The rain stopped in the evening. Stryker posted armed sentries and the Circle C crew turned in early. When the sun lifted not a trace of cloudiness remained in the sky. The crew rode out to begin the fall roundup, carrying their buffalo guns—and Howard Cotten, worried but sober, told Stryker no one had seen any sign of young Vern since supper last night.
Stryker was saddling his buckskin, not looking forward to a time-consuming search when a horseman thundered into the yard. His shouted curses reached all the way into the stable. Stryker had no trouble identifying Vern’s voice.
He tramped outside and found Vern dismounting, red-faced and enraged. He was soaked to the skin. Mud was caked on his clothes and on the horse. Vern swept off his hat. His hair was matted down and his hat was waterlogged.
He saw Stryker and exploded.
“That damn son of a bitch is sittin’ down there, laughing at us. I didn’t have a chance to fight—he had die drop on me before I even got there.”
“All right,” Stryker said mildly. “Now simmer down and tell it from the beginning so we can all get mad.”
Vern took a deep breath. He stood draining water into a growing pool at his feet. He looked as disreputable as a half-drowned dog with hair in its eyes as he wiped his face with a pawing hand and heaved another great breath, making a great show of getting himself under control.
Finally he said, “That gunslinger, what’s his name—Hamlin, Hanson, something like that?”
“Lloyd Handy?”
“Yeah, him. The skinny one with all the guns. He’s camped down at Rock Ford.”
Stryker saw the news register on Howard Cotten and on Adriana.
Vern said, “Like you said they’d do it. Handy’s strung a rope across the ford and a sign as big as a house that says no trespassing. He comes out of the trees at me with both guns. I felt like I was looking down a pair of tunnels going straight into hell. He tells me the road’s closed—it’s his private homestead and he don’t want nobody crossing his land. Made me leave my guns. I had to back away and come around. Damn near got sucked under, crossing in that sand. Horse and me both fell down a couple times and I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it.”
Stryker’s only comment was, “I’m surprised they’ve started this soon. Madrid knows our herd won’t be ready to cross the river for a while. Something’s hurrying him. A personal challenge? Lloyd Handy thinks he’s fast enough to cut me down, face to face—and Madrid’s sent him down there like an engraved invitation.”
Howard Cotten said, “There’s no reason why we should give them the satisfaction of accepting.”
Vern said, “To hell with Madrid and his invitations. I say we round up the crew and get down there right now and blast Handy off that so-called homestead of his.”
“No,” Stryker said. “The crew’s gone out on roundup. We’d waste a day’s work and maybe get men killed if we handled it that way. If Handy gets himself well forted up he can do a lot of damage—and that’s what he’ll do if he’s forced into a corner by a big crew.”
“You said yourself we’d have him outranged,” Vern said. “He couldn’t touch us.”
“I know Lloyd,” Stryker said. “He’s got more sense than most of them. He’d fort up where we’d have to come in close just to get at him.”
Howard Cotten said, “I don’t want any of my men shot in unnecessary fighting. If Handy’s still there when we get ready to cross with the herd—we’ll take him on then. But not now.”
Adriana observed, “It would save us all a lot of trouble if he got bitten by a rattlesnake and died all by himself.”
Her father said, “Charity, daughter.”
“Charity begins at home, Dad.”
Stryker was on his way back to the barn.
Vern yelled at him, “Where you think you’re going?”
“To mind my own business,” Stryker answered and disappeared into the stable.
Making no effort to conceal himself, Stryker rode boldly down toward the river. The glint of sunlight on metal was suggestion enough that Lloyd Handy had seen him. Stryker kept both hands in plain sight, rode through the fringe of trees and stopped on the north bank of the river. His gaze locked across Rock Ford.
Lloyd Handy stepped into sight beside the trunk of a cottonwood across the river.
“Morning, Nat.”
Handy’s gaunt face looked like a long-eared dog’s.
Stryker listened to the muted ripple of the water. The river was quiet, gentle—there had not been enough heavy rain to swell it. He did not have to raise his voice when he talked across the river to Handy.
“Got your homestead papers filed, Lloyd?”
“All legal and proper.” Handy stood loose, a Winchester .44-40 carbine held in a casual grasp. The pose was deceptive. Handy was in position to whip the carbine through a brief arc and fire with blinding speed. But his wide lips played with a sad little smile and he made no gesture of violence.
Stryker said, “Just for the record, you know how this stands, don’t you? Circle C owns a right of way across that homestead of yours. Right of prior use.”
“I don’t understand them kind of legal words,” Handy said. “You’ll have to ride down to Santa Fe and find a judge who’s got time to come up here and explain all that to me. Meantime, all I know is I got a right to keep trespassers off my property.”
Stryker nodded. Behind Handy, partly hidden by trees, stood a small structure. It had not been there before.
He said, “You built that fort in a hurry.”
“I had some help from the boys last night.”
“Pretty good fort?”
“Pretty good,” Handy agreed. “You’d have to use blasting powder to get me out of it. But I’ve got a good field of fire from inside. I can hit anything that tries to move across my land.”
“Smart,” Stryker said.
His eyes retained a casual expression as he measured with exact care the distance across the river. His mind, while he talked, computed the range and the wind and the little bit of elevation that were involved in the two or three feet of difference between the levels of the banks. And it was clear to him as he watched Handy that Handy’s practiced brain was making the same calculations.
Stryker said, “There are two ways to finish this, Lloyd. Either we have at it here and now or I ride back up the hill and you take cover inside that rat trap of yours. It will take me longer to blast you out from inside but sooner or later I’ll get it done. Which way do you want it?”
Handy’s smile hardened.
“Well, Nat—I’ll put it to you like this. There’s just one thing standing between my boss and that dirt you’re on and that one thing is you. I got no quarrel with the Circle C crew and I sure don’t want to stand a siege from inside that cubbyhole unless I have to. Now—I figure I always was just a hair faster than you with a gun. You always put on like the toughest nut in the forest but I never quite believed that. Anyhow, I’ve got kind of an edge, I reckon. Because if you knock me down there’ll just come another one like me to take my place. On the other hand if I knock you down—there ain’t nobody at all to fill your boots. Which maybe makes you a little more anxious about the whole thing than you might be.”
“Sure of that, are you, Lloyd?”
“Sure enough to give it a try,” Handy said. “But I never had nothing against you personally, Nat. I’d like you to know that before I kill you.”
Stryker said, “That’s all right. But I guess I don’t feel the same way. I figure any man who hires out to somebody like Madrid has gone into it with his eyes open. He’s got to expect hard feelings. You can’t lie down with dogs without getting up with fleas.”
Handy’s deep bass voice chuckled.
“I ain’t mad at you, Nat, and you ain’t going to get me mad by talking that way. A man shouldn’t get mad with a gun in his hand—plays hell with a steady aim.” He smiled. “Kind of makes the hill high to climb, don’t it, Nat?”
The wind touched Stryker’s face. He could feel on his cheek the direction from which it came-—downriver, hot and steamy. The sun lacing down through the trees made a misty mother-of-pearl light over the river and the ever-stirring shadows of leaves made Handy a slightly uncertain target.
Moving without hurry, Handy set his carbine down against the tree and stepped toward the river, arms swinging free past his holsters. The sun glanced off the silver studs in his fancy belt. His hawk face was poked a little forward, intent and alert. With the shifting shadows behind him he looked skeletal, almost ghostly.
Coming to a widespread stance, Handy said, “Just to make it all even—I want to try you on with short guns.”
“Suit yourself,” Stryker droned.
With no particular excitement he kept watch for Handy’s first move. He found no challenge in gunfights any more, no pride or vitality—killing was a chore he hated more than he hated anything on earth.
Watching so closely that he hardly breathed, Stryker saw Lloyd Handy’s right shoulder rise no more than a quarter of an inch.
On that signal he drew and fired.
The two shots mingled together in echo. Stryker felt a hard, jarring blow strike something.
He saw his bullet tilt Handy and watched Handy’s gun drop, smoking, to the full length of Handy’s arm. It hung there just a moment and then slid out of his fingers to the ground.
Handy’s face was still poked forward and he began to frown.
Stryker said, “Take out your left-hand gun and drop it on the ground, unless you want to try with that one too.”
Handy shook his head. His right arm bled heavily.
He said, “I think you busted my elbow, Nat.”
“That’s what I aimed for.”
Under Stryker the horse stirred, shifted a pace to the left—it felt a little rocky. Stryker had to keep all his attention and his gun on Lloyd Handy while Handy slowly dropped his second revolver to the earth and stepped back.
When the horse began to crumple Stryker kicked his feet free of the stirrups and jumped. He landed catlike on both feet, gun ready, but Lloyd Handy had not moved.
The big buckskin folded upon the riverbank, becoming an awkward dead heap on the earth.
Stryker said, “Poor aim, Lloyd. You killed a hell of a good horse on me.”
“Then I guess I ought to apologize,” Handy said. “This hurts like hell, Nat.”
“Any more guns around here?”
“Just the ones you see. My carbine and the six-guns.”
“Your word?”
“Yes,” said Handy. “I got no more iron around here.” Stryker said, “Then I’ll want your word on one more thing.”
“I reckon you bought yourself that privilege.”
“You ride straight into town and get yourself doctored—and then you’ll head straight out of the country. You don’t go looking for Buck Madrid or any of his men and if you see them you don’t talk to them. You’ll ride out and you won’t come back as long as I’m alive and Buck Madrid’s alive.”
Handy’s face worked into a grimace of pain.
“You got my word on that, Nat. You gave me my life and I’ll give you that much in return. I was wrong about being a hair faster. You had me dead to rights.”
“Seems so.”
Handy reached around left-handed to grasp his injured arm.
He asked, “How come you took a chance and didn’t go for dead center?”
“Maybe I’m tired of seeing men die.”
“That’s the kind of soft thinking that can get you killed premature,” Lloyd Handy warned. “But I’m glad now I wasn’t the one to do the killing. I’ve killed a few too many myself. You get so you can’t stand to stay in one place very long.”
“I know,” Stryker said softly. “Get your horse, Lloyd. Put it in the saddle.”
“Sure enough,” said Lloyd Handy and turned slowly back through the trees.
Stryker put his revolver away and bent down to strip the saddle from his dead horse. He gave the animal a long look and thought that now the only tie he had with his past was the gun in his holster.