboy had on his levis and a long-sleeved red flannel undershirt; he was grinning with disbelief and shaking his head. A girl at the top of the stairs called out to the cowboy and laughed. The cowboy came wearily over to the stove and poured two cups of coffee. He handed one to Six and the other to Dominguez. He shook his head again and laughed and said, “Nobody’ll ever believe this when I tell it,” and went across the room to collapse on a divan. Fat Annie was chuckling at the cowboy.
Impatience had a hard grip on Six. He drank his coffee fast and felt it scald down through his throat and belly. He said, “Let’s go.”
“Better get warmed up good, first,” Dominguez said imperturbably. “Orozco ain’t going noplace.”
Dominguez was right, but worry over Clarissa made it impossible for Six to stand still. He clapped Dominguez on the arm. “Come on.”