the Rustlers Of West Fork (1951) (27 page)

He had not much longer to wait. Death is rarely impatient and can conjure up a multitude of tiny delays. Death definitely has dramatic sense and understands the rules of suspense, for upon this night Johnny had come to his feet more than once, his gun ready. First it had been the doctor coming out, and then somebody who delivered an armful of groceries, and then a visitor. Hopalong was staying a long time.

He would not stay the night. Johnny Rebb had taken precautions to find out, but it did not matter, for Rebb was prepared to wait a week, a month if necessary. He had a good store of dry wood. He allowed little smoke to emerge, no light to be seen. His supplies had been brought in by night.

Hopalong Cassidy was a careful man. Always a fighting man, he had learned that survival was a matter of intelligence, of knowing things first, and being always ready for the unexpected. Pamela had come with him to the door, and they stood there, talking.

"Will you go back to Buck now, Hoppy?" she asked. "No." His eyes strayed down the street and rested upon a dark house; rested, then moved on.

"No, I reckon not. I want to ride south from here, down near the border. Little town down there I want to see, and some new country."

"Won't you ever settle down? Stay in one place?" Her hand was on his sleeve. "Why don't you stay here, Hoppy? SomehowOh, I feel so much better when you're near, and lately I've been almost sick when you were gone." He avoided her eyes, reflecting miserably that she would probably be sicker if he stayed and then went. And he would go.

"Who lives in that house down the street? The one that is out farther than the others? On the corner almost?"

"That one? It's empty. Frager used to live there, they tell me. He was an outlaw, I guess. Anyway, when the Eagle closed, he left very fast." "I see. Anybody been in there lately?"

"Oh, no! It's empty. It has been for days."

Hopalong Cassidy nodded, and his eyes gleamed in the darkness. The snow in the street where it had been walked over and run over was gone. There were still a few roofs that had snow, however, but they were the roofs of sheds and barns without inner heat. The houses where lights showed had no snow on the roof, for the fires within had helped to melt it away. There was no snow on the roof of the house in question, although there was snow on the porch, unbroken, untrodden snow.

"I'd better go," he said quietly.

"You'll come back?" Pamela pleaded gently.

"Yeah, maybe." It was better to say you would come back. Better than flatly saying no. It wouldn't work, he knew. Pamela was lovely, but he was a man who lived by the gun. She deserved better. Maybe she was a little in love with him, but he was not at all sure. And in a little while, if he was gone, there would be somebody else.

"Yeah," he said quietly, "I'll come back, Pam. After I go south." He stepped quickly off the porch, intent now upon something else.

No snow on the roof. He smiled, seeing again a pattern of living and a pattern of going shaping itself.

"So long, Pam! Tell Dick I got a little job to do down the street, but I'll be ridin' on right after."

Within the dark window of that house his eye had caught, in the moment he first stepped from the door of the house, a tiny fleck of light that might have been a suddenly extinguished cigarette. And it might have been his imagination.

He huddled his sheepskin coat around his ears but stripped off his gloves and shoved them into the capacious pockets. He walked slowly down the street. And then the door of the empty house opened and a man made tracks in the hitherto untracked snow. His boots crunched on the porch snow, and then he stepped down on the walk. He wore a heavy buffalo coat that hung open.

"A cross draw," Hopalong said to himself, "an' it will be fast." Johnny Rebb stopped and watched the man approaching him.

He was young at this game, but good. He knew he was good. He was too young to have the feeling of going too often to the well, too young to have any premonition of death or to recognize it if it came. He was a young man of singularly basic emotions. An uncomplicated young man. His ideas were few, his tastes and desires simple. Right now he wanted to kill Hopalong Cassidy. Right now he felt he was going to kill him. "Howdy, Cassidy." He spoke in a low voice, and waited. "Yeah, Johnny. I been expectin' you. Fact is, I knowed you was here." "How?"

Johnny Rebb was puzzled. How could he have known? "No snow on the roof. Only houses with the snow gone are those with fires."

"Well, what d'you know? I never figgered on that." He chuckled. "You're a smart one, Hoppy. Too bad you have to go this way, but Sparr, he done me some favors."

"Do yourself one, kid," Hopalong suggested quietly. "Call this off an' beat it. You had luck. You beat out a tough game, so take the luck you have an' go someplace else. Start ranchin' or punch cows. This killin' won't get you no place."

"Talkin' too much, Hoppy. Them who talk too much are usually scared." Hopalong's chuckle was dry. "Not this time, kid. I hate to see this happen."

Johnny Rebb's right hand lightly held the edge of his coat, only inches from his gun butt.

"Sorry, Hop-to "

He turned his body at the hips with a swift motion that thrust the gun butt-the gun was in his waistband-right into his hand. Then he drew and fired.

It was fast. Amazingly fast.

Hopalong, whose gun was in its holster, the butt at the edge of the coat, was an instant slower. It was a hair's-breadth differ- 243 ence caused by difference in gun positions and the edge of Hoppy's coat. But Johnny Rebb shot first, and he shot too fast.

He had failed to learn what those who live must learn-that the instant of deliberation before the trigger is pulled is often the only difference between life and death. His bullet tore a deep furrow along the top of Hoppy's sheepskin coat's shoulder. His second shot went through the thick fold of the coat within an inch of Hoppy's heart but failed to touch his body.

Hopalong's gun had swung up to hip level, and then he fired. He fired once only.

He fired at the shining buckle on Rebb's belt, and the heavy lead slug hit the corner of the buckle and ranged upward. Hopalong walked forward swiftly to the fallen man. Rebb stared up at him, his eyes surprised and bitter. "You should have filed the shine off that buckle, kid," he said gently. "It makes much too good a mark."

People came running, and Pamela would be one of them.

He edged away from the dying man, remembering that he had not picked up the buckskin yet. "When Pamela Jordan comes out," he told a bystander, "tell her Cassidy was all right. I've got to see a man about a horse."