There was a sudden hush in the Glass Slipper as Clay came in through the batwing doors. Then there was a chorus of greetings and congratulations, and men crowded around Clay to shake his hand, ask about his shoulder, praise him, curse McQuown for him, offer him drinks. Morgan poured whisky into the other glass and looked at nothing until finally Clay made his way over to him, dropped his hat on the table, and sat down with a long leg propped up on an empty chair. He had put on his coat, which would be a disappointment to those watching in the mirrors. Seeing his blood was something they could have told their grandchildren about.

“How?” he said to Clay.

“How,” Clay said. His face was drawn and tired-looking. He drank his whisky and set his glass down. “Thanks for coming along, Morg.”

“I’d like to have seen you try to stop me.”

His heart pumped sickeningly when Clay said, “I was wrong about that boy.” Then he sighed with relief as Clay continued. “I thought I could back him down.”

“A wild-eyed gunboy trying to be a man.”

“Man enough,” Clay said. He raised a hand toward his shoulder but didn’t touch it.

“McQuown ought to get a better sniper. That one wasn’t much good.”

Clay frowned, and said, in his deep voice, “Looks like it might’ve been McQuown behind it, sure enough. I guess I am going to have to have it out with him after all.”

“You won’t,” Morgan said, and Clay glanced at him questioningly. “You won’t have it out with him. He is not going to play your game when all he has got to do is use his own rules.”

Clay shook his head.

“McQuown is right, too,” Morgan went on. “If you are out to kill a man, kill him. It is war, not a silly game with rules.”

“There are rules, Morg,” Clay said.

“Why?”

“Because of the others — I mean the people not in it.”

“Oh, you have started worrying about the people watching, have you?”

“No,” Clay said. “But it is just so.”

“You are in damned poor shape then against someone that doesn’t think it is so. Or care a damn if it is or not. I say you can’t beat McQuown for he won’t play your rules.”

“Why, Morg, I will beat him either way. I will beat him by playing the rules, if he won’t. Because he will have to pretend there are rules whether he thinks there are or not, just like he had to today. And if he has to pretend, it means he is worrying about the others pretty hard.” The corners of Clay’s lips tilted up. “See if I’m not right,” he said.

Morgan pushed at his glass with a forefinger. He did not know anyone else like Clay who would observe the rules to the end, live or die by them. There were some who would observe them insofar as they were a benefit, and, beyond that, would not, and there were those like McQuown who would make a fraud of the rules. That was the danger, but he did not see that Clay could do anything but ignore it. Clay had to, to be what he was, and Clay was the only man he had ever known, except for himself, who knew exactly what he was. It was the basis of his admiration for Clay. He had never understood their friendship on Clay’s side. He only knew that Clay liked and trusted him, and it was the only thing that had become more precious to him than money, which, at the same time, he had come to realize was worth nothing, for it bought nothing. And so, somewhere along the line, his friendship for Clay had become all there was.

Clay’s chin jerked up as the batwing doors swung in, and the number two deputy came in. There was a deeper hush than before, and a longer one, as Gannon came over toward them. Gannon’s face was gray, his bent nose too big for his thin face; his hair was rumpled when he took off his hat. “Have a seat, Deputy,” Clay said gently.

Gannon sat down and put his hat on the floor beside him, folded his hands on the table before him.

“Whisky?” Morgan asked.

“Yes,” Gannon said, without looking at him. “Thanks.”

Morgan beckoned for a glass. Gannon did not speak until it had been brought, and Clay was silent too. The faces still stared in the mirrors, but the noise began again.

Gannon said suddenly, “I guess I had better tell you, Marshal. Before it comes out another way. Billy wasn’t with them when they stopped the stage. I don’t know whether Luke was or not, but Billy wasn’t.”

Carefully Morgan did not look at Clay; he felt the sickening rapid pump of his heart again.

“What good does this do, Deputy?” Clay said harshly.

Gannon shook his head, as though that were not the point. “He wasn’t there,” he said. “He held with them because he was caught with them and I guess it was all — he thought he could do. And came in because of being posted out, I guess, Marshal.”

“There was three of them at the stage at least,” Clay said.

“Not him,” Gannon said stubbornly. He cleared his throat. “Marshal, I know. Billy said so, and—”

“You could have told me,” Clay said.

“What good would that have done?” Gannon said. He sounded almost angry now, and he brushed his fingers back nervously through his hair. “What could you have done different than you did?” he said. “He would have come in against you whatever. He was that kind.”

“What difference does it make?” Morgan said, staring at the deputy. “He shot that posseman, didn’t he?”

Gannon looked back at him with his deep-set, hot eyes. “That is nothing to do with it.” He said to Clay, “Marshal, I am just saying there is probably others than me that know. So I thought you better had.”

Clay sat with his head bent down and his mouth drawn tight. He nodded his head once, as though in thanks, and in dismissal. Gannon pushed his chair back and rose. He hesitated a moment, and then, since Clay did not speak again, plucked up his hat and went outside.

Morgan leaned forward toward Clay and said, “What the hell difference does it make? He killed that posseman and was out to kill you. Everybody knows that!”

Clay nodded a little, but when he raised his head the flesh of his face looked eroded, and his eyes were shuttered. He said in a quiet voice, “One time wrong and then every time wrong after it.”

To himself Morgan cursed Clay and his rules, his scruples and his conscience. He cursed the Cletus brothers, the Gannon brothers, and himself. He said through his teeth, “You did everything but beg him to get the hell out of town!”

Clay did not reply; Morgan refilled Clay’s glass, and filled his own. “How?” he said.

“I guess I had better do it,” Clay said, and got to his feet.

“Where are you going?”

“Bright’s City,” Clay said. He put on his hat and patted the crown.

“What for?”

“Stand trial,” Clay said, and went outside. The batwing doors swung through their arcs and came to rest behind him.

Morgan rinsed whisky through his mouth, and finally swallowed it. He smoothed his hands back over his hair, and halted them midway to press his head hard between them. “Damn you, Clay!” he whispered. Yet he should have foreseen, as soon as Gannon had spoken his piece, that Clay would feel he had to do this. One time wrong and every time wrong after it; Bob Cletus to Pat Cletus, and Pat Cletus to Billy Gannon; and not a one of them worth a minute’s bother.

He rose and started down along the bar. Men were standing there two-deep now, and thick around Basine’s layout. He caught Murch’s eye and nodded to the other layout. Men greeted him cordially as he passed; he ignored them, listening to the names dropping out of the loud whine of talk — Billy Gannon, Pony, Calhoun, Curley Burne, Cade, McQuown, Johnny Gannon, Schroeder, and his own name and Clay’s. Eyes watched him in the mirror and the talk died a little. He heard his name again, and halted.

A short, heavy-set miner with an arm in a dirty muslin sling was talking to McKittrick and another up-valley cowboy. “Why, this fellow I knew was up there at the trial and he said there wasn’t anything but smoke blown against those poor boys there. They wasn’t within fifty miles of that stage! So I say it is clear enough who stopped that stage if they didn’t, and they didn’t. Oh, there is plenty knows how come the marshal and Morgan had to shoot those poor boys down dead crack-out-of-the-box like they did, and you can bet they are sick Friendly got away. For what’s dead is dead and don’t talk back, and what’s dead’s forgotten about too. If the marshal and Morgan didn’t throw down on that stage, I’ll eat—”