CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I waited for half an hour while Green and the others spread
the word to close up the saloons. The lights gradually went out up and down the
street, and I left the office. Alone.
I found Rance in front of the Texas Trail, and I was able to
reach him before I was recognized. I stood ten feet away, half-shadowed, while
Rance and his boys stood in the glow of a streetlight.
“Rance,” I said.
Rance gave a sort of drunken grunt of laughter, though he
wasn’t at all amused. “Marshal’s back,” he said slowly, working to get the
words out. “Let’s shoot him, men.”
One of Rance’s men took a step forward. “You better get outta
here, Marshal,” he told me. “We ain’t in no mood to fool.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “The street’s closed, Rance. Now go
on back to your camp.”
Rance peered at me through the half-light of the lantern and
tried to see just one of me. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“It’ll open up again tomorrow night,” I told them. “You’re
welcome to come back then.”
Rance shook his head like a mule. “There won’t be no town by
tomorrow,” he said. He turned his head to his boys. “Let’s set it afire, men.”
“Rance,” I said. “Shut up.”
He looked at me kind of stupidly. “I won’t shut up,” he said.
“Then you’re going to jail,” I told him.
“I’m – what?”
Rance’s man said, “Leave ‘im be, Marshal.”
I stepped into the light. They could all see that I was
armed, but that my gun was in the holster. “You want to fight, mister?” I said.
“Rance here’s too drunk, he wouldn’t have a chance, but you might.”
Rance thought for a minute, then nodded. “He’s right, Pete,”
he said, looking at the man who’d spoken to me. “I’d never make it. You draw on
‘im.”
There was a tense moment while all of Rance’s boys looked
nervously at the man called Pete. Rance’s voice swelled with anger. “Go on,
shoot ‘im!”
“Well?” I said. “I’m waiting, cowboy.”
Pete shook his head. “I ain’t no gunfighter.”
Rance shoved him in the small of the back, prodding Pete
towards me. “Go on, ya coward!”
Pete eyed me once more, then turned his back on me to face
his boss. “No,” he said. “Why should I die? T’ain’t my business, anyway.” And
he walked to the side of the street and waited.
Rance glared at Pete, and I thought for a second he was going
to draw and gun down his own man. In which case I would have dropped him, drunk
or no. But he regained a little control and looked around at the rest of his
boys. “Somebody do it, then!”
I took another step forward, my hand easy by my side. “I’ll
fight any man here,” I said. “And I’ll fight him fair.”
There was a chorus of “not me”s and “no”s.
Rance staggered towards me. “Then I’ll have to try it
myself.”
Pete took a step back towards his boss. “Don’t do it, Rance!
He’ll kill ya.”
“Get outta here, ya coward!”
Pete and two other men closed in on Rance, and stood in front
of him.
“Get outta my way,” growled Rance. I thought I heard him
reach for his gun.
“No you don’t!” shouted Pete, and suddenly the four men were
struggling. I took a half-step to the side and angled my body to make a small
target. Fair is fair, but a drunk with his gun out already was a stupid way to
die.
Rance was slugging his men and shouting. “Gimme that gun,
Pete!”
I saw Pete step back and stick something in his belt. “I’ll
keep your gun,” he said.
Rance lunged at him. “Gimme it!”
“Cut it out, Rance,” said Pete, his voice pleading, “or I’ll
slug ya!”
Rance swung at him, and Pete side-stepped and wallopped Rance
behind the ear with his fist. Rance fell to the ground like an dead ox.
“That was smart of you, mister,” I said. “But he’s still
going to jail.”
Pete looked at me. “You’ve got a lotta nerve, Marshal,” he
said, “buckin’ a crowd like this.”
“I’m not bucking a crowd,” I told him. “I’m one man, against
any other one man here. You cowboys aren’t built that way. I’ve been in Texas
too, mister.”
Pete thought about that for a minute, then shrugged. “Guess
you win, Marshal.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it looks that way. Do you want to take Rance
to jail, or do you want me to do it?”
Pete looked around at his friends. “Well, his head might be
less lumpy tomorrow if we do it, Marshal.” He and a couple of other cowboys
dragged Rance up to his feet. The trail boss was hardly conscious, and Pete had
to help him get his legs moving. “Start walking, Rance,” he said.
I watched the other cowboys spread out and find their horses.
I waited there in the street, watching them go, but I stayed in the half-light.
Once they were out of Dodge I walked over to the jail and put Rance in a cell.
Pete and his friends left without a word, and I watched them ride out of town.
That was when I opened my bottom desk drawer, pulled out a
bottle and a glass, and had a shot of whiskey. In fact, I had more than one.
After the third, I lifted my glass and looked around my office.
“Here’s to Dodge,” I said, then I corrected myself. “Here’s
to law in Dodge.”
From the back room Rance snored loudly.
