“You're right, Kate,” nodded her father. “Terry, you better stay put.”
But Terry Hollis had risen and stretched himself to the full length of his height, and extended his long arms sleepily. Every muscle played smoothly up his arms and along his shoulders. He was fit for action from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
“Partners,” he announced gently, “no matter what Bud Larrimer has on his mind, I've got to go in and meet him. Maybe I can convince him without gun talk. I hope so. But it will have to be on the terms he wants. I'll saddle up and lope into town.”
He started for the door. The other members of the Pollard gang looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders. Plainly the whole affair was a bad mess. If Terry shot Larrimer, he would certainly be followed by a lynching mob, because no self-respecting Western town could allow two members of its community to be dropped in quick succession by one man of an otherwise questionable past. No matter how fair the gunplay, just as Kate had said, the mob would rise. But on the other hand, how could Terry refuse to respond to such an invitation without compromising his reputation as a man without fear?
There was nothing to do but fight.
But Kate ran to her father. “Dad,” she cried, “you got to stop him!”
He looked into her drawn face in astonishment.
“Look here, honey,” he advised rather sternly. “Man-talk is man-talk, and man-ways are man-ways, and a girl like you can't understand. You keep out of this mess. It's bad enough without having your hand added.”
She saw there was nothing to be gained in this direction. She turned to the rest of the men; they watched her with blank faces. Not a man there but would have done much for the sake of a single smile. But how could they help?
Desperately she ran to the door, jerked it open, and followed Terry to the stable. He had swung the saddle from its peg and slipped it over the back of El Sangre, and the great stallion turned to watch this perennially interesting operation.
“Terry,” she said, “I want ten words with you.”
“I know what you want to say,” he answered gently. “You want to make me stay away from town today. To tell you the truth, Kate, I hate to go in. I hate it like the devil. But what can I do? I have no grudge against Larrimer. But if he wants to talk about his brother's death, why—good Lord, Kate, I have to go in and listen, don't I? I can't dodge that responsibility!”
“It's a trick, Terry. I swear it's a trick. I can feel it!” She dropped her hand nervously on the heavy revolver which she wore strapped at her hip, and fingered the gold chasing. Without her gun, ever since early girlhood, she had felt that her toilet was not complete.
“It may be,” he nodded thoughtfully. “And I appreciate the advice, Kate— but what would you have me do?”
“Terry,” she said eagerly, “you know what this means. You've killed once. If you go into town today, it means either that you kill or get killed. And one thing is about as bad as the other.”
Again he nodded. She was surprised that he would admit so much, but there were parts of his nature which, plainly, she had not yet reached to.
“What difference does it make, Kate?” His voice fell into a profound gloom. “What difference? I can't change myself. I'm what I am. It's in the blood. I was born to this. I can't help it. I know that I'll lose in the end. But while I live I'll be happy. A little while!”
She choked. But the sight of his drawing the cinches, the imminence of his departure, cleared her mind again.
“Give me two minutes,” she begged.
“Not one,” he answered. “Kate, you only make us both unhappy. Do you suppose I wouldn't change if I could?”
He came to her and took her hands.
“Honey, there are a thousand things I'd like to say to you, but being what I am, I have no right to say them to you—never, or to any other woman! I'm born to be what I am. I tell you, Kate, the woman who raised me, who was a mother to me, saw what I was going to be—and turned me out like a dog! And I don't blame her. She was right!”
She grasped at the straw of hope.
“Terry, that woman has changed her mind. You hear? She's lived heartbroken since she turned you out. And now she's coming for you to—to beg you to come back to her! Terry, that's how much she's given up hope in you!”
But he drew back, his face growing dark.
“You've been to see her, Kate? That's where you went when you were away those four days?”
She dared not answer. He was trembling with hurt pride and rage.
“You went to her—she thought I sent you—that I've grown ashamed of my own father, and that I want to beg her to take me back? Is that what she thinks?”
He struck his hand across his forehead and groaned.
“God! I'd rather die than have her think it for a minute. Kate, how could you do it? I'd have trusted you always to do the right thing and the proud thing—and here you've shamed me!”
He turned to the horse, and El Sangre stepped out of the stall and into a shaft of sunlight that burned on him like blood-red fire. And beside him young Terry Hollis, straight as a pine, and as strong—a glorious figure. It broke her heart to see him, knowing what was coming.
“Terry, if you ride down yonder, you're going to a dog's death! I swear you are, Terry!”
She stretched out her arms to him; but he turned to her with his hand on the pommel, and his face was like iron.
“I've made my choice. Will you stand aside, Kate?”
“You're set on going? Nothing will change you? But I tell you, I'm going to change you! I'm only a girl. And I can't stop you with a girl's weapons. I'll do it with a man's. Terry, take the saddle off that horse! And promise me you'll stay here till Elizabeth Cornish comes!”
“Elizabeth Cornish?” He laughed bitterly. “When she conies, I'll be a hundred miles away, and bound farther off. That's final.”
“You're wrong,” she cried hysterically. “You're going to stay here. You may throw away your share in yourself. But I have a share that I won't throw away. Terry, for the last time!”
He shook his head.
She caught her breath with a sob. Someone was coming from the outside. She heard her father's deep-throated laughter. Whatever was done, she must do it quickly. And he must be stopped!
The hand on the gun butt jerked up—the long gun flashed in her hand.
“Kate!” cried Terry. “Good God, are you mad?”
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Mad! Will you stay?”
“What infernal nonsense—”
The gun boomed hollowly in the narrow passage between mow and wall. El Sangre reared, a red flash in the sunlight, and landed far away in the shadow, trembling. But Terry Hollis had spun halfway around, swung by the heavy, tearing impact of the big slug, and then sank to the floor, where he sat clasping his torn thigh with both hands, his shoulder and head sagging against the wall.
Joe Pollard, rushing in with an outcry, found the gun lying sparkling in the sunshine, and his daughter, hysterical and weeping, holding the wounded man in her arms.