Burdick grimaced. "But I don't want her in her Sunday best... Well, all right," he said. "Suppose, instead, I get all of you, out front of the building. As a memento of the first day of Burdick's Gallery in Santa Clara."
Considerable' persuasion was still needed; but presently he had them all arranged before the gallery, the men grinning and the women giggling. He carried the camera into the street, set it up, and ducked beneath the black focusing cloth. Studying the inverted image on the groundglass screen, he decided that this was a wonderful region in which to work if you did not get sunstroke: he had never had so much light to focus by.
As the group came into sharp focus, he saw one of the workmen step forward, his mouth opening. Then, upside down on the glass, they were all moving away from their assigned positions. For a moment, concentrating on the picture, he felt only annoyance that they would not remain where he had placed them. Then their cries of warning penetrated the cloth that enveloped his head; and he became aware of the drumming sound of hoofs approaching with reckless speed. He straightened up, whipped the cloth off his head, and saw the charging rider almost on top of him: Tom Justice astride a large, black horse. There wag only time to dive to one side. He heard a shrill and triumphant yell above him. A loop of rope shot out, snared the camera, and snatched it away.
Burdick got slowly to his feet, watching the horseman gallop on toward the plaza with camera and tripod bouncing brokenly in his wake. Tom Justice pulled up at the corner of' the plaza and gave an expert flip to the rope.
The loop opened and fell free; and Tom Justice laughed and rode on around the corner, coiling his rope, leaving the smashed camera in the dust behind him.
People were converging on the scene already. Burdick was aware of a curious breathlessness; and the blood was beginning to sing softly in his ears. A man had approached the broken camera, and was bending over to pick it up.
"No," Burdick called. "Leave it there." His voice had a strange, flat, penetrating sound. He turned and walked into the gallery to get his shotgun.
12
Burdick walked slowly along the plaza with the loaded shotgun over his arm. He felt strangely at peace, and he was in no great hurry. The air was quite cool, he noted, in the shade of the trees, but in the patches of sunlight, the heat seemed to be focused as if by 'a burning glass. In these areas even the dust was hot,.so that it was like walking through the ashes of a recent fire.
Even distance he had no trouble recognizing the tall black horse with the silvermounted saddle and the Flying V brand, tied in front of the Palace Saloon among other horses with the same brand. He thought calmly, Well, it's going to be interesting, I wonder how many are in there. It did not matter. He would not have changed direction if the doorway had been blocked by a solid formation of armed men. Once, with a gun in his hand, he had made a mistake. It would not happen again.
He paused beside the black horse, making quite sure of its identity. Somebody touched his arm, and he glanced aside to see Lou Grace standing there. The blond man had a look of expectancy about him: there was an odd little half smile on his lips, of which he seemed unaware. This was a man, clearly, who liked to fight and could hardly wait for this one to start. Nevertheless, he said, "Not yet, Mr. Burdick. Mort's in there, too, with five flying V hands. Take a little more time. I've got help on the way."
"I have asked for no help," Burdick said.
The blond man's little smile widened. "Ah, well, I reckon in a pinch the two of us could do it. Any time you're ready, Professor. Have no concern for what's behind you; I'll be watching."
Burdick felt a faint dissatisfaction. It was clear that the other was taking advantage of a private matter for his own ends. Yet there was a pleasant sense of reassurance to be gained from having this tall man as an ally; in any case it was not worth debating now. Burdick reached into his pocket,' brought out two extra buckshot shells, and inserted them between the fingers of his left hand—gripping the fore end of the shotgun—where they would be readily available for fast reloading. Then he walked deliberately at the saloon door, and through it, hardly aware of the effort necessary to brush the swinging panels aside.
To his surprise, they were not awaiting him. The long barroom had the relaxed atmosphere of a place where men accustomed to hard physical labor were taking their ease. He located Jack Mort instantly, to the left, at a table with three other men, presumably Flying V riders. A couple more individuals, who seemed to belong to the same group, were sprawled in chairs by an adjacent table. There were two men, townsmen by their clothing, talking at the right end of the long and massive bar that Could easily have accommodated two dozen. At the center of the bar, Tom Justice was drinking alone, his back to the group from his own ranch. Burdick found himself wondering what disagreement had led the youth to reject their companionship in so pointed a fashion.
Even Tom Justice's solitary figure had, in the moment of Burdick's entrance, a slack and unprepared look, as if the boy had completely forgotten what had just occurred out on the street, or as if he considered it a matter of no importance. Clearly he had not mentioned it to anyone in the saloon. It had been an act of impulse apparently; something done on the way to a glass of whisky and dismissed from mind. Burdick watched young Justice become gradually aware that someone was behind him. Presently his eyes lifted to the mirror, his body became suddenly tense, and he started to turn.
Burdick cocked both hammers of the shotgun. "When your hand touches that pistol, Mr. Justice," he said gently, "I will cut you in two."
After he had spoken, the long room was quite silent. Tom Justice turned very slowly to face the door, keeping his hands well out from his body. "What do you want?" he demanded hoarsely.
"First," Burdick said, "I want you to tell Mr. Mort that you do not desire to die, as you assuredly will if he continues to That's better."
"What do you want?" Tom Justice repeated, licking his lips.
"Two hundred dollars," Burdick said, "for the damages to my camera."
"The damn box wasn't worth half—"
"It wasn't," Burdick agreed, "until I brought it two thousand miles overland to Santa Clara and you smashed it. Let's also consider the damage to my dignity and my peace of mind. I intend to live here a long time, my young friend. I intend to take a great many photographs here. And I haven't the slightest intention of posting a sentry every time I get under the focusing cloth, just to make sure I won't be ridden down by some young idiot on a big horse.... Mr. Mort! I won't warn you again. If you want this boy alive—there's no accounting for tastes—sit still!"
Mort's voice said, "I was reaching for the money, Mr. Burdick. Two hundred dollars, you said. Here it is." The redhaired youth at the bar cried, "Jack, you stay out of this!"
Burdick said, "This is not your affair, Mort; and your money's no good."
Tom Justice said quickly, "Nobody's going to pay this greenhorn anything! He's bluffing!"
"You damn young fool!" Mort retorted. "What the hell do you know about men, bluffing or otherwise? Why do you think I asked your dad to take you out of my riding crew? Couldn't you have stayed home one day, instead of coming here and raising hell with the one man I wanted to keep you clear of?"
Tom Justice cried, "Just because this tenderfoot's got you buffaloed is no reason why I've got to tiptoe around him. If he didn't have that shotgun, I'd ..."
"If the sun didn't rise in the east!" Mort said contemptuously. "If grass grew on the desert, we could use it for winter range! Now you listen to me real careful, kid. Dig down in your pants for that money, slow and easy; and if there's anything else Mr. Burdick wants you to do, you do it, hear? Wait till you've played poker a few more years before you gamble your life on knowing when a man's bluffing. Take a good look at this fellow! You're four ounces from being dead right now, just the pull of a trigger!"
When he stopped talking, Burdick said in a level voice: "After you've paid for the damage, Mr. Justice, you'll walk out of this saloon and down to the corner where my broken came
ra is lying, waiting for you. You'll pick up the camera and carry it back to my gallery. After that you can run along home, remembering in the future to keep your horse and your rope .where they belong."
There was a little pause. Tom Justice started to speak and checked himself. Suddenly he cried, "You're crazy if you think I'll ..."
He stopped, and the room was silent. Burdick said quietly, "You have ten seconds to signify your assent by unbuckling your gunbelt and letting it fall. I am starting the count now. When the time is up, I'll kill you without further warning."
He had been holding the shotgun with both hands slightly above waist level. Now he lifted it and set the butt against his shoulder, and took aim along the twin barrels. There was no doubt or hesitation in his mind. He started the count in his head. As a photographer, accustomed to measuring accurate exposures, he could estimate time with very little error; and he gave each second its full weight, but no more.
As he counted silently, he let his finger gradually increase the pressure on the forward trigger. When young Justice fell, he thought—assuming that the boy did not yield—he would have to swing thirty degrees left and try to rake Jack Mort's table with the second barrel before the Flying V foreman, awkward in his chair, could get his gun free. If he placed the spread of buckshot properly, Burdick calculated, he might put both Mort and the man on Mort's left out of action with the same load. Then it would be a matter of taking advantage of the smoke and confusion to change position quickly, dispose of the empties, and slap the two fresh shells into the chambers. . . . All this went through his mind, sharp and clear, as the seconds ticked away; and he had time for mild sense of astonishment: anybody would think he'd been at the business off killing men , for years. Well, it seemed an easy business to learn....
The count was up. He saw the strained, pale look on Tom Justice's face over the shotgun barrels; the beads of perspiration, and the quivering tension in the fingers as, belatedly realizing that he was actually facing death, the boy tried to make himself reach for his holstered weapon as a last brave gesture of defiance. Burdick's triggerfinger reported the increasing pressure to his brain, and he knew that the weapon was about to fire.
"Burdick!" It was Jack Mort's voice, harsh and yet oddly pleading in tone. "Burdick, for God's sake, he's only a kid!"
He never knew afterward if it was the cry that stopped him, or his own independent realization of the callow youth of the figure facing him. Suddenly a black wave of sickness swept through him, and he knew that it was over.
"Grace!"
"Right here."
"Take this. Careful, it's cocked."
He thrust the shotgun Co one side and felt it taken from him; he threw the spare shells away; then he was across the room in long strides. The boy at the bar saw him coming but Seemed unable to move until the last moment. Burdick struck the emerging pistol away and heard it clatter on the floor. He seized Tom Justice by the front of the shirt and swung him around like a weight at the end of a string; when he was aimed at the door, Burdick let go.
The boy fell and rolled. Burdick plunged after him and struck him to the floor as he started to rise, caught him by neck and crotch, and heaved him again in the direction of the door. Young Justice, breathless, with his shirt half torn from his body, had time to rise and start back toward his adversary in a stumbling way. Burdick raised a foot and placed it in the younger man's stomach and smashed him backward through the swinging doors and out into the street.
There was a crowd there now. Burdick was aware of it only as a mass of shifting shadows that made way for the hurtling, helpless figure of the boy and his own pursuing shape. He reached the other as was trying to rise again, seized an arm and a leg, slung the attached body, like a sack, down the street, and went after it.... Presently they were at the camera.
"Pick it up!" It was his own voice, but he did not recognize it.
The boy, trying to rise, made no move toward the broken instrument. Burdick hammered a fist alongside his head, rolling him over in the dust.
"Pick it up, damn you!"
He knew that his quarry was escaping him into unconsciousness, and this knowledge mingled with memories from the past, turning him blind and mad. He started for the prostrate figure with the clearly formed intention of kicking it to pieces. Someone caught him by the arm. He turned, with his fist cocked to strike, and saw Laura Nelson's face, a wavering image through the red haze of murder that hung before his vision.
"Don't," she said, "you'll kill him."
He drew a tremendous breath and said, "That was my intention. I didn't come two thousand miles to put up with—" He drew another breath, as deep as the first, but did not finish the sentence. Instead he said, vaguely puzzled, "l thought you wanted them all dead."
"Not like this. Let him go."
He looked into her face and could not read it. Certainly she did not look like a girl intervening in a spirit of gentle sympathy or high moral indignation. Burdick turned from her to the boy on the ground, left with just enough strength to scratch at the dust. Burdick strode toward the gallery, taking the direct line, letting the people in the street make way for him; but at the door, he wheeled to look back. As he stood there, the shotgun was thrust into his hand; and Lou Grace was there beside him. There were others; and these men made a compact group about him, as he watched Jack Mort come along the street a little way and stop.
Burdick took a fresh breath, and spoke: "I told you once, Mr. Mort, I do not tolerate interference with my property. I will not have a hand or a rope laid on anything that is mine, by anybody. Do I make myself perfectly clear? As for the boy, he will bring me two hundred dollars in payment for the camera by noon tomorrow. He will put it in my hand himself. Transport him here in a wagon if you have to, but see that he comes. If I have to go after him again, I will not use my fists."
He turned on his heel and walked out of the bright sunlight into the cool darkness of the building.
13
Janet Justice heard the rider come flogging up to the ranch house as she was getting ready for bed. She was on the veranda, belting a robe over her nightdress, a few seconds after her father, and half a minute before her mother and sister, who had been at the rear of the house. Dan Justice was already listening to what the man had to say. She knew better than to interrupt; she could hear for herself that someone had been injured, and her father would divulge who it was in his own good time. Even in the semidarkness of the porch, she could see that his face had the expressionless look it always assumed when he was playing poker or receiving bad news.
He heard the man through, and turned. "Your brother's been hurt," he said to Janet, who was closest. "Have some hot water and bandages ready inside, and light up some more lamps. They're bringing him along easy; it will be another ten-fifteen minutes, Pete says."
Janet nodded, and started for the front door, but her mother, waiting there, said quickly, "I'll do it. I . . . I know what's needed." Her voice was bitter. "I ought to by this time."
She ran into the house. The two girls remained on the veranda, standing close together now as if for companionship, their differences momentarily forgotten. Sally looked up.
"Pete," she said, "Pete Hankey."
The heavyset rider who had brought the message, starting to lead his horse away, turned to look back "Yes, Miss sally?"
"Who ... who did it?"
"It was that Burdick fellow, ma'am," Hankey said. His mustache lifted in a crooked grimace that, in the vague light from the windows, could have been either a grin or a snarl. He threw a sideways glance toward Dan Justice, standing silent at the edge of the veranda, and said, "If you ask me, that man's running up quite a bill with Flying V. He still owes me—"
"Not a gun," said Janet sweetly. She did not like this man. "He returned your pistol, didn't he? Perhaps you're referring to one pair of trousers ventilated with birdshot."
Hankey's small eyes narrowed; but his voice was bland: "Ah, Miss Justice, you're joshing me and I reckon I've go
t it coming. But he caught me by surprise that time. I wasn't looking for trouble from someone of his appearance. It will not happen again, I promise you. I'll take care of that dude, don't worry."
"How did Tom get hurt?" Janet asked.
"Why, the way I understand it, he happened to be riding up the street when this fellow was taking a picture. Tom... well, he was just having fun, I reckon; he rode at him and made him jump for it—damaged the camera some, too. It was just horseplay, the way I heard it, nothing serious. Your brother thought no more about it, but came along to the Palace where we was all having a quiet drink. Suddenly the tenderfoot storms in with blood in his eye and that fancy twoshoot gun in his hands. He had us cold. We hadn't known anything was up, and young Grace was backing his play with a cocked forty-five—"
Sally stirred abruptly. "Lou Grace? I don't understand. What was he doing there?"
Hankey said, "Well, that's a damn good question, if you'll pardon me, Miss Sally. I'd say there was something real funny going on between those two. First the photographer helps Grace make his getaway yesterday; and today Grace is right there when the photographer needs help ... If you ask me, I don't think that hombre's any more a photographer than I am. I know a man who likes the smell of smoke when I see him. And Grace has been talking with Price and the other ranchers down south; and he paid a visit to Taos a couple of weeks back. It could be they made up a kitty and sent him out to hire a fast gun. Of course, it's just an idea of mine, ma'am."
He was speaking to Sally, but it was obvious that his words were for Dan Justice's ears. He was demonstrating, Janet reflected, his grasp of the situation and his fitness to take over the job of Jack Mort, should it become available —and her father's expression indicated that Mort was going to have some explaining to do when he arrived.
The Two-Shoot Gun Page 7
