"The name is Tyler, Chet. Ryan Tyler. on't reckon you ever heard that name before, did you now?" Without turning my head, I said to Tap, but loud enough so they could all hear me. "Tap, if they want to open this ball, I want Bayless."

They were flabbergasted, you could see it. Here I was, an unknown kid, stepping out to call a rancher known as a gunman. It had them stopped, and n.o.body quite knew what to say.

"Lucas," I said, "you ain't a fool. You got a daughter and a nice ranch. You got some good boys. If this shooting starts we can't miss Bayless or you."

It was hot, that afternoon, with the clouds fixing up to rain. Most of the snow was gone now, and there was the smell of spring in the air.

"Me, I ain't riding nowhere until I've a mind to. I'm fixing to stay right here, and if it's killing you want, then you got a chance to start it. But for every one of us you bury, you'll bury three of you."

Tap Henry was as surprised as they were, I could see that, and it was surprise that had them stopped, not anything else. That surprise wasn't going to last, I knew. Walking right up to them, I stopped again, letting my eyes sweep over them, then returning to Bayless.

"Why don't you get down, Chet? If you go for that gun you better have solid footing. You don't want to miss that first shot, Chet. If you miss it you'll never get another.

"You aimed to do some burning, Chet. Why don't you get down and start your fire? Start it with a gun like your coyote friend did?" Without shifting his eyes, Bayless stared, and then slowly he kicked one foot out of a stirrup. "That's right, Chet. Get down. I want you on the ground, where you don't have so far to fall. This hombre"-I said it slow-"Paid Kiowa Johnny to burn us out. I heard 'em. I gave Johnny a chance to drop his guns and would have made him talk, but he wanted to take a chance. He took it."

"You killed Johnny?" Lucas demanded, staring at me. "He was supposed to be a fast man with a gun."

"Him?" The contempt was thick in my voice. "Not even middling fast." My eyes had never left Bayless. "You want to start burning, Chet, you better get down."

Chet Bayless was bothered. It had been nigh two years since he had seen me and I'd grown over an inch in height and some in breadth of shoulder since then. My face was part shaded by that hat and he could just see my mouth and chin. But he didn't like it. There was enough of me there to jar his memory and Chet Bayless, while fast with a gun, was no gambler. With Jerito or Red there, he would have gambled, but he knew Red was out of it because of Tap.

"Lucas," I said, "you could be riding in better company. Bayless ain't getting off that horse. He's got no mind to. He figures to live awhile longer. You fellers better figure it this way. Tap and me, we like this place. We aim to keep it. We also figure to run our own cows, but to be fair about it, anytime you want to come over here and cut a herd of ours, come ahead. That goes for you-not for Bayless or any of his gun-handy outfit."

Chet Bayless was sweating. Very careful, he had put his toe back in the stirrup. Jim Lucas shot one glance at him, and then his old jaw set.

"Let's go!" He wheeled his horse and without another ^w they rode away.

Only Red looked back. He looked at Tap, not me. "See you in town!" he said.

Henry called after him. "Anytime, Red! Just anytime at all!"

When the last of them had gone he turned and looked at me. "That was a tough play, kid. 'pose Bayless had drawed on you?"

"Reckon he'd of died," I said simply enough, "but I didn't figure he would. Chet's a cinch player. Not that he ain't good with that Colt. He is-plenty!"

Walking back, I got my rifle. "Gosh amighty, I'm sure hungry!" I 27 said, and that was all. What Tap thought of it, I had no idea. Only a couple of times I caught him sizing me up. And then the following night he rode off and I knew where he was riding. He was gone a-courting of Betty Lucas.

That made me sore but there was nothing I could do about it. He sort of hinted that Margita was my dish, but that wasn't so. She was all wrapped up in some vaquero who worked for her old man, although not backward about a little flirtation.

One thing I knew. Chet Bayless was going to talk to Jerito and then they were going to come for me. erito Juarez had good reason to hate me, and he would know me for the Laredo Kid.

Me, I'd never figured nor wanted the name of a gunfighter, but it was sort of natural-like for me to use a gun easy and fast. At sixteen a kid can be mighty touchy about not being growed up. I was doing a man's job on the n.o.b outfit when Ed Keener rawhided me into swinging on him. He went down, and when he came up he hauled iron. Next thing I knew Keener was on the ground drilled dead center and I had a smoking gun in my hand with all the hands staring at me like a calf had suddenly growed into a mountain lion right before them.

Keener had three brothers, so I took out and two of them cornered me in Laredo. One of them never got away from that corner, and the other lived after three months in bed. Meanwhile, I drifted into Mexico and worked cows down there. In El Paso I shot it out with Jerito's brother and downed him, and by that time they were talking me up as another Billy the Kid. They called me Laredo for the town I hailed from, but when I went back thataway I went into the Nueces country, where the third Keener braced me and fitted himself into the slot of Boot Hill alongside his brothers.

After that I'd gone kind of hog-wild, only not killing anybody but some ornery Comanches. Howsoever, I did back down a sheriff at Fort Griffin, shot a gun out of another's hand in Mobeetie, and backed down three tough hands at Doan's Crossing. By that time everybody was talking about me, so I drifted where folks didn't know Ryan Tyler was the Laredo gunfighter.

Only Chet Bayless knew because Chet had been around when I downed the Keeners. And Jerito knew.

After that I quit wearing guns in sight and avoided trouble all I could. That was one reason this ou-of-the-way ranch under the Pelado appealed to me, and why I avoided trouble all I could.

It must have been midnight and I'd been asleep a couple of hours when a horse came h.e.l.l a-whoppin' down the trail and I heard a voice holler the house. Unloading from my bunk, I grabbed my rifle and gave a call from the door. Then I got a shock, for it was Betty Lucas.

"Rye! Come quick! Tap killed Lon Beatty and a mob's got him! They'll hang him!"

No man ever got inside of his clothes faster than me, but this time I dumped my warbag and grabbed those belted guns. Swinging the belts around me, I stuck my .44 Russian into my waistband for good measure and ran for my horse. etty had him caught and a saddle on him, so all I had to do was cinch up and climb aboard.

"They are at Cebollaffwas she called to me.

"Hurry!"

Believe me, I lit a shuck. That steeldust I was on was a runner and chock-full of corn. He stretched his legs and ran like a singed cat, so it wasn't long until the lights of Cebolla showed. Then I was slowing down with a dark blob in the road ahead of me with some torches around it. They had Tap, all right, had him backward on his horse with a rope around his neck. He looked mighty gray around the gills but was cussing them up one side and down the other. hen I came up, walking my horse.

"All right, boys!" I let it out loud.

"Fun's over! No hanging tonight!"

"Who says so?" They were all peering my way, so I gave it to them.

"Why, this here's Rye Tyler," I said, "but down Sonora way they call me Laredo, or the Laredo Kid. I've got a Winchester here and three loaded pistols, and I ain't the kind to die quick, so if some of you hombres figure you'd like to make widows and orphans of your wives and kids, just start reaching.

"I ain't," I said, "a mite particular about who I shoot. I ain't honing to kill 31 anybody, but knowing Tap, I figure if he shot anybody it was a fair shooting. Now back off, and back off easylike. My hands both work fast, so I can use both guns at once. That figures twelve shots if you stop me then, but I got a Winchester and another gun. Me, I ain't missed a shot since I was eleven years old, so anybody fixin' to die sure don't need to go to no trouble tonight!"

n.o.body moved, but out of the tail of my eye I could see some change of expression on Tap's face.

"He reached first," Tap said.

"But he was just a kid!" Who that was, I don't know. It sounded like Gravel Brown, who b.u.mmed drinks around Ventana.

"His gun was as big as a man's," Tap said, "and he's seventeen, which makes him old as I was when I was segundo for a fighting outfit driving to Ogallala."

Brown was no fighter. "Gravel," I said, "you move up easylike and take that noose off Tap's neck, and if you so much as nudge him or that horse they'll be pattin' over your face with a spade come daybreak."

Gravel Brown took that noose off mighty gentle. I'd walked my horse up a few steps while Gravel untied Tap's hands, and then restored his guns.

"You may get away with this now, Tyler," somebody said, "but you and Tap better take your luck and make tracks. You're through here. We want no gunslingers in this country."

"No?" That made me chuckle. "All right, amigo, you tell that to Chet Bayless, Red Corram, and most of all, Jerito Juarez. f they go, we will. Until then, our address is the Pelado, and if you come a-visiting, the coffee's always on. If you come hunting trouble, why I reckon we can stir you up a mess of that." I backed my horse a couple of feet. uc1"Come on, Tap. These boys need their sleep.

Let 'em go home."

We sat there side by each and watched them go. hey didn't like it, but none of them wanted to be a dead hero. When they had gone, Tap turned to me.

"Saved my bacon, kid." He started riding, and after a ways he turned to me. "That straight about you being the Laredo 33 gunfighter?"

"Uh-huh. No reason to broadcast it."

"And I was wondering if you'd fight! How foolish can a man be?"

It set like that for a week, and n.o.body showed up around South Fork and n.o.body bothered us. Tap, he went away at night occasional, but he never said anything and I didn't ask any questions. Me, I stayed away. This was Tap's play, and I figured if she wanted Tap she did not want me. Her riding all that way sure looked like she did want him, though. Then came Sat.u.r.day and I saddled up and took a packhorse. Tap studied me, and said finally, "I reckon I better side you."

"Don't reckon you better, Tap," I said, "things been too quiet. I figure they think we'll do just that, come to town together and leave this place empty. When we got back we'd either be burned out or find them sitting in the cabin with Winchesters. You hold it down here."

Tap got up. His face was sharp and hard as ever, but he looked worried. "But they might gang you, kid. No man can buck a stacked deck."

"Leave it to me," I said, "and we've got no choice anyway. We need grub."

Ventana was dozing in the sun when I walked the steeldust down the main alley of the town. A couple of sleepy old codgers dozed against the sun-backed front of a building, a few horses stood three-legged at the tie rail. own the street a girl sat in a buckboard, all stiff and starched in a gingham gown, seeing city life and getting broken into it.

n.o.body was in the store but the owner himself and he was right pert getting my stuff ready. As before, I was wearing three guns in sight and a fourth in that shoulder holster under my jacket. If they wanted war they could have it.

When my stuff was ready I stashed it near the back door and started out the front. The storekeeper looked at me, then said, "You want to live you better hightail it. They been waiting for you."

I shoved my hat back on my head and grinned at him. "Thanks, mister, but that sure wouldn't be neighborly of me, would it? Folks wait for me shouldn't miss their 35 appointment. I reckon I'll go see what they have to say."

"They'll say it with lead." He glowered at me, but I could see he was friendly.

"Then I guess I can speak their language," I said. "Was a time I was a pretty fluent conversationalist in that language. aybe I still am."

"They'll be in the Ventana Saloon," he said, "and a couple across the street. There'll be at least four."

When I stepped out on the boardwalk about twenty hombres stepped off it. I mean that street got as empty as a panhandler's pocket, so I started for the Ventana, watching mighty careful and keeping close to the buildings along the right-hand side of the street. That store across the street where two of them might be was easy to watch.

An hombre showed in the window of the store and I waited. Then Chet Bayless stepped out of the saloon. Red Corram came from the store. And Jerito Juarez suddenly walked into the center of the street. Another hombre stood in an alleyway and they had me fairly boxed. "Come in at last, huh?" Bayless chuckled. "Now we see who's nestin' on this range!"

"h.e.l.lo, Jerito," I called, "n.o.body hung you yet? I been expecting it."

"Not unteel I keel you!" Jerito stopped and spread his slim legs wide.

Mister, I never seen anything look as mean and ornery as that hombre did then! He had a thin face with long narrow black eyes and high cheekbones. It wasn't the rest of that outfit I was watching, it was him. That boy was double-eyed dynamite, all charged with hate for me and my kind.

"You never seen the day," I said, "when you could tear down my meathouse, Jerito." Right then I felt c.o.c.ky. There was a devil in me, all right, a devil I was plumb scared of. That was why I ducked and kept out of sight, because when trouble came to me I could feel that old l.u.s.t to kill getting up in my throat and no smart man wants to give rein to that sort of thing. Me, I rode herd on it, mostly, but right now it was in me and it was surging high. Right then if somebody had told me for certain sure that I was due to die in that street, I couldn't have left it.

My pulse was pounding and my breath coming short and I stood there shaking and all filled with wicked eagerness, just longing for them to open the ball.

And then Betty Lucas stepped into the street.

She must have timed it. She must have figured she could stop that killing right there. She didn't know Chet Bayless, Corram, and those others. They would fire on a woman. And most Mexicans wouldn't, but she didn't know Jerito Juarez. e would have shot through his mother to kill me, I do believe.

Easylike, and gay, she walked out there in that dusty street, swinging a sunbonnet on her arm, just as easy as you'd ever see. Somebody yelled at her and somebody swore, but she kept coming, right up to me.

"Let's go, Rye," she said gently.

"You'll be killed. Come with me."

Lord knows, I wanted to look at her, but my eyes never wavered. "Get out of the street, Betty. I made my play. I got to back it up. You go along now."

"They won't shoot if you're with me," she said, "and you must come, now!" There was awful anxiety in her eyes, and I knew what it must have taken for her to come out into that street after me. And my eyes must have flickered because I saw Jerito's hand flash.

Me? I never moved so fast in my life! I tripped up Betty and sprawled her in the dust at my feet and almost as she hit dust my right-hand gun was making war talk across her body, lying there so slim and lovely, angry and scared.

Jerito's gun and mine blasted fire at the same second, me losing time with getting Betty down. Something ripped at my sleeve and then I stepped over her and had both guns going, and from somewhere another gun started and Jerito was standing there with blood running down his face and it all twisted with a kind of wild horror above the flame-stabbing .44 that pounded death at me.

Bayless I took out with my left-hand gun, turning him with a bullet through his right elbow, a bullet that was making a different man of him, although I didn't know it then.

He never again was able to flash a fast gun!

Jerito suddenly broke and lunged toward me.

He was blood all over the side of his head and face and shoulder, but he was still alive and in a killing mood. He came closer and we 39 both let go at point-blank range, but I was maybe a split second faster and that bullet hit bone.

When a bullet hits bone a man goes down, and he went down and hard. He rolled over and stared up at me.

"You fa/! You ... diablo!" His face twisted and he died right there, and when I looked up, Tap Henry was standing alongside the Ventana Saloon with a smoking gun in his hand, and that was a Christian town.

That's what I mean. We made believers out of them that day in the dusty street on a warm, still afternoon. Tap and me, we made them see what it meant to tackle us and the town followed the ranchers and they followed Jim Lucas when he came down to shake hands and call it a truce.

Betty was alongside me, her face dusty, but not so pale anymore, and Tap walked over, holstering his gun. He held out his hand, and I shook it. We'd been riding partners for months, but from that day on we were friends.

"You and me, kid," he said, "we can whip the world! Or we can make it plumb peaceful! I reckon our troubles are over."

"No hard feelings?" One of my arms was around Betty.

"Not one!" He grinned at me. "You was always head man with her. And us? Well, I never knowed a man I'd rather ride the river with!"

There's more cattle on the Pelado now, and the great bald dome of the mountain stands above the long green fields where the cattle graze, and where the horses' coats grow shining and beautiful, and there are two houses there now, and Tap has one of them with a girl from El Paso, and I have the other with Betty.

We came when the country was young and wild, and it took men to curry the roughness out of it, and we knew the smell of gunsmoke, the buffalo-chip fires, and the long swell of the prairie out there where the cattle rolled north to feed a nation on short-gra.s.s beef.

We helped to shape that land, hard and beautiful as it was, and the sons we reared, Tap and me, they ride where we rode, and when the day comes, they can carry their guns, too, to fight for what we fought for, the long, beautiful smell of the wind with the gra.s.s under it, and the purple skies with the 41 slow smoke of home fires burning.

All that took a lot of building, took blood, lead, death and cattle, but we built it, and there she stands, boys. How does she look now?

To Hang Me High He was a fine-looking man of fifty or so, uncommonly handsome on that tall bay horse. He turned in his. saddle like a commanding general, and said, "We will bivouac here, gentlemen. Our man cannot be far and there is no use killing our horses."

It wasn't the first time I had seen Colonel Andrew Met-calf, who was easily the most talked-about man in WilloW Springs. He alone did not have to worry about his mount- he had brung one of his hands along, leading a beautiful Tennessee Walker, and twice a day he switched off from one t'other, so as not to tire either of them out. Those horses, I thought, had a better life than some people. Them with a master given to allowin' his horses rest, even on a posse.

My name is Ryan Tyler, a stranger in this country, and by the look of things not apt to live long enough to get acquainted. The colonel had nine men with him and they had just one idea in mind: to ride me down and hang me high.

Only two of them fretted me much. The colonel was a hard-minded man, folks said, with his own notions about right and wrong. The other one who worried me was Shiloh Johnson.

Three weeks ago Shiloh and me had us a run-in out to Wild Horse Camp. He was used to doin' just about whatever he pleased, for the reason that most everyone was scared of him. Only me bein' a stranger an' all, he tackled more than he figured on.

Johnny Mex Palmer seen it, and he said I done wrong. "You should have killed him, Rye. He'll never let it rest now until you're buried deep."

He had seen me beat Shiloh 'til he couldn't stand up, and me never get any more than some skinned knuckles. Well, folks had the saying around that Shiloh was the toughest man in a fight, the fastest on the draw, and the best man on a trail from Willow Springs to the Mesquite Hills.

He set some store by that reputation, Shiloh did, and now he had been beaten by a youngster, and easy-like to boot.