Collection 1997 - End Of The Drive (v5.0) Read Free Page A

hand with a gun,” Pa said, and he limped forward three steps, his eyes locked on Heseltine’s, “but I think you’re a back-shooting tinhorn.”
    Heseltine looked at Pa standing there on one leg and a crutch, and he looked at that old pistol. He looked at Pa again and he drew a long breath and held it. Then he let his breath go and stood there with his hands hanging.
    â€œNobody’s got the drop now, Heseltine.” Pa spoke quietly but his pale eyes blazed in the firelight. “I’m not going back without that money. And if you try to stop me either you’re gonna die or both of us are gonna die!”
    Sweat was all over Bob Heseltine’s face, and it was a cool evening. He wanted to go for his gun the worst way, but he had another want that beat that one all hollow. He wanted to live.
    Kid Reese and Doc Sites stood there looking at the big man and they couldn’t believe it, and I’m sure I couldn’t. A body didn’t need to read minds to guess what they were thinking, because here was a poor old gray-haired caprock rancher on one leg with his gun muzzle down calling the bluff of a gunman said to be among the fastest—although, come to think of it, I never heard it said by anyone but Doc or Reese.
    Out of the corner of my eye I could see Pa standing there; for a little man he looked mighty big, and I suddenly found myself thinking about how it was that my pa had come back with Uncle Bud’s scalp. No Comanche warrior ever left a trophy like that beside the trail. Surely no Comanche warrior would ever let a trophy like that go without a fight to the death. It seemed all Bob Heseltine had to do to die was lay hand on his guns.
    Pa’s pistol swung up. “You had your chance. Now unbuckle your gun belt and step back.”
    Heseltine did what he was told and I went forward and gathered his guns. Then I picked up all that money and stuffed it in the saddlebags, and I went through their pockets checking for more.
    â€œTime you learned a lesson, Edwin,” Pa said to me. “Time you learned that it’s what’s inside a man that matters, not how fast he can draw a gun.”
    Pa backed off a few careful steps and without looking at me, he said, “Ed, you and him are going to fight. He needs a whoppin’ and you’re going to give it to him, do you hear?”
    Pa gestured with the Colt. “You others stay out of this…it’s a fair fight, between the two of them.”
    Well, I looked over at Heseltine; he was six or seven years older than me an’ he outweighed me by more than a few pounds. I thought of that story where he killed the sheriff, and then I remembered that he’d just backed down to a crippled-up old man who’d been armed with little more than a fiery force of will and my old Colt.
    I put down my gun.
    Heseltine took off his calfskin jacket and spat on his hands, looking over at me. “Why, you weak-kneed little whelp, I’ll—!”
    Another thing Pa taught me: If you’re going to fight…fight. Talk about it after.
    Lifting my left fist I fetched him a clout in the mouth with my right, and right then I saw that a mean man could bleed.
    He came at me swinging with both hands. He was strong, and he figured to put the sign on me. He moved well, better than me, but he hadn’t put in all those years of hard work that I had.
    He walloped me alongside the jaw and it shook me some, but not like I figured it would. He hit me again and I saw a kind of surprised look come into his eyes, and I knew he’d hit me as hard as he could so I fetched him right where he’d been putting all that whiskey. He grunted, and I spread out my legs and began whopping him with both fists…and in that regard I take after Pa. I’ve got big hands.
    He went down to his knees and I picked him up by the collar and looked him over to find a place that wasn’t bloody where I could fetch him again, but