Saber glanced at Cardigan and Park Rynder. He said: "I think Willie Kerry's the man to go out there and ram a little law down their throats."

Kerry's head came up with startling suddenness. "Now wait a minute," he said. "1 don't want the d.a.m.n' job. Give it to Overmile...he's out of work."

"If the man don't want to go," Dan Isbel said, "he don't have to go."

"It ain't that 1 don't want to a.s.sume my obligation," Kerry stated. "But 1 got a family and a place of my own to take care of. Three months is a long time, especially right now when shippin' time's only a month off."

"I'll take care of your place for you," Overmile said briefly. "Be a good place for me to roost until the slack time's over." It seemed to settle the question, for they nodded and muttered among themselves.

Willie touched each of them with his eyes, then said to Saber: "Why me, John?"

Saber pulled at the ends of his mustache. "You got a good head, and you're tough, but 1 figure the head's more important right now than a killer instinct."

"What about Harms?" lsbel wanted to know. "You think the desert bunch killed him?"

Saber shrugged. "Hard to tell, Dan. He's been gone a week, and n.o.body's seen him. Some of the boys have been out for the last day or two, but we ain't turned up anything. We'll keep looking, though. A man don't just up and disappear in thin air."

"Do 1 gotta take this job?" Willie asked suddenly.

"No," Saber stated, but he drew the no out, placing a lot of yes in it. "Decide for yourself"

Willie thought of Louise, then, and said: "I'll let you know in an hour... all right?"

Saber nodded, and Willie left the room.

Keno Charlie called to him on the way out, and Kerry halted along the bar. "They decide what happened to Harms yet?"

"Still a mystery," Kerry said. He went out and across the street to the hotel. Louise sat in a far corner, talking to a small group of women. She saw Willie enter the lobby and excused herself.

She read the look on his face and said: "You, Willie?"

His eyebrows went up in surprise. "You knew about it?"

"No," she told him. "It was just a guess. You were the logical one."

He blew out his breath through tight lips. "d.a.m.ned if 1 can figure that. Anyway, 1 told them that 1'd let them know in an hour. I don't have to take it if 1 don't want it."

She took his arm, and they went outside, walking south on Comanche Street until they came to the first cross street. The courthouse square sat back from the road, and they cut across the gra.s.s, taking seats by an old Civil War cannon. Willie fashioned a cigarette, then a match flared, casting a small light over the uneven plains of his face.

Louise said: "I don't want you to hold back because of me, Willie."

"I don't like to leave our place," he said. "Morgan Tanks is a rough town. That whole part of the country is a hotbed of trouble. A man would never know when it'd blow up in his face."

"We wouldn't be there forever," Louise said.

"You're not just sayin' that to make me feel good?"

She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. "Go back and tell them that you'll take it." He hesitated, and she urged him with a small pressure of her hands. "Grandpa can baby sit. He loves it. Go on now. I'll wait for you at the hotel."

She had that wisdom that often plumbed his innermost desires. He knew he would not want to live without it. "I won't be long," he said, and left her, disappearing a moment later down the darkened side street.

Saber and the others had laid a blue haze of cigar smoke in Keno Charlie's back room by the time Kerry returned. Willie stepped in, and closed the door. Talk ceased abruptly.

Saber said: "What about it, Willie?"

"1 guess I'm the sheriff," Willie said. "If that's the way you fellas want it."

"That's the way we want it," Saber said, and stood up to administer the oath of office. There were murmurs of approval when Saber pinned the six-pointed star to Willie Kerry's coat.

They filed out of the back room, and bellied against the bar. Keno Charlie and Mose Dinwitty both hastened to serve them. Kerry accepted a cigar and a drink, in that order, and turned his head as the front doors opened. A quiet settled over the saloon as their voices and soft laughter died in a rippling wave.

The man who stood there was not tall or impressive, yet every eye clung to him. He moved to the small ell at the end of the bar, and placed his hands evenly on the polished surface.

Park Rynder said: "1 know this man. What do you want here, Randolph?"

"Talk," Randolph stated. "1 left my gun outside... along with my fight. I just got a word for the new sheriff."

Willie studied the young man with considerable interest. He was roughly dressed, with a cowhide vest covering a faded gray shirt. His jeans were thin from repeated washing, and his boots were flat-heeled with square toes. The dark of his skin, along with the extremely wide-brimmed hat, marked him as a desert man. He had a wariness bred from the solitude and vastness of that wasteland.

Kerry nodded to Charlie. "Give Mister Randolph a drink, Keno."

Randolph's eyes swung to Kerry, and a tight pride went into his face. "1 want nothin' from you.. .from any of you!"

Kerry leaned both elbows on the bar. "Thirty miles across the desert is a hot ride. The drink was a courtesy from one man to another. We may not like each other, but we ought not snap like dogs, either."

Saber's head came around quickly at this unexpected mildness. Kerry continued to watch Randolph and saw a small mollification of that stubborn pride.

Randolph said in a low voice: "Thanks ...I'll have that drink if you don't mind."

Willie took the bottle from Mose, and walked to the end of the bar. They drank together.

Randolph said: "I can see you're the new law. I got a message for you then ...don't come onto the desert with that badge!"

Every man in the room held his breath, but Kerry surprised them with his reaction. His lips pulled thin, but no anger crept into his eyes. His voice was conversational. "1 can see that you ain't the kind of a man who'd make threats... you're just statin' facts. I'll be in Morgan Tanks within a week to set up an office. That ain't a threat, either. It's a fact that I'm statin', too."

Randolph said: "1 said what 1 was told to say. I got nothin' personal to add."

"I treat people just like they treat me," Willie told him. "I hope you remember that."

"I'll tell Kileen you said it," Randolph promised. He turned to leave, but Willie caught him by the sleeve.

"You know these men here?" Willie asked, and waved a hand at Cardigan and the others.

Randolph's forehead tightened into deep wrinkles. "No," he said, "and 1 don't want to, either."

"1 knew a fella once," Willie stated, "who wouldn't take a drink of whisky because he was afraid he'd get to likin' it. A fella could be that way with men, too."

Randolph's face filled with a driving temper. "You tryin' to make a fool outta me?"

Kerry recognized a man on the edge of a fight. "Not at all. 1 just thought you'd like to know men who work like h.e.l.l for a living, drink the same brand of whisky you do, and cuss the same things." He waited for a tight moment, then Saber walked over to them and offered Randolph another drink.

Some measure of relief crossed Kerry's face when Randolph accepted, and the others came forward. No one broke his back being friendly, but neither was there strain in the low talk and lifting of gla.s.ses. Randolph finished his drink, thanked them civilly, and went out. A moment later the sound of his running horse faded.

Park Rynder said: "If that don't beat anything 1 ever seen."

Keno Charlie rattled gla.s.ses as he set them up again on the house. A wide grin split his thin face. "1 been pa.s.sin' booze over this bar for eighteen years now, and that's the first time 1 ever seen a desert man drink with a man from the breaks."

The others laughed and joked about it, but John Saber's face remained long and thoughtful. He said to Kerry: "1 expected you to belt him. What were you trying to prove, anyway?"

Willie was surprised. "John, I wasn't tryin' to prove anything. 1 guess 1 was thinkin' of this badge and some of the responsibility that goes with it. No man will obey the law if he don't respect it."

"Sometimes you puzzle me," Saber said, and finished his drink. He glanced at his watch. "Edith's waiting. 1'd better get along." He gave Kerry another long glance. "Don't think too much about that star. And don't trust Kileen. He's a wild one. Folks out there sorta look up to him as a leader."

"The man gets his chance along with the rest of 'em," Kerry said, and Saber shrugged before walking out.

They broke up then, and Willie crossed the street to the hotel. His brother was sitting on the verandah with Louise. Burt said: "I'll move my stuff out there in the morning. Don't worry about a thing, Willie. Overmile and me'll handle it for you.,, "Worryin's for the feeble-minded," Kerry stated. He took his wife's arm. They went inside and registered for a room.

II.

Hondo lay on the desert's edge, b.u.t.tressed on the south by hills that rose to form ragged backbones and deep valleys. The desert to the north remained to challenge all who looked upon it. For forty miles it stretched out, flat and simmering, under a bra.s.sy sun, baked white by the heat and driven into graceful hummocks by the wind. Only sage and cactus broke the monotony of its flatness, with the town of Morgan Tanks sitting near the northern fringe, squat and unpainted and bleached the color of sand.

Willie drove hunched over in the seat of the buckboard. His wife sat in silence beside him, trying not to acknowledge the heat that dampened her dress with sweat and the dust that coated her flesh. A trunk and three suitcases rode behind them, shifting slightly as they pa.s.sed over a road that was little better than faint wagon tracks across the vastness.

Willie's hat rode low over his forehead as a shield against the sun. He said: "Men are sure funny critters. Who'd ever think they'd come here and ranch this sand."

It was too hot for talk. He hadn't expected her to answer him and was not surprised when she remained silent.

Morgan Tanks lay in a loose sprawl on the horizon, and they entered it an hour later. It consisted of a narrow main street and three back streets. Main was flanked by a saloon, two stores, a hotel, and several small merchants' establishments. Kerry pulled up before the hotel. Three men sat on the gallery, testing the shade, and they fastened a hard-eyed attention on him as he dismounted to lift his wife to the ground. He wore no coat. The badge was pinned to his white shirt front. He surveyed the town with a quick critical eye, then took Louise's arm and mounted the porch. He signed for a room, saw that she was settled and the baggage stowed, then returned to the verandah and the three men who waited in sweltering patience.

A tall, raw-boned man with a touch of white in his hair stood up.

Willie said: "1 guess you're Kileen."

"You're Kerry then," Buck Kileen said in a deep, soft voice. "Didn't you get Randolph's message?" His eyes traveled Willie's length quickly. He saw that the sheriff carried no gun and asked curtly: "Are you trying to prove something without a gun?"

Willie shrugged. "Too hot to wear a harness," he said, and sat down on the porch railing. "I've heard a lot about you, and I'm impressed. It takes a great man to sink a well for six hundred feet and get water, then irrigate twenty square miles with it. A man'd think you'd have enough sense to obey the laws, or listen to reason, without tryin' to order a man around like you had Randolph do."

Kileen snorted. "1 break none of your d.a.m.n' laws. Harms shoved his weight around, and we don't like that out here. We're big enough and rich enough for our own county. We don't need Harms and his law."

"What happened to Harms?"

Kileen's eyes filled with stubbornness. "You just find that out for yourself"

"I intend to," Willie a.s.sured him. "In the meantime, I'd like to set up an office and jail here. 1 could use some cooperation from you."

Kileen rose, and his men with him. He tapped Kerry on the chest with a stiff finger. "Harms wanted to set up an office, too. You're only one man, and you'll leave with your tail tucked between your legs."

Willie watched with grave concern as Kileen stomped off of the porch. He sighed, and stepped into the street, the sun striking him with a fiery breath. He walked until he came to the empty building by the harness maker's.

He found the door unlocked and went in, brushing cobwebs with his hat. At some time in the past it had been a strong jail. Two small cells stood in the rear corners. He went out, coming back twenty minutes later with a carpenter and the blacksmith. By evening he had the place in good repair and a sign over the door proclaiming it to be a branch of the county jail.

He and his wife took their evening meal in the hotel dining room, ignoring the open stares and cutting glances.

Willie said: "1 wonder what the devil's eatin' these folks? That fella, Kileen...he ain't a snarly man by nature, but he sure gets his hackles up when he sees a badge."

"There are women in this town," Louise said. "Tomorrow I'm going to find someone to talk to. Sometimes a woman can find out more than a man can."

Willie grinned. "Maybe I ought to make you a deppity." He turned his head when he heard a sheet of gla.s.s shatter. He put his fork aside, moving toward the front door.

The sun was not entirely dead, and enough light layered the land for him to see the street clearly. Randolph stood in the middle of the dust, facing a small bakery. Gla.s.s glittered on the boardwalk, and he hefted another rock as if searching for a larger target.

A young girl detached herself from the shadows across the street and came up to pull at his arm. He shook her off, speaking sharply, and she went back to the boardwalk. He saw Kerry and let his eyes rest on him for a daring moment, then turned and threw the rock through the window of the mercantile. He turned again and entered the saloon.

Willie glanced up and down the street. Nearly seventy-five people stood along the walls. He knew what this was, and there was no hesitation as he crossed the street and went into the saloon.

It was crowded, but no one was drinking. Harry Randolph had the bar to himself, and he leaned against it, trying to appear nonchalant, but he was keyed to coming trouble. His eyes slid along Willie's bare hip, and he said: "When 1 came to your town, you bought me a drink, and then 1 rode out. I'll do the same for you."

"I'll have one," Willie said, and bellied up beside him. He took his drink, pushed the empty gla.s.s away from him. A thick silence hung in the room, broken only by heavy breathing and the occasional shuffling of feet.

Kerry said: "You ought to learn to control your impulses a little better. Only little kids can get away with heavin' rocks. Let's go and pay for the windows now."

"Is that the law?" Randolph asked.

"No," Willie told him. "That's the decent thing for a man to do."

Randolph looked around the room at his friends. "Coax me a little."

"All right," Willie said, and lashed out with his fist, knocking the man into the ell formed by the bar and the wall. He stepped in quickly, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun from the man's waistband, spinning it over his shoulder and away from him. Randolph came erect, and Willie drove the arms down, hitting him on the bridge of the nose with a powerful blow.

Randolph cried out and began to sag, but Kerry supported him as he bent the man's back against the bar. Kerry slapped him viciously, half blinding him.

A man in the crowd cursed, and Kileen's voice came quick and harsh. "Let them alone! Harry wanted it this way!"

Harry Randolph moaned as Kerry hit him again, a dull, popping sound like a stick being slapped in the mud. A man in the crowd groaned sympathetically as Kerry struck him again. It was an efficient beating. When Harry Randolph slid down into the sawdust, Willie emptied a fire bucket of water in his face.

Randolph groaned and sat up.

Willie said: "Let's go pay for the broken windows now."

The man made no attempt to answer or move.

Willie grabbed a handful of his hair, and jerked him to his feet. "Let's go to jail, then," he said, and shoved Randolph toward the front door.

Randolph cursed and tried to fight again, but Willie shoved hard against his chest, and the man fell heavily. Willie stood over him, tall and calm, the star glinting on his shirt front. "I'll lick you again if you insist," Willie told him in a quiet voice that held no temper.

Harry knew that he had lost. He got to his feet, and walked out of the saloon ahead of Kerry.

The merchant was reluctant to place a price on his broken window. He said: "It was all in fun, Sheriff. I'd just as soon let it go."