Elmer Kelton
This collection would not have been complete without a story by Kelton, who has been voted by the Western Writers of America as the greatest living western writer. Since 1999 he has been writing a series of novels describing the formative years of the Texas Rangers. The first three books have been collected in Lone Star Rising, which includes The Buckskin Line, The Badger Boy, and Way of the Coyote. The story included here was written in 1967, one of Kelton’s earlier Texas Rangers tales. His newest novel is Shadow of a Star.
The two horsemen came west over the deep-rutted wagon road from Austin, their halterless Mexican pack mule following like a dog, its busy ears pointing toward everything which aroused its active curiosity.
Frontier Texans always said they could recognize a real peace officer a hundred yards away and a Texas Ranger as far as they could see him. Sergeant Duncan McLendon was plainly a Ranger, though he customarily wore his badge pinned out of sight inside his vest. He rode square-shouldered and straight-backed, his feet braced firmly in the stirrups of his Waco saddle. He wore a flat-brimmed hat and high-topped black boots with big-roweled Petmecky spurs. His gray eyes were pinched and crow-tracked at the corners, and they pierced a man like a brace of Bowie knives.
Those eyes moved restlessly, missing little. Quietly, without turning his head, he spoke to Private Billy Hutto. “Two men yonder in that liveoak motte.”
Hutto, in his early twenties and as yet simply a cowboy with a commission, let his hand ease cautiously toward the Colt .45 his Ranger wages were still paying for. “I see them. Reckon they’re with us or agin us?”
Firmly McLendon said: “We’re not here to be with anybody or agin anybody. We’ve come to arrest one man and stop a feud.”
The two men did not follow, but the grim frown never stopped tugging at the corners of McLendon’s gray-salted black mustache. It was still there when they skirted the crest of a chalky hill and came in sudden view of the ugly sprawl of picket shacks and rock cabins known as Cedarville.
Disappointment tinged Billy Hutto’s voice. “I sure thought there’d be more to it than this.”
It was common knowledge from here to the Pedernales River that Cedarville had stolen the county seat by voting all its dogs and most of its jackrabbits in the election. McLendon said: “For what it is, there’s more than enough.” Maybe next election the courthouse would go to somebody else.
For now, though, the courthouse was here, a frame structure long and narrow, facing a nondescript row of stone and cedar picket and liveoak-log buildings that dealt in all manner of merchandise but specialized in hard drink, by the shot or by the jug. Beside the courthouse squatted a flat-roofed stone jail which appeared more solidly built. The kind of prisoners they brought in here, it had better be. McLendon pointed his chin. “This is where we’ll likely find Sheriff Prather.”
He swung down and stretched his back and his legs, for it had been a long ride. He cast one wishful glance at a saloon, for it had been a dusty ride, too. But drink had to wait. He looped his reins over a cedar-log hitching rack and pointed at the pack mule, which swiveled its neck as its curious eyes and ears took in the sights. “Tie the mule, Billy. She’ll be all over town stirrin’ up mischief.”
A broad man with the beginnings of a middle-age paunch stepped to the open doorway, darkly eying McLendon and Hutto with a look just short of actual hostility. “Rangers?”
McLendon nodded. “I’m Sergeant McLendon. This is Billy Hutto.”
“Where’s the rest of you?”
“We’re all there is.”
“I asked for a whole company. We got bad trouble here.”
“The two of us is all that was available. The legislature saw fit to cut the Ranger appropriations. I take it you’re Sheriff Prather.”
The man was not pleased. “I am. Come on in.” He dropped into a heavy chair behind a wooden desk without inviting the Rangers to be seated. Noting the snub and filing it away for future reference, McLendon dragged up a hide-bottomed chair. He gave Billy a silent order with a nod of his head, and the young man stood in the doorway to keep watch on the street.
The sheriff bit the end off a black cigar and lighted it without offering one. “You come to kill Litt Springer?”
“We come to arrest him.”
“There’ll be no peace in this county till he’s dead. But I didn’t much figure you Rangers would have the stomach for it. Didn’t really want to call in the Rangers in the first place, but folks in town pressured me.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You’re sidin’ with him because he was a Ranger himself.”
“Was!” McLendon put emphasis on the word. “He’s not anymore. We’ll treat him like anybody else if he’s committed a crime.”
“If?” The sheriff exploded. “Damn right he’s committed a crime. Why the hell do you think folks wanted to send for help? He murdered my deputy, Ed Newton.”
“Any witnesses?”
“One. Freighter comin’ up from Menardville seen the whole thing. You can doubt the citizens of Cedarville if you want to, but that freighter’s got no friends here, and no ax to grind. Your friend Litt Springer is a cold-blooded killer.”
Billy Hutto turned from the door, face red. “Way I heard it, Sheriff, he had a good reason.”
McLendon said sharply: “Billy, you just keep watch. I’ll talk to the sheriff.” He rubbed his fist as if a pain had come in it. “The story we heard was that Litt’s brother Ollie was arrested on some jumped-up horse-stealin’ charge, and that your deputy turned him over to a hangin’ mob.”
“Aroused citizens!” the sheriff corrected. His eyes did not meet McLendon’s. “Anyway, my deputy tried to protect his prisoner. There was just too many of them.”
Billy Hutto snorted, and McLendon had to flash him another hard look. McLendon said: “Sheriff, our information was that Litt has gathered a bunch of friends around him and that there’s danger of open warfare between them and the people here who back the mob. Our orders are to arrest him and take him to Austin.”
“To Austin?” The sheriff stood up angrily. “If you arrest him you’ll bring him here! His crime was committed here. It’s the right of this community to see justice done. We’ll give him a fair trial.”
“And then hang him?”
“You damn betcha. Unless you was to shoot him first and be done with it. That’d be the best thing for all concerned.”
McLendon’s eyes narrowed. “I understand you’ve been tryin’ to shoot him, and you’ve had no luck at it.”
“That’s a tough bunch he’s got gathered. We can’t get close.”
“We’ll get close.”
“And fall right in with him, no doubt, seein’ as he was a Ranger himself.” The sheriff savagely chewed the cigar. “Was he a personal friend of yours, McLendon?”
McLendon stood up and pushed his chair back. “He was sergeant before I was. We rode together.”
The sheriff sniffed. “About the way I had it pictured. Folks ought to’ve known we wouldn’t get no help out of Austin.”
Coldly McLendon opened his vest and showed the star pinned beneath it. “We’re Rangers, Sheriff. That comes first—before friends, and before enemies. Come on, Billy, let’s ride.”
He knew the way out to Litt Springer’s place on the north end of the county. He had visited there a couple of times after Litt had resigned from the force and had bought it. Litt had tried to talk him into doing the same, and many a long night under a thin blanket and a frosty moon he’d done some serious thinking on it.
He drew his rifle and laid it across his lap. Billy Hutto’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Litt ain’t goin’ to bushwhack us.”
“He’s got friends who don’t know us. They might.”
Billy Hutto swallowed and brought out his saddle-gun too.
But they saw no one anywhere along the wagon trail that meandered lazily among the hills and across the mesquite-lined draws. Even so, McLendon was sure their passage had not gone unnoticed. At dusk they drew rein in front of Litt’s liveoak-log house. A thin curl of smoke drifted out of the stone chimney. Though he knew within reason that Litt wouldn’t be there, McLendon called anyway. “Litt! Litt! It’s me, Duncan McLendon!” Nobody could accuse him of sneaking in.
A face showed briefly behind a narrow window. The door opened hesitantly, and a woman stood there, a woman of thirty who looked forty, her eyes vacant and without hope. “He’s not here, Duncan.”
McLendon swung slowly to the ground and took off his hat. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me where he’s at?”
She shook her head. “Are you here to visit, or is this official?”
“Official, Martha. I wish it wasn’t.”
She stared at the Rangers a long, uncertain moment. “Come in, Duncan. I’ll fix you some supper.”
Billy Hutto dismounted, smiling. He was always hungry. McLendon said: “Billy, you stay out here and watch. I’ll tell you when supper’s ready.”
He followed Martha Springer into the small cabin, hat in hand. It was all one room, kitchen on one side, table in the middle, bed at the other end. McLendon doubted Litt had been in that bed much lately.
“It grieves me to come here this way, Martha.”
“They want to kill him, Duncan.”
“I know. And they’ll do it if he stays out long enough. If I can arrest him, he’ll have a chance. He’s got friends in Austin.”
She shrugged futilely. “What good would it do? This thing has been building a long time. Their stealin’ the county seat was a part of it. Then what happened to Ollie. Now this.” Her lips pinched. “Litt killed that deputy, just like they say. He doesn’t deny it. He rode over there and found him and shot him. What’s more, he’s got a list of names in his pocket. He says he’s going to kill the rest of them too.”
“The people who hung Ollie?”
She nodded.
McLendon’s stomach went cold. He hadn’t heard about the list.
Martha Springer rolled a slice of steak in a panful of flour. “This country’s been like a keg of powder ever since the county seat election. If Litt does what he says, he’ll set off the fuse. There won’t be a stop to it till they fill up the graveyard.”
McLendon’s face twisted. “He ought to know better. He was a Ranger long enough to understand how things go wild thataway.”
Tears welled up before she blinked them away. “That’s just it, Duncan, he was a Ranger a long time. Do you have any idea how many people he killed in the line of duty?”
He looked away. Yes, he knew, but he didn’t know if she did, and he wasn’t about to tell her. “Several. It was his job.”
“It got too easy for him. The first time or two, it bothered him. After that…” She shook her head. “He should’ve gotten out a long time before he did.” Her gaze came back to him. “You get out, Duncan. Don’t you stay in there till it’s too late for you too.”
Billy Hutto came through the door. McLendon turned. “Billy, I wanted you to stay…” He cut off in mid-sentence, for he saw that Billy’s holster was empty. And he saw a tall, gaunt man step in behind Billy, pistol in his hand.
“Howdy, Dunk.”
“Hello, Litt.” McLendon made no move for his own pistol. He couldn’t make it anyway if Litt Springer didn’t intend him to. And he wasn’t ready to test Litt’s resolve. Other people had done that with disastrous consequences.
Springer held his empty left hand out, palm up. “I believe I’d best just take your six-shooter, Dunk. At least till we’ve had us a little talk.” His voice was pleasant, but a hardness showed in his eyes—a hardness some border bandidos had learned they had good cause to fear.
“I’m not in the habit of givin’ up my gun.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m your friend. I wouldn’t shoot you, Dunk.”
“I’m your friend, too.”
“But you’re still a Ranger. Let’s have it.”
McLendon eased the .45 out of the slick holster and carefully handed it over butt first. Springer pointed his chin at the chair. “Set yourself back down, Dunk. I’m awful proud to get to see you again. I take it Martha’s fixin’ you some supper. I’m hungry too.”
“You haven’t been home much lately?”
Springer shook his head. “We got enough help to keep a posse out, but there’s not enough to guard against a single man sneakin’ in here in the dark and maybe shootin’ from ambush. I’m not ready to die yet.”
“You will die, Litt, if you stay here and keep this thing goin’. Sooner or later one of them is bound to get you. That’s why we’ve come. We want you to go with us to Austin. We’ll get this thing cleared up.”
“Too late. I’ve killed a man now. I’d just as well go on and finish what I’ve started.”
“I heard about your list. You think killin’ those men is goin’ to solve anything? All it’ll do is open up a war.”
“They opened a war the day they took Ollie and strung him up. Called him a thief, but it was a lie. They hated him because he tried to keep them from stealin’ the courthouse. They knew he’d keep on fightin’ them and maybe get the election recalled. That’d be the death of Cedarville.”
“You didn’t have to take it on yourself to start killin’ them, Litt. You been a Ranger long enough to know you could go to the law.”
“They are the law in this country. You been a Ranger long enough to know how it goes when a mob like that takes over the law. You know it usually takes force to root them out, and that force ain’t always used accordin’ to the statutes. These hills are a long ways from an Austin law library.”
McLendon studied his old friend regretfully. Litt seemed thinner, older, grayer. There was more of a fierceness in his eyes now than McLendon remembered seeing there before. “We come to take you back with us. I’d hoped I could talk you into it. But if I can’t, we’ll use force, Litt. You know I mean what I say.”
Litt Springer’s gaze was level. “I know you’ll try. But you know I got help out there. Even if I didn’t have your gun—which I do—you couldn’t take me out of here against my will. They’d stop you.”
McLendon had no answer to that. Springer’s gaze lifted to his wife, who was putting food on the table. She moved numbly as if she had already given up and was shutting the world out. Springer said: “Dunk, you and Billy set yourselves down and we’ll eat.”
They ate, and the tension lifted a little. Litt Springer’s eyes lighted and smiled as he talked of the old days on the Ranger force. “Remember that time we went out to trail those Comanches, Dunk, and you took the midnight watch and saw that Indian standin’ in the moonlight and shot him? And shot him, and shot him? And in the mornin’ we found that tree stump with all those bullet holes in it?”
McLendon nodded, spirits lighter as he remembered. “And that time, Litt, when you were takin’ a nap in winter camp on the San Saba, and a couple of us climbed up on the roof and dropped a handkerchief full of gunpowder down the chimney to wake you up? Like to’ve blown you through the wall.”
Springer laughed. “Remember, they used to say that us Rangers could ride like a Mexican, trail like an Indian, shoot like a Tennessean and fight like the devil.”
They sat there and spun old yarns as if nothing had come between them. Billy Hutto was too young on the force to add to the conversation. He just listened, grinning, holding his silence out of respect for the two older men whose experience was greater than his own.
After a while Litt began recounting the story of his long, dogged hunt for an outlaw named Thresher who had killed a Ranger. His smile died, and his eyes went grim as he recounted the days and weeks and months of tireless searching, the long miles and the hardship and the sacrifice. “They ordered me to quit. They threatened to discharge me from the service if I didn’t drop the search and get on to other things. But I told them the man he’d killed was a friend of mine, and I’d go on and hunt him whether I was a Ranger or not. I swore I’d get him, and I did. I shot him like he’d been a wolf. That’s what he was, really…just a wolf.”
McLendon frowned. “This thing now, this thing with the mob from Cedarville…it’s the Thresher case all over again, isn’t it?”
Hatred came into Springer’s eyes. “Just like that. I won’t quit till the last one of them is dead.”
“Nothin’ I say is goin’ to stop you, is it?”
“Not a thing, Dunk.”
“Then stand warned, Litt. I’ll be comin’ after you. I’ll stop you whatever way I have to.”
Litt Springer stared at him in regret. “I’m sorry it’s thisaway, Dunk. We been friends a long time. But all I can say is, you watch out for yourself. I don’t intend to be stopped.” He stood up and backed away from the table. “There’s a wagon out yonder by the barn. I’ll drop your shootin’ irons in there where you can pick them up.” His eyes lifted a moment to Martha’s, then he backed out the door into the night. McLendon could hear his boots pounding across the yard. He moved to the door but couldn’t see. He could hear the clatter of the guns falling into the bare wooden bed of the wagon. From out there came the sound of horse’s hooves, loping slowly off into the night. McLendon listened, his hands shoved all the way down into his pockets.
Billy Hutto said, “We can’t follow him in the dark, can we, Dunk?”
McLendon shook his head. “No. We’ll wait till first light and pick up the tracks.” He turned back to Litt’s wife. “It was a good supper, Martha. I wish I could say I’d enjoyed it. I reckon we’ll sleep in the barn. We won’t disturb you, gettin’ out of here in the mornin’.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “You won’t disturb me. I haven’t slept since I don’t know when.”
They were up as soon as the first color showed over the twisted old live oak trees east of the barn. It was still too dark to see the tracks well, but soon as he satisfied himself of their direction, McLendon started out. Billy Hutto followed him silently, and the mule trailed after them. Not until long after sunup did McLendon call a halt by a small creek so they could boil coffee and fix a little breakfast. Billy Hutto had been holding his silence, but it had been an effort.
“Dunk, I always liked Litt. You knew him a lot longer than I did, and you liked him even more. So, what you goin’ to do if you finally catch up with him?”
McLendon was slow in answering. “I’ll know when I get there.”
“You said you’d do whatever you had to. Does that mean you’d even shoot him?”
“I hope it won’t go that far.”
“But what if it does? Would you shoot him, Dunk? Could you?”
McLendon gave no answer. He didn’t know the answer.
The tracks bore generally eastward. It didn’t take much concentration to follow them, for in the night no effort had been made to cover them up. The morning wore away, the sun climbing into a cloudless blue sky. Riding, watching the tracks, McLendon occasionally took out his pocketwatch, verifying what the sun told him. About ten o’clock he reined up, shaking his head.
“Looks like he’s ridin’ plumb out of the county, Billy. That don’t hardly figure.”
Billy Hutto had no comment. He sat on his horse, his face solemn. McLendon stared at him a moment, as if waiting. When he saw Billy was going to have nothing to say, he moved on. Presently he came to a place where the rider had stepped down for a few minutes. McLendon dismounted and examined the tracks, running his finger along the edge of a bootprint.
“Billy, did you notice Litt’s boots last night?”
“Don’t know as I did. Why?”
“Seems to me he had high, sharp heels—cowboy heels. These are rounder, and flatter.” He looked up expectantly. “What does that suggest to you, Billy?”
Billy was slow in answering. A smile played about his lips. “That Litt run in a ringer on us. He never left his place. We been followin’ somebody else.”
McLendon pushed stiffly to his feet. “It couldn’t be that you’ve known it all along, could it?”
Billy Hutto shook his head. “I begun to suspect it awhile back, but I didn’t know.”
McLendon’s eyes narrowed. “Seems to me Litt Springer slipped up on you awful easy last night. Could it be that you made it easy for him?”
Billy tried to appear surprised, but to McLendon he looked more like a kid caught swimming while school was on. McLendon pressed: “Billy, did you talk with Litt outside the house, before you-all came in?”
“A little while, Dunk.”
“And he didn’t tell you he was fixin’ to do this?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Where do you reckon Litt would be right now?”
Billy’s smile was gone. He took off his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead onto his sleeve. “Could be he’s over somewhere around Cedarville, scratchin’ names off of that list. With this, on top of the things he did tell me, it kind of adds up.”
McLendon closed his eyes, a helpless anger swelling in him. “You better tell me all of it, Billy, and tell me quick.”
Billy Hutto didn’t look at McLendon. His gaze was on the ground. “He said we’d come a day too early for him. Said if we’d come a day later he’d of finished what he intended to do and it wouldn’t make no difference anymore. Said he had a bunch comin’ to help him. He was goin’ to ride over to Cedarville and bait that sheriff to come after him. He was goin’ to lead him into a box, him and everybody from town who went with him.”
“The sheriff?”
“The sheriff’s right at the top of Litt’s list. Seems like he told that deputy the mob would be along, and to let them have Ollie Springer.”
McLendon’s voice was taut. “Billy, I thought you were a Ranger.”
“I am. But I’m a friend of Litt Springer’s, too.”
“Right now you can’t be both. Which way is it goin’ to be?”
A stubborn anger flared in Billy. “That bunch of rattlesnakes…old Litt’s got a right to do what he’s doin’.”
“Not by law.”
“Law be damned. There’s times the law is wrong.”
McLendon turned and looked regretfully over their backtrail. “I know. But it’s still the law. You better go to Austin, Billy.”
Billy was incredulous. “And leave you?”
“I don’t want a man with me unless he’s with me all the way. You took an oath, Billy. If you can’t live up to it you better turn that badge in.”
Billy stared at him, not believing at first. Finally he shrugged. “All right, Dunk. But he’s your friend too.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that.” McLendon unpacked the mule and took what little he thought he would have to have. He tied the meager supplies on his saddle, swung up, and reined toward Cedarville in a long trot, alone.
The temptation was strong to push the horse into a hard lope, to rush for Cedarville. But it was a long way, and a horse ridden too hard might not make it. Years of Ranger experience had taught McLendon restraint. He had spent as much as two days carefully following an Indian trail, always within striking distance but always holding back, waiting for the right place and the right moment. Once he had spent three weeks patiently tracking a Mexican border jumper who, if not pressed or alarmed, would eventually lead him to the headquarters of an entire bandido operation.
All manner of images blazed in his mind, things that could be happening in Cedarville, or somewhere out among these limestone hills. But McLendon held himself back. He would swing into an easy lope for a way, then ease down to a trot, putting the miles behind him much too slowly.
Well past noon, he rode down Cedarville’s dusty street and found it quiet. Hearing the ring of a hammer, he reined in at a blacksmith shop. The blacksmith was shaping a shoe against an anvil. Leaning out of the saddle, McLendon called, “You seen the sheriff?”
The grimy blacksmith pointed with the tongs, the hot shoe still gripped in them. “That Litt Springer, he showed up at the edge of town this mornin’. Sheriff got a few men together and took out after him. Last I seen, they disappeared yonderway.”
McLendon rode in a wide arc until he came across a trail he took to be the posse’s. Spacing and depth of the tracks indicated the horses had been running. He put his horse into an easy lope. Trailing was no effort. He could have followed this one in the middle of the night. An hour later he brought the horse to a stop. The warm wind had carried a sharp sound. He dismounted to get away from the saddle’s creak so he could hear better. Presently it came again. A gunshot. And another.
Litt’s working on that list, he thought darkly. He remounted. This time he didn’t hold back. He spurred into a hard lope and held it. Damn it, Litt, why couldn’t you have listened?
Ahead lay a range of broken hills, and amid those hills, a gap. McLendon could see horses, a single rider herding them a short way from the gap, away from the angle of fire. He halted awhile, studying the layout, determining where Litt and his men were scattered, and where the posse seemed to be bottled up in that gap. The firing was sporadic, just an occasional shot fired by one side or the other.
McLendon paused, looking at the gap but not really seeing it, listening to the shots but not really hearing them. He was seeing other battlegrounds, and other times. He was seeing a Litt Springer far different from the one down yonder.
He brought the rifle up from its scabbard, levered a cartridge into the breech, and lay the rifle across his lap. He unpinned the badge from inside his vest and transferred it to the outside where no one could miss seeing it. Good target, he thought. But it had been used for a target before. Gently he touched spurs to the horse and moved into an easy trot again.
The horse herder rode forward, six-shooter in his hand. He wasn’t a man, McLendon saw; he was only a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. The boy stopped squarely in McLendon’s path, the pistol aimed but the barrel wavering. The boy’s voice was unsteady. “Ranger, ain’t you? Litt won’t be wantin’ you in there.”
“I’m goin’ in there, son. I’m going to see Litt.” McLendon kept riding, gazing unflinchingly into the boy’s eyes. He could see uncertainty. “Son, you move out of my way.”
“Ranger, I’m tellin’ you…”
McLendon didn’t slow. He kept staring the boy down. The boy’s horse turned aside, the boy trying to rein him back around. McLendon rode past. He never turned his head, but he could feel the gun aimed at his back. He tensed, but he was almost certain—the boy wouldn’t fire.
He rode into the opening of the gap. Now he could see Litt’s men, perhaps a dozen of them, scattered among the rocks. He couldn’t see the sheriff’s crowd, for they were keeping their heads down, but he could tell where they would be. A man turned and saw McLendon, and he swung his rifle to cover him.
McLendon said evenly, “I come to see Litt.”
“Ranger, you got no business here.”
“I come to see Litt.”
A call went down the line. Presently McLendon saw Litt Springer moving toward him, crouching to present less of a target to the men bottled up back yonder. Litt straightened when he thought he was past the point of danger. He walked out, flanked by a couple of his backers, carrying rifles. Litt looked surprised. “Wasn’t expectin’ you, Dunk. Thought you’d still be followin’ that false trail. Where’s Billy Hutto?”
“I sent him to Austin to turn his badge in.”
Litt frowned. “I’m sorry about that. He’s a good boy, Billy is. He’d of been an asset to the force.”
“Not if he couldn’t learn to put duty first. And he couldn’t.”
Litt’s eyebrows knitted. “But you do, don’t you, Dunk? Duty always come first with you.”
“The day it doesn’t, I’ll turn in my own badge.”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Dunk. Most of the men we got hemmed down was with that mob the day they hung Ollie. This is as far as they’re goin’ to go.”
“I told you before, Litt, leave it to the law. Lynchin’ is a form of murder. We’ll take care of them the way it’s supposed to be done.”
“The law lets too many fish get out of the net. We’ve got these caught. There ain’t none of them gettin’ away.”
“You’re makin’ yourself as bad as they are. Worse, even, because you’ve been a Ranger. I’m askin’ you one more time. Let the law punish them.”
“The law’s too uncertain. I’ll punish them.”
“And start a war. I reckon Martha was right, Litt. You stayed with the Rangers too long.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should’ve quit when it still gave you nightmares to kill a man. Killin’ comes too easy for you now.”
“When this is over I’ll be satisfied.”
“No you won’t, Litt. There won’t be any satisfyin’ you because these killin’s will lead to more. There’ll be other deaths to avenge. There won’t be any stop to it till half the men in this county are dead, and you among them. There won’t be any rest for you this side of the cemetery gate.”
“What do you figure on doin’ about it, Dunk?”
“I got to stop you if I can.”
Litt held out his hand. “I want your guns.”
“Not anymore, Litt. I gave you my gun last night, but I won’t do it again. You want it, you’ll have to shoot me.”
Litt Springer tried to stare him down, but McLendon held against him. Litt shrugged. “Then turn around and ride out of here, Dunk.”
“I’m sorry, Litt. Your friendship has meant a lot to me. But from now on I’m not your friend. I’m a Ranger, and I got a job to do.”
“Goodbye, Dunk.”
“Goodbye, Litt.”
McLendon reined the horse around and started away in a walk. The wind had stopped, and the still heat seemed to rise up and envelop him. Another shot came from the gap, but McLendon didn’t hear it. He was hearing muffled echoes of old voices and old laughter from beyond a door he had shut behind him.
Gripping the rifle, he suddenly reined his horse around. He spurred him into a run. Ahead of him, he saw Litt Springer stare in surprise, eyes wide, his mouth open. Litt started bringing up the pistol he had held at arm’s length. One of the men with him shouted a warning and dropped to one knee.
McLendon leveled the rifle. He saw fire belch from Litt’s pistol but knew Litt had missed by a mile. McLendon squeezed the trigger and felt the riflebutt drive back against his shoulder. Through the smoke he saw Litt Springer stagger backward, the pistol dropping from his hand. McLendon leaned over the horse’s neck as the man on his knee brought his rifle into line.
Litt coughed an order, and the man lowered the rifle. McLendon levered a fresh cartridge into his own and stepped to the ground, letting the horse go. Litt Springer was on his knees, arms folded across his chest, his face going gray. He stared at McLendon in disbelief.
“Dunk…I didn’t think you could.”
Some of Litt’s men came running, and McLendon could see danger in their eyes. One grabbed at the Ranger, and another shoved a pistol into his belly.
Weakly Litt said, “Let him alone, boys…. He’s a friend of mine.”
“Friend?” one of them shouted angrily.
“A friend,” rasped Litt. “He done what he figured he had to.”
Litt crumpled. McLendon let his rifle fall and eased Litt onto his back on the ground. Throat tightening, he said: “I didn’t want to, Litt. I kept tellin’ you…”
“And I ought to’ve known. You’re a better Ranger than I ever was, Dunk.”
Litt’s friends were gathering, leaving their places around the men they had trapped in the gap. Litt started to cough. McLendon could see blood on his lips. “Litt,” he said, “call them off. Let this be the end of it.”
Litt blinked, his vision fading. “You told me you’d see that the law took care of them.”
“I meant it, Litt. I’ll see that every one of that mob pays.”
Litt nodded. “And you ain’t never lied to me. Boys, go on home.”
A few of them wanted to argue, but Litt waved them away with a weak motion of his hand. “We got his promise. Go home, boys.”
Litt was gone then. Slowly the rest of the men came down from their positions. Openly hostile, they honored Litt’s order. They caught up their horses and soon were gone, the dust settling slowly behind them.
Cautiously the sheriff crept out of the gap, rifle in his hands. Behind him the others followed, some still crouching, suspicious. Finally satisfied, the sheriff straightened and let his rifle arm hang loose. He strode over and looked down on the still form of Litt Springer.
“I seen what you done, Ranger. To be honest with you, didn’t think you would. I reckon we owe you.”
Curtly McLendon said, “You owe me nothin’.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Have it the way you want it. Takes a special breed of a man who can shoot down his own friend thataway. I’ll remember it. If ever I got another cold-blooded job that needs doin’, I’ll call on the Rangers.”
McLendon didn’t even think. In sudden rage he swung the riflebutt around and clubbed the sheriff full in the face. The lawman fell, surprised and cursing, the blood streaming from his broken nose.
The others stood frozen in shock. “Get him up,” McLendon shouted. “Get him up and out of here before I kill him!” As they hauled the sheriff to his feet, McLendon said, “Wait!” They paused. McLendon gritted: “I’m takin’ Litt home to bury him. But I’m comin’ back. I got his list, and every man on it is goin’ to answer to a judge. Now git!”
They caught their horses and helped the sheriff into his saddle and rode off toward Cedarville. Looking down on Litt Springer, Duncan McLendon unpinned the Ranger badge from the front of his vest and put it back on the underside, where he usually wore it. They wouldn’t need it to know who he was.