“Look, Pappy,” I said tightly, “you've got this figured all wrong.”
He didn't even hear me. “You told him I was the one that killed Paul, didn't you?”
“I didn't tell him a thing,” I said.
“I'll bet! You didn't tell him thatyou did it.” Slowly he got to his feet, his hands never moving more than an inch or so from the butts of his pistols.
I suppose I was scared at first, but, surprisingly, that went away. I began to breathe normally again. If he was determined to think that I had crossed him, there was nothing I could do about it. If he was determined to force a shoot-out, there was nothing I could do about that, either. He was standing in a half crouch, like a lean, hungry cat about to spring.
“You yellow little bastard,” he said again.
I said, “Don't say that any more, Pappy. I'm warning you, don't use that word again.”
I think that surprised him. He thought I was afraid of him, and now it kind of jarred him to find out I wasn't. Pappy was good with a gun. I'd seen him draw and I knew. Maybe he was better than me—a hundred times better, maybe—but he hadn't proved it yet.
He said, “I picked you up. I went to the trouble to save your lousy hide, and this is what I get. This tears it wide open, son. This finishes us.”
“If you're not going to listen to reason,” I said, “then go ahead and make your move. You've got a big name as a gun-slinger. Let's see how good you really are.”
He laughed silently. “I wouldn't want to take advantage of a kid.”
I was mad now. He hadn't given me a chance to explain because he thought he could ride his reputation over me. I said, “Don't worry about the advantage. If you think you've got me scared, if you think I'm going to beg out of a shooting, then you're crazy as hell.”
He still didn't move. “You think you're something, don't you, son? Because you got lucky with Paul Grey-ton, because you killed a couple of state policemen who didn't rightly know which end of a gun to hold, you think you're a gunman. You've got a lot to learn, son.”
“Draw, then,” I almost shouted. “If you think you're so goddamned good and I'm so bad. Draw and get it over with. You're the one that got your back up.”
For a moment I thought he was going to do it. I could see the smoky haze of anger lying far back in those pale eyes of his. I felt muscles and nerves tightening in my arms and shoulders, waiting for Pappy to make a move.
Suddenly he began to relax. The haze went out of his eyes and he sat slowly down by the cottonwood.
“What the hell got into us anyway?” he asked, shaking his head in amazement. “Hell, I don't want to kill you. I don't think you want to kill me. Sit down, son, until the heat wears off.”
It took me a long time to relax, but I didn't feel very big because I had made Pappy Garret back down. I knew it wasn't because he was afraid of me.
“Go on,” Pappy said softly, “sit down and let's think this thing over.”
The anger that had been burning so hot only a minute ago had now burned itself out. Me and Pappy getting ready to kill each other—the thought of that left me cold and empty. Pappy had saved my life, he had given me a chance to live so someday I could go back to Laurin.
“It's just as well we got that out of our systems,” Pappy said at last. “I'm sorry about the things I said. I didn't mean them.”
That was probably the first time Pappy had ever apologized to anybody for anything. And he was right. It was just as well that we got it out of our systems. Sooner or later, when two men live by their guns, they are bound to come together. But there was slight chance of it happening again. You don't usually buck a man if you know he isn't afraid of you.
Pappy got out his tobacco and corn-shuck papers, giving all his attention to building a cigarette. After he had finished, he tossed the makings to me.
I said, “Hell, I guess I was just hot-headed, Pappy. I'm ready to forget it if you are. We're too good a team to break up by shooting each other.”
Then Pappy smiled—that complete, face-splitting smile that he used so seldom. “Forgotten,” he said.
After it was all over, I felt closer to Pappy than I had ever felt before. We sat for a good while, as darkness came on, smoking those corn-shuck cigarettes of his, and not saying anything. But I guess we both had Buck Creyton in our minds. I had already decided that I would hunt Creyton down the next day and tell him just the way it happened; then if he was still set on killing somebody, he could try it on me. I couldn't guess what Pappy was thinking until he said:
“This is as good a time as any to push across the river. You get that red horse of yours, son, and we'll be moving as soon as it's a little darker.”
I got the wrong idea at first. I thought Pappy was running because he was afraid of a shoot-out with Buck Creyton. But then I realized that he wouldn't admit it that way if he was. At least he would make up some kind of excuse for pulling out.
But he didn't say anything, and then I began to get it. He was moving out on my account. He was ready to cross the Territory without the protection of a trail herd so that Buck Creyton wouldn't have a chance to find out that I was the one who had killed his brother. He was protecting me, not himself.
I didn't see the sense in it. It seemed like it was just putting off a fight that was bound to come sooner or later, and why not get it over with now? But I didn't want to argue. I didn't want another flare-up with Pappy like I'd just had. So I went after Red.
We crossed the river about a mile above the Station, keeping well east of the main trail, and pushed into Indian Territory. We rode without saying anything much. I didn't know how Pappy felt about it, but I didn't like the idea of running away from a fight that was bound to come sometime anyway. I figured he must have his reasons, so I let him have his way.
By daybreak, Pappy said we were almost to the Washita, and it was as good a place as any to pitch camp. The next day we pushed on across the Canadian, into some low, rolling hills, and that was where I began to see Pappy's reason for running.
First, we picked a place to camp near a dry creek bed; then Pappy insisted on scouting the surrounding country before telling me what he had in mind. Fort Gibson was on our right, Pappy said, over on the Arkansas line, but he didn't think it was close enough to bother us. The Fort Sill Indian Reservation was on our left, on the other side of the cattle trail, but the soldiers there were busy with the Indians and wouldn't be looking for us. The thing we had to worry about now, he went on, was government marshals making raids out of the Arkansas country. But we would have to take our chances with them.
“I've told you before,” Pappy said, “that you've got a lot to learn.” He led the way down to the dry creek bed and pointed to a log about forty yards down from us. “Pull as fast as you can and see how many bullets you can put in it.”
It sounded foolish to me. And dangerous. What if soldiers heard the shooting? But I looked at Pappy, and his face was set and dead serious. I shrugged. “All right, if you say so.”
I jerked at my righthand gun, but before I could clear leather the morning came to life with one explosion crowding on top of another. Pappy had emptied his own pistols into the log before I had started to shoot.