“When a man’s killed,” Vern said, “it’s no longer a game or a personal contest. It was time to get you, with the best, surest way I had.”
“When the man’s your brother,” Cable said. “When Royce and Joe Bob were killed you went right on waiting.”
“I’ve been wrong,” Vern said, “maybe right from the beginning. I let it get out of hand too. I admit that. But there’s nothing I can do about the ways it’s developed.”
“Then in time you would have backed off,” Cable said, “if nothing had happened to Duane.”
“Well, with the war on I could look on you as an enemy. Kick you off your land and tell myself it was all right. But now that it’s over, I’m not sure about anything, not even my horse business. Though I might probably get a contract from the stage-line people when they start up-”
Cable stopped him. “What did you say?” He was staring at Vern intently. “About the war?”
“It’s over. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“When was it over?”
“A few days ago.”
“You knew it then?”
“We learned yesterday.” Vern seemed to frown, studying Cable’s expression. “Luz knew about it. She mentioned it when I talked to her a while ago.”
“Yesterday,” Cable said.
“She would have learned it yesterday.” Vern nodded.
And if she knew it, Cable thought, so did Janroe. Yesterday. Before Duane was killed. Janroe would have known. He must have known. But still he killed Duane. Could that be?
You could think about it, Cable thought, and it wouldn’t make sense, but still it could be. With anyone else there would be a doubt. But with Janroe there was little room for doubt. This was strange because he hardly knew the man.
But at the same time it wasn’t strange, not when he pictured this man who had lost his arm in the war and who had killed over a hundred Union prisoners. Not when he heard him talking again, insisting over and over that Vern and Duane should be killed. Not when he remembered the feeling of trying to answer Janroe. No, it wasn’t strange, not when he put everything together that he could remember about Janroe.
It could have been Janroe who tore up his house. It occurred to Cable that moment, but at once he was sure of it: Janroe trying to incite him, trying to make him angry enough to go after the Kidstons. Janroe wanting to see them-the enemy, or whatever they were to him-dead, but without drawing blame on himself.
Janroe could even be insane. Something could have happened to him in the war.
No, don’t start that, Cable thought. Just take it at its face value. Janroe killed a man you are being accused of killing. He did it, whether he had reason or not; though the war wasn’t the reason, because the war was over and you are almost as sure as you can be sure of something that he knew it was over. So just take that, Cable thought, and do something with it.
He sat up, raising the Colt, then turned the cylinder, letting the hammer down gently on the empty chamber. Vern did not move; though when Cable looked up again he knew Vern had been taken by surprise and was puzzled.
“We’re wasting our time,” Cable said. “There’s a man we ought to see.”
He began to tell Vern about Janroe.
Luz reached Cable’s dead sorrel before she saw the two horses grazing along the mesquite at the foot of the slope. These would belong to Vern and the one called Austin. She slowed the dun to a walk now, her eyes raised and moving searchingly over the piñon-covered slope. The firing had come from up there, she was sure of it.
But there had been no shots for some time now. They could be hunting for him among the trees. Or it could already be over.
When she saw the two figures coming down through the trees, in view for brief moments as they passed through clearings, she was sure that it was over, that these two were Vern and Austin coming back to their horses. They left the piñon and were down beyond the mesquite for some time. Finally they appeared again and it was not until now that she saw the second man was not Austin but Cable.
She watched them approach with the strange feeling that this could not be happening, that it was a dream. They had been firing at one another; but now they were walking together, both armed, not one bringing the other as a prisoner.
Questions ran through her mind and she wanted to ask all of them at once; but now they were close and it was Cable who spoke first.
“Luz, did Janroe leave the store last night?”
The question took her by surprise. Without a greeting, without an explanation of the two of them together, without wondering why she was here, Cable asked about Janroe. The question must be so important to him that he skipped all of those other things.
She said, hesitantly, “He went to see you last night. But he said you weren’t home.”
“Where is he now, at the store?”
“He was a little while ago.” She remembered him jumping down from the platform, trying to stop her from leaving. “But he’s acting strangely,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him the way he was.”
Vern was looking at Cable. “Your wife and kids are there?” When Cable nodded, glancing at Luz again, Vern said, “I think we’d better go see Mr. Janroe.”
Janroe watched Luz until she was almost out of sight. He turned, pausing to brush the dust from his knees, and was aware of Martha in the doorway. He looked up at her; from her expression he knew she had heard Luz.
“Well?” Janroe said.
“I would like to borrow a horse,” Martha said tensely.
“You can’t do anything.”
“Just let me have a horse,” Martha said. “I don’t need anything else from you, least of all advice.”
“And you’ll take your kids with you?”
“I’d like to leave them here.”
Janroe shook his head. “I don’t have time to watch your kids.”
Martha came out on the platform. “You would stop me from going to my husband? At a time like this you would stop me from being with him?”
“You couldn’t help him,” Janroe said. “Neither could I. Luz is wasting her time whether she thinks she’s doing something or not. I tried to stop her, tried to talk some sense into her, but she wouldn’t listen. That’s the trouble with you women. You get all het up and run off without thinking.” He had moved to the platform and was now mounting the steps. “If Vern’s there to talk to your husband, there’s no sense in stopping him. If he’s there for any other reason, none of us could stop him if we tried.”
“You won’t let me have a horse?”
“Sit down on your hands, you won’t be so nervous.”
“Mr. Janroe, I’m begging you-”
“No, you’re not.” He moved her into the store in front of him. “You want to do something, get out in the kitchen and do the dishes.”
Martha didn’t want to back down-he could see that-but there was little she could say as she turned abruptly and walked away, down the length of the store counter.
Janroe said after her, “Don’t leave the house. You hear me? Don’t even open the door less I say it’s all right.”
He waited until she was in the next room before he moved around behind the counter that extended along the front of the store. From under the counter he took a short-barreled shotgun with Hatch & Hodges carved into the stock-it dated from the time the store had been a stage-line station-checked to see that it was loaded, then laid it on the counter.
From a peg behind him he took his shoulder holster with the Colt fitting snugly in it, and looped it over his armless shoulder. He wound the extra-long leather thong, which held the Colt securely, around his chest and tied the end of it deftly with his one hand.
Just in case, he told himself; though you won’t need them. You can be almost absolutely sure of that.
Everything will go all right. Luz would be back within an hour. She would ride in slowly this time, putting off telling Martha what had happened. Then behind her would come Vern and Austin, probably both of the Dodd brothers, with Cable facedown over his horse. Vern would tell it simply, in few words; and if Martha cried or screamed at him, he would say, “He killed my brother.” Or, “He should have thought about his family before he killed Duane.” Or words that said the same thing. Then they would dump his body. Or let it down easy now that it was over and the anger was drained out of them, and ride away.