ow," he said, "I don't like you either, Irish. Maybe I oughta
kill you. Hell, why not?"

Now, the only reason I'd stayed out of doors that afternoon was I
figured Buck had already had one chance to kill me and hadn't done it,
so I must be safe. That's what I figured--he had nothing against me,
so I was safe. And I had an idea that maybe, when the showdown came, I
might be able to help out Ben Randolph somehow--if anything on God's
Earth _could_ help him.

Now, though, I wished to hell I hadn't stayed outside. I wished I was
behind one of them windows, looking out at somebody else get told by
Buck Tarrant that maybe he oughta kill him.

"But I won't," Buck said, grinning nastily. "Because you done me a
favor. You run off and told the sheriff just like I told you--just
like the goddam white-livered Irish sheepherder you are. Ain't that
so?"

I nodded, my jaw set so hard with anger that the flesh felt stretched.

He waited for me to move against him. When I didn't, he laughed and
swaggered to the door of the saloon. "Come on, Irish," he said over
his shoulder. "I'll buy you a drink of the best."

I followed him in, and he went over to the bar, walking heavy, and
looked old Menner right in the eye and said, "Give me a bottle of the
best stuff you got in the house."

* * * * *

Menner looked at the kid he'd kicked out of his place a dozen times,
and his face was white. He reached behind him and got a bottle and put
it on the bar.

"Two glasses," said Buck Tarrant.

Menner carefully put two glasses on the bar.

"_Clean_ glasses."

Menner polished two other glasses on his apron and set them down.

"You don't want no money for this likker, do you, Menner?" Buck asked.

"No, sir."

"You'd just take it home and spend it on that fat heifer of a wife you
got, and on them two little halfwit brats, wouldn't you?"

Menner nodded.

"Hell, they really ain't worth the trouble, are they?"

"No, sir."

Buck snickered and poured two shots and handed me one. He looked
around the saloon and saw that it was almost empty--just Menner behind
the bar, and a drunk asleep with his head on his arms at a table near
the back, and a little gent in fancy town clothes fingering his drink
at a table near the front window and not even looking at us.

"Where is everybody?" he asked Menner.

"Why, sir, I reckon they're home, most of them," Menner said. "It
being a hot day and all--"

"Bet it'll get