‘This’ll do. Get down, Green.’
Dan’s command, when it came, was almost a relief after the endless tension of the miles they had ridden from town. Green turned to see the other deputy, Norris, unstrapping from behind his saddle a small folding shovel, such as the United States Cavalry carried on field expeditions.
‘Get down, I said!’ The repeated command was emphasized by a gesture with the shotgun. Green shrugged, and lifted his leg over the saddle horn, sliding down to the ground effortlessly despite his bound hands. As he did so, Dan covered him without dismounting, while Norris dismounted, dropped the shovel on the ground, and walking in a wide half-circle, never coming between the two men, sidled up behind Green.
‘Stick yore arms out behind yu,’ he ordered, and when Green complied, slashed the puncher’s bonds apart with two deft strokes of the knife. Green stood kneading the cramped muscles of his arms as Norris unhurriedly stepped backwards, away from him, as unhurriedly unhitched the shotgun from where it hung on the saddle horn by a leather loop, and covered Green as Dan dismounted.
Dan motioned towards the shovel. ‘Start diggin’,’ he told Green.
‘My arms is mighty cramped, boys,’ Green remonstrated. ‘Give me a minnit to get ’em workin’ again.’
‘Start diggin’,’ snapped Norris. ‘That oughta do it.’ He smiled evilly at his companion, who grinned back.
Green stretched his arms to their fullest extent. Then he placed his hands on his hips and faced his captors.
‘Yu boys aimin’ to kill me in cold blood?’
‘Dig!’ Again the gesture with the shotgun.
‘I’d as lief not bother,’ snapped Green. ‘If yo’re aimin’ to perforate me, I’m shore as hell not goin’ to dig my own grave.’
The man called Dan looked at his fellow deputy and put on a resigned expression.
‘Why do we allus get the argumentary ones?’ he asked.
‘Beats me,’ admitted Norris.
‘Yu reckon we can talk him out o’ his bad mood?’
Norris grinned evilly. ‘We could shore try. What yu wanta do? Shall I hold him, or will yu?’
Dan grinned. His thick, stubbled chin dropped, revealing broken teeth, and Green realized that the man was one of those bar room toughs who relished nothing more than beating a defenseless man, or a weaker one, into a bloody, whimpering pulp.
‘Just keep that cannon pointed at him, an’ move to the side a bit,’ grinned Dan. ‘I’ll see if I can’t talk him out o’ this bad mood he’s in. Make him a mite more co-operative.’
‘Yeah, yu do that. On’y leave some for me, Dan. Don’t go breakin’ his leg or nothin’.’
‘Shore, Jerry, shore,’ mumbled the deputy. He laid down his shotgun, while Green’s mind raced. The reference that Norris had just made: could it be that this was the man who had crippled the doctor, the one that Billy had told him about? His eyes narrowed; he had no time to think any more about it, for Dan was shambling forward.
‘C’mon, cowboy,’ he mouthed. ‘Give me an argyment.’
‘Shore,’ Green replied. ‘Let me just get my bearin’s.’ Gauging his distances carefully, the puncher took three rapid steps, bringing himself almost directly between Dan and Norris. With a curse, Norris dropped his indolent pose and skipped hastily to one side, trying to get a clear aim at Green, and yelling ‘Dan! Hit the floor, Dan!’ But even as the words left his lips, Green was moving forward, fast and hard and low, flinging himself directly into the arms of the lumbering Dan, who reacted exactly as Green had figured he would, by wrapping his huge arms about the body of the puncher and exerting a bone-cracking bear hug, designed to snap his enemy’s spine. An evil growl escaped his corded throat, and he was oblivious to his companions’ yells.
‘Drop him, Danny,’ yelled Norris. ‘Let him go, yu dumb ape! Let me get a shot at him.’
He danced to one side, the twin hammers of the shotgun fully cocked, as deadly as a barracuda. His shouts penetrated his sidekick’s murder-addled brain, and Dan shook his head angrily, realizing the trick that the puncher, now writhing in his punishing grip, had played on him. He loosened his grasp slightly, confused by Norris’ shouts, unsure of whether he had been tricked or not, and in that moment of loosening pressure, Green acted.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, he heaved upwards with his right hand cupped, the heel of his palm catching the deputy flush beneath his bearded jaw, racking his head back with a huge jolt, stunning even that great bear of a man and sending him flailing backwards, while Green fell away and sideways out of his grip, nicking Dan’s revolver out of the holster at his side, firing almost beneath Dan’s arm at the menacing figure of Jerry Norris. His shot took the deputy between the eyes, blasting the man backwards dead on his feet as Green hit the ground. Norris’ fingers tightened in muscular spasm on the twin triggers of the shotgun as he fell backwards, and the huge boom! of the twin cartridges was shocking in the silence of the badlands.
The shot from both barrels took Dan off his feet like a puppet thrown from a train, and he went over sidewards in a tattered heap, smashing into a pile of tumbled rocks and going over them in a welter of arms and legs.
Green picked himself warily up, the .45 cocked and ready in his hand. A quick glance at Norris showed that the man was dead, and Green moved carefully over to where Dan had tumbled across the rocks. The man lay in a shattered heap where he had fallen. Green shook his head.
‘Never thought yu’d fall for that one, boys,’ he managed. He picked up Norris’ shotgun and reloaded it, gathered up the other shotgun, stripped the gun belt from the fallen Norris, and strapped it on his own waist. The second .45 he stuck into his waistband.
‘Ain’t quite like havin’ my own guns,’ he said to nobody in particular. ‘But it shore is an improvement over an hour ago.’ He walked over to where the horses stood, eyes still rolling in fear from the explosions, blessing the training which had kept them ground-hitched despite their terror, by the trailing reins. In another moment he was mounted. His gaze fell upon the shovel, lying upon the ground, and then rose to the black, wheeling dots already circling in the sky. The buzzards always knew.
He hesitated for a long moment. Then he shook his head.
‘Yu boys knew what yu was gettin’ into,’ he said aloud. ‘I shore hate to do it, but…’
With a shrug he caught up the reins of his horse and thundered off without a backward glance, heading north. Behind him the buzzards floated down and settled in a live oak tree to wait in their eternal patience for the silence to return.