Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Theodorik Perrine, massive and black and sinister, stood against the wall, revolver bearing down upon Chaffee. He had the latter off balance; he had the drop. And he grinned.

"Nobody else here. Just me, Chaffee. I make pritty good sounds o' trouble, don't I? Yeah. Jus' me. My come-on is out in the alley, prob'ly gettin' away from here fast as he's able. God knows where the gang is. Some's dead, some's in the cooler. Rest went yella and hit for other parts. But I'm still here, Chaffee. Yeah, I'm here. It's the end of the trail all right. But I got one more hand to play and I shore wasn't leavin' until I played it. Slip the gun back in yore holster. I got yuh hipped."

"Where's Luke?" demanded Chaffee.

"Not here. It was only a stall to bring yuh over. Put back the gun."

"A trick?" muttered Chaffee. He shook his head, realizing how fully he had fallen into the trap. It angered him. He ought to have known better. Yet he thought Luke was in trouble, and Luke was a partner of his. Perrine's gun was set steadily against him, while his own piece aimed at nothing but a blank wall. Perrine murmured his command again, and Chaffee slid the weapon into its holster.

Perrine backed away until he was at the far end of the room. "Yeah, a trick. Yore pritty clever, Chaffee. Yuh think fast. I had to ketch yuh quick afore yuh had time to think. So it was a trick. But it ain't one now. I never knew the man I had to take advantage of on the draw. I'm givin' yuh an even break. But I want to palaver a minute." His own weapon dropped into its holster. Perrine seemed to relax, yet even in relaxing the mighty muscles strained and rolled along his shoulders. He was still grinning, swart features broken into sardonic lines, narrow eyes half closed.

"Even break," he repeated. "Nobody in the saloon. Nobody out back. Never saw the time I had to have help. Fifty-fifty. One of us walks outen here without hindrance—unless some o' yore centipedes ketch wind of it."

Chaffee turned so that he fully faced the man. Thus they stood, each with his back to the wall, the length of the room between them, the flickering lamp on the table marking a dead line. Across its smoking funnel he viewed Perrine. This was the showdown, the culmination of their years of bitter antagonism, the climax of their hostility. It was in the cards that they should meet and match guns; the prophecy of it had been abroad in the country many seasons. Month by month their paths had approached nearer; now those paths joined and the single trail was too narrow for both to walk along.

"Reckon it had to come," drawled Chaffee. "You said once you'd go clear across America to get me. I said I wouldn't go near that distance. Fact. I could let you alone. It's a big world and plenty of room for all. But you ain't built to let me alone. Top of the pile or nothing for you, Theodorik. I'm not backin' down. Just statin' a fact. But it's a poor play for you. You'd ought to be miles away from Roarin' Horse by now. Don't you know your time is past? Well—I'll wait for you to draw."

"Not for me," said Perrine, growing angry. "I don't have to take odds. Not from any man livin'. Which applies to you, Chaffee." The lamp funnel sent up a spiral of smoke, the glass was clouding with soot. Perrine stared at it, and his body trembled with a mirthless laughter. "Let the lamp decide. It's almost out of oil. When the flame leaves the wick—we draw."

"Fair enough. You're a hand to do things fancy, Theodorick."

"You bet. I make a splash when I jump. That damn' Woolfridge! Yella dawg! With all his fancy airs he wanted to jump the bucket and leave me to play the fiddle."

"He's in jail now," said Chaffee.

"Yeah? He ought to be in hell. He wanted to run. So did his men. So did mine. I ain't runnin'—not till I'm through with you. Here I stand on my hind laigs, too big a man to be budged afore my time. It takes more'n a pack o' homesteaders to pull me down. I'm Theodorik Perrine!"

"And proud of it," murmured Chaffee. There was draught of air coming into this small room. It crossed the lamp chimney and sucked at the light. That light might last five minutes; it might snuff out within the drawing of a breath. Chance—the sporting of the gods. It had always been this way with Theodorik Perrine and himself. The giant seemed to understand what Chaffee was thinking about, for his grin broadened and his teeth shimmered against the black background of his face. He enjoyed this, or appeared to. As for Chaffee, his nerves were caught by a strange chill and his finger tips felt remote. He was a good and competent hand with the gun, but Perrine's reputation had been a thing of legend and mystery. And Perrine always had fostered the reputation, never revealing his skill in public.

"You bet I'm proud," said Perrine. It sounded as if he spoke against time. "I cover a lot of ground. I cast a big shadder. I can do everything better'n you, which we will prove in another minute. About them hawsses—that was yore luck. It's alius been yore luck to draw meaner brutes than me. I can ride anythin' that wears hair, but I nev' could show on the leather-covered easy chairs they gimme. I don't like you—never did and never will. I'll be runnin' yore name into the ground a long time after yore dead. You been in my way too long. Yuh've hogged the middle o' the stage when it was my place by rights and— the light's out! "

The room was a cramped cell of blackness, the stink of kerosene filling Jim Chaffee's nostrils. He heard Perrine's mighty hand slap against a gun butt, and he found himself weaving on his feet, crouched forward like a wrestler; everything was atremble with sound, everything shook under the blasting reports that filled the place. Purple lights flashed and trailed into nothing; there was the spat of bullets behind him. He thought he had fired twice and the belief somehow disheartened him; he felt numb. Then Perrine's breathing came short and quick; rose to a titanic effort and sank to laggard spurts. Perrine was falling; and in falling carried everything around him, like the downsweep of a tree. The table capsized; the lamp smashed and jangled on the floor. Then Perrine was speaking for the last time.

"Never believe yuh—is a better man. Luck. Allus luck." So he died with this faith in himself, going down the corridor of eternity.

Callahan's was of a sudden full of men. Chaffee opened the office door and faced the light. Homesteaders ranged around the walls; Stirrup S men piled through. But when they saw him and observed the bleak gravity of his eyes they stopped.

"Perrine's in there," said he. "I beat him to the draw." That was all he said. He forced a way through the crowd and hurried down the street. During the last half hour there had been a thought and a desire in his head; he had been fighting against interruption. There was nothing now that could stay him, nothing to stop him from going to Gay and telling her what clamored for expression. Behind, he heard a vast upheaval in Callahan's. The saloon was being torn apart, a target for the long suppressed animosity of the Stirrup S men against the headquarters of every disturbing element in Roaring Horse. Another time and he might have turned back to check that, but now only one purpose swayed him; thus he shouldered through the guards and turned into the Gusher. The clerk, discreetly absent during the turmoil, was again in the lobby.

"Have you seen Miss Thatcher recently?" asked Chaffee.

"Not since right after she left the dining room," replied the clerk. "She stayed down here a minute and then went upstairs."

For the first time that evening Chaffee considered the possible significance of her room's open door. The thought sent him up the steps three at a time. The door was still open, the room still empty. He entered, looking about, trying to see if there had been marks of disturbance. But as he peered into the clothes closet he heard a faint murmur of a woman's voice somewhere in the hall. He hurried out, the sound leading him back to the landing, pulling him to the bottom of the rear stairs and across the kitchen to the storeroom. He put his hand to the door, finding it locked; and that isolated fact in all the night's turbulence aroused a hot anger.