Pinky’s face twisted with sudden, violent rage and his hand twitched up. The gun in Sylvester’s left hand leaped and spat and Pinky screeched as the bullet smashed his wrist.
Out of the corner of his eye, Packard saw Pop and Marks going for their guns, Sylvester twisting on his heel to meet them. Marks, he saw, had dropped the rope. This was his chance.
Packard lowered his head, hunched his one good shoulder, drove with all the power that was in his legs. Above him he heard the soft hiss of the rope running across the limb.
He felt his shoulder and lowered head crash into yielding flesh, felt the lance of pain that knifed through his shattered arm and other shoulder. Then Pinky was going over, backwards, and Packard was staggering, spread-legged above the outlaw leader floundering on the ground.
A spurred boot lashed up at him and Packard danced out of the way, drove in again, hurling himself upon the outstretched body of the man, his right hand spread wide, aimed at the naked throat.
He felt the softness of the throat beneath his fingers and his fingers closed with a vise-like viciousness while a dull and spreading anger glowed within his brain.
Beneath him, Packard sensed that Pinky was clawing for a gun, blindly groping with his uninjured left hand for a weapon in his belt. Savagely he hauled upward on the throat within his grasp as if he meant to tear it out and then crashed it back to earth again with all the power that was in his driving muscles. Pinky’s head sounded like a breaking egg and it bounced and rolled sidewise sickeningly as it hit the ground.
But still Packard’s fingers held their grip, dug deeper as he remembered the marks of a hand across Alice Page’s face.
Behind him he heard the roar and crash of six-guns, but there was a thunder in his brain that drowned out all other sound. He felt himself tipping forward, felt a cloud of red mist move in through his eyes and swirl within his head.
His fingers loosened and his hand fell off the throat and he was crawling blindly, like a dog on hands and knees.
“Get up, man!” a voice screamed at him and he staggered to his feet, stood swaying while his vision cleared. He shook his head and saw Sylvester standing before him, while behind Sylvester loomed a white and misty face that he knew was Alice Page’s.
Sylvester dabbed at his face with a hand and Packard saw that the hair and one side of his face was thick with blood where a bullet had barked him.
Marks lay upon the ground, arms outspread above his head, a red streak soaking through his coal-black beard. Pop Allen sat with his back against a tree and held both hands to his side. Like a kid, thought Packard. Like a kid that’s eaten green apples and has the belly ache.
Sylvester’s face came into sharper focus and Packard spoke to it.
“Mister,” he said, “I’m still wondering what it’s all about.”
“I thought you guessed,” Sylvester told him. “I thought that you knew when you found out about my eye.”
“I knew there was something wrong,” confessed Packard, “but I couldn’t figure it.”
“I’m an insurance dick.”
“Come again?” said Packard.
“An insurance detective. Randall, you see, was working it both ways. He was insuring gold that he shipped out on the stage. Then he’d hold up the stage and get the gold. Then he’d soak us for insurance money.”
Sylvester mopped at his face again, left finger-streaks of red across his cheek.
“We better be getting out of here,” he said. “Get that rope off your neck. Miss Page will fix your shoulder while I catch up some horses.”
“Would you mind,” asked a voice, “staying just a while?”
They whirled, the three of them, stared at the man who sat the big bay horse just at the tiny clearing’s edge. A man in black broadcloth and a fawn-colored vest above which was bunched a white silk cravat. A diamond flashed in the sunlight as the man held the six-gun on them.
“It would seem,” said Randall, “that I have the drop on you. Better shuck those guns, Sylvester, and walk away from them.”
Slowly, Sylvester unbuckled his belt, let it drop to the ground. With his gun, Randall motioned them away.
He chuckled, watching them. “Too bad,” he said. “You almost got away with it.”
“Maybe they didn’t get away with it this time,” said Alice Page. “Maybe these two men may never get away with it. But sometime someone will. You can’t go on forever.”
Randall tipped his hat, but his gun still was unwavering in his hand. “How right you are, Miss Page,” he said. “And now if you’ll just walk away and turn your back …”
“Always a gentleman,” said Packard, bitterly. “You wouldn’t for the world shoot a man in front of a woman’s eyes.”
“Of course not,” said Randall. “There are certain social graces that cannot be ignored.”
He nudged his horse around, lifted the six-gun. “Miss Page, if you please will—”
“No!” screamed Alice Page. “You can’t—you can’t—”
She was running toward him, arms flung up as if to ward off the bullet that the gun was set to throw.
“Alice!”
The bellow was bull-throated and it stopped the girl in mid-stride, swung her around.
“Father!” she cried.
Preacher Page stood beneath the tree where Pinky lay sprawled with a lolling neck and he held a heavy rifle at the ready.
“Get away, child,” he bellowed.
Randall jerked the six-gun up and then stiffened. The rifle muzzle in the old man’s hand was pointing at his midriff. If that gun went off …
“Throw away the gun, Randall,” said Preacher. “Throw it away and get down off that horse.”
Randall hesitated.
Preacher squinted his eyes. “I am not a man,” he said, “who wishes to shed blood, but if you don’t heave that gun away, I’ll let you have it right through your dirty guts.”
Randall heaved the gun away, scrambled off the horse. Sylvester stepped out and picked up the gun.
Slowly Preacher moved toward Randall. “See if he had any other guns,” Page told Sylvester.
Swiftly, Sylvester ran his hands up and down Randall’s coat.
“Not a one,” he said.
Preacher heaved his rifle to one side.
“Get up your dukes,” he told Randall. “I’m going to give you the worst beating that a man has ever taken.”
Randall sprang forward, one fist lashing out, the other cocked for a killing blow. Preacher ducked, slid under the swishing fist, uncorked a punch that skidded Randall on his heels.
Then the two were together, slugging toe to toe, boring in, absorbing punishment, deadly silent. Their feet beat a stolid measure on the grass and there came the sound of flesh on bone, the rasp of heavy breathing, the muffled grunt and panting breath of earnest men fighting with a deadly hatred.
Randall was weakening. Under the sledge-hammer blows of the minister, he was falling back. Once he tried to break away and run, but Preacher chased him, closed in and forced the fight.
The end came swiftly. A blow staggered Randall and Preacher moved in slugging, right to the jaw, left to the heart, another right to the jaw that lifted Randall off his feet and slammed him to the ground.
For a long moment the old man stood in the sunlight above the fallen man, his white hair shining and stirring in the breeze, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath.
Then he turned away, walked to the three, brushing off his coat, straightening his shirt cuffs.
“Either of you want that man?” he asked.
“I do,” Sylvester told him.
Preacher looked at Packard sternly. “I was hoping it might be you.”