Then Chris Farrar called out, “Whoever you are, mister, you got a minute to find your horse and get to hell outa here. You don’t, we’ll gun you down for bein’ an interferin’ fool.”

  “I’m staying,” Durant told him. “Don’t come back, tonight or ever.”

  Bullets cracked into the side of the house close to Durant’s head. He remained calm. Then retreating footsteps sounded and he made his way up onto the porch and into the house. As he came through the doorway, a blast of rifle fire smashed savagely into the door itself. Durant hit the floor and called out:

  “Hold it, Miss Mann. It’s Blake Durant. No lights.”

  “Mr. Durant!”

  The relief in Sally’s voice was clearly evident. Durant came to his feet as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom inside the house.

  He said, “Get back from the window. They’ve drawn off. I’m coming across to you, so don’t panic.”

  He walked across the room, hearing the girl’s heavy breathing. When she heard him step close, Sally reached for him. Her urgent grip caught at his shoulder, her other hand pressed against his wide, flat chest. Then she fell against him.

  “Oh, my God, you’re here! You came back!”

  “It’s all right,” Durant said. “No harm will come to you now.”

  “They’ll come back,” Sally persisted. “I know they will. They mean to ... to ...”

  “I’m here,” Durant said.

  He eased her back, touching her hair as he did so. It felt like silk and had the smell of corn. In the dim light her face was not very clear, but her eyes shone up at him and he could see her bosom rising and falling as she fought to control her anxiety. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I was talking with Mr. Moriarty. We were about to make a deal for my future. I had the pen ...”

  Her words died.

  Durant touched her shoulder. “Tell it all.”

  Sally moved away from him and struck a match. When she put it to the wick of the table lantern, yellow light flooded into the corner of the room. Durant saw the man lying with his head on the table, motionless. He didn’t have to know more.

  He leant over and blew out the light.

  “Dead?” he asked.

  “They ... they shot him through the window. He was just sitting there smoking his cigar. He asked me if I minded if he smoked. He was a man of gentle manners to do that. Then they killed him.”

  In the dark, Durant eased Sally into a chair. He said, “Don’t move.”

  “Where ... where are you going?”

  “Just stay here. Help me and yourself by doing that. If anything moves around me out here, I’ll shoot at it.”

  He went then through the small house to the back porch. He heard her stir, but then the rustle of her clothes died. There were no footsteps. He stepped off the porch and whistled.

  In a minute Sundown walked up, sniffing the air suspiciously. Durant swung onto the big black’s back and patted his shoulder. “If you like to run hard, boy, now’s the time. Let’s go.”

  He dug his boots in and the splendidly proportioned black broke into long strides. Durant headed straight for the barn. Halfway across the clearing shots sought him out. He wheeled Sundown out of the line of the shots but did not slow.

  Within twenty yards of the barn, he swung the big black along another tack. A barrage of bullets burned the place he had been. He charged the horse straight for the shadowy outlines of three horses still fixed to the barn rail and saw a figure dart from the side of the barn to block his way. Another shot burned very close to his ear. Then shots from the side whined around his ears. Fearing for Sundown more than himself, he jumped from the saddle and went into a roll. The big black tore on, passed the barn and went up the slope. When Durant pulled up, he was against the side of the barn and the gun hand who had tried to block his way was standing in the open, confused, holding his gun out, but holding his fire, unsure of where he was.

  Durant punched off a shot and a loud howl rose into the night.

  “Lom? Lom boy?”

  Lom Farrar crashed to the ground and thrashed around in agony.

  Durant called, “One of your boys is down, mister. You want to continue this?”

  “Damn you! Who the hell’re you?”

  “The name’s Durant.”

  “I don’t know you. What you doin’ here?”

  “I’m here and I’m stayin’. You’ve made your last visit to this place.”

  “To hell I have!”

  “Pa!”

  The call came from deeper in the dark.

  “Yeah, boy?”

  “This is the one Rooney sent word out about. Helped the girl in town then got nosy about who killed Lee Mann.”

  “Moriarty’s sidekick?” roared Carver Farrar and broke from cover. Durant could not see him, but he could hear him. He fired toward the sound of footsteps. There was another howl followed by five shots, fired in quick succession.

  Blake Durant lay against the wall of the barn, listening to the first man, Lom Farrer, crawl away. He might have killed him and didn’t much care if he did or not. But he wanted time to work his way up behind the other two, the old man and the gun hand, Chris Farrar he’d heard about. Finish them off and he was sure Sally Mann would have little trouble in the future. Then maybe he could clear his name someway and ride away from this trouble spot.

  Durant told them through the dark, “I came into this territory minding my own business. I still want it that way.”

  “Then why don’t you ride and keep ridin’, mister,” barked Carver. “What we done wrong by you?”

  “You’re worrying a lone woman.”

  “So?”

  “So you worry me.”

  There was a grunt of derision. Then Carver’s voice boomed again. “Hear me, Durant. Thet woman’s been in our hair for months. Her old man planned to bring sheep into this cattleman’s country and we ain’t goin’ to sit and stomach that. Now are you a cattleman or a miserable polecat sheepman?”

  “I’m a man who minds his own business,” Durant told him.

  “Then git, damn you. Git to hell and keep your nose out of somethin’ thet’s got nothin’ to do with you. You don’t, so help me, we’ll lay low and get you.”

  “Like you got Lee Mann?” Durant asked.

  There was a long silence. It was broken by the crunch of hard-baked mud under a bootheel. Durant worked his way to the bottom corner of the barn and went flat on the ground. He didn’t have to wait long for a tall figure to loom up in the darkness. From the front of the barn Carver’s talk went on but the hot wind thinned it so much Durant could not make out the story he was telling.

  He levelled his gun on the man before him.

  “One more step and you’re dead, mister,” he warned.

  As his first words sounded the figure darted back into cover. Blake Durant made a note of that. Here was a man of quick reflexes who wasted no time in idle thought. That kind, given a blink of advantage, could kill and would kill.

  He went back to where he had come from and saw a limping figure disappear into the shadows thrown by the three horses. He waited, holding his gun in readiness. There was the sound of saddle creak and then one of the horses burst away, the others rearing on their tie-reins. Carver Farrar let out a curse of protest and broke cover and Durant, sick of the whining old codger, shot him through the leg. Carver went down howling painfully into the night and was quickly joined by his son, Chris, who came with gun blasting away, picked up his wounded father with one hand and effortlessly carried him to the horses. He flung his father across the saddle of one of the horses, then punched the other horse hard in the head with a gun-loaded fist as it continued to rear. The horse brought its legs down and stood still and he swung into the saddle.

  Blake Durant moved a little out of the wall’s cover, annoyed that Chris Farrar had cleverly used a backdrop of timber to deprive him of a clear bead. He then whipped both horses away, shouting into the night:

  “Now you’re for it, damn you! You’re all for it.”

  Blake Durant fired and heard the bullet die with a thud. But there was no further cry from Carver Farrar and no sound from Chris. The horses went on, heading up the timbered slope and onto the ridgeline.

  Durant put up his gun, removed his bandanna, and wiped sweat from his face and neck. He then walked steadfastly back to the front porch of the old house.

  The door opened as he went up the steps and Sally Mann, rifle held in front of her face, peered fearfully out at him.

  “It’s okay,” Durant said and again wiped sweat from his face. The tension died in him. Sally dropped the rifle and came running at him and he was forced to catch her up and hold her off. But she pushed strongly against him and sobbed into his shirt. The tenderness that Durant had long ago felt for another woman, rose inside him and he held her close, stroking her hair and trying to console her.

  Long minutes passed before Sally realized what she was doing and she drew back, staring at him.

  “I ... I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. It’s over now.”

  “No, it’s not over, unless you killed them. Did you?”

  “I wounded one of the boys and nicked the old man. They’ll keep away for a while.”

  Sally shook her head frantically. “No, they won’t. You don’t know them, Mr. Durant. They’re mean and bad and vicious, they killed my brother and my Pa, and they’ll go on killing until they get what they want.”

  “Let’s go inside,” Durant advised her and steered her inside. He lit the table lantern and examined the dead Jim Moriarty. The bullet had struck the sheepman high on the temple and Durant knew he had died instantly. He drew in a ragged breath.

  “They don’t mean to play around, Miss Mann. I don’t think this place is safe for you any longer.”

  “It’s hardly ever been safe for five years,” Sally told him, slumping into a chair near the shattered window and holding her forehead between her slender hands. She looked at the table top, averting her gaze from the dead man.

  “Who are your father’s close friends?” Durant asked her. Sally frowned out at him from between her hands. Her face was drawn and Durant realized she had slept little that night. Tragedy, hardship and strain were fast breaking her spirit.

  Yet she managed a twisted smile. “Friends?” she repeated and shook her head. “How does anybody know who is friend or not now? When we first came here we had neighbors who called from time to time. We had some pleasant evenings and on the range or in town there was a lot of socializing. But since Carver Farrar began raising hell nobody trusts anybody any more. Everybody is an enemy until proven otherwise.”

  “There must be some,” Durant argued.

  Sally smiled wistfully again and brushed back her hair. She seemed to be more composed despite the presence of the dead man at the table.

  “I suppose there must be. But I don’t know them.” She looked thoughtfully out the window into the night. The wind came through hot and dry, forcing her to draw her face away. “Blod Lukas perhaps.”

  “I met Lukas,” Durant told her. “On my way here.”

  Sally studied him critically. “On your way from where, Mr. Durant?”

  “Places.”

  “Just that. Just from anywhere?”

  Durant nodded. “I move around.” He got to his feet then, remembering the gruff, careful Blod Lukas, a man with all the signs of a frontiersman on him, slow-moving, slow-thinking, but dependable.

  “Was Lukas going into sheep too?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Durant. But why do you change the subject? Here you are sitting here in my place with a dead man as the only witness to our talk. Don’t you think you owe me some explanation, or at least some word that might give me hope?”

  “Hope?” Durant asked.

  “Will you stay on? I don’t know what breed of man you are, but I’ve seen you walk into gunfire without flinching. That suggests you are no stranger to trouble. And what if you have designs on the place or on me? I’ll lose it anyhow if somebody doesn’t help me, if I can’t find somebody to trust.”

  Durant looked down at his hands. “I have no designs on you, Miss Mann,” he said dully.

  “But you said before I reminded you of somebody. There was a faraway look in your eyes. Who was she?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Sally studied him thoughtfully. “Your wife?” she asked.

  Durant lifted Moriarty from the table and worked him across his shoulder. “No, not my wife,” he said in a voice with finality in it. He then carried Moriarty to the back door and called back, “You best pack. Take what you’ll need for a long stay in town.”

  “I can’t go to town,” Sally protested.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I ... I have nobody to go to in town. We are poor people, Mr. Durant. I couldn’t afford a week at the rooming house.”

  “I have money,” he said, and then he went on his way, toting Moriarty’s body to the barn. There he found a shovel and after stripping Moriarty of his personal belongings, buried him on the slope behind the barn. When he returned to the house Sally had coffee ready to serve.

  She said, “I can’t take your money.”

  “It’ll be a loan.”

  She smiled shyly. “No. I could never repay it. Maybe if I’d gone into sheep and some of Mr. Moriarty’s promises came true I might have been able to. But I won’t be beholden to anybody.”

  Durant sat at the table again, thinking deeply. He had his own troubles, such as trying to prove somehow that he hadn’t killed Jase Rooney. Moriarty, who might have become a threat to him in some way, had been taken care of. So there was only Sally Mann and her stubbornness to stop him from riding on.

  Durant found a solution. “The place needs money. With shrewd investment backed by some hard work, this place can be whipped into shape. You need a man around and I’ve no place definite to go. Why don’t we stay together then?”

  Sally drew back and color rose into her cheeks. “As what?” she asked tightly.

  “Owner and hired hand. It’s worked before. I’ll sleep in the barn. That way I’ll be able to hear anybody coming in.”

  “You said the town is after you for killing Jase Rooney. Maybe you better tell me about that. Then I’ll decide if I’m ready to stay here with a stranger.”

  Durant smiled easily. “It takes you a long time to discard the title stranger, Miss Mann.”

  “Until today it’s taken me half a lifetime.”

  “You’re that old, Miss Mann?”

  Sally pursed her lips in an attitude of annoyance, but soon relented and returned his smile.

  “Well, for a long time. We’ve had hard times, Mr. Durant. And from where I see it now, those hard times don’t look like becoming any easier. Now will you tell me why the town is hunting you?”

  Blake Durant told her. Hearing that Moriarty was involved, Sally became serious again.

  “Then the town believes you’re a sheepman too?”

  “I reckon they do.”

  “And you’re not?”

  Durant brushed dust off his shirt. “That’s the second time somebody’s asked me that tonight, Miss Mann. I’ll give the same answer. I make my own plans, I go my own way. Sheep, cattle, I see little difference in their rearing. There’s plenty of land for both and plenty of space for those who run either breed.”

  Sally smoothed down her skirt. Already she was beginning to relax with this slow-talking, carefully emotioned man. But could she trust him all the way?

  She asked, “Then you shouldn’t stay here, should you?”

  “Maybe they won’t look for me here.”

  “But the Farrar men know you’re here.”

  “I think their reign in these parts is fast coming to an end. Just as soon as you tell people that they killed Moriarty cold, most will turn against them.”

  “I doubt they will,” she said. “A sheepman? Most will rejoice that he’s gone.”

  “Not those he had dealings with. He told me he had sheep coming in on the train in a few days’ time. Men willing to take a chance before, and looking to a brighter future, will want those sheep.”

  Sally moved restlessly about the small room. Strangely she no longer sorrowed for her father or her brother, or at least not in the way of weeping and feeling sorry for herself. She regarded this stranger intently, wondering if he was casting a spell over her. She’d known no men in her time outside casual acquaintanceship. Certainly some had shown keen interest in her and in their stumbling ways had even made approaches to her. But there’d been no time for her to encourage any of them, even if she’d felt like doing that.

  But this man. This Durant ...

  She said, “Then you want to stay here and help me work the place, Mr. Durant. Is that right?”

  “I think I can help you.”

  “And invest some money in the place?”

  “I have money doing nothing.”

  “How much?”

  “Enough.”

  Sally smiled and shook her head. “You are a very careful man, Mr. Durant but I’m disposed to trust you. I suppose I have no choice really. It’s either that or pack and leave.”

  “That’s about it, Miss Mann. Take me on or leave.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  Again Sally shook her head. Then, “And you think you can fight them off—every man who troubles me—for whatever his reasons?”

  “I’ll do what I have to,” Durant assured her.

  Sally turned away and looked out the window. After several moments she went into her bedroom and returned with a bundle of sheets and a pillow. Putting them into his arms, she said, “I can’t see I have any other choice, Mr. Durant. But I warn you, I’ve been deeply hurt lately, and I don’t intend to be hurt again. It will take me a long time to fully trust a man, if ever.”

  Durant nodded and picked up the bundle of bedding. Walking out, he looked back and Sally called out:

  “Breakfast will be at six o’clock, Mr. Durant.”

  Durant opened the door and looked into the beginning of the day’s sunup. “Then you best stoke up your stove, Miss Mann.” With that, he went on his way.

 

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