wide open, and his father kept getting bigger, and the room kept getting smaller, till it was so small he couldn’t breathe, till the coffin was like an iron band around his chest, squeezing all the air out, suffocating him.
He woke up. He was shaking and making weird sounds in his throat. He was drenched with sweat. He couldn’t stand to stay inside the cabin and he crawled on his hands and knees out the door and sprawled weakly on the earth outside. It was an old dream. It always left him drained, spent.
When he recovered he got shakily to his feet. He didn’t want to go back inside. He was afraid to sleep again. He went around the shack to check his horse. It was gone. Apparently it had pulled loose while he slept and drifted away. He knew the futility of trying to track it in the dark. He waited till dawn, but he soon lost its sign in the rubble of the town.
Big Hermit Creek ran at the edge of town. He drank and washed in the brackish water, miserably trying to decide what to do. He knew about the only traffic he could count on was the weekly stage from Table Rock to Fort Washakie. They might give him a lift to the nearest way station. The outlying stations had a hard time keeping help and there might be a chance of getting a job wrangling the stage teams until he could get a lead on Blackhorn. The Indians were always drifting past the stations, and his father had said the Indians knew where Blackhorn was. It was a thin hope, but it was all he could think of. He didn’t even know what Blackhorn could do when he found the man. About all he expected was some help getting out of the country.
In the meantime he knew he would have to do something about food. The stage might not be along for days. His belly ached and he was already getting dizzy with hunger. Walking back through town he saw gophers tunneling the main street and kept flushing jackrabbits from the weeds.
He stopped in the street. It took a long time before he could make himself pull the gun Chaney had given him. He held the heavy Colt in his hands and stared fixedly at it. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to use one. His father had forced him to learn the handling of a gun, both six-shooter and rifle, even though he could never get Gordon to do any shooting. He had to shoot now. He would starve to death if he didn’t. He couldn’t let his fear kill him.
A cold sweat broke out at his temples. He began to move again. Another jack broke from behind one of the shacks, bounding across Gordon’s path. Gordon made a strained sound, lifted the gun. He had the rabbit in front of his sights. When he squeezed the trigger he shut his eyes. The crash of the shot made him shout.
He flung the gun from him. He turned and ran. After the first few steps he stopped himself. He stood shaking, his head bowed, his fists knotted, fighting the panic. He lifted his head and saw the jack far in the distance, bounding away unharmed. He felt a moment of relief. He had never been able to kill anything, or to watch it die. He remembered the first time his father had made him go hunting. Watching the first deer his father shot, watching it squeal and jump and fall, and lie kicking its life out on the ground. It had made him sick.
The rabbit was out of sight. Gordon’s relief faded and he couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t even feel the usual helpless disgust with himself. It seemed he was too beaten to care any more.
He left the gun where he had thrown it, near the door of the first shack he had slept in. He went back to the creek, hunting berries. He found some chokecherries and ate too many and bloated up like a heifer with colic.
He went back to the shack and lay down, groaning in misery. He was still lying on the floor when he heard the horse whinny from the west end of town. He crawled to the door and looked down the street.
A man came into view. He had his gun out and was leading a horse with a Crazy Moon brand. It was Tom Union.
He was the only cowhand Gordon had ever seen who wore a hard hat. It was round-topped and black and so battered that Gordon thought he must sleep on it. Union was an immensely tall man with an undershot jaw puckered by smallpox scars. His longhorn mustache was stained yellow by chewing tobacco. A chaw always made a leathery bulge in one cheek. He ground on it as placidly as a cow with its cud, his eyes half-closed in bovine contentment, the methodical movement of his jaws making the shiny bulge move up and down his cheek like a loose goiter.
He stopped at each building, searching for fresh sign around the door, and then looking carefully inside. Gordon thought it was mighty careless, until he realized the implications. The man was hunting for Gordon Conners. He must be pretty certain there wouldn’t be any shooting.
Gordon crouched in the door, staring hopelessly at the Colt where he had thrown it, only a few feet from the door. He might get it without being seen, but he knew Union was right. He couldn’t shoot, even as much as he might secretly wish to. Union had been with the bunch that had killed his parents. Perhaps a bullet from Union’s gun had smashed Bob Conners’ face. Another bullet could have finished his mother. Tears stung his eyes. He remembered the fiasco with the rabbit. He might tell himself he could shoot, but when it came time, he knew he couldn’t.
He wondered why that was all he feared. He realized he didn’t feel any particular fear of Union. The man was out to kill him. He represented much more danger than the mere sound of a gun.
Gordon knew it was futile to run. There was too much open country with no cover, once he left town. Union would see him. He would be as helpless as that flushed jack.
He was still staring emptily at the Colt on the ground when it struck him that he might not have to shoot. He might still have a chance.
Union was moving slowly up the street, inspecting each shack. When he found no sign around the door he took the extra precaution of glancing inside. Gordon had left sign all around the building in which he hid. It would give him away before Union got within twenty feet.
But if he could get to one of those other shacks, where there was no sign. A shack Union would reach before this one. If he could find a back way in . . .
He watched until Union reached a turn in the street. For a few minutes the man was hidden behind a line of tarpaper hovels. Gordon moved from the door, scooping up the Colt. Keeping the building between himself and Union, he moved to the rear of the neighboring shack. There was no back door. Furtively, he darted to the next one. Part of the rear wall was caved in. He slipped through the opening, moved across the littered dirt floor. The front door was half-open, sagging on its hinges. He took his place behnd it. He held the gun by its long blue barrel. It was a club now. When Union glanced in the door, for just an instant, he might be close enough. . .
He strained against the wall, listening. His body began to ache with tension. He wondered how he could be so tense and still not be afraid. He knew how slim his chances were. He wasn’t afraid. He wished his father could know that somehow.
He heard Union coming. The horse snorted softly. The hoofbeats made a dim sound in the dusty street, stopped for a while, started again. The sound came closer. But it didn’t seem to stop any more. It didn’t stop at the next door shack. It was coming toward Gordon’s shack. It went on by.
Gordon moved to look out through the crack between the wall and the door. He saw Union leading his horse up the middle of the street, toward the shack where Gordon had slept. The man was looking at the ground as he moved. Gordon realized what had happened. Union had picked up Gordon’s prints at one of the spots where he had crossed the street this morning, and was following them to the other shack.
Union’s back was to Gordon. He was hardly ten feet away. Gordon had a clear shot at him. All he had to do was reverse the gun and fire. It would avenge his parents, it would save his own life.
He continued to hold the gun by its barrel, unable to do it. He closed his eyes, sick with fury at his own
