“Better put that in an editorial,” said Quinn.
“I have,” declared Carson. “Don’t you read my paper?”
Quinn turned toward the door and Delavan arose. He fumbled just a little with his hat before he put it on. “You’re coming to the house tonight for supper, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I thought so, up to now,” said Carson.
“Kathryn is expecting you,” the banker said.
Quinn swung around. “Sure, go ahead, Carson. Nothing personal in this, you understand.”
Carson rose slowly. “I didn’t think there was. You wouldn’t have a man planted along the way, would you?”
“What a thought,” said Quinn. “No, my friend, when we get you, it’ll be in broad daylight.”
Carson followed them to the door, stood on the stoop outside to watch them leave. They crossed the street toward the bank, the dust puffing up from their boots to shimmer momentarily in the slanting rays of the westering sun.
A horse cantered down the street, coming from the east, its rider slouching in the saddle. A hen scratched industriously in the dust and clucked to an imaginary brood. The sun caught the windows of the North Star Saloon, directly opposite the newspaper office, and turned the glass to glittering silver.
Trail City, thought Editor Morgan Carson, looking at it. Just a collection of shacks today. The North Star and the bank and sheriff’s office with the jail behind it. The livery stable and the new store with the barber shop in one corner.
A frontier town, with chickens clucking in the dust and slinking dogs that stopped to scratch for fleas. But someday a great town, a town with trains and water tower instead of a creaking windmill, a town of shining glass and brick.
A man was coming down the steps of the North Star, a big man stepping lightly. Carson watched him abstractedly, recognized him as one of Fennimore’s hired hands, probably in town on some errand.
The man started across the street and stopped. His voice came quietly across the narrow stretch of dust.
“Carson!”
“Yes,” said Carson. And something in the way the man stood there, something in the single word, something in the way the man’s face looked beneath the droopy hat, made him stiffen, tensed every nerve within him.
“I’m calling you,” said the man, and it was as if he had asked for a match to light his smoke. No anger, no excitement, just a simple statement.
For a single instant time stood still and stared. Even as the man’s hands drove for the gun-butts at his thighs, the street seemed frozen in a motionlessness that went on forever.
And in that timeless instant, Carson knew his own hand was swooping for his gun, that the weapon’s butt was in his fist and coming out.
Then time exploded and took up again and Carson’s gun was swinging up, easily, effortless, simple as pointing one’s finger. The other man’s guns were coming up, too, a glitter of steel in the sunlight.
Carson felt his gun buck against his hand, saw the look of surprise that came upon the other’s face, heard the blast of the single shot ringing in his ears.
The man out in the street was sagging, sagging like a slowly collapsing sack, as if the strength were draining from him in the dying day. His knees buckled and the guns, still unfired, dropped from his loosened fingers. As if something had pushed him gently, he pitched forward on his face.
For an instant more, the stillness held, a stillness even deeper than before. The man on the horse had reined up and was motionless, the scratching hen was a feathery statue of bewilderment.
Then doors slammed and voices shouted; feet pounded on the sidewalks. The saloon porch boiled with men. Bill Robinson, white apron around his middle, ducked out of the store. The barber came out and yelled. His customer, white towel around his neck, lather on his face, was pawing for his gun, swearing at the towel.
Two men came from the sheriff’s office and walked down the street, walked toward Carson, standing there, still with gun in hand. They walked past the dead man in the street and came on, while the town stood still and watched.
Carson waited for them, fighting down the fear that welled within him, the fear and anger. Anger at the trap, at how neatly it had worked.
The door slammed behind him and Jake was beside him, a rifle in his hand.
“What’s the matter, kid?” he asked.
Carson motioned toward the man lying in the dust.
“Called me,” he said.
Jake shifted his cud of tobacco to the north cheek.
“Dang neat job,” he said.
Sheriff Bert Bean and Stu Leonard, the deputy, stopped short of the sidewalk.
“You do that?” asked Bean, jerking a thumb toward the dust.
“I did,” admitted Carson.
“That bein’ the case,” announced Bean, “I’m placin’ you under arrest.”
“I’m not submitting to arrest,” said Carson.
The sheriff’s jaw dropped. “You ain’t submittin’ – you what!”
“You heard him,” roared Jake. “He ain’t a-going with you. Want to do anything about it?”
Bean lifted his hands towards his guns, thought better of it, dropped them to his side again.
“You better come,” Bean said with something that was almost pleading in his voice. “If you don’t, I got ways to make you.”
“If you got ways,” yelped Jake, “get going on ’em. He’s calling your bluff.”
The four men stood motionless for a long, dragging moment.
Jake broke the tension by jerking his rifle down. “Get going,” he yelled. “Start high-tailing it back to your den, or I’ll bullet-dance you back there. Get out of here and tell Fennimore you dassn’t touch Carson ’cause you’re afraid he’ll gun-whip you out of town.”
The crowd, silent, motionless until now, stirred restlessly.
“Jake,” snapped Carson, “keep an eye on that crowd out there.”
Jake spat with gusto, snapped back the hammer of the gun. The click was loud and ominous in the quiet.
Carson walked slowly down the steps toward the sidewalk, and Bean and Leonard backed away. Carson’s gun was in his hand, hanging at his side, and he made no move to raise it, but as he advanced the two backed across the street.
Quinn pushed his way through the crowd in front of the bank and strode across the dust.
“Carson,” he yelled, “you’re crazy. You can’t do this. You can’t buck law and order.”
“The hell he can’t,” yelped Jake. “He’s doing it.”
“I’m not bucking law and order,” declared Carson. “Bean isn’t law and order. He’s Fennimore’s hired hand. He tried to do a job for Fennimore and he didn’t get away with it. That man I killed was planted on me. You had Bean sitting over there, all ready to gallop out and slap me into jail.”
Quinn snarled. “You got it all doped out, haven’t you?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” said Carson. “You used a man that was just second-rate with his guns. Probably had him all primed up with liquor so he thought he was greased hell itself. You knew that I’d outshoot him and then you could throw a murder charge at me. Smart idea, Quinn. Better than killing me outright. Never give the other side a martyr.”
“So what about it?” asked Quinn.
“So it didn’t work.”
“But it’ll work,” Quinn declared. “You will be arrested.”
“Come ahead, then,” snapped Carson. He half-lifted the sixgun. “I’ll get you first, Quinn. The sheriff next –”