Andrew had dropped to his knees and turned the body
upon its back. The stone had been half buried
in the dust, but it had cut a deep, ragged gash on
the forehead of Buck. His eyes were open, glazed;
his mouth sagged; and as the first panic seized Andy
he fumbled at the heart of the senseless man and felt
no beat.
“Dead!” exclaimed Andy, starting to his
feet. Men were running toward him from the saloon,
and their eagerness made him see a picture he had
once seen before. A man standing in the middle
of a courtroom; the place crowded; the judge speaking
from behind the desk: “—to be
hanged by the neck until—”
A revolver came into the hand of Andrew. And
when he found his voice, there was a snapping tension
in it.
“Stop!” he called. The scattering
line stopped like horses thrown back on their haunches
by jerked bridle reins. “And don’t
make no move,” continued Andy, gathering the
reins of Buck’s horse behind him. A blanket
of silence had dropped on the street.
“The first gent that shows metal,” said
Andy, “I’ll drill him. Keep steady!”
He turned and flashed into the saddle. Once more
his gun covered them. He found his mind working
swiftly, calmly. His knees pressed the long holster
of an old-fashioned rifle. He knew that make of
gun from toe to foresight; he could assemble it in
the dark.
“You, Perkins! Get your hands away from
your hip. Higher, blast you!”
He was obeyed. His voice was thin, but it kept
that line of hands high above their heads. When
he moved his gun the whole line winced; it was as
if his will were communicated to them on electric currents.
He sent his horse into a walk; into a trot; then dropped
along the saddle, and was plunging at full speed down
the street, leaving a trail of sharp alkali dust behind
him and a long, tingling yell.
Only one man in the crowd was old enough to recognize
that yell, and the one man was Jasper Lanning.
A great, singing happiness filled his heart and his
throat. But the shouting of the men as they tumbled
into their saddles cleared his brain. He called
to Deputy Bill Dozier, who was kneeling beside the
prostrate form of Buck Heath: “Call ’em
off, Bill. Call ’em off, or, by the Lord,
I’ll take a hand in this! He done it in
self-defense. He didn’t even pull a gun
on Buck. Bill, call ’em off!”
And Bill did it most effectually. He straightened,
and then got up. “Some of you fools get
some sense, will you?” he called. “Buck
ain’t dead; he’s just knocked out!”
It brought them back, a shamefaced crew, laughing
at each other. “Where’s a doctor?”
demanded Bill Dozier.
Someone who had an inkling of how wounds should be
cared for was instantly at work over Buck. “He’s
not dead,” pronounced this authority, “but
he’s danged close to it. Fractured skull,
that’s what he’s got. And a fractured
jaw, too, looks to me. Yep, you can hear the
bone grate!”
