ACE LEVINE FEARED no man because every time he had been forced to stake his life on his guns, he’d come out a winner. It didn’t matter to him whether the losers were men fast with a gun or not. They’d taken their chances and lost. But despite an overbearing confidence in his own ability, the gunman had never considered himself any great shakes as a thinker. He always acted on impulse, and since he had reached the age of thirty years with only a few scars, he was content. He let men like Jay Denton do the thinking—and paying. It sufficed for him to have a rewarding chore to do, to get it done and move on. He had no firm loyalties to any man, claimed no kin anywhere, and had as his most firmly-rooted ambition, a desire to empty as many bottles of whiskey as he could.
Stopping on the rise which looked down on the Rushton house, he worked his gun up and down a few times in leather. Satisfied that no other preparation was needed to meet and match Buck Halliday, he eyed his companions coolly and said;
“All you have to do is watch my back, and if the woman gets in the way, do what you have to do.”
The two cowhands, who hadn’t figured out yet whether they had been lucky or not to have been singled out for this trip, made no comment. The night was quiet, the wind hot, and with any luck at all, they’d be hailed tomorrow as heroes. Apart from the thousand dollars Denton would pay them, it would allow them to claim a little more than the rest of the hands in future when it came to the sharing of the spoils.
Levine led the way down the slope and across the windswept clearing. He carefully checked out the whole place, the barn in particular, and when he drew rein at the hitchrail, unchallenged, he became noticeably uneasy.
“Might be a trick,” he muttered to himself. “Keep on your guard.”
Silently, he came out of the saddle and made his way onto the porch. When a board creaked under his boot, his right hand snatched out his gun so quickly, the cowhands were clearly impressed.
Levine stood stock-still, his gun leveled on the door, but when two minutes passed and the silence remained, he stepped to the door and turned the knob. Finding the door locked, he backed across the porch and tried to lift the window, but couldn’t budge it. Scowling, he swung off the porch and went down the side of the house to find that two more windows were secured, as was the back door. Impatient now, he stepped a yard away from the back door, then with a powerful shoulder charge, smashed it inward. Once inside the house, he hit the floor and stayed there, gun raised, every nerve in his body tense.
Out front, the cowhands were waiting with growing apprehension, but when silence again fell after Levine’s noisy entry, one called out;
“You okay, Ace?”
Levine didn’t answer, but rose to his feet and thumbed a match alight. Finding a lamp, he lit it. In the pale yellow glow, he found that the house was empty. Opening the front door, he called sullenly to the two men;
“Seems they’ve ridden out.”
The other cowhand looked toward the barn, and opined;
“Might be a trap, Ace.”
Levine shook his head, carried the lamp to his horse, and once in the saddle, spoke again. “No. The woman left the house tidy—everything inside is in its place. So I reckon after Wheeler’s visit, Halliday had her pack.”
“It won’t hurt to check out the barn though,” the second cowhand offered again.
Levine looked impatiently at him, but said, “Okay, do that. But I’m ridin’ on.”
“Where?”
“To town,” was Levine’s curt reply, and he hurled the lamp at the front door of the house.
As flames licked up the wall and quickly spread, he turned his horse around and heeled it into a run. The cowhands held a hurried consultation, decided Levine probably knew more about this kind of thing than they did, and raced after him.
For two hours they ate Levine’s dust and were sullen and on the point of revolt when the lights of Random Creek appeared before them.
Buck Halliday arranged with Ike Creevey for Larraine Rushton to have one of the upstairs rooms in the saloon. After the ride from the ranch, Larraine was tired, and although Halliday knew she needed to rest, he also felt he should get something settled. In the morning, Denton or no Denton, he meant to be on the trail out of here.
He waited with his back to the bedroom door as Larraine removed her coat, brushed her hair back, studied him a little uncertainly, and asked suddenly;
“What are you?”
Halliday shrugged but gave her no answer.
“Out there when those men came, you gave them no chance. I watched from the window. When you killed them, you acted as if you’d done nothing more than blown out a match. Their deaths had no effect on you whatsoever.”
“They came to kill me,” he told her quietly.
Larraine shook her head and the yellow lamplight gleamed from her blonde hair. Halliday recalled the time he had run his fingers through that silky hair and felt her warm breath on his neck. He remembered how her fingers had dug into his back.
“How do you know that? The first one only seemed to want to talk.”
“He was supposed to keep me busy while the others got around behind me,” Halliday told her. “Their scheme was to get rid of me, then throw you off the ranch. Have you forgotten already what they did to your father and brother?”
“I will never forget that,” Larraine said furiously to him.
Halliday smiled easily at her. “They died defending their ranch, wanting to hold onto what was theirs. Yet you didn’t take much convincing to walk away from it tonight.”
Larraine pulled her blouse tighter about her slender body and her mouth went tight.
“Did you expect me to stay out there with you when you had already killed two men? What do you think I am?”
Halliday reached behind him and opened the door. Larraine looked suddenly unnerved again, and fear filled her beautiful eyes as she took a quick step toward him and grabbed him by the arm.
“You’re not going, are you? What if they come again, possibly with Denton himself?”
“You’ll be safe here,” he said, removing her hand. “Anyway, I won’t be far away.”
“Stay here,” she said, and again tried to grab his arm. “Please, Buck, stay. I don’t want to be alone ... not tonight.”
Halliday eased her back into the room and closed the door. He held the knob as she tried to turn it and only when she gave up trying and he heard her footsteps cross the room, did he release his hold and head for the stairs. He felt as if by closing the door he was ending another chapter in his life. He scrubbed a hand resignedly across the back of his neck. It had happened before. He didn’t doubt that it would happen again.
He went down to the bar and ordered a double whiskey.