“I’ll be dancin’ with the lady now,” Bledsoe announced, grabbing at Ella’s arm.
“She’s tired and doesn’t want to dance,” Bennett answered quickly, speaking up on Ella’s behalf.
Bledsoe knew just what he was doing. He’d been waiting all night for an opportunity like this. More than anyone else, Dave Bennet was indebted to Hunter. If the kid wouldn’t stick his neck out to protect Hunter’s woman, then Bennett would be marked as either a coward or an ungrateful cur. If he had any pride at all, Bennett couldn’t let Bledsoe walk all over him.
“Get outta my way, little man,” the bounty hunter growled at Bennett while, at the same time, he pulled Ella close and put his arm around her.
A lot of people had already turned to stare at Bledsoe and Bennett. Nobody, though, was making a move to intervene. This was something that was going to have to be settled man to man. Ella, however, was caught in the middle. It was a place she definitely did not want to be. She struggled to free herself of Bledsoe’s grip, but he held her tightly and would not let go.
Bennett was trapped between his fear and his obligation to Ella. Just as the bounty hunter had figured, the presence of so many people watching Bennett and judging him on how he handled himself, forced the kid’s hand.
“I’m warnin’ you,” was Bennett’s empty threat, “either you let her go or you’re gonna be plenty sorry!”
Bledsoe laughed in the kid’s face. “I’m gonna be sorry?” he said mockingly. “What are you gonna do? You gonna kill me in a fire like you did Jenna Lindstrom?”
That was it. Bennett needed no more baiting. He lunged at the bounty hunter without a second’s hesitation.
Bledsoe shoved Ella away to free his hands. He pushed her so violently that she lost her footing and went sprawling onto the floor.
That’s when Hunter showed up.
He helped Ella to her feet as Bledsoe hit Dave Bennett in the stomach and then spit in the kid’s pain-twisted face.
“If you wanna do anything about that,” Bledsoe challenged loud enough for everyone to hear, “then step out into the street. You’re wearing a gun. Let’s see if you’ve got the guts to use it!”
With that, Bledsoe turned his back on Bennett and walked through the crowd and out into the street to wait.
All eyes were on Dave Bennett. Would he let the rough treatment of Ella Phillips go unpunished? Would he let the insults Bledsoe had levelled at him stand? Could he possibly accept the indignity of having been spit upon as if he were nothing more than a piece of garbage?
Bennett knew the answers to all of those questions. He didn’t understand how he had gotten into this situation, but he knew that there was only one way out of it. He had no choice. He’d been ridiculed and humiliated in front of the whole town. It was more—much more—than any man had to take.
Dave Bennett headed for the street to meet his fate.
“Hold it!” exclaimed Hunter.
Bennett stopped and turned halfway around. “I’m going out there,” he said softly. “I have to.”
“You’re no match for Bledsoe,” said Hunter. “Besides, it was my woman he was manhandling. It isn’t for you to stand up for her. It’s up to me.”
“There’re more to it than that—and you know it!” Bennett said angrily. And then he turned and once again strode toward the door.
Hunter ran after Bennett, caught him, and spun him around. “Look,” Hunter said heatedly, trying to convince the kid that he didn’t have to get himself killed, “this is stupid. Goin’ out there to face Bledsoe is like taking a gun, putting it to your head and pulling the trigger.”
“I can take care of myself,” Bennett replied. Hunter was getting nowhere with the kid. Bennett’s mind was made up. Arguing with him was a waste of time. So he shrugged his shoulders, watched the kid turn toward the door and then Hunter drew his Navy Colt and slammed the barrel against the side of Bennett’s head.
Bennett hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.
As Hunter slid the pistol back into his holster, Ella came up beside him.
“Now you’re going out there, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“I’m all right, you know. I wasn’t hurt. There isn’t any more reason for you to go out there than there is for Dave Bennett. Actually, there’s a lot less reason. Why not let Bledsoe just stand out there alone for the rest of the night?”
“Because I can’t let a man like Bledsoe just get away with treating you like that,” he replied simply.
Ella had spent enough time with Hunter to know there was nothing more she could say. If she had had a gun, she’d have smacked him on the side of the head just as Hunter had done to Bennett. But she had no gun, so she could do nothing except watch as Hunter walked out through the front door of the Town Hall—followed by just about everyone who had been at the dance.
The crowd quickly spread out on both sides of the street, anxious to see a gun battle between the notorious bounty hunter, Bledsoe, and the man known throughout the West as War Hunter.
One man, however, was not at all anxious to witness this classic confrontation ... and that man was Bledsoe. It was never part of his plan to face Hunter. Why risk death at the hands of a man who had killed more men than even Bledsoe himself had killed? The bounty hunter wasn’t getting paid for it, so where was the profit in facing Hunter? It was Bennett that Bledsoe wanted. But Bennett wasn’t the man who walked into the street to face him ... and suddenly Bledsoe had to make some hard decisions.
Hunter walked straight down the middle of the street, heading directly for the bounty hunter.
“My fight’s not with you,” Bledsoe called out. “Stay out of this, Hunter!”
But Hunter continued to walk steadily toward him.
“It’s Bennett that got in my way, not you!” Bledsoe yelled. “Get out of the street!”
Hunter didn’t stop.
“Damn it!” bellowed Bledsoe. “You ain’t got nothin’ to do with this!”
And still Hunter kept coming.
Bledsoe stiffened his back, took an imposing stance with his feet spread apart, letting his right hand dangle close to his gun butt and snarled, “Hold it right there!”
But Hunter ignored Bledsoe’s demand and kept right on coming.
Against Dave Bennett, the odds were stacked in Bledsoe’s favor, but against War Hunter, the bounty hunter had no clear-cut advantage. For Bledsoe to draw his gun might be to invite his own death. But then again, there was always the chance he could win. The bounty hunter had to decide if the risk was worth the gamble.
The look on Hunter’s face, his silence in the wake of Bledsoe’s demands, and then, finally, the way Hunter relentlessly coming at him, made Bledsoe stop and think just a second too long.
The bounty hunter’s indecision was a costly mistake. Whatever edge he might have had was lost. His concentration—and especially his nerve—was suddenly gone, and he knew it. But here he was, standing in the middle of the street, with War Hunter bearing down on him. What was he going to do?
Hunter was only twenty yards away and still coming. And then, finally, he spoke ...
“You’re wearing a gun. Let’s see if you’ve got the guts to use it!” They were the exact same words that Bledsoe had used to challenge Dave Bennett. Only now they were coming back at Bledsoe, mocking him.
Except Bledsoe wasn’t Bennett. The bounty hunter knew better than to accept the challenge. Then a clever idea occurred to him. He would simply unbuckle his gunbelt and let it fall. What could Hunter possibly do then?
Bledsoe showed a toothy smile as his holster dropped to the street. “Like I told you,” he said with a smirk, “My fight’s not with you.”
Bledsoe felt a bubble of panic deep inside his belly when he saw Hunter calmly draw his Navy Colt and keep on coming.
And now Hunter was less than ten yards away.
“I’m out of it!” Bledsoe protested.
Hunter was just five yards away and still coming, his pistol drawn and the muzzle casually aimed in the general direction of the bounty hunter’s head.
“Stay away from me!” screamed Bledsoe, “Stay away!” He couldn’t help it. He started to back away in fear.
That’s what Hunter had been waiting for—he wanted to make Bledsoe feel the fear that Bennett had felt—and he wanted everyone in Lost Creek to see it. That done, Hunter tossed his gun away.
Bledsoe watched as Hunter’s Colt hit the ground. Instantly, he stopped in his tracks, realizing how Hunter had buffaloed him, and with a white hot anger born of humiliation, he swung his right fist viciously at Hunter’s head.
But Hunter had anticipated Bledsoe’s reaction. In fact, he had hoped for it. Because once he blocked Bledsoe’s right cross with his forearm, Hunter had the satisfaction of hitting the bounty hunter with a stiff right jab, snapping Bledsoe’s head back and knocking him down.
“That was for the way you treated my woman,” Hunter told Bledsoe as he picked him off the ground. “And this,” he said, balling his right hand into a fist again, “is for what you did to young Bennett in front of those people.” So saying, he hit Bledsoe flush on the jaw, sending him spinning off to the side of the street where he finally fell, unconscious, in a small pile of horse shit.
When Hunter turned around to face the crowd, there was Del O’Connell. He had a big smile on his face and he was walking—as best he could after a full night of steady drinking—right up to Hunter.
“Isn’t it just like I told you?” he asked. “Didn’t I say something always happens at this spring dance to liven things up?”
“Yes you did,” agreed Hunter, patting O’Connell on the shoulder. “But I think the dance is just about over for you. If your wife doesn’t kill you in the morning, your hangover surely will.”
“Ah ... you’re wrong about that,” O’Connell impishly insisted. “At least about my wife, you’re wrong. You see I got her nippin’ on the bottle herself tonight, and it’s my guess that come tomorrow mornin’ she won’t even remember her own name.”
Hunter laughed and walked along with the stage driver up to the front door of the Town Hall. Ella wanted to run to Hunter but she couldn’t ... she was holding up Mrs. O’Connell.
“You take awful chances,” Ella sighed, shaking her head at Hunter.
“I do what I have to do,” he said quietly. “Now how about you turn Mrs. O’Connell over to Del.”
“Come here, honey,” said O’Connell, reaching for his wife.
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. O’Connell.
“I’m the feller you sleep with at night.”
“Oh?” she said with surprise. “Is that you?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well ... okay ... I guess I can go with you then.”
Hunter and Ella watched as the O’Connells walked unsteadily up the street.
“Think they’ll make it home?” asked Ella.
“Well, if they don’t, at least they’ll still be together.”
“Now there’s a romantic thought,” said Ella. “A hopelessly drunk couple collapsing together in some alley, and sleeping ’til dawn in each other’s arms. Lovely.”
“Speaking of sleeping, how’s Dave Bennett doing?” Hunter questioned.
“He’s okay. I left him with Ree when you came out here to entertain the crowd with your heroics.”
“Let’s go check on him. I want to apologize for hitting him like I did.”
But before they turned to go back in the hall, their attention was caught by the sight of a big, black coach with an eight-horse team that effortlessly rolled up the street and then stopped in front of the Lost Creek Hotel.
“Must be somebody pretty rich that can afford a private coach like that,” observed Hunter.
Ella was about to agree when the coach door opened and out stepped Clayton R. Scofield.
She recognized him at once. Turning a deathly pale, Ella clutched at Hunter’s arm out of instinct.
Hunter sensed the change in her. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“What? Oh. No ... no ... it’s just that it’s getting chilly ... and I’m tired. Can you apologize to Dave Bennett another time? I’d like to go home.”
“Sure. Whatever you say,” he said, unaware that her shivering was not from the cold but from the shock of so unexpectedly seeing the man who had brutally raped her when she was just sixteen years old.