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said;
"you'll take cold."
Taking it from his hand, I said, "I got to see a man."
"The one who tried to kill you? He got away."
"No, he didn't."
We walked, the Tinker and me, along the dusty street. Doc Halloran walked
behind
us with Captain McNelly and Sheriff Walton.
Their rig was coming down the street toward us, and there for a moment I
thought
he was going to try to ride right over us, but he drew up and stopped when we
stopped, barring his way.
Marsha was there in the seat beside her father, and nobody else with them.
They
were alone, those two, but somehow I had a feeling they'd always been alone.
Deckrow's face showed nothing, but it never had. His eyes looked at me, cold
and
measuring, with no give to them.
"You shot and killed your brother-in-law, Jonas Locklear," I said, "and it
was
you tipped Herrara off that we were in Mexico, and what for."
"I do not have any idea what you are speaking about," he replied, looking at
me
sternly. "I am sure I would be the last man to shoot my own brother-in-law."
"I saw you shoot him," I persisted, "and Miguel did also. That's why he died.
That's why you tried to kill me today."
"You ought to be ashamed," Marsha said, "telling lies about my father."
You know something? I was sorry for him. He was a little man and nothing much
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had ever happened to him, and with all his planning and figuring he could
never
make any money; while Jonas, who did all the wrong things, was always making
it.
And now he had to pay for it all.
Trouble with me was, I was a mighty poor hater. There was satisfaction in
winning, but winning would have been better if nobody had to lose. That's the
way I've always felt, I guess.
Seems to me I'm the sort of man who, if a difficulty arose, might knock a man
down and kick all his teeth out, but then would help him pick them up if he
was
so inclined, and might even pay the bill for fixing them although that's
going a
bit far.
"That property," I said, "the ranch and the house and all, belongs to Gin and
your wife, unless a will said otherwise ... not to you.
"You've no claim" I spoke louder to prevent his attempted interruption "and
you
tried to get one through murder. I will take oath, here and now and in court,
that you betrayed and then shot down your brother-in-law. Furthermore," I
said,
and lied when I said it, "I can get Mexicans to testify they saw it.
"You sign over all claims to Gin and your wife "
"My wife left me," he said.
"You sign over all claims or I'll have you on trial for murder."
He sat there holding the lines and hating me, but he hadn't much to say. The
trouble was, he was a man with a canker for a soul, and he would be eaten
away
with his bitterness at failure, nor did I care much.
It is wrong to believe that such men suffer in the conscience for what they
do
... it is only regret at being caught that troubles them. And they never
admit
it was any fault of their own ... it was always chance, bad luck ... The
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criminal does not regret his crime, he only regrets failure. The Bishop was
standing by listening, but I paid him no mind. There had been a time when he
seemed awesome and dangerous, but that was a while back.
"You remember what I said, Deckrow," I told him, "because wherever it is this
is
settled, San Antonio or Austin or wherever, I'll be there."
When I came up to the house Pa was there, and Gin beside him. He looked fine
...
they were a handsome couple if I ever saw one but I was sure I'd never get
around to calling her Ma.
I stepped down from the saddle and slid my Winchester from the boot, and Pa
looked at me. "Somebody gave you a beating," he said.
"He didn't give it to me," I replied, "I fought for it."
"You'll be coming with us now? I've held your share of the gold ... it's been
waiting your return."
"Buy something with it in my name. I'll come for it one day... or send a son
of
mine for it."
"You're going back for the rest?"
"When I left Tennessee for the western lands it was in my mind to become rich
with the goods of this world, but by planning and trade, not by diving for
dead
men's gold. I shall go on to the West."
"You still want me along?" the Tinker asked.
"We left Tennessee together. I left with you and a mule. It's fitting we hold
to
our course. However, we never did make a dicker for one of your knives. Now,
I'd
give "
"Stand aside, Gin," Pa interrupted, "there's trouble." When I turned around
it
put me alongside of Pa, although there was a space between us. And the Tinker
stood off to one side of me. And there facing us were the three Kurbishaws,
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three tall men in dusty black, Elam, Gideon, and Eli.
Pa was first to speak. "You've come a long way from Charleston, Elam ... a
long
way."
"We came for you."
"You will find most of the gold still there ... if you can get it," Pa said
coolly. "We've had ours."
"It isn't for gold any more," Gideon said. "There's more to it."
"I suppose there is," Pa replied, his voice still cold. "You hounded your
sister
to death; you hunted my son."
"And now we got him," Elam replied, " and you."
Pa didn't want it, I could see that. He was talking to get out of it, to get
it
stopped, but they would not listen. Strange men they were, but I'd see their
like again, in lynch mobs and elsewhere. They were men who knew what I did
not they knew how to hate.
"You wouldn't try me alone," Pa said. "Now there's two of us."
"Three," said the Tinker.
"We've come a far piece since then," Elam said, "and we've lived as we might,
by
the gun."
"Why, then," Pa said, "if you'll have it no other way "
Gideon was looking at me, so when Pa drew I swung up the muzzle of my
Winchester
and levered a shot into him. I saw the bullet dust him at the belt line, and
worked the lever again and fired. He threw his gun hand high in a queer,
dance-like gesture, and then he tried to bring it down on me. I stepped
forward
and shot again and my bullet went high, striking at the collarbone and
tearing
away part of his throat as it glanced off.
The sound of shooting was loud in the street, and then there was stillness,
the
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acrid smell of gunpowder mixed with dust, and we three stood there, facing
them
as they lay. The last one alive was Eli, tugging at one of Tinker's knives
sunk
deep into his chest.
"If that's the only way," I commented, "to get one of those knives, I'll
wait."
Looking down at them, I thought it was a strange trail they had followed,
those
three, and how in the end it had only come to this, to death in a dusty
street,
nobody caring; and by and by nobody even remembering, except by gossip over a
bar in a saloon.
Seemed it was just as well a man did not know where he was headed when he was
to
come only to this a packet of empty flesh and clothes to end it all. In the
end
their hatred had bought them only this ... only this, and the bitter years
between.
It always seemed that for me something waited in those western lands,
something
of riches in the way of land and living, and maybe a woman. And when I found
her, I wanted her to be like Gin.
Younger, of course, as would be fitting, but like her. Somebody likely to
have
no more sense than to fall in love with a Tennessee boy with nothing but his
two
hands and a racing mule.
About the Author
"I think of myself in the oral tradition of a troubadour, a village
taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like
to
be remembered as a storyteller. A good storyteller."
It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in
his
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novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots
of
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