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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77816 ***
+
+                        BULLY McGRANE
+
+[Epigraph: Hardboiled, That Marshall of the Toughest Town in the
+West--but Somewhere There Was a Soft Spot in His Heart.]
+
+                        Ernest Haycox
+
+            celebrated author of Western stories
+                          gives us
+                another yarn of “Pistol Gap”
+
+
+In Pistol Gap life was pitched to a key of suddenness and intensity. Men
+of this Western land worked with an energy that brought out the salt
+sweat; and their hours of play were equally violent. If they drank at
+all it was usually to excess and if they gambled they flung the whole of
+their labored wealth on the green table in prodigal abandon, never
+considering tomorrow. And in Pistol Gap death only infrequently visited
+a man in bed; one moment he was alive and in full stride; the next
+moment he was quite utterly dead. In such case the coroner’s jury had a
+uniform, unvarying verdict: “dead by an act of God.”
+
+It was therefore natural that when Tud Drury rode into Pistol Gap
+leading a pack animal during the latter part of a sultry afternoon that
+Bully McGrane, marshal, should ease his massive bulk forward on a hotel
+porch chair and watch the newcomer’s successive movements with a sort of
+lowering, belligerent interest. Tud had made a trip down to procure
+supplies for himself and his three partners only two days previously.
+This trip augured something else; and the loaded burro also indicated
+something else. So Bully McGrane watched, removing his hat to scratch a
+cropped head badly scarred from his prize-ring days.
+
+Drury went into the stable, remained a while and emerged with a canvas
+sack hanging heavily from one arm; Drury returned on the far side of the
+street, and entered ’Lisha Funston’s bank. Bully McGrane’s broad jaws
+tightened against his cigar and he tugged at the ends of his
+downsweeping mustache which gave him considerable physical resemblance
+to John L. Sullivan--with whom he once had sparred. A rumble came out of
+his chest; he laced his fingers across a vast paunch, at the same time
+keeping a direct glance on the bank door. Presently Drury came out
+empty-handed and started back. McGrane’s throaty challenge sounded forth
+with a bluntness that was at once uncivil and insolent. Drury paused in
+apparent unwillingness.
+
+“Come ’ere, Drury. Want to see you.”
+
+Drury approached, visibly irritated. He was a young man, dark featured,
+straight-spined. About him was the suggestion of a will yet to be
+curbed; and though he wore the rig of a miner--stained with shaft
+mud--he seemed to belong to another species of Westerner, he seemed
+still to carry the air of belonging to the saddle by trade. Coming to a
+stand in front of the marshal, he reached for his cigarettes and stared
+back at McGrane. If McGrane’s manner was one of overbearing authority,
+Drury’s was no less hostile.
+
+“In early, ain’t you, Tud?”
+
+Drury only shrugged his shoulders and poured tobacco into the creased
+wheat paper.
+
+“You got grub for them bushjumpin’ pardners of yores just a while ago.
+What’s the play now?”
+
+Drury’s white teeth flashed on the drawstring of the tobacco pouch; his
+eyes crossed the marshal’s face, mirroring irony.
+
+“Looks to me,” went on McGrane, “as if that pack brute was carryin’ yore
+forty years’ gatherin’ out of the hills. Must’ve been a quarrel among
+thieves. You quittin’?”
+
+Drury lit a match to his cigarette. “Maybe,” he observed, “I ought to
+get a permit from you to be alive, McGrane. You sure seem to expect it.
+My business is my business. I don’t owe you anything and I’m mindin’ my
+affairs strictly. As to what I’ve been doin’, or intend to do--you go
+straight to hell.” Turning definitely on his heels, he walked away,
+crossed the street again and entered the Freighter’s Rest.
+
+McGrane, who was capable of springing out of his chair and crushing
+Drury with one lion-like sweep of his fist, relaxed, chuckling. It was
+not the mellow, humorous amusement of a man giving vent to inner
+kindliness. McGrane was too much of a cynical materialist to be kindly.
+Rather, his chuckle came of a malicious satisfaction in knowing Drury
+hated him with a full heart. McGrane took savage pleasure in making
+others hate him, in making others writhe under his hard dominance and at
+last desperately and futilely strike back. Pistol Gap was a tough town.
+Down this canyon-walled street came the turbulent characters of the
+hills--the miners, the punchers, the teamsters, the soldiers, the
+gamblers and gunmen and outcasts. Down this street walked the combings
+of the frontier, splitting the town wide open in their revelries and
+battles. There never had been a sheriff competent to go out and bring
+back a man; the other officials of Pistol Gap were but shadowy figures
+in the background. This was McGrane’s town. He ruled it with his gun and
+his fist; he ruled it because he understood the wholesome effect of
+fear. Bully McGrane had only one thread of philosophy in his bruiser’s
+head: might made right. And so while they cursed him, he sat back as
+some giant mastiff and jeered them with an arrogant, contemptuous
+indifference.
+
+Meanwhile McGrane’s pale-blue eyes were fastened on the Freighter’s
+Rest, turning over in his mind the meaning of Tud Drury’s return. And he
+knew that if the man let any significant information drop along the
+street, willing ears would pick it up and bring it to him. The cigar in
+his mouth sent up intermittent rings of smoke; his two broken-knuckled
+fists lay idle on the chair arms. Pistol Gap was held in sultry silence,
+broken only by the ringing strokes of Billy Monteith’s blacksmith
+hammer.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+However, Tud Drury was no hand to betray his private affairs. In the
+Freighter’s Rest he tarried only long enough to redeem certain pledged
+articles in the saloon safe. There was a poker game in progress and one
+of the players indicated an empty chair. But Drury shook his head,
+bought a cigar out of courtesy to the house, and left. Turning west, he
+walked the length of the street and swung into a kind of alley leading
+up a lesser canyon. Here was the seamy side of Pistol Gap; along a
+meandering creek fronted small cabins, farther up was Chinatown, and in
+the immediate foreground rested the three-story bulk of a building cut
+into the ravine wall. Across the peeling paint was a semicircular sign:
+
+                          PRIDE OF THE HILLS
+                         GENTEEL ENTERTAINMENT
+
+Drury walked through the main door and into an enormous rink that served
+as theater and dance hall. It was dark and stifling and permeated with
+the stale odors of tobacco smoke and spilled liquor. Along one side ran
+a bar; at the far end stood a stage; opposite the bar and enclosed by
+plush curtains were a series of private stalls. Here and there lounged a
+few heat-oppressed employees of the place. Drury looked around for a
+moment, went on down a side corridor and climbed two flights of stairs.
+At a door near the end of a long hall he knocked quietly; it opened and
+a tall girl with ash-gold hair and eyes so set in gravity as to seem
+never-smiling stood before him.
+
+At sight of the man her face lightened and an inner worry seemed to
+dissolve. As for Tud Drury, he threw his cigar to the floor in sudden
+distaste; he spoke with a slow huskiness that was nothing like his clear
+and level challenge to Bully McGrane.
+
+“Here I am, Anna.”
+
+She motioned him inside the room--a bare, clean room with a single shaft
+of sunlight cutting across the curtained darkness. Against this light
+her tall body made a round and graceful pattern.
+
+“I heard you were in town a few days ago, Tud,” said she, a drawling
+weariness in the words.
+
+“I was,” said the man. “But I was busy and went right out. Well, it
+wasn’t that, either. But I was figuring out a proposition and I didn’t
+want to say anything to you about it until I could come and be sure of
+good news.”
+
+“I thought,” murmured the girl, “you had changed your mind. Forgotten.”
+
+Drury flung up his head. “Not in a thousand years! Anna, we’re through
+with all our troubles. I’ve swung my deal. I got out of that mine with
+money enough to see us clear of this crooked country and far enough away
+never to think of it again. I despise everything in it. It’s crucified
+you and branded me. But it won’t any more. We’re going--we’ve got a
+fresh deal ahead of us.”
+
+“Tud--you made your money straight? Not like you once did, not by
+stealing?”
+
+Drury straightened. His talk quickened and took on a ring of assurance
+and strength. “Since the night I saw you six months ago, Anna, I have
+never touched a drop of liquor, I have never ridden with the old gang, I
+have never roped another man’s cow. Every penny in my pocket came out of
+the earth. It’s mine--I worked for it. I’m not sayin’ I liked grubbin’
+in the dirt. I don’t, for it’s not my game. But I did it--and the sooner
+we’re married and on our way the better. Down in the Thunder Cloud
+country there’s some Indian land open to homestead. There’s where we’ll
+go.”
+
+She turned a little to better study his face. “Your partners--you’ve had
+trouble with them. I can see it, Tud.”
+
+“They were crooked when they bought into my claim. They’re crooked now.
+I know what they figured. They aimed to work until we had a stake and
+then knock me in the head. There’s been no night in the last four months
+I’ve had both eyes shut. Never a time I didn’t keep my gun on me. They
+figured it was a sure deal. I knew they figured it that way. But I
+needed money to develop the claim and I took ’em in. They paid for their
+shares and they agreed to the split--five parts of all dust for me and
+one apiece for each of them. I reckon they had me counted as an easy
+mark until this mornin’. The mine’s peterin’ out and I couldn’t stand
+the strain any longer. So I forced the issue. Had to hold a rifle on ’em
+while we divided up. I didn’t take an ounce that wasn’t rightfully mine,
+but they wanted to kill me. They went into it with their eyes open and
+aiming to cut my throat--and I guess they’d have done it in another
+couple days. But I’m clear. We can start fresh--and we’ll forget Pistol
+Gap ever existed.”
+
+“If you still want me,” whispered the girl.
+
+“No matter how many times I change my mind,” said the man, “nothin’
+could ever make it change about you.”
+
+“Tud--if it is only pity that brings you back I won’t listen.”
+
+“Here,” muttered Drury, “don’t say that. I won’t stand for it. What was
+I when I walked into this place six months ago and saw you singing on
+the stage? A no-good drifter. On the down-grade. Shiftless. Takin’ what
+didn’t belong to me. And that would have been my story until a bullet
+stopped me, if I hadn’t seen you. Do you reckon pity had anything to do
+with the change in me? You know better.”
+
+“You could pick a better girl, Tud.”
+
+He was silent for a time, but his dark eyes flamed with inner fire. “Not
+in a thousand years,” he went on. “When I consider the battle you had to
+eat and keep alive I want to go out and kill somebody. It’d broke any
+other girl in the land. It ain’t right you’ve got to sing and smile for
+the animals that come thunderin’ here every night. Damn a country that
+lets things like that happen. But it’s over with now and you’ll walk out
+of here as fine a woman as when you came in.”
+
+“If I were to tell you----”
+
+“As fine a woman as when you came in,” repeated Tud Drury very slowly
+and distinctly.
+
+Her long calm broke. He crossed the room and took her gently. A sharp
+breath sheered the hot and shaded silence. “Tud, you’re a--a fine
+gentleman! I’ll see to it you never will be sorry! Never!”
+
+“You’re gettin’ the worst of this bargain,” muttered Drury. “But it’s
+sure good to hear you say that. Get your things together. It’s going on
+five o’clock now. I’ll step up the street and buy a rig and team. At six
+I’ll be back. We’ll walk to the court house, be married, eat our
+dinner--and ride away. It’s a long trip tonight and you’re goin’ to be
+tired. But I’d rather cash my chips than sleep in Pistol Gap again.”
+
+They studied each other for a moment, tremendously sober, tremendously
+stirred. Then the man bowed with a queer, half-formal politeness and
+turned from the room, going down the worn stairs and through the dismal
+gloom of the dance hall. In the street he looked all around the
+surrounding hills with the fire of rebellion in his dark eyes; and he
+squared his shoulders as if a steadying weight had suddenly settled upon
+them.
+
+“The angels,” he muttered, “ain’t all in heaven, nor the sinners all in
+hell.”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tud Drury left the smaller side gulch and entered Pistol Gap’s main
+street. Halfway along it and opposite the Freighter’s Rest was the
+stable. Crossing the rutted, dusty thoroughfare, he passed Billy
+Monteith’s blacksmith shop and paused a brief moment to catch sight of
+Monteith standing over the anvil. The man was stripped to the waist, his
+black hair curled damply across a white forehead and all the great flat
+muscles of his torso rippled to the rhythmic hammer strokes. White
+metal flakes shot out, the hot iron crackled in the cooling tub and
+Monteith walked to the water pail. When he tipped his head to the dipper
+twin ropes of sinew came to a point on his neck and his blue, frank eyes
+fell on Tud Drury. The dipper dropped and Monteith drawled a friendly
+phrase.
+
+“Back for a spell, Tud?”
+
+Some of Drury’s resentment died. He nodded agreeably. “Not for long,
+Billy. I’m shakin’ this town’s dust off my feet.”
+
+“For you,” observed Billy Monteith, “it might not be a bad idea. The Gap
+eats up too many good men.”
+
+Drury inclined his head in silent agreement and continued toward the
+stable. He was on the point of turning in when he looked on down the
+street to locate Bully McGrane, and by that move he discovered three
+riders advancing along the canyon trail. They were too far removed to be
+absolutely identified, yet Drury seemed to take root there in the last
+of the day’s sunshine and across his dark face flashed an emotion that
+was compounded of anger and fear and almost despair. He looked around
+the street, like an animal seeking exit from a trap; he scanned the
+alleys, the yawning doors and the canyon running off from the Pride of
+the Hills. Quite slowly passiveness took the place of those other fitful
+expressions and, drawing himself up in the manner of one electing to
+play out a bad hand to the bitter end, he aimed for the Freighter’s Rest
+and passed inside. The poker game still continued and the empty seat was
+still waiting for him. He slid into it, turned to better face the door,
+and signaled for a stack of chips.
+
+He was thus occupied, both hands in plain view on the table top, when
+the three newcomers entered, saw him--and stopped.
+
+One was a whippet of a man, another nondescript of feature, the third
+burly and formidable. But whatever physical variance existed between
+them the same luster of sullen purpose was stamped in their eyes and the
+same sour, lawless slant of jaw appeared beneath the stubbled whiskers.
+Thin-lipped, predatory and vindictive men and of a breed common enough
+in the fastness of the hills. The weight of their presence brought the
+poker game to a full halt and roused the somnolent loiterers in the
+saloon. The burly one slowly raised a hand and stretched it toward Tud
+Drury.
+
+“You--come outside a minute. We want to talk this over.”
+
+Drury’s answer was soft and self-contained. “I’ve got nothing to say to
+you fellows. The deal’s done, the record’s closed. I’m busy.”
+
+“It ain’t done by a dam’ sight,” grunted the big man. “You think it
+is--but it ain’t. Don’t figger for a minute yo’re goin’ to get away with
+this.”
+
+“With what?” countered Drury. “You rigged me for a sucker, played me for
+a killin’. Now that you fell down on your pirate business you’re
+squawkin’ like a bunch of tinhorns.”
+
+“Nev’less,” said the big man with a cold determination that weighed
+oppressively over the saloon, “you ain’t done with us. Nobody’s done
+with us that uses a gun to draw out.”
+
+“I beat you to the gun business,” taunted Drury. “You’d of done it in
+another twenty-four hours. It hurts to go honest for a change, don’t it?
+I’ve got nothing to say to you buzzards. I kept my part of the bargain
+and I’m through. The claim is yours. My share’s mine. I’m lucky to be
+alive.”
+
+“Come outside,” repeated the big one.
+
+“Not in a thousand years,” said Drury and smiled coldly at them. “Next
+time pick a softer sucker for the kil. I knew your earmarks the minute
+you eased in on me.”
+
+“Won’t come, uh?” questioned the big one. His teeth snapped together;
+dark blood surged along the weather-blackened skin. “Have it yore way.
+But you’re done. Mark this well. Yuh won’t ever leave Pistol Gap alive.
+You’re not through with us.”
+
+They filed from the saloon. Silence remained after them and the last of
+the day’s sun slid away from the blurred windows, throwing deeper
+shadows across the long room. Tud Drury stared at the cards and never
+stirred until one of the players called him back from his somber
+thoughts.
+
+The three men tramped down the street and crossed it, to come before
+Bully McGrane who still sat on the hotel porch. McGrane’s vast body was
+motionless and his great arms trailed idly. He said nothing but the
+chill of the unwinking eyes fell on them and remained there. He waited,
+as he usually waited, knowing well enough how the very power of his
+presence both confused and enraged others. Yet the three stared back
+grimly; and it was the big man who broke the spell.
+
+“McGrane, there’s a play comin’ up and we’re warnin’ yuh now to keep
+out of it. It’s our business and none of yours. Make no attempt to
+interfere.”
+
+“Bold boys,” rumbled McGrane ironically.
+
+“Put it any way yuh choose,” stated the big man evenly, “but keep out
+of it. We’re after a man and we mean to get him. It won’t be the first
+time such a thing’s happened in Pistol Gap and it ain’t the last. Stand
+aside and don’t interfere.”
+
+“I reckon the four thieves fell out, uh?” grunted McGrane.
+
+They waited stolidly, untouched by his sarcasm. McGrane shifted in the
+chair, cigar smoke wreathing around his scarred, red-veined face. So
+sure of himself was he that their challenge evoked a throaty chuckle;
+strange light flickered in his pale eyes. “Not tryin’ to bluff me,
+boys?”
+
+“This is no bluff,” said the big man without emotion. “It ain’t yore
+business. It’s ours. We mean to get Drury. He won’t leave Pistol Gap.
+We’ll see he don’t. We’re declarin’ ourselves now and here. What about
+it?”
+
+“I never could get sympathetic about a crook,” rumbled McGrane. “One
+more or less don’t mean much to me.”
+
+“Glad to hear you say it. That’s the way we want it.”
+
+“Maybe,” said McGrane, “you heard what I said. Maybe you only thought
+you heard what I said. I never commit myself to a crook, or three
+crooks.”
+
+“Let it ride,” replied the big man bluntly. “And stay clear of this.
+Marshals don’t last forever.” And the three wheeled abreast and strode
+toward the stable.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dusk’s brief interlude came to Pistol Gap and, even as it came, began to
+fade into dark. Lights sprang up and a stream of cool air came filling
+into the stifling gulch. Men strolled to supper, the town awoke and
+moved more briskly. At the end of the street the Pride of the Hills
+suddenly was a-gush with yellow beams. McGrane chewed his cigar to the
+frayed end and tossed it away. The down-curving lines of his massive
+face began to appear; he closed a fist like a man finding pleasure in
+pure strength, and rose. Shouldering through the increasing crowd, he
+turned in at the now dark blacksmith shop. Billy Monteith sat by the
+door, smoking an evening pipe.
+
+It was a strange thing that McGrane, whose nature instantly bridled at
+the thought of any strength equal to or superior to his own, should like
+Monteith above any other man in the country. The youthful, mild-mannered
+blacksmith was everything McGrane was not. He trusted people and was
+trusted by them; he despised the very physical force he represented in
+so great a degree; and on one occasion he had stood up to McGrane and
+whipped the marshal--the only individual in all that wild country who
+ever had met the bruising, mauling ex-prizefighter on his own ground and
+came out uncrushed. Yet perhaps McGrane’s liking was not strange. For if
+he ruled by fear and violence it was also true he respected a man who
+refused to quail before him. So he found himself a fresh cigar and spoke
+idly.
+
+“What’d Drury have to say to you, Billy?”
+
+“He’s leavin’ the country,” drawled Monteith.
+
+McGrane grunted. “He thinks he is. He’ll never make it. He’s trapped.
+Notice them three tough nuts that just came in? They’re layin’ for him.
+They’ll get him.”
+
+Monteith sat up and clucked his tongue. “Now that’s bad. You ought to
+stop it, McGrane. I sort of like Drury. He’s played pretty straight
+recently.”
+
+“Straight?” boomed McGrane. “Teamed up with them three? Don’t think it.
+Once a crook always a crook. I knowed the time when he was wanted by six
+different sheriffs. They don’t change. That mild manner don’t fool me
+none whatsoever. They been robbin’ sluiceboxes. There’s my guess. Now
+they’ve fell out. Drury probably got away with the dust and they’re
+after him. Crooks always fall out. They’ll get him.”
+
+“Still think you’re wrong,” mused Monteith.
+
+“Soft!” snorted McGrane, contemptuous of any kind of sympathy. Then he
+chuckled. “They warned me to stay out of it. Me! Jack McGrane! Imagine
+that. High, wide an’ handsome, that’s their style.” And the chuckle
+dissolved to a growl.
+
+“Well, what do you figure?” the blacksmith asked.
+
+“Show ’em who runs this town, Billy. They’re all four crooks. I’ll stay
+clear, all right. They can have Drury. He’s no good and never was. But
+when they get him I’ll get them. I’ll have ’em for murder--and there’s
+the end of four more tough nuts.”
+
+Monteith smoked in silence for a long spell, then spoke regretfully.
+“Seems to me you’re forcin’ the hand of Providence some. It ain’t
+right.”
+
+“Forcin’ nothin’,” retorted McGrane, enjoying his plan hugely. “I’m
+standin’ aside. Lettin’ nature take its due course. Might’s right and
+dog eat dog. There ain’t nothin’ pretty about a gunslinger or a rustler
+or a sluicebox robber. They’ll get what they got comin’ to ’em.”
+
+“I think Drury’s straight,” repeated Monteith, knocking out his pipe. “I
+think it because he’s got a girl down at the Pride of the Hills.”
+
+“Anna--a dance hall girl.”
+
+“Anna--a good dance hall girl,” amended Monteith softly.
+
+“There never was a good dance hall girl,” snorted McGrane.
+
+“Considerin’ a multitude of circumstances and necessities,” was
+Monteith’s grave answer, “I sometimes think there never were many bad
+ones. Anyhow, I like Anna and I like Tud. They’ve got a stretch of good
+luck comin’ to ’em for a change. If Drury’s pullin’ stakes, that means
+she’s going with him. McGrane, you ought to stop those buzzards.”
+
+“They made their bed and they’ll lay in it--stiff and cold,” said
+McGrane.
+
+The big marshal swung away, moving with a rapidity unlooked for in a man
+of his bulk. At a dark alley mouth he paused and considered the street.
+Presently he saw the three men come from the stable and break in
+differing directions. One posted himself in front of the Freighter’s
+Rest, one stepped back into the outer darkness, the third walked toward
+the Pride of the Hills. McGrane weighed this tactical shifting with a
+critical eye, waiting with grim patience and grim enjoyment. Perhaps ten
+minutes later the man by the Freighter’s Rest seemed to abruptly
+discover something or receive some covert message; turning, he hurried
+off for the Pride of the Hills. McGrane’s big head nodded.
+
+“They got wind he wouldn’t pull out unless he took the girl.” And his
+scorn for Drury deepened. “The dam’ fool! It’s his skin he’s riskin’ for
+the kind of a woman he could buy anywhere dirt cheap. They’ve got him
+hipped. He won’t never make it. Now I’ll take a hand.” Leaving the alley
+mouth, he repassed the blacksmith shop and headed for the dance hall.
+Monteith, he observed, had gone.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tud Drury still sat at the poker table, but the game had broken up and
+his hands idly stacked and divided the chips before him. It was
+six-thirty. His hour of appointment with Anna had come and gone, his
+plans were smashed by the ruthless three waiting in the street with a
+cold, patient stolidness that seemed like the inevitable signal of
+death. The saloon was filling, other tables occupied. Yet the word was
+out and he was let alone. Men watched him in catlike attention and all
+this while he sat with his head slightly bowed, his dark cheeks passive,
+unmoved.
+
+But under the cover of that outward indifference his thought raced along
+in futile swiftness, running down one blind alley and another, striking
+barriers at every turn, and collecting again with ever mounting
+desperation. There was no hope for him on Pistol Gap’s main street, no
+possible chance of reaching his horse. Perhaps he might slip quietly
+through the rear of the saloon and leave town afoot, perhaps he might
+reach timber if he elected to try his solitary fortune. Yet in so doing
+he abandoned Anna, and when he abandoned her he also threw over whatever
+of hope and self-respect there was left in him.
+
+At a gesture Tud Drury swept the chips from the table and rose. The
+rumble of talk in the saloon sagged as he walked to the bar, took his
+drink, and seemed to collect himself. There was a glinting anger in his
+eyes and all his features tightened down--the expression of one staking
+everything on the turn of a card. Then, without warning, he strode to
+the back door of the saloon, placed his hand on the knob and paused. A
+chair scraped, accenting the stillness that gripped every soul in the
+place. Drury squared his shoulders, stared behind him and spoke
+bitterly.
+
+“If this town’s waitin’ to watch me die--see how I do it. Damn Pistol
+Gap and all that it means!”
+
+With that, he ripped the door open and lunged into darkness, falling on
+all fours. Crouched there he awaited the bullet. But it never came. No
+prowling sound disturbed the back lots, no lurking body moved across the
+thin lanes of light winking down from the residences high placed on the
+canyon wall. Judgment still was suspended, still ominously withdrawn and
+waiting. Drury cursed with a rising rage. But even as he cursed he felt
+the first flare of hope in the long dragging hours of the afternoon.
+Getting on his feet, he ran beside the back building line, cut across
+the gap existing between the main street and the smaller gulch of
+Chinatown, and halted again. Over the creek lay the Pride of the Hills,
+filled with sound of music and men; the tide of traffic streamed into it
+and the voice of the announcer at the door rose stridently.
+
+“They know,” he muttered. “They know to come there. And that’s where
+they’ll be. No use to avoid it now. Can’t stay in the dark much longer,
+can’t sidestep a showdown.”
+
+A Chinaman trudged along the creek, leading a belled burro. Drury
+skirted a pair of cabins and approached the trail at a dark angle. The
+Chinaman came abreast, saw the figure of the man dimly in front of him,
+and halted defensively.
+
+“Sen Yat?” said Drury.
+
+“Ah,” said the Chinaman and peered closer. “Dluly. Long time no see.”
+
+“I’m no hand to beg,” muttered Drury. “But I did you a favor one time,
+and I need help now.”
+
+“You say, Dluly.”
+
+“I need two horses placed back of the dance hall, Sen Yat. Away up on
+the slope. I need ’em now. Right where the trail cuts down from old
+Number Two below Discovery. You do that?”
+
+“Can do, Dluly.”
+
+“Don’t go to the stable for horses. Use your own. Here’s a hundred
+dollars. Let nobody see you.”
+
+The Chinaman took the money and plodded deeper into Chinatown. Drury
+watched him wind through the maze of shacks and disappear. He held his
+position as the lagging, dreary minutes went by, never letting his eyes
+stray from the upper end of the gulch. In his mind he reconstructed
+every step of the Chinaman’s way--getting the horses, saddling up,
+leading them around the throat of the gulch, laboriously climbing the
+steep slopes. All these acts he allotted a space of time, throttling his
+uneasy impatience. Half a dozen miners tramped by at arm’s length and
+curved into a chop suey joint. A youthful Oriental slipped forward as if
+he were balancing a basket on his head. Drury stepped farther into the
+dark shelter, but the Chinaman swerved and came against him. A soft
+phrase passed between. “You go now.” And then the Chinaman padded on.
+
+Drury took a deep breath and left his shelter. He crossed the creek
+without recourse to the bridge lower down. He climbed the bank and,
+still using the shadows, arrived at the corner of the dance hall.
+Another step meant coming into the full light and mixing into the
+eddying crowd. Nowhere did he see his three ex-partners. That they were
+nearby he never doubted; they had laid their trap with skill, leaving no
+footprints to show.
+
+“I’ve done my last dodgin’,” he murmured to himself. “I may die, and
+God help the girl if I do. But here’s jump-off for Tud Drury.” On the
+heels of the thought he walked into the light and was carried through
+the door to the dance hall.
+
+Once inside, Drury stepped out of the milling current of men, back to
+the wall; and his first glance went forward to the stage, thinking that
+Anna might have gone on with her part of the evening’s entertainment to
+cover the breech of time. But she was not there, nor anywhere along the
+smoke crowded vastness of the room. A hundred faces shifted before his
+eyes, none of them of importance to him. So he slid casually through a
+side door and started up the stairs; in one cautious backward glance he
+caught sight of Bully McGrane’s features fixed on him, cynically amused;
+and it seemed to Drury that the marshal was waiting for the inevitable
+burst of shots. It brought him to a pause. He studied the dim inner hall
+sharply, ran his hand across the butt of his gun. Chill touched his
+nerves. Shaking it off, he ascended the two flights and went toward the
+girl’s room. The door was ajar and through the opening he saw her
+waiting.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Drury scarcely had cleared the dance hall when Bully McGrane stepped out
+of a corner and crossed the same inner door. Framed there, he turned to
+consider the crowd. The three gunmen had been in sight until a few
+minutes back and he knew they had seen Drury. Subsequently they had
+departed, not by the front but by a stage exit. McGrane considered this
+a sure indication as to the scene of the kill. Yet he was curiously
+inclined and he wondered if Drury’s next move would be in accordance
+with the arrangements. Being a shrewd, weather-wise man he knew that in
+life’s everlasting rabbit chase the pursued occasionally tricked the
+pursuer. Whatever the case, he meant to be on hand; for to him it was a
+grim jest, another piece of sport to feed his blunt and frankly brutal
+nature. So he went up the stairs, treading near the banister to check
+the squeaking of the boards. On the second landing he heard the murmur
+of voices and he went down on his toes until he stood near enough to
+make out the rapid play of talk. The girl’s voice rose clearly.
+
+“You never should have come here. What does it matter? Go ahead--any way
+to get away from them. I’ll come later. In a few days.”
+
+“And let ’em take their spite out on you?” came a deeper, male voice.
+“Not in a thousand years. That’s what they’d do. They’re a pack of
+savages.”
+
+“They’ll kill you, Tud!”
+
+Drury’s answer was small and indistinct. McGrane shifted, a scowl coming
+over his face. Then the girl broke in.
+
+“I won’t go! You’ve got to do it without me! Oh, Tud, I will not drag
+you down like that. What does it matter about me? But if they kill you,
+then I have nothing left.”
+
+“I’m through dodgin’,” said the man. “And I ain’t leavin’ you behind.
+I’ve got to stand up like any man would who’s worth his salt. I been
+through enough torment thinkin’ of you here. We’ll stick together from
+now on, and if I can’t take care of you, then I reckon I ain’t worth
+botherin’ about. Get your grip. There’s a small back door at the foot of
+the stairs....”
+
+McGrane retreated quietly and descended the first flight. There he
+halted, scowling massively into the dingy shadows as if displeased at
+what he had overheard; as if this man and this girl had refused to play
+the part assigned them. Drury was a crook, Anna a dance hall girl. They
+had made their bed, now let them lie in it. All people in this world
+were the same. Every man struggled for himself, every man looked to the
+main chance and pushed the other fellow over the cliff in the showdown.
+There was mighty little difference between the best and the worst and
+every last soul crawled before the gods of fear and greed and appetite.
+What right had either of those two people to act as if they were any
+different?
+
+He heard them coming and he crept on down the next flight of stairs.
+There was a single lamp bracketed to the side of the hall. He dimmed the
+wick and hurried on to the back door, opening it and stepping swiftly
+aside. A gust of cold air scoured through and the night wind rattled the
+brush all along the gulch. Some woman was singing from the main room and
+the tramp of feet shook the structure, but out yonder a kind of bated
+stillness held the shadows. McGrane’s sharp eyes raked the cloaked
+foreground; very softly he lifted his gun; and the next moment he had
+closed the door behind him and was flat on his stomach, ten yards away.
+No sooner was he settled than the door opened again, letting out Drury
+and the girl. He saw their bodies sway aside from the opening and he
+heard Drury’s soft murmur of reassurance run into her suppressed sigh.
+Suddenly they broke into a run, and passed him.
+
+The soft echo of their steps came back in a straight line and he knew
+then what they meant to do. Over the summit lay old Discovery and from
+there it was a clear road out to the high desert, out to a different
+land. Probably Drury had managed to picket horses along the gulch and
+probably he thought himself safe. But McGrane, growling softly and
+strangely irritated, understood very well how few were the moments
+stretching between that delusion and gunplay. Somewhere in this tricky
+blackness the three crooks were waiting.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+All sound, all echoes died off; A palpitating stillness flowed down the
+slope. McGrane rose to his knees, big fist tightening about his gun.
+“Once a crook always a crook,” he rumbled. Anger rose vastly in him, the
+old desire to sweep out with his massive fists and destroy took hold. He
+got to his feet, big body swaying, forward as if his very will sought to
+tear away the impenetrable blanket of that night. A faint murmur of
+rattling brush came to him. Distinctly a voice said, “You’re done for.”
+McGrane let out a roar and charged onward up the incline.
+
+A bullet’s flat smash broke across the gulch, the echo rolling wider.
+The girl screamed and hard on that sound a pair of explosions rocketed
+together. McGrane saw the muzzle flashes; he heard Anna crying,
+“Tud--Tud!” And; placing those two, he opened up on the point he had
+seen the more remote mushrooming of powder light, still beating inward,
+still booming his rage into the mystery of the night. The outline of a
+pair of horses lay across the path, Tud’s gun answered from another
+angle. Then there was no more firing. The brush crackled beneath a
+threshing body and Bully McGrane, blowing like an engine, halted in his
+tracks.
+
+“Who’s that?” challenged Drury. “By the good God, if you’ve touched this
+girl----!”
+
+“Tud--I’m all right.”
+
+“Who’s that?” repeated Drury.
+
+“Shut-up,” grumbled McGrane. “Them yore horses?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, get on ’em and go. Yuh deserve to be hung but there ain’t no
+reason I should see you do it. Get on ’em and go.”
+
+Drury’s voice jerked out a halting phrase.
+
+“McGrane--I’m in no shape to pay my obligation to you. But----”
+
+“Damn the obligations. Get on them horses and go! You know what I
+think about you.”
+
+The girl’s arm touched his great shoulder. McGrane stiffened. Her lips
+brushed his cheeks and he felt a tear fall on his rigid hand. “After all
+the hurt and cruelty of Pistol Gap,” said she, “you leave us this
+kindness. Somewhere there is a guiding star for us--and for you.”
+
+“Be good,” said McGrane in the ancient farewell and stood quite still as
+he heard them mount and climb the trail. The hoofbeats diminished and
+died. McGrane stirred himself, shook his burly shoulders and walked off
+the trail. The figure of a man lay there and the marshal touched him
+with the toe of a boot. “Now where,” he rumbled, “is the others?”
+
+An unexpected voice cut in. “Right at my feet,” said Billy Monteith.
+“Knocked cold with an ax handle. I figured you’d come.”
+
+“Damned sure of yourself, ain’t you?” muttered McGrane.
+
+“I liked Tud and I liked Anna,” was Monteith’s quiet reply. “They had
+good luck comin’.”
+
+“I dunno,” growled McGrane. “But there’s one crook less, anyhow. The
+best of folks in this world are none too good and the worst of ’em ain’t
+always so bad. Not that it makes any difference. Sentiment don’t get you
+anywhere, Monteith. Might’s right and tonight proves it. Bring those two
+tough nuts to the jug and we’ll let ’em cool off while that pair of
+young fools gets a good start from the country.”
+
+He turned down the slope, swinging his arms--morose and fuming and ready
+to vent the loose ends of his temper on whoever crossed his path; for
+Bully McGrane hated to have his grim philosophy of life disturbed and in
+that philosophy there was no place for a man like Tud nor a girl like
+Anna. So he kicked open the dance hall door and stamped down the hall.
+Music and revelry came unabated from the Pride of the Hills and the
+sound of firing had brought no curiosity seekers to the slope. In Pistol
+Gap life ran to suddenness and intensity.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the November 25, 1930 issue
+of _Short Stories_ magazine.]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77816 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77816 ***</div>
+<div class='titlepage'>
+<h1>BULLY McGRANE</h1>
+
+<img src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" alt="Marshal of Pistol Gap" style="margin-left:25%; width:50%">
+
+<div style='margin:1em 15%; font-size:0.9em;'>
+Hardboiled, That Marshall of the Toughest Town in the West—but Somewhere There Was a Soft Spot in His Heart.
+</div>
+
+<div style='margin-bottom:0.2em; font-size:1.2em; text-align:center;'>Ernest Haycox</div>
+<div style='text-align:center; margin-bottom:1.25em; font-size:0.9em;'>
+celebrated author of Western stories<br>
+gives us<br>
+another yarn of “Pistol Gap”
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>In Pistol Gap life was pitched to a key of suddenness and intensity. Men
+of this Western land worked with an energy that brought out the salt
+sweat; and their hours of play were equally violent. If they drank at
+all it was usually to excess and if they gambled they flung the whole of
+their labored wealth on the green table in prodigal abandon, never
+considering tomorrow. And in Pistol Gap death only infrequently visited
+a man in bed; one moment he was alive and in full stride; the next
+moment he was quite utterly dead. In such case the coroner’s jury had a
+uniform, unvarying verdict: “dead by an act of God.”</p>
+<p>It was therefore natural that when Tud Drury rode into Pistol Gap
+leading a pack animal during the latter part of a sultry afternoon that
+Bully McGrane, marshal, should ease his massive bulk forward on a hotel
+porch chair and watch the newcomer’s successive movements with a sort of
+lowering, belligerent interest. Tud had made a trip down to procure
+supplies for himself and his three partners only two days previously.
+This trip augured something else; and the loaded burro also indicated
+something else. So Bully McGrane watched, removing his hat to scratch a
+cropped head badly scarred from his prize-ring days.</p>
+<p>Drury went into the stable, remained a while and emerged with a canvas
+sack hanging heavily from one arm; Drury returned on the far side of the
+street, and entered ’Lisha Funston’s bank. Bully McGrane’s broad jaws
+tightened against his cigar and he tugged at the ends of his
+downsweeping mustache which gave him considerable physical resemblance
+to John L. Sullivan—with whom he once had sparred. A rumble came out of
+his chest; he laced his fingers across a vast paunch, at the same time
+keeping a direct glance on the bank door. Presently Drury came out
+empty-handed and started back. McGrane’s throaty challenge sounded forth
+with a bluntness that was at once uncivil and insolent. Drury paused in
+apparent unwillingness.</p>
+<p>“Come ’ere, Drury. Want to see you.”</p>
+<p>Drury approached, visibly irritated. He was a young man, dark featured,
+straight-spined. About him was the suggestion of a will yet to be
+curbed; and though he wore the rig of a miner—stained with shaft
+mud—he seemed to belong to another species of Westerner, he seemed
+still to carry the air of belonging to the saddle by trade. Coming to a
+stand in front of the marshal, he reached for his cigarettes and stared
+back at McGrane. If McGrane’s manner was one of overbearing authority,
+Drury’s was no less hostile.</p>
+<p>“In early, ain’t you, Tud?”</p>
+<p>Drury only shrugged his shoulders and poured tobacco into the creased
+wheat paper.</p>
+<p>“You got grub for them bushjumpin’ pardners of yores just a while ago.
+What’s the play now?”</p>
+<p>Drury’s white teeth flashed on the drawstring of the tobacco pouch; his
+eyes crossed the marshal’s face, mirroring irony.</p>
+<p>“Looks to me,” went on McGrane, “as if that pack brute was carryin’ yore
+forty years’ gatherin’ out of the hills. Must’ve been a quarrel among
+thieves. You quittin’?”</p>
+<p>Drury lit a match to his cigarette. “Maybe,” he observed, “I ought to
+get a permit from you to be alive, McGrane. You sure seem to expect it.
+My business is my business. I don’t owe you anything and I’m mindin’ my
+affairs strictly. As to what I’ve been doin’, or intend to do—you go
+straight to hell.” Turning definitely on his heels, he walked away,
+crossed the street again and entered the Freighter’s Rest.</p>
+<p>McGrane, who was capable of springing out of his chair and crushing
+Drury with one lion-like sweep of his fist, relaxed, chuckling. It was
+not the mellow, humorous amusement of a man giving vent to inner
+kindliness. McGrane was too much of a cynical materialist to be kindly.
+Rather, his chuckle came of a malicious satisfaction in knowing Drury
+hated him with a full heart. McGrane took savage pleasure in making
+others hate him, in making others writhe under his hard dominance and at
+last desperately and futilely strike back. Pistol Gap was a tough town.
+Down this canyon-walled street came the turbulent characters of the
+hills—the miners, the punchers, the teamsters, the soldiers, the
+gamblers and gunmen and outcasts. Down this street walked the combings
+of the frontier, splitting the town wide open in their revelries and
+battles. There never had been a sheriff competent to go out and bring
+back a man; the other officials of Pistol Gap were but shadowy figures
+in the background. This was McGrane’s town. He ruled it with his gun and
+his fist; he ruled it because he understood the wholesome effect of
+fear. Bully McGrane had only one thread of philosophy in his bruiser’s
+head: might made right. And so while they cursed him, he sat back as
+some giant mastiff and jeered them with an arrogant, contemptuous
+indifference.</p>
+<p>Meanwhile McGrane’s pale-blue eyes were fastened on the Freighter’s
+Rest, turning over in his mind the meaning of Tud Drury’s return. And he
+knew that if the man let any significant information drop along the
+street, willing ears would pick it up and bring it to him. The cigar in
+his mouth sent up intermittent rings of smoke; his two broken-knuckled
+fists lay idle on the chair arms. Pistol Gap was held in sultry silence,
+broken only by the ringing strokes of Billy Monteith’s blacksmith
+hammer.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>However, Tud Drury was no hand to betray his private affairs. In the
+Freighter’s Rest he tarried only long enough to redeem certain pledged
+articles in the saloon safe. There was a poker game in progress and one
+of the players indicated an empty chair. But Drury shook his head,
+bought a cigar out of courtesy to the house, and left. Turning west, he
+walked the length of the street and swung into a kind of alley leading
+up a lesser canyon. Here was the seamy side of Pistol Gap; along a
+meandering creek fronted small cabins, farther up was Chinatown, and in
+the immediate foreground rested the three-story bulk of a building cut
+into the ravine wall. Across the peeling paint was a semicircular sign:</p>
+<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.7em; margin-bottom:0.7em;'>
+<span style='font-size:1.1em'>PRIDE OF THE HILLS</span><br>
+<span style='font-size:0.9em'>GENTEEL ENTERTAINMENT</span>
+</div>
+<p>Drury walked through the main door and into an enormous rink that served
+as theater and dance hall. It was dark and stifling and permeated with
+the stale odors of tobacco smoke and spilled liquor. Along one side ran
+a bar; at the far end stood a stage; opposite the bar and enclosed by
+plush curtains were a series of private stalls. Here and there lounged a
+few heat-oppressed employees of the place. Drury looked around for a
+moment, went on down a side corridor and climbed two flights of stairs.
+At a door near the end of a long hall he knocked quietly; it opened and
+a tall girl with ash-gold hair and eyes so set in gravity as to seem
+never-smiling stood before him.</p>
+<p>At sight of the man her face lightened and an inner worry seemed to
+dissolve. As for Tud Drury, he threw his cigar to the floor in sudden
+distaste; he spoke with a slow huskiness that was nothing like his clear
+and level challenge to Bully McGrane.</p>
+<p>“Here I am, Anna.”</p>
+<p>She motioned him inside the room—a bare, clean room with a single shaft
+of sunlight cutting across the curtained darkness. Against this light
+her tall body made a round and graceful pattern.</p>
+<p>“I heard you were in town a few days ago, Tud,” said she, a drawling
+weariness in the words.</p>
+<p>“I was,” said the man. “But I was busy and went right out. Well, it
+wasn’t that, either. But I was figuring out a proposition and I didn’t
+want to say anything to you about it until I could come and be sure of
+good news.”</p>
+<p>“I thought,” murmured the girl, “you had changed your mind. Forgotten.”</p>
+<p>Drury flung up his head. “Not in a thousand years! Anna, we’re through
+with all our troubles. I’ve swung my deal. I got out of that mine with
+money enough to see us clear of this crooked country and far enough away
+never to think of it again. I despise everything in it. It’s crucified
+you and branded me. But it won’t any more. We’re going—we’ve got a
+fresh deal ahead of us.”</p>
+<p>“Tud—you made your money straight? Not like you once did, not by
+stealing?”</p>
+<p>Drury straightened. His talk quickened and took on a ring of assurance
+and strength. “Since the night I saw you six months ago, Anna, I have
+never touched a drop of liquor, I have never ridden with the old gang, I
+have never roped another man’s cow. Every penny in my pocket came out of
+the earth. It’s mine—I worked for it. I’m not sayin’ I liked grubbin’
+in the dirt. I don’t, for it’s not my game. But I did it—and the sooner
+we’re married and on our way the better. Down in the Thunder Cloud
+country there’s some Indian land open to homestead. There’s where we’ll
+go.”</p>
+<img src="images/illus-058.jpg" alt="man holding rifle" style="float: left; margin-right: 15px; width: 40%">
+<p>She turned a little to better study his face. “Your partners—you’ve had
+trouble with them. I can see it, Tud.”</p>
+<p>“They were crooked when they bought into my claim. They’re crooked now.
+I know what they figured. They aimed to work until we had a stake and
+then knock me in the head. There’s been no night in the last four months
+I’ve had both eyes shut. Never a time I didn’t keep my gun on me. They
+figured it was a sure deal. I knew they figured it that way. But I
+needed money to develop the claim and I took ’em in. They paid for their
+shares and they agreed to the split—five parts of all dust for me and
+one apiece for each of them. I reckon they had me counted as an easy
+mark until this mornin’. The mine’s peterin’ out and I couldn’t stand
+the strain any longer. So I forced the issue. Had to hold a rifle on ’em
+while we divided up. I didn’t take an ounce that wasn’t rightfully mine,
+but they wanted to kill me. They went into it with their eyes open and
+aiming to cut my throat—and I guess they’d have done it in another
+couple days. But I’m clear. We can start fresh—and we’ll forget Pistol
+Gap ever existed.”</p>
+<p>“If you still want me,” whispered the girl.</p>
+<p>“No matter how many times I change my mind,” said the man, “nothin’
+could ever make it change about you.”</p>
+<p>“Tud—if it is only pity that brings you back I won’t listen.”</p>
+<p>“Here,” muttered Drury, “don’t say that. I won’t stand for it. What was
+I when I walked into this place six months ago and saw you singing on
+the stage? A no-good drifter. On the down-grade. Shiftless. Takin’ what
+didn’t belong to me. And that would have been my story until a bullet
+stopped me, if I hadn’t seen you. Do you reckon pity had anything to do
+with the change in me? You know better.”</p>
+<p>“You could pick a better girl, Tud.”</p>
+<p>He was silent for a time, but his dark eyes flamed with inner fire. “Not
+in a thousand years,” he went on. “When I consider the battle you had to
+eat and keep alive I want to go out and kill somebody. It’d broke any
+other girl in the land. It ain’t right you’ve got to sing and smile for
+the animals that come thunderin’ here every night. Damn a country that
+lets things like that happen. But it’s over with now and you’ll walk out
+of here as fine a woman as when you came in.”</p>
+<p>“If I were to tell you——”</p>
+<p>“As fine a woman as when you came in,” repeated Tud Drury very slowly
+and distinctly.</p>
+<p>Her long calm broke. He crossed the room and took her gently. A sharp
+breath sheered the hot and shaded silence. “Tud, you’re a—a fine
+gentleman! I’ll see to it you never will be sorry! Never!”</p>
+<p>“You’re gettin’ the worst of this bargain,” muttered Drury. “But it’s
+sure good to hear you say that. Get your things together. It’s going on
+five o’clock now. I’ll step up the street and buy a rig and team. At six
+I’ll be back. We’ll walk to the court house, be married, eat our
+dinner—and ride away. It’s a long trip tonight and you’re goin’ to be
+tired. But I’d rather cash my chips than sleep in Pistol Gap again.”</p>
+<p>They studied each other for a moment, tremendously sober, tremendously
+stirred. Then the man bowed with a queer, half-formal politeness and
+turned from the room, going down the worn stairs and through the dismal
+gloom of the dance hall. In the street he looked all around the
+surrounding hills with the fire of rebellion in his dark eyes; and he
+squared his shoulders as if a steadying weight had suddenly settled upon
+them.</p>
+<p>“The angels,” he muttered, “ain’t all in heaven, nor the sinners all in
+hell.”</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Tud Drury left the smaller side gulch and entered Pistol Gap’s main
+street. Halfway along it and opposite the Freighter’s Rest was the
+stable. Crossing the rutted, dusty thoroughfare, he passed Billy
+Monteith’s blacksmith shop and paused a brief moment to catch sight of
+Monteith standing over the anvil. The man was stripped to the waist, his
+black hair curled damply across a white forehead and all the great flat
+muscles of his torso rippled to the rhythmic hammer strokes. White
+metal flakes shot out, the hot iron crackled in the cooling tub and
+Monteith walked to the water pail. When he tipped his head to the dipper
+twin ropes of sinew came to a point on his neck and his blue, frank eyes
+fell on Tud Drury. The dipper dropped and Monteith drawled a friendly
+phrase.</p>
+<p>“Back for a spell, Tud?”</p>
+<p>Some of Drury’s resentment died. He nodded agreeably. “Not for long,
+Billy. I’m shakin’ this town’s dust off my feet.”</p>
+<p>“For you,” observed Billy Monteith, “it might not be a bad idea. The Gap
+eats up too many good men.”</p>
+<p>Drury inclined his head in silent agreement and continued toward the
+stable. He was on the point of turning in when he looked on down the
+street to locate Bully McGrane, and by that move he discovered three
+riders advancing along the canyon trail. They were too far removed to be
+absolutely identified, yet Drury seemed to take root there in the last
+of the day’s sunshine and across his dark face flashed an emotion that
+was compounded of anger and fear and almost despair. He looked around
+the street, like an animal seeking exit from a trap; he scanned the
+alleys, the yawning doors and the canyon running off from the Pride of
+the Hills. Quite slowly passiveness took the place of those other fitful
+expressions and, drawing himself up in the manner of one electing to
+play out a bad hand to the bitter end, he aimed for the Freighter’s Rest
+and passed inside. The poker game still continued and the empty seat was
+still waiting for him. He slid into it, turned to better face the door,
+and signaled for a stack of chips.</p>
+<p>He was thus occupied, both hands in plain view on the table top, when
+the three newcomers entered, saw him—and stopped.</p>
+<p>One was a whippet of a man, another nondescript of feature, the third
+burly and formidable. But whatever physical variance existed between
+them the same luster of sullen purpose was stamped in their eyes and the
+same sour, lawless slant of jaw appeared beneath the stubbled whiskers.
+Thin-lipped, predatory and vindictive men and of a breed common enough
+in the fastness of the hills. The weight of their presence brought the
+poker game to a full halt and roused the somnolent loiterers in the
+saloon. The burly one slowly raised a hand and stretched it toward Tud
+Drury.</p>
+<p>“You—come outside a minute. We want to talk this over.”</p>
+<p>Drury’s answer was soft and self-contained. “I’ve got nothing to say to
+you fellows. The deal’s done, the record’s closed. I’m busy.”</p>
+<p>“It ain’t done by a dam’ sight,” grunted the big man. “You think it
+is—but it ain’t. Don’t figger for a minute yo’re goin’ to get away with
+this.”</p>
+<p>“With what?” countered Drury. “You rigged me for a sucker, played me for
+a killin’. Now that you fell down on your pirate business you’re
+squawkin’ like a bunch of tinhorns.”</p>
+<p>“Nev’less,” said the big man with a cold determination that weighed
+oppressively over the saloon, “you ain’t done with us. Nobody’s done
+with us that uses a gun to draw out.”</p>
+<p>“I beat you to the gun business,” taunted Drury. “You’d of done it in
+another twenty-four hours. It hurts to go honest for a change, don’t it?
+I’ve got nothing to say to you buzzards. I kept my part of the bargain
+and I’m through. The claim is yours. My share’s mine. I’m lucky to be
+alive.”</p>
+<p>“Come outside,” repeated the big one.</p>
+<p>“Not in a thousand years,” said Drury and smiled coldly at them. “Next
+time pick a softer sucker for the kil. I knew your earmarks the minute
+you eased in on me.”</p>
+<p>“Won’t come, uh?” questioned the big one. His teeth snapped together;
+dark blood surged along the weather-blackened skin. “Have it yore way.
+But you’re done. Mark this well. Yuh won’t ever leave Pistol Gap alive.
+You’re not through with us.”</p>
+<p>They filed from the saloon. Silence remained after them and the last of
+the day’s sun slid away from the blurred windows, throwing deeper
+shadows across the long room. Tud Drury stared at the cards and never
+stirred until one of the players called him back from his somber
+thoughts.</p>
+<p>The three men tramped down the street and crossed it, to come before
+Bully McGrane who still sat on the hotel porch. McGrane’s vast body was
+motionless and his great arms trailed idly. He said nothing but the
+chill of the unwinking eyes fell on them and remained there. He waited,
+as he usually waited, knowing well enough how the very power of his
+presence both confused and enraged others. Yet the three stared back
+grimly; and it was the big man who broke the spell.</p>
+<p>“McGrane, there’s a play comin’ up and we’re warnin’ yuh now to keep
+out of it. It’s our business and none of yours. Make no attempt to
+interfere.”</p>
+<p>“Bold boys,” rumbled McGrane ironically.</p>
+<p>“Put it any way yuh choose,” stated the big man evenly, “but keep out
+of it. We’re after a man and we mean to get him. It won’t be the first
+time such a thing’s happened in Pistol Gap and it ain’t the last. Stand
+aside and don’t interfere.”</p>
+<p>“I reckon the four thieves fell out, uh?” grunted McGrane.</p>
+<p>They waited stolidly, untouched by his sarcasm. McGrane shifted in the
+chair, cigar smoke wreathing around his scarred, red-veined face. So
+sure of himself was he that their challenge evoked a throaty chuckle;
+strange light flickered in his pale eyes. “Not tryin’ to bluff me,
+boys?”</p>
+<p>“This is no bluff,” said the big man without emotion. “It ain’t yore
+business. It’s ours. We mean to get Drury. He won’t leave Pistol Gap.
+We’ll see he don’t. We’re declarin’ ourselves now and here. What about
+it?”</p>
+<p>“I never could get sympathetic about a crook,” rumbled McGrane. “One
+more or less don’t mean much to me.”</p>
+<p>“Glad to hear you say it. That’s the way we want it.”</p>
+<p>“Maybe,” said McGrane, “you heard what I said. Maybe you only thought
+you heard what I said. I never commit myself to a crook, or three
+crooks.”</p>
+<p>“Let it ride,” replied the big man bluntly. “And stay clear of this.
+Marshals don’t last forever.” And the three wheeled abreast and strode
+toward the stable.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Dusk’s brief interlude came to Pistol Gap and, even as it came, began to
+fade into dark. Lights sprang up and a stream of cool air came filling
+into the stifling gulch. Men strolled to supper, the town awoke and
+moved more briskly. At the end of the street the Pride of the Hills
+suddenly was a-gush with yellow beams. McGrane chewed his cigar to the
+frayed end and tossed it away. The down-curving lines of his massive
+face began to appear; he closed a fist like a man finding pleasure in
+pure strength, and rose. Shouldering through the increasing crowd, he
+turned in at the now dark blacksmith shop. Billy Monteith sat by the
+door, smoking an evening pipe.</p>
+<img src="images/illus-060.jpg" alt="man with hammer and anvil" style="float: right; margin-left: 15px; width: 40%">
+<p>It was a strange thing that McGrane, whose nature instantly bridled at
+the thought of any strength equal to or superior to his own, should like
+Monteith above any other man in the country. The youthful, mild-mannered
+blacksmith was everything McGrane was not. He trusted people and was
+trusted by them; he despised the very physical force he represented in
+so great a degree; and on one occasion he had stood up to McGrane and
+whipped the marshal—the only individual in all that wild country who
+ever had met the bruising, mauling ex-prizefighter on his own ground and
+came out uncrushed. Yet perhaps McGrane’s liking was not strange. For if
+he ruled by fear and violence it was also true he respected a man who
+refused to quail before him. So he found himself a fresh cigar and spoke
+idly.</p>
+<p>“What’d Drury have to say to you, Billy?”</p>
+<p>“He’s leavin’ the country,” drawled Monteith.</p>
+<p>McGrane grunted. “He thinks he is. He’ll never make it. He’s trapped.
+Notice them three tough nuts that just came in? They’re layin’ for him.
+They’ll get him.”</p>
+<p>Monteith sat up and clucked his tongue. “Now that’s bad. You ought to
+stop it, McGrane. I sort of like Drury. He’s played pretty straight
+recently.”</p>
+<p>“Straight?” boomed McGrane. “Teamed up with them three? Don’t think it.
+Once a crook always a crook. I knowed the time when he was wanted by six
+different sheriffs. They don’t change. That mild manner don’t fool me
+none whatsoever. They been robbin’ sluiceboxes. There’s my guess. Now
+they’ve fell out. Drury probably got away with the dust and they’re
+after him. Crooks always fall out. They’ll get him.”</p>
+<p>“Still think you’re wrong,” mused Monteith.</p>
+<p>“Soft!” snorted McGrane, contemptuous of any kind of sympathy. Then he
+chuckled. “They warned me to stay out of it. Me! Jack McGrane! Imagine
+that. High, wide an’ handsome, that’s their style.” And the chuckle
+dissolved to a growl.</p>
+<p>“Well, what do you figure?” the blacksmith asked.</p>
+<p>“Show ’em who runs this town, Billy. They’re all four crooks. I’ll stay
+clear, all right. They can have Drury. He’s no good and never was. But
+when they get him I’ll get them. I’ll have ’em for murder—and there’s
+the end of four more tough nuts.”</p>
+<p>Monteith smoked in silence for a long spell, then spoke regretfully.
+“Seems to me you’re forcin’ the hand of Providence some. It ain’t
+right.”</p>
+<p>“Forcin’ nothin’,” retorted McGrane, enjoying his plan hugely. “I’m
+standin’ aside. Lettin’ nature take its due course. Might’s right and
+dog eat dog. There ain’t nothin’ pretty about a gunslinger or a rustler
+or a sluicebox robber. They’ll get what they got comin’ to ’em.”</p>
+<p>“I think Drury’s straight,” repeated Monteith, knocking out his pipe. “I
+think it because he’s got a girl down at the Pride of the Hills.”</p>
+<p>“Anna—a dance hall girl.”</p>
+<p>“Anna—a good dance hall girl,” amended Monteith softly.</p>
+<p>“There never was a good dance hall girl,” snorted McGrane.</p>
+<p>“Considerin’ a multitude of circumstances and necessities,” was
+Monteith’s grave answer, “I sometimes think there never were many bad
+ones. Anyhow, I like Anna and I like Tud. They’ve got a stretch of good
+luck comin’ to ’em for a change. If Drury’s pullin’ stakes, that means
+she’s going with him. McGrane, you ought to stop those buzzards.”</p>
+<p>“They made their bed and they’ll lay in it—stiff and cold,” said
+McGrane.</p>
+<p>The big marshal swung away, moving with a rapidity unlooked for in a man
+of his bulk. At a dark alley mouth he paused and considered the street.
+Presently he saw the three men come from the stable and break in
+differing directions. One posted himself in front of the Freighter’s
+Rest, one stepped back into the outer darkness, the third walked toward
+the Pride of the Hills. McGrane weighed this tactical shifting with a
+critical eye, waiting with grim patience and grim enjoyment. Perhaps ten
+minutes later the man by the Freighter’s Rest seemed to abruptly
+discover something or receive some covert message; turning, he hurried
+off for the Pride of the Hills. McGrane’s big head nodded.</p>
+<p>“They got wind he wouldn’t pull out unless he took the girl.” And his
+scorn for Drury deepened. “The dam’ fool! It’s his skin he’s riskin’ for
+the kind of a woman he could buy anywhere dirt cheap. They’ve got him
+hipped. He won’t never make it. Now I’ll take a hand.” Leaving the alley
+mouth, he repassed the blacksmith shop and headed for the dance hall.
+Monteith, he observed, had gone.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Tud Drury still sat at the poker table, but the game had broken up and
+his hands idly stacked and divided the chips before him. It was
+six-thirty. His hour of appointment with Anna had come and gone, his
+plans were smashed by the ruthless three waiting in the street with a
+cold, patient stolidness that seemed like the inevitable signal of
+death. The saloon was filling, other tables occupied. Yet the word was
+out and he was let alone. Men watched him in catlike attention and all
+this while he sat with his head slightly bowed, his dark cheeks passive,
+unmoved.</p>
+<p>But under the cover of that outward indifference his thought raced along
+in futile swiftness, running down one blind alley and another, striking
+barriers at every turn, and collecting again with ever mounting
+desperation. There was no hope for him on Pistol Gap’s main street, no
+possible chance of reaching his horse. Perhaps he might slip quietly
+through the rear of the saloon and leave town afoot, perhaps he might
+reach timber if he elected to try his solitary fortune. Yet in so doing
+he abandoned Anna, and when he abandoned her he also threw over whatever
+of hope and self-respect there was left in him.</p>
+<p>At a gesture Tud Drury swept the chips from the table and rose. The
+rumble of talk in the saloon sagged as he walked to the bar, took his
+drink, and seemed to collect himself. There was a glinting anger in his
+eyes and all his features tightened down—the expression of one staking
+everything on the turn of a card. Then, without warning, he strode to
+the back door of the saloon, placed his hand on the knob and paused. A
+chair scraped, accenting the stillness that gripped every soul in the
+place. Drury squared his shoulders, stared behind him and spoke
+bitterly.</p>
+<p>“If this town’s waitin’ to watch me die—see how I do it. Damn Pistol
+Gap and all that it means!”</p>
+<p>With that, he ripped the door open and lunged into darkness, falling on
+all fours. Crouched there he awaited the bullet. But it never came. No
+prowling sound disturbed the back lots, no lurking body moved across the
+thin lanes of light winking down from the residences high placed on the
+canyon wall. Judgment still was suspended, still ominously withdrawn and
+waiting. Drury cursed with a rising rage. But even as he cursed he felt
+the first flare of hope in the long dragging hours of the afternoon.
+Getting on his feet, he ran beside the back building line, cut across
+the gap existing between the main street and the smaller gulch of
+Chinatown, and halted again. Over the creek lay the Pride of the Hills,
+filled with sound of music and men; the tide of traffic streamed into it
+and the voice of the announcer at the door rose stridently.</p>
+<p>“They know,” he muttered. “They know to come there. And that’s where
+they’ll be. No use to avoid it now. Can’t stay in the dark much longer,
+can’t sidestep a showdown.”</p>
+<p>A Chinaman trudged along the creek, leading a belled burro. Drury
+skirted a pair of cabins and approached the trail at a dark angle. The
+Chinaman came abreast, saw the figure of the man dimly in front of him,
+and halted defensively.</p>
+<p>“Sen Yat?” said Drury.</p>
+<p>“Ah,” said the Chinaman and peered closer. “Dluly. Long time no see.”</p>
+<p>“I’m no hand to beg,” muttered Drury. “But I did you a favor one time,
+and I need help now.”</p>
+<p>“You say, Dluly.”</p>
+<p>“I need two horses placed back of the dance hall, Sen Yat. Away up on
+the slope. I need ’em now. Right where the trail cuts down from old
+Number Two below Discovery. You do that?”</p>
+<p>“Can do, Dluly.”</p>
+<p>“Don’t go to the stable for horses. Use your own. Here’s a hundred
+dollars. Let nobody see you.”</p>
+<p>The Chinaman took the money and plodded deeper into Chinatown. Drury
+watched him wind through the maze of shacks and disappear. He held his
+position as the lagging, dreary minutes went by, never letting his eyes
+stray from the upper end of the gulch. In his mind he reconstructed
+every step of the Chinaman’s way—getting the horses, saddling up,
+leading them around the throat of the gulch, laboriously climbing the
+steep slopes. All these acts he allotted a space of time, throttling his
+uneasy impatience. Half a dozen miners tramped by at arm’s length and
+curved into a chop suey joint. A youthful Oriental slipped forward as if
+he were balancing a basket on his head. Drury stepped farther into the
+dark shelter, but the Chinaman swerved and came against him. A soft
+phrase passed between. “You go now.” And then the Chinaman padded on.</p>
+<p>Drury took a deep breath and left his shelter. He crossed the creek
+without recourse to the bridge lower down. He climbed the bank and,
+still using the shadows, arrived at the corner of the dance hall.
+Another step meant coming into the full light and mixing into the
+eddying crowd. Nowhere did he see his three ex-partners. That they were
+nearby he never doubted; they had laid their trap with skill, leaving no
+footprints to show.</p>
+<p>“I’ve done my last dodgin’,” he murmured to himself. “I may die, and
+God help the girl if I do. But here’s jump-off for Tud Drury.” On the
+heels of the thought he walked into the light and was carried through
+the door to the dance hall.</p>
+<p>Once inside, Drury stepped out of the milling current of men, back to
+the wall; and his first glance went forward to the stage, thinking that
+Anna might have gone on with her part of the evening’s entertainment to
+cover the breech of time. But she was not there, nor anywhere along the
+smoke crowded vastness of the room. A hundred faces shifted before his
+eyes, none of them of importance to him. So he slid casually through a
+side door and started up the stairs; in one cautious backward glance he
+caught sight of Bully McGrane’s features fixed on him, cynically amused;
+and it seemed to Drury that the marshal was waiting for the inevitable
+burst of shots. It brought him to a pause. He studied the dim inner hall
+sharply, ran his hand across the butt of his gun. Chill touched his
+nerves. Shaking it off, he ascended the two flights and went toward the
+girl’s room. The door was ajar and through the opening he saw her
+waiting.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>Drury scarcely had cleared the dance hall when Bully McGrane stepped out
+of a corner and crossed the same inner door. Framed there, he turned to
+consider the crowd. The three gunmen had been in sight until a few
+minutes back and he knew they had seen Drury. Subsequently they had
+departed, not by the front but by a stage exit. McGrane considered this
+a sure indication as to the scene of the kill. Yet he was curiously
+inclined and he wondered if Drury’s next move would be in accordance
+with the arrangements. Being a shrewd, weather-wise man he knew that in
+life’s everlasting rabbit chase the pursued occasionally tricked the
+pursuer. Whatever the case, he meant to be on hand; for to him it was a
+grim jest, another piece of sport to feed his blunt and frankly brutal
+nature. So he went up the stairs, treading near the banister to check
+the squeaking of the boards. On the second landing he heard the murmur
+of voices and he went down on his toes until he stood near enough to
+make out the rapid play of talk. The girl’s voice rose clearly.</p>
+<p>“You never should have come here. What does it matter? Go ahead—any way
+to get away from them. I’ll come later. In a few days.”</p>
+<p>“And let ’em take their spite out on you?” came a deeper, male voice.
+“Not in a thousand years. That’s what they’d do. They’re a pack of
+savages.”</p>
+<p>“They’ll kill you, Tud!”</p>
+<p>Drury’s answer was small and indistinct. McGrane shifted, a scowl coming
+over his face. Then the girl broke in.</p>
+<p>“I won’t go! You’ve got to do it without me! Oh, Tud, I will not drag
+you down like that. What does it matter about me? But if they kill you,
+then I have nothing left.”</p>
+<img src="images/illus-063.jpg" alt="man with hammer and anvil" style="float: left; margin-right: 15px; width: 40%">
+<p>“I’m through dodgin’,” said the man. “And I ain’t leavin’ you behind.
+I’ve got to stand up like any man would who’s worth his salt. I been
+through enough torment thinkin’ of you here. We’ll stick together from
+now on, and if I can’t take care of you, then I reckon I ain’t worth
+botherin’ about. Get your grip. There’s a small back door at the foot of
+the stairs....”</p>
+<p>McGrane retreated quietly and descended the first flight. There he
+halted, scowling massively into the dingy shadows as if displeased at
+what he had overheard; as if this man and this girl had refused to play
+the part assigned them. Drury was a crook, Anna a dance hall girl. They
+had made their bed, now let them lie in it. All people in this world
+were the same. Every man struggled for himself, every man looked to the
+main chance and pushed the other fellow over the cliff in the showdown.
+There was mighty little difference between the best and the worst and
+every last soul crawled before the gods of fear and greed and appetite.
+What right had either of those two people to act as if they were any
+different?</p>
+<p>He heard them coming and he crept on down the next flight of stairs.
+There was a single lamp bracketed to the side of the hall. He dimmed the
+wick and hurried on to the back door, opening it and stepping swiftly
+aside. A gust of cold air scoured through and the night wind rattled the
+brush all along the gulch. Some woman was singing from the main room and
+the tramp of feet shook the structure, but out yonder a kind of bated
+stillness held the shadows. McGrane’s sharp eyes raked the cloaked
+foreground; very softly he lifted his gun; and the next moment he had
+closed the door behind him and was flat on his stomach, ten yards away.
+No sooner was he settled than the door opened again, letting out Drury
+and the girl. He saw their bodies sway aside from the opening and he
+heard Drury’s soft murmur of reassurance run into her suppressed sigh.
+Suddenly they broke into a run, and passed him.</p>
+<p>The soft echo of their steps came back in a straight line and he knew
+then what they meant to do. Over the summit lay old Discovery and from
+there it was a clear road out to the high desert, out to a different
+land. Probably Drury had managed to picket horses along the gulch and
+probably he thought himself safe. But McGrane, growling softly and
+strangely irritated, understood very well how few were the moments
+stretching between that delusion and gunplay. Somewhere in this tricky
+blackness the three crooks were waiting.</p>
+<hr class='tb'>
+<p>All sound, all echoes died off; A palpitating stillness flowed down the
+slope. McGrane rose to his knees, big fist tightening about his gun.
+“Once a crook always a crook,” he rumbled. Anger rose vastly in him, the
+old desire to sweep out with his massive fists and destroy took hold. He
+got to his feet, big body swaying, forward as if his very will sought to
+tear away the impenetrable blanket of that night. A faint murmur of
+rattling brush came to him. Distinctly a voice said, “You’re done for.”
+McGrane let out a roar and charged onward up the incline.</p>
+<p>A bullet’s flat smash broke across the gulch, the echo rolling wider.
+The girl screamed and hard on that sound a pair of explosions rocketed
+together. McGrane saw the muzzle flashes; he heard Anna crying,
+“Tud—Tud!” And; placing those two, he opened up on the point he had
+seen the more remote mushrooming of powder light, still beating inward,
+still booming his rage into the mystery of the night. The outline of a
+pair of horses lay across the path, Tud’s gun answered from another
+angle. Then there was no more firing. The brush crackled beneath a
+threshing body and Bully McGrane, blowing like an engine, halted in his
+tracks.</p>
+<p>“Who’s that?” challenged Drury. “By the good God, if you’ve touched this
+girl——!”</p>
+<p>“Tud—I’m all right.”</p>
+<p>“Who’s that?” repeated Drury.</p>
+<p>“Shut-up,” grumbled McGrane. “Them yore horses?”</p>
+<p>“Yes.”</p>
+<p>“Well, get on ’em and go. Yuh deserve to be hung but there ain’t no
+reason I should see you do it. Get on ’em and go.”</p>
+<p>Drury’s voice jerked out a halting phrase.</p>
+<p>“McGrane—I’m in no shape to pay my obligation to you. But——”</p>
+<p>“Damn the obligations. Get on them horses and go! You know what I
+think about you.”</p>
+<p>The girl’s arm touched his great shoulder. McGrane stiffened. Her lips
+brushed his cheeks and he felt a tear fall on his rigid hand. “After all
+the hurt and cruelty of Pistol Gap,” said she, “you leave us this
+kindness. Somewhere there is a guiding star for us—and for you.”</p>
+<p>“Be good,” said McGrane in the ancient farewell and stood quite still as
+he heard them mount and climb the trail. The hoofbeats diminished and
+died. McGrane stirred himself, shook his burly shoulders and walked off
+the trail. The figure of a man lay there and the marshal touched him
+with the toe of a boot. “Now where,” he rumbled, “is the others?”</p>
+<p>An unexpected voice cut in. “Right at my feet,” said Billy Monteith.
+“Knocked cold with an ax handle. I figured you’d come.”</p>
+<p>“Damned sure of yourself, ain’t you?” muttered McGrane.</p>
+<p>“I liked Tud and I liked Anna,” was Monteith’s quiet reply. “They had
+good luck comin’.”</p>
+<p>“I dunno,” growled McGrane. “But there’s one crook less, anyhow. The
+best of folks in this world are none too good and the worst of ’em ain’t
+always so bad. Not that it makes any difference. Sentiment don’t get you
+anywhere, Monteith. Might’s right and tonight proves it. Bring those two
+tough nuts to the jug and we’ll let ’em cool off while that pair of
+young fools gets a good start from the country.”</p>
+<p>He turned down the slope, swinging his arms—morose and fuming and ready
+to vent the loose ends of his temper on whoever crossed his path; for
+Bully McGrane hated to have his grim philosophy of life disturbed and in
+that philosophy there was no place for a man like Tud nor a girl like
+Anna. So he kicked open the dance hall door and stamped down the hall.
+Music and revelry came unabated from the Pride of the Hills and the
+sound of firing had brought no curiosity seekers to the slope. In Pistol
+Gap life ran to suddenness and intensity.</p>
+<div class="tn">Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the
+November 25, 1930 issue of <i>Short Stories</i> magazine.</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77816 ***</div>
+</body>
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