ight up there with the very
best. Could draw and shoot accurately in maybe half a second or
so--you could hardly see his hand move; you just heard the slap of
hand on gunbutt, and a split-second later the shot. It takes a lot of
practise to be able to get a gun out and on target in that space of
time, and that's what makes gunmen. Practise, and a knack to begin
with. And, I guess, the yen to be a gunman, like Buck Tarrant'd always
had.

When I saw Masterson draw against Jeff Steward in Abilene, it was that
way--slap, crash, and Steward was three-eyed. Just a blur of motion.

But when Buck Tarrant drew on me, right now in the Pass, I didn't see
any motion _atall_. He just crouched, and then his gun was on me. Must
have done it in a millionth of a second, if a second has millionths.

It was the fastest draw I'd ever seen. It was, I reckoned, the fastest
draw anybody's ever seen. It was an impossibly fast draw--a man's hand
just couldn't move to his holster that fast, and grab and drag a heavy
Peacemaker up in a two foot arc that fast.

It was plain damn impossible--but there it was.

And there I was.

* * * * *

I didn't say a word. I just sat and thought about things, and my horse
wandered a little farther up the slope and then stopped to chomp
grass. All the time, Buck Tarrant was standing there, poised, that
wild gloating look in his eyes, knowing he could kill me anytime and
knowing I knew it.

When he spoke, his voice was shaky--it sounded like he wanted to bust
out laughing, and not a nice laugh either.

"Nothing to say, Doolin?" he said. "Pretty fast, huh?"

I said, "Yeah, Buck. Pretty fast." And my voice was shaky too, but not
because I felt like laughing any.

He spat, eying me arrogantly. The ground rose to where he stood, and
our heads were about on a level. But I felt he was looking down.

"Pretty fast!" he sneered. "Faster'n anybody!"

"I reckon it is, at that," I said.

"Know how I do it?"

"No."

"I _think_, Doolin. I _think_ my gun into my hand. How d'you like
that?"

"It's awful fast, Buck."

"I just _think_, and my gun is there in my hand. Some draw, huh!"

"Sure is."

"You're damn right it is, Doolin. Faster'n anybody!"

I didn't know what his gabbling about "thinking his gun into his hand"
meant--at least not then, I didn't--but I sure wasn't minded to
question him on it. He looked wild-eyed enough right now to start
taking bites out of the ne