Inside the jail, Buck Dillon regained his senses and pounded against the barred door, shouting in a wild, high voice. Willie reentered and asked: "What's got you by the tail?"

"d.a.m.n you!" Dillon said. "You let me outta here d.a.m.n' quick!"

"1 told you something," Kerry said, "and you didn't have enough sense to believe it. You gotta learn you ain't the only sparrow on the roost."

"I'll kill you for this," Dillon threatened.

Willie shook his head. "You just cool off a little while. If you behave yourself, I'll let you out when I come back. If you can't, then jail's the place for you." He grinned when Dillon cursed, then went out, and crossed to the hotel.

He found Pickering in the lobby, a tall, gaunt man with a shock of white hair. Willie introduced himself and said: "Pickering, if your foreman's in town, then find him and tell him there's to be no trouble tonight."

The man looked Kerry over carefully. "He's across the street at the mercantile. If you want to talk to him, his name's Wilder." There was no obstinacy in Pickering, just reserve. He placed the sheriff on his own, letting him run his course without help or interference.

"Thanks," Kerry said, and went back across the street.

Wilder was a big man with a wide, sun-blackened face and large hairy hands. He wore a gun high on his hip, and Kerry walked up to him unnoticed and slipped it from his holster. He threw it through an open door leading into a back room.

Wilder spun around, his temper high.

"There's a new rule," Willie told him. "No guns in town."

There was nothing impetuous about Wilder. He wanted to be sure before he acted. "Who's gonna make this rule stick?"

"I just made it stick," Willie said. "I made it stick with Buck Dillon, too."

Wilder possessed a deep temper that he didn't allow to reach the surface. It only edged its way into his voice. "Give me another gun, Amos." He spoke to the clerk, but never took his eyes from Kerry's face.

A gla.s.s showcase door whispered as it slid open, and Kerry said in a soft voice: "No gun, Amos."

There was a heartbeat of silence, then Amos Wilkerson said testily: "I'll sell to who 1 d.a.m.n' please."

"All right," Kerry stated. "Wrap it up and he can take it with him when he leaves town." He waited with this thing pushing against him, ugly and wild and slightly dangerous.

Wilder broke the spell when he let out his breath and wheeled away from the counter, then plunged from the store.

Amos sighed with relief. "You just ain't like Harms at all, Kerry." Wilkerson's voice contained a faint friendliness, and it halted Kerry.

"What really happened between Dillon and Wilder?"

"Dillon wants a fight.. .so does Wilder."

"Why don't they fight, then, and get it over with?" Kerry wanted to know.

"I guess 'cause there ain't no excuse," Amos stated. "Wilder's a cautious man. He don't buy trouble... never did, but he can't stand for no pushin' around. Dillon'd like to pull his gun, but he's looking for a legal excuse, like an open war between Pickering and Kileen."

"I thought Wilder pushed first," Kerry said.

"1 heard that, too," Amos agreed, "but I discount it... mainly because 1 got it from Dillon."

"Thanks for the talk," Kerry told him, and left the store.

Pickering and Wilder were in the hotel lobby when he entered. He crossed to them and got right to the point. "This squabble between you and Buck Dillon is gonna get settled tonight... once and for all. I'm gonna let him outta jail in a little while."

"I got no gun," Wilder said.

"What makes you think you'll need one?"

"Why ...the man threatened me," Wilder said. He shot a glance at Pickering who kept his eyes lowered and studied his fingers. Pickering was the kind of a man who gave the other man all the rope he wanted, content to sit back and watch human nature run its course. Kerry was shouldering the responsibility of his troubles by forcing the issue, and Pickering was willing to let it go at that.

"Dillon don't have a gun, either," Willie stated. "If there's anything between you that needs settling, then do it with fists or beer bottles, but not guns."

"You walk pretty proud," Wilder said. "I've known men to get into real trouble walkin' like that."

"1 bought real trouble when 1 put on this badge," Willie told him. "Before the night's over, you two fightin' c.o.c.ks are gonna learn to walk on the same side of the street without lockin' horns."

Pickering had remained neutral up to this point. Now he raised his head and said: "Kerry, I haven't made up my mind if you're a d.a.m.n' fool or a great man. You seem to forget that men will fight. Sometimes even G.o.d can't keep 'em apart."

"Fightin's all right," Willie said. "Killin' ain't."

He went out onto the porch to resume his seat. He waited until Pickering and his foreman crossed to the saloon, then rose and went over to the jail.

He opened the door for Dillon. The man's face was swollen and caked with dried blood. He glared at Kerry for a long moment, before he said: "What is this? First you lock me up, then you turn me loose. Are you trying to play it big for the people's benefit?"

"Get out of here," Willie said. "Pickering and Wilder are both in town, and neither of them is armed. If you want to fight Wilder, then do it with your fists. Do it tonight or leave him alone."

"Don't tell me how to fight, or when," Dillon snapped. "I'll settle with Wilder, then I'll come after you."

"That would be a foolish thing," Willie said.

He stood in the doorway after Dillon went out, deeply in thought, then blew out the lamp, and walked to his house on the back street.

Lamplight blossomed in the parlor, and Willie paused in the archway. Louise was serving coffee to three towns women. She rose, knowing instinctively that something troubled the tall man. She excused herself, and followed Willie into their bedroom.

He took his gun and holster from the dresser drawer, and buckled them on. Louise's eyebrows pulled together in a small frown, and she spoke in a low voice. "Trouble?"

"Maybe," Willie said. "1 don't know yet." He wished she wouldn't watch him with such steadiness. He raised his head quickly. "You think it's wrong.. .this gun?"

"1 wouldn't say, Willie. You have to decide for yourself."

Willie blew out a long breath. "I'm not a brave man...I never claimed to be. 1 been playin' this thing without a gun, but now 1 got doubts. Somehow 1 need this gun."

Louise came to him, and laid her head against his chest. "You do what you think is right, Willie. That makes it right with me."

He turned from her, and went back uptown.

The long-barreled .44 was a strange weight against his thigh as he resumed his station on the hotel verandah. He watched Kileen wheel into town. The man saw Kerry and crossed to him.

Kileen said: "1 see you're wearin' a gun tonight. It looks a little strange on you, Kerry."

"I feel worse for it," Kerry admitted, studying the movement along the street.

Kileen caught the sheriff's shifting attention and asked: "Dillon and Wilder tangle yet?"

"No," Willie said, and told him of his trouble with Dillon.

Kileen twisted his mouth to one side and scrubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Well, you been runnin' your business and lettin' us run ours. 1 don't mean to advise you, but Dillon won't forget that. If Wilder don't plug him, then he'll come after you."

"Wilder won't shoot him," Kerry stated. "He doesn't have a gun, and he's man enough not to get one."

Kileen grunted. "Maybe you're right. He ain't a proddy man when it comes right down to it." He slapped his flat belly and stated: "Come on and have a drink with me."

"I'm a hill man," Kerry reminded him, and waited for the reaction.

Kileen shrugged. "Tonight I don't feel like drawin' a line on where a man's from."

Kerry grinned, and they walked across the street to the saloon.

Pickering and Wilder left their table to join them at the bar.

Willie tossed off his drink and folded his hands. "Pickering," he said, "what you got against the law?"

"Nothin'," the gaunt man said. "1 didn't like Harms or any of his deppities, that's all."

"Law's a queer thing," Kileen philosophized. "A man can't live among other men without it, but it's gotta be tempered a little with judgment. Harms didn't have any judgment, and without that there ain't no justice, either."

Kerry said: "You oughta know by now that you and me ain't much different in the way we think. When I get back to Hondo, I'll see Saber, and maybe we can split the county. It'll take time, maybe years, but it'll give you common ground for talk."

Pickering and Kileen nodded in agreement, then Kileen touched Wilder and asked: "You seen Dillon yet?"

"He went past twenty minutes ago with Randolph, but he just glared."

"May be a quiet night, after all," Pickering said.

They ordered a round of beer and settled against the bar in small conversation until the wall clock indicated nine-thirty. Kerry was ready to go back to the hotel when Harry Randolph came in. He said to the sheriff: "Buck Dillon's got hold of a gun."

"What have you got to do with it?" Kerry wanted to know.

"1 don't want nothin' to do with it," Randolph insisted. "You can believe what you d.a.m.n' please, but 1 tried to talk some sense into him. He won't listen to n.o.body. He's out on the street now."

"1 knew this couldn't last," Kileen said, and drained his beer. "I pay his wages ...I'll go out and talk to him." He left the saloon.

"Nanon worries about you," Kerry said to Randolph.

"Dammit, 1 know it!"

"You gotta show her she ain't got nothin' to worry about," Kerry said.

"What you expect me to do?"

"The right thing," Kerry said. "Whatever comes natural." He looked past Randolph's shoulder as Kileen came back in.

"It's dark out there," Randolph said. "If Wilder shows himself, Dillon will think he's armed. The man needs a gun to make him feel big. He thinks everyone else's the same way."

The young man's talk ate into Kerry, and he knew then why he was wearing a gun. He took it off and handed it to the bartender. "Keep this for me until 1 call for it."

Pickering took him by the arm and said stiffly: "This is goin' too far. Put that d.a.m.n' thing back on."

"1 said, no guns in town, and 1 mean it. What applies to him applies to me. It'll be better this way." He shook the man's hand off, and stepped out onto the porch, and Pickering and Kileen followed him.

Dillon drew his gun when the sheriff made the center of the street. "Don't come any closer!" he yelled.

Willie closed the distance with three more steps.

"Trigger that thing off," he said, "and you'll never know another day's peace in your life. You can only kill a man, Dillon. The badge never dies. It's just pinned to the shirt of another man and keeps coming after you until you're swingin' from a tree."

"I want Wilder!" Dillon shouted.

When he was six feet away from the man, Willie knew that Dillon would never let him get any closer. He sensed the tightening of the man's trigger finger and leaped aside and into him as the gun spit fire and noise.

He struck the arm down just in time, and drove Dillon into the hitch rack, letting the weight and momentum of his charge arch the man's back. Dillon cried out as Kerry grasped his wrist and twisted, spinning the gun into the dust.

Dillon's rage vaulted, and he fought to free himself, but Willie slammed him along the jaw with an elbow and threw him headlong into the street with a violent twist of his body. He leaped astride when Dillon tried to rise, placing his knee in the man's neck until his face changed color and his fight grew weak.

Randolph and the crowd gathered in a tight ring around them. Willie stood up, leaving the man gagging for wind. He took Randolph roughly by the arm and handed him a small ring of keys. "Go lock this d.a.m.n' troublemaker up."

"That suits me just dandy," Randolph said, and jerked Dillon to his feet. Dillon tried to put up a fight, but Randolph slapped him quiet.

The man stood sawing for wind. Some of the wildness faded from his eyes when he looked at Kerry. "d.a.m.n," he muttered, "but you and Harms is sure different."

Pickering broke up the crowd with his rough voice, and they crossed to the verandah of the hotel. Wilder leaned against the wall. Kileen sagged into a chair and lighted a cigar. Willie felt the aftermath of the fight work through him, and leaned his hands on the porch rail to steady the trembling.

Kileen saw this and said, not unkindly: "So you ain't all nerve, after all?"

"No," Kerry admitted. "Just human and scared sometimes."

"You figure to leave Randolph on here as your deppity?" Pickering asked.

"Can't he handle it?" Willie asked.

The gaunt man nodded.

Kerry turned his head to look beyond the town and onto the flatness of the desert. The moon stood high, sending a pale white light onto it, giving it a beauty and wildness that was not frightening. Looking at it from Hondo, it had always seemed different, shimmering in the distance, but tonight, from the hotel porch, it looked familiar and friendly, and he was glad that he had come to know it.

end.