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"Sorry." She got to her feet. "I am going back to him."
He struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand and she
fell to the floor, a trickle of blood running from her mashed lip. She looked
up at him. "You shouldn't have done that, John. I am sorry for you, or I would
be if there was a decent bone in your body."
Furious, he strode from the room and returned to the Palace. The
first person he saw was Chito. "All right. You want to kill Caddo. Go do it."
Without another word, Russ Chito left the room. From her window
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Cherry saw him go and divined his purpose. Filled with terror she rushed to
the door but hulking Bernie Lee stood there. "You ain't goin' no place. Get
back inside."
She stepped back. There would be no chance to warn Caddo. Chito
would be halfway there by now, and he would kill without warning, and from
ambush.
At the Palace John Daniel stared from the window, thinking. The
boom was over here, anyway. He would sell out and go away. Within the past few
months the population had fallen by a third. It was time to move. With the
gold from Caddo's claim he could leave all this behind. He would go to San
Francisco as they had planned, and he would take Cherry with him. Once away
from all this the foolish notions would leave her head. She would be his woman
again.
During the months they had been associated he had never won her
love, and it galled him to think that Bon Caddo had, or so it seemed.
John Daniel hated all that resisted him; anything he did not or
could not possess and control.
The afternoon wore on, and he paced the floor. Chito had not
returned. Of course, he was a careful man. He was taking his time. Still
In her own cabin, Cherry packed her belongings and waited. She
feared, she doubted, yet inside there was a kind of stillness. Terror there
was, and fear for the man she now loved, but through it all there was
something else, a kind of confidence, a belief that somehow, some way, Bon
Caddo would triumph.
At the Palace Saloon John Daniel was no longer patient. He lit a
black cigar and muttered under his breath. He walked to the door and looked
down the street. There was no sign of Chito.
Darkness came and he went to his office. The saloon business began
but in a desultory fashion. The whole town seemed to be waiting, watching,
wondering. Seven o'clock passed, then eight. John Daniel walked into the
saloon and looked quickly around. Many of the familiar faces were missing.
Nine came and went and suddenly there was a crash of glass. Men sprang to
their feet, staring. Where the alley window had been was a gaping hole, and
sprawled on the floor inside was Russ Chito. He had taken a shotgun blast
through the chest.
Men rushed to him, and only John Daniel remained where he was,
white-faced, his cigar clamped in his teeth.
Then the swinging doors parted and Bernie Lee tottered into the
room and fell sprawling on the floor. He was alive, but brutally beaten.
John Daniel reached behind the bar and took up a spare pistol.
Methodically, he checked it, then tucked it behind his belt. His own gun in
his hand, he strode down the street.
Cherry was gone.
Her house was lighted, the door stood open, but Cherry was gone.
John Daniel swore, shifted the cigar in his teeth. "Pete! Dave!
Ed! Cherry's gone and I want her back, and I want Bon Caddo dead!"
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Suddenly, from down the street a voice shouted "Fire!" John Daniel
rushed to the door. One glimpse was enough, down the street, in a direct line
with his saloon, a deserted shack was ablaze.
A glance told him that with the wind there was no chance. That whole side of
the street must go, and he owned every building there.
Suddenly he became aware that nobody was moving to fight the
blaze. They were watching, and a few were throwing water on buildings across
the street, buildings he did not own. He yelled at them, but there was no
response.
Cursing, he turned on his heel and went into the Palace. Rage
filled him, a bitter, futile rage.
He was whipped ... whipped. But he still had the money.
He went to his secret drawer and took out the gold. He went to his
safe for more, carefully changed into bills for easier carrying. There was
more gold under the foundation but that could wait. Now, while the others
watched the fire, he would go.
From his room he brought a pair of saddlebags, kept handy for the
purpose, and into them he stuffed bills and gold. Straightening up he turned
swiftly and started for the back door. A few steps beyond was the stable and
his black horse.
He stopped abruptly. Bon Caddo stood in the door. "Going some
place, John?" he asked mildly.
John Daniel stood stock-still, caught in mid-stride. For the first time he
knew fear.
He was alone. Russ Chito was dead. Bernie Lee was beaten within an
inch of his life. The others were scattered, hunting for Caddo. And Caddo was
here.
John Daniel had always accounted himself a brave man. He was not
afraid, but there was something indomitable about Caddo.
"All your life, John Daniel, you've lived by murder and robbery,
and you've gotten away with it. Now your town is burning, Daniel, and you're
going with it."
John Daniel's hand reached for a bottle at the end of the bar and
threw it. The bottle missed, shattering against the wall. Bon Caddo started
for him.
John Daniel moved to meet him, since there was no escape. He
struck out viciously, and Caddo took the blow coming in without so much as a
wince. Then Caddo struck in return, and the blow made Daniel's knees buckle.
Caddo moved after him, coolly, relentlessly. "Like hitting women,
John? How does it feel to be hit? Do you like killing, John? How does it feel
to die?"
In a wild burst' of panic-born strength, John Daniel struck out.
The blow caught Caddo coming in again but the power of it staggered him and he
tripped over a fallen chair, falling to the floor.
John Daniel lunged for the back door and made it. With Caddo
coming after him he reached the stable.
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His horse was gone!
Trapped, he turned swiftly, reaching for his gun. In front of Bon
Caddo a red eye winked, then winked again. Thunder roared in John Daniel's
ears and a terrible flame seemed to rush through him. He did not see the red
eye wink again for he was falling, falling, already dead, into the broken
branches of a manzanita.
There is a place in the Tonto Basin where a long, low ranch house
looks out upon a valley. Cottonwood leaves whisper their secrets around the
house and on the veranda a woman watches her husband walking up from the barn
with his two tall sons. Inside the house a daughter sings songs more haunting
than those her mother sang in the Palace, long ago. The big man whose hair is
no longer rust red, pauses by her side.
Before them, die peace of the meadows, and the tall sons washing
for supper in the doorside basins. Inside, the song continues.
"It's been a good life, Mother, a good life," he says quietly.
Far to the north there is an adobe wall with a bullet buried in
it, a bullet nobody ever saw. A smashed elbow bone, covered now by the sand of
the wash, lies among the debris of a pack-rat's nest, and where the manzanita
grew there is a whitened skull. In the exact center of that skull are two
round bullet holes, less than a half inch apart.
DUFFY'S MAN
Duffy's man had been on the job just six days when trouble
started.
Duffy, who was older than the gnarled pin-oak by the water hole,
knew there would be trouble when he saw Clip Hart riding up to the stable.
Duffy had covered a lot of miles in his time, and had forgotten nothing, man
or animal, that he had seen in his travels.
Clip Hart had killed a man seven years before in El Paso, and
Duffy had seen it happen. Since then there had been other killings in other
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