Tuco’s hand started towards his own gun and from as the stranger growled, “Uh-uh. I wouldn’t try it if I was you, friend. It just so happens there’s three of us.”
Two more men stepped into view. One was young and lath-thin, the other an older man with an unkempt tangle of whiskers. The scarred man jerked his head.
“Light down and step up a little. I want a closer look at that ugly face.”
“You are no raving beauty yourself,” Tuco snarled. But he swung down and reluctantly stepped a few paces loser to the trio. “If it’s money you want, my saddlebags are empty.”
“It figures. I’ve seen your face before—on a sheriff’s poster. In fact, friend, it looks like the face of a man worth two thousand dollars in bounty.”
“You could be right, friend,” a new voice said from somewhere off to the side. “But yours doesn’t look like the face of a man who’s going to collect it.”
Tuco and his visitors whirled. A stranger to Tuco was framed in a narrow gap between rocks. He stood tall—inches above six feet—lean and hungry. A line of pale blond hair showed above the weathered bronze of his face. A stubby Mexican cigarro jutted from a corner of his wide, unsmiling mouth. His face was without expression. Except for narrowed, glittering eyes, there was nothing sinister in his appearance but Tuco felt a sudden coldness brush his spine.
The tall man jerked his head at Tuco.
“Step back a little, ugly one, out of line of fire.”
Tuco gulped and scrambled back to stand beside his horse. The scar-faced gunman cleared his throat noisily.
“I don’t know who you are, mister, but it’s plain you ain’t too bright in the head. Nobody in his right mind would butt into our private business the way you just done.”
“If I bother you,” the tall man said pleasantly, “butt me out.”
Everything happened so fast that Tuco was never afterward certain of the sequence. The three gunmen were no amateurs at their trade. Their hands slapped down in practised unison. The tall stranger’s gun simply appeared in his hand, pressed tight against his hip and spewing sound, smoke and bullets. After the first shot the heel of his left hand fanned the hammer, getting off two more shots so close together that the sound was continuous and single.
Only one of the trio managed to get his own iron clear of its leather before he died.
Tuco gaped at the sprawled figures and suddenly thrust his hands behind him to hide their trembling. He turned dazed eyes to his rescuer.
“Thanks, amigo. You saved me from a most unpleasant dance at the end of a rough rope.”
The thin stranger finished reloading without answering. He reached back among the rocks and led a saddled horse out to the trail. He swung into the saddle and sat looking down, studying Tuco without a trace of expression on his dark face.
“So you’re worth two thousand dollars,” he said thoughtfully. “Dead or alive.”
“True,” Tuco said sadly. “It is a disgrace—only two thousand for a man of my reputation. But out here the law is very tight-fisted with its bounties.” A look of sudden alarm came over his face. “Señor—you wouldn’t be thinking of turning me in yourself for such a miserable, stinking Judas price?”
“I haven’t decided,” the other said coldly. “We’ll ride on together while I make up my mind.”
Tuco shivered and swung into his saddle. He was tempted to dig in his spurs and try flight but from what he had witnessed he knew how hopeless his chances were.
He reined in beside the stranger. They jogged along side by side, while the miles crept by. At last the lengthening silence began to get on the bandit’s nerves.
He said, “Amigo, if you have faults, running off at the mouth is not one of them. Conversation makes a long trail seem shorter.”
The other glanced at him, looked away without replying. Tuco moistened dry lips and tried again.
“At least, señor, since we ride together we can at least introduce one another. I am Tuco, the Bandit. You have surely heard of me. Everybody has heard of Tuco the Terrible. Eh?”
The expressionless face turned toward him again.
“No.”
“No? Then one thing is sure. You are not from these parts if you have never heard of Tuco. From where do you hail, amigo?”
“Nowhere,” the stranger said.
“A Man from Nowhere, eh? Very well. Your business is your business. I do not pry. But at least you have a name to call you. Whether it is yours or not is of no matter to me.”
“I have no name.”
“Look, Man from Nowhere With No Name,” Tuco burst out with a touch of irritation. “Suppose I saw a cocked gun aimed at your back and you didn’t know it was there. By the time I yelled, ‘Man From Nowhere With No Name, look behind you—’ you would be stone dead. So I will give you a name. Because of your hair, I will call you Whitey. So if you hear me yell, ‘Whitey, behind you—’ you will know I am not talking to my horse.”
The other shrugged indifferently. Some miles farther Tuco made one last attempt to open communications. “You do not have the look of a cowman, farmer or an outlaw. What is your trade, amigo?”
The blond man turned and looked full into Tuco’s eyes. The ghost of a smile twitched his lips.
“Why,” he said softly, “I’m a bounty-killer. Let’s you and me make a deaL”
The yelling and swearing brought out most of the town to witness their arrival. The Man From Nowhere rode in front, leading Tuco’s horse. The bandit, bound hand and foot, was ignominiously draped across his saddle like a trussed chicken, head hanging down on one side, legs on the other. His private opinion of such treatment was clearly audible to anyone within miles.
“I’ll get you for this,” he howled. “I’ll see you dead of cholera, of rabies, of the black pox! Untie me! Untie me, you mangy son of a dog! Put me down! Listen, there’s still time. If you let me go I’ll forgive you. If you don’t—I’ll see that the worms eat your eyes out, you whore’s by-blow!”
The lean stranger ignored both the gaping, grinning crowd on the board sidewalk and the uproar at his back. Tuco’s voice fell to a shrill whine.
“Damn it, Whitey, I feel sick. Take me down. I can’t stand it any longer. My head’s bursting with blood. Water, Whitey—water, in the name of—”
The parade—though not the tumult—came to a halt at the hitchrail in front of a building bearing the sign: SHERIFF’S OFFICE. The tall man swung down, hoisted Tuco off his horse by his belt and dumped him unceremoniously on the board walk.
“Dog!” the bandit screeched. “Son of a saloon tramp. You’re real tough with a man who’s tied hand and foot, aren’t you? Let’s see you untie me if you’ve got the guts, you miserable seller of souls—”
His captor eluded a vicious kick with the bound feet and strode into the sheriff’s ooicn
On the sidewalk, still bound, Tuco raged: “So you’re afraid. Come back here, you stinking vulture—I’ll kick your guts out—”
The lean man came out, followed by a grizzled sheriff carrying a reward poster. The sheriff squatted, caught the bandit by the hair and twisted his head around, comparing his face with the picture on the poster.
“So one louse becomes two,” Tuco yelled. “Take your dirty paws off me, you polecat’s brother. Roll that thing up and I’ll tell you where you can stick it. To hell with sheriffs and those who give birth to them—”