“Ben,” he said, “you take Dobie with you and
cut for that back street yonder and come up behind
the livery. Don’t let anybody see you and hush the
stableman if he gets loud about what you’re doing.
Maybe Butzy’ll come along, Ben—if he isn’t there
already.”
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I looked at Emmett watching Ben Templin and
Dobie Shaw cut off, and there it was. His old face
again. All closed and hard with the crow’s feet
streaking from the corners of his eyes. And his
mouth tight like it used to be when he thought and
ordered men at the same time, because he always
knew what he was doing. You could see Emmett
knew what he was doing now, that he’d set his
mind. And when Emmett Ryan set his mind his
pride saw to it that it stayed set.
Emmett walked his mount down the left side of
the narrow main street with the rest of us strung
out behind. When he veered over to a hitchrack
about halfway down the second block, we veered
with him and tied up, straggled along before two
store fronts.
Em stepped up on the boardwalk and moved
leisurely toward the Senate House hotel almost at
the end of the block. He stopped as he crossed the
alley next to the hotel and nodded to Lloyd Cohane, then bent his head toward the alley and
moved it in a half-circle over his big shoulders.
Lloyd moved off down the alley toward the back of
the hotel.
“Go on with him, Ned,” Em whispered. “Stick
near the kitchen door and if anybody but the cook
comes out shoot his pants off.”
Ned moved off after Lloyd, both carrying carbines. Em looked at Gosh and me, but didn’t say
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117
anything. He just looked and that meant we were
with him and supposed to back up anything he did.
Then he turned toward the hotel and slipped his revolver out in the motion. Gosh moved right after
him and pointed the barrel of his Winchester out in
front of him.
Two idlers sitting in front of the hotel stared at
us trying to make out they weren’t staring, and as
soon as we passed them I heard their chairs scrape
and their footsteps hurrying down the boards. A
man across the street pushed through the saloon
doors without even putting his hands out. A rider
slowed up in front of the hotel as if about to turn in
and then he kicked his mount into a trot down the
street.
In the hotel lobby you could still hear the horse
clopping down the street and it made the lobby
seem even more quiet and comfortable, feeling the
coolness inside and picturing the horse on the dusty
street. But there was the clerk with his mouth open
watching Emmett walk toward the café entrance,
his spurs chinging with each step.
It seemed like, for a show like this, everything
was moving too fast. The next thing, we were in the
café part and Jack Ryan and Joe Anthony and the
other man were looking at us like they couldn’t believe their eyes.
None of them moved. Jack’s jaw was open with a
mouthful of beef, his eyes almost as wide open as
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his mouth. The other man had a taco in his fingers
raised halfway to his mouth and he just held it
there. Didn’t move it up or down. Joe Anthony’s
right hand was around a glass of something yellow
like mescal. His left hand was below the level of the
table. The three of them had their hats on, pushed
back, and they looked dirty and tired.
Jack chewed and swallowed hard and then he
smiled. “Damn, Em, you must have flown!”
The other man looked at us one at a time slowly,
then shrugged his shoulders and said, “What the
hell,” and shoved the taco in his mouth.
Joe Anthony wiped the back of his hand over his
mouth and moved the hand back, smoothing the
long mustaches with the knuckle of his index finger. The other hand was still under the table.
Emmett held his revolver pointed square at Joe
Anthony and seemed to be unmindful of the other
two men. Lloyd and Ned came through the kitchen
door and moved around behind Emmett.
“Get up,” Em ordered. “And take off your
belts.”
Somebody’s chair scraped, but Joe Anthony said,
“Hold it!” and it was quiet.
Anthony was staring back at Emmett. “Do I look
like a green kid to you, Ryan?” he said, and half
smiled. “You’re not telling anybody what to do,
cowboy.”
“I said get up,” Em repeated.
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119
Joe Anthony kept on smiling like he thought Emmett was a fool. He shook his head slowly. “Ryan,
the longer you stand there, the shorter your chances
are of leaving here on your two feet.”
“You’re all mouth,” Emmett said. “Just mouth.”
The outlaw’s expression didn’t change. His face
was good-looking in a swarthy kind of way, but
gaunt and hungry-looking with pale, shallow eyes
like a man who forgot where his conscience was, or
that he ever had one.
His smile sagged a little and he said, “Ryan, let’s
quit playing. You ride the hell out of here before I
shoot you.”
“I’m not playing,” Emmett said, leveling the revolver. “Get up, quick.”
“Ryan,” Joe Anthony whispered impatiently,
“I’ve had a Colt leveled on your belly since the second you come through that doorway.”
I thought I knew Emmett Ryan, but I didn’t
know him as well as I supposed. His face didn’t
change its expression, but his finger moved on the
trigger and the room filled with the explosion. His
thumb yanked on the hammer and he fired again
right on top of the first one.
Joe Anthony went back with his chair, fell hard
and lay still. His pistol was still in the holster on his
right hip.
Emmett looked down at him. “You’re all mouth,
Anthony. All mouth.”
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Nobody said anything after that. We were looking at Em and Em was looking at Joe Anthony
stretched out on the floor. I heard steps behind me
and there was Dobie Shaw tiptoeing in and looking like he’d dive out the window if anybody said
anything.
Emmett waved his gun at the other man and
glanced at his brother. “Who’s this?”
Jack spoke easily. “Earl Roach. We picked him
up for a trail driver. He didn’t know it was rustled
stock.”
Roach was unfastening his gun belt. He shot a
look toward Jack. “Boy,” he said, “you take care of
your troubles and I’ll take care of mine.”
Dobie Shaw moved up behind Emmett hesitantly
and waited for the big foreman to look his way.
“Mr. Ryan—Ben’s holding Butzy over to the livery.” He went on hurriedly trying to get the whole
story out before Em asked any questions. “Butzy
walked right in and didn’t move after Ben throwed
down on him, but there was another one back a
ways and he turned and rode like hell when he saw
me and Ben with our guns out. Me and Ben didn’t
even get a shot at him ’fore he was round the corner
and gone.”
“All right, Dobie. You go on back with Ben.”
Emmett hesitated and glanced at Jack like he was
making up his mind all over again, but the doubt
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121
passed off quickly. He said, “We’ll be over directly.
You go on and tell Ben to keep Butzy right there.”
✯ ✯ ✯
Frank Butzinger was flat against the boards of a
stall, though Ben Templin was standing across the
open part of the stable smoking a cigarette with his
carbine propped against the wall. Ben wasn’t paying any attention to him, but even in the dim light
you could see Butzy was about ready to die of
fright.
Gosh Hall pushed Jack and Earl Roach toward
the stall that Butzy was in and mumbled something,
probably swearing. Jack looked around at him with
a half smile and shook his head like a father playing
Indians with his youngster. Humoring him.
Emmett stood out in the open part with the rest
of us spread around now. He said, “You sell the
stock yet?”
“A few,” Jack answered. “We got almost a hundred head.”
“You got the money?”
“What do you think?”
The foreman motioned to Gosh Hall. “Get some
line and tie their hands behind them.”
The little cowboy’s face brightened and he
moved into the stall lifting a coil of rope from the
side wall. When he pulled his knife and started to
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cut it into pieces, the stableman came running over.
He’d been standing in the front doorway, but I
hadn’t noticed him there before.
He ran over yelling, “Hey, that’s my rope!”
Gosh reached out, laughing, and grabbed one of
his braces and snapped it against his faded redflannel undershirt. “Get back, old man, you’re interfering with justice.” Then he pushed the man
hard against the stall partition.
Emmett took hold of his elbow and pulled him
out toward the front of the livery. “You stay out
here,” he said. “This isn’t any of your business.”
He turned from the man and nodded his head to
the stalls where three horses were.
The stable was large, high-ceilinged, with stalls
lining both sides. The open area was wide, but
longer than it was wide, with heavy timbers overhead reaching from lofts on both sides that ran the
length of the stable above the stalls. The stable was
empty but for the three horses toward the back.
“Bring those horses up here.” Em said it to no
one in particular.
When Dobie and Ned and I led the mounts up, I
heard Lloyd ask Em if he should go get our horses.
Em shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
Lloyd said, “Shouldn’t we be getting out to the
stock, Em?”
“We got time. Neal’s watching the cows,” Em reminded him. “The man that was with Butzy spread
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123
his holler if there were any others out there. They’d
be halfway to Santa Fe by now.”
He turned on Gosh impatiently. “Come on, get
’em mounted.”
I picked up one of their saddles from the rack
and walked up behind Gosh, who was pushing the
three men toward the horses.
“Look out, Gosh. Let me get the saddles on before you get in the way. You can’t throw ’em on
with your arms behind your back.”
Gosh twisted his mouth into a smile and looked
past me at Emmett. There was a wad of tobacco in
his cheek that made his thin face lopsided, like a
jagged rock with hair on it. He shifted the wad, still
smiling, and then spit over to the side.
“You tell him, Em,” he said.
Emmett looked at me with his closed-up, leathery face. He stared hard as if afraid his eyes would
waver. “They don’t need the saddles.”
Gosh swatted me playfully with the end of rope
in his hand. “Want me to paint you a picture, Charlie?” He laughed and walked out through the wide
entrance.
Gosh didn’t have to paint a picture. Ben Templin
dropped his cigarette. Lloyd and Ned and Dobie
just stared at Emmett, but none of them said anything. Em stood there like a rock and stared back
like he was defying anybody to object.
The boys looked away and moved about uncom- 124
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fortably. They weren’t about to go against Emmett
Ryan. They were used to doing what they were told
because Em was always right, and weren’t sure that
he wasn’t right even now. A hanging isn’t an uncommon thing where there is little law. Along the
Pecos there was less than little. Still, it didn’t rub
right—even if Em was following his conscience, it
didn’t rub right.
I hesitated until the words were in my mouth and
I’d have had bit my tongue off to hold them back.
“You setting yourself up as the law?” It was supposed to have a bite to it, but the words sounded
weak and my voice wasn’t even.
Emmett said, “You know what the law is.” He
beckoned to the coil of rope Gosh had hung back
on the boards. “That’s it right there, Charlie. You
know better than that.” Emmett was talking to
himself as well as me, but you didn’t remind that
“Look, Em. Let’s get the law and handle this
right.”
“It’s black and white, it’s two and two, if you
steal cows and get caught you hang.”
“Maybe. But it’s not up to you to decide. Let’s
get the law.”
“I’ve already decided,” was all he said.
The stable hand crept up close to us and waited
until there was a pause. “The deputy ain’t here,”
the old man said. “He rode down to Lincoln yester-The Rustlers
125
day morning to join the posse.” He waited for
someone to show interest, but no one said a word.
“They’re getting a posse up on account of there’s
word Bill Bonney’s at Fort Sumner.”
He stepped back looking proud as could be over
his news. I could have kicked his seat flat for what
he said.
Gosh came back with two coiled lariats on his
arm and a third one in his hands. He was shaping a
knot at one end of it.
Earl Roach looked at Gosh, then up to the heavy
rafter that crossed above the three horses, then
Jack’s head went up too.
Gosh spit and grinned at them, forming a loop in
the second rope. “What’d you expect’d happen?”
Jack kept his eyes on the rafter. “I didn’t expect
to get caught.”
“Jack’s always smil
ing into the sunshine, ain’t
he?” Gosh pushed Earl Roach toward his horse.
“Mount up, mister.”
Roach jerked his shoulder away from him. “I
look like a bird to you? You want me up on that
horse, you’ll have to put me up.”
“Earl, I’ll put you up and help take you down.”
When he got to Butzy and offered him a leg up,
Butzy made a funny sound like a whine and started
to back away, but Gosh grabbed him by his shirt before he took two steps. Butzy looked over Gosh’s
bony shoulder, his eyes popping out of his pasty face.
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“Em, what you fixin’ to do?” His voice went up
a notch, and louder. “What you fixin’ to do? You
just scarin’ us, Em?”
If it was a joke, Butzy didn’t want to play the
fool, but you could tell by his voice what he was
thinking. Em didn’t answer him.
Gosh finished knotting the third rope and
handed it to Dobie, who looked at it like he’d never
seen a lariat before.
Gosh said, “Make yourself useful and throw that
rope over the rafter.”
He went out and brought his horse in and
mounted so he could slip the nooses over their
heads, but he stood in the stirrups and still couldn’t
reach the tops of their heads. Emmett told him to
get down and ordered Ben Templin to climb up and
fix the ropes. Ben did it, but Em had to tell him
three times.
Before he jumped down, Ben lighted cigarettes
and gave them to Jack and Earl. Butzy was weaving
his head around so Ben couldn’t get one in his
mouth. Just rolling his head around with his eyes
closed, moaning.
Gosh looked up at him and laughed out loud.
“You praying, Butzy?” he called out. “Better pray
hard, you ain’t got much time,” and kept on
laughing.
Ben Templin made a move toward Gosh, but Emmett caught his arm.
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127
“Hold still, Ben.” He looked past him at Gosh.
“You can do what you’re doing with your mouth
shut.”
Gosh moved behind the horses with the short end
of rope in his hand. He edged over behind Earl
Roach’s horse. “Age before beauty, I always say.”
Butzy’s eyes opened up wide. “God, Em! Please
Em—please—honest to God—I didn’t know they