“I did, and I made him his stake. But I told him I was through with him. I didn’t even see him for a long time — but I should have known I wasn’t through with him. Anyway, Bob Cletus was going to marry me. He had a ranch near Fort James.” Her voice began to shake. “Maybe I did know, for I told Bob he had better tell Morgan. And see if it was — all right.” She stopped then.

“Cletus?” he said. “The one you came out here with?”

“That was his brother. Blaisedell killed Bob in Fort James that day.”

“Oh,” he said.

“So you see,” she said, her voice so low he could hardly hear her. “Did you want to know?”

“Why, yes,” he lied.

He could smell the perfume she wore; she had moved closer to him. She said, “I looked for his brother for a while — Blaisedell shot Bob in Seventy-nine. Then I just happened to run onto Pat in Denver, and I — he came out here with me. And they killed Pat, too.”

He was aware again of the shape of the key in his pocket, and of its weight. He cleared his throat. “You got his brother to come out here with you to try to—”

“Yes,” she broke in, curtly, as though he had been stupid even to ask. Then she said, “I want to see Blaisedell shot down like that. It is all I want.”

He heard the scrape of her slippers and the creak of the floor as she moved again. She halted so close to him that he could have touched her, and he could see the shape of her face and the rounded pits of her eyes. But all at once she said, “No,” and drew back a little. Her voice began to shake once more as she said, “I don’t know. Maybe I only want to see it happen and not — do anything. Maybe it is enough. Maybe I have done too much already. But I would like to know the man who was to do it. Beforehand. I thought it might be you.”

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“After he killed your brother I was almost glad. For I thought there would be reason enough….”

“It won’t be me. I couldn’t anyway.”

“I think you could. But I won’t ask you, Deputy. Are you afraid I am going to ask you?”

“Why him?” he cried. “I should think it would be Morgan you are after!”

He saw her turn away. When she spoke her voice was clear and small, and she sounded as though she were reasoning with herself as much as with him. “Because I should have known what Tom would do. So maybe it was part my fault. Because it was just the sort of rotten, dog-in-the-manger thing Tom would do. But Blaisedell—”

Her voice ceased, but he saw, and was sick with jealousy and pain at what he saw. How much those four years must have been to her, and Morgan; she must have loved Morgan very much.

He raised a sour, damp hand to rub it over his face. He tried to speak calmly. “Kate, maybe Blaisedell did that. But I don’t believe he is bad. He has done good here, killed my brother or not. Kate, do you think it will be someone decent who will kill him? It will not be!”

“Decent to me.”

“Do you know who will kill him? Someone like Abe McQuown, or some kid after score like Billy. No, not even that. It will be some backshooter, like Calhoun. Or Cade. It will be somebody like Jack Cade, somebody worse than you think he is even. Somebody all bad. Don’t you see?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters! Don’t you see he is a man for men to look up to? There are not many good ones like that, and it will be an all bad one that will kill him, and then the bad one looked up to for it. Don’t you see that?”

“Maybe not a bad one,” Kate said. She sounded almost indifferent. “Maybe a better one. Someone like you, I mean.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I think it is so.”

“That’s foolishness, Kate!”

“Why, then it is none of your business after all,” she said. There was an edge of anger to her voice, and as she went on it was more and more angry, and filled with hate. “You look up to him, don’t you?” she said. “You should know how men look up to him, since you do yourself. Because he is so fine. He is quick on the draw — does that make him fine? He has killed I don’t even know any more how many men — does that make him fine? He is a hired killer! Morgan hired him to kill a man and Fort James hired him to kill men, and Warlock has. It must be fine and brave and manly to be a hired killer, but you can’t expect a woman to understand why men will worship him like a saint because he—”

“Stop it!”

“All right, I will stop it. And you get out of here. You are not a man. Not the man I want.”

“More man than you are woman, I guess, Miss Dollar.” He spoke in anger; instantly he was sorry. “I am sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t go to say a thing like that. I’ll ask you to forgive me, Kate.”

But she didn’t speak, and he could feel the hate. It was as though he were in a cage with an animal. He turned and moved toward the door.

He heard a shot. It came from the direction of Main Street, and there was a yell, and a chorus of yells. But still he did not leave. “Kate—” he said.

“Maybe they have killed him for me,” Kate said, viciously, and he went outside. He ran down toward the corner of Main Street with his ribs aching and the scabbarded Colt slapping against his leg.

It was some time before he could find out what had happened; no one seemed to know. Someone said that Blaisedell had shot Curley Burne, who had been taken dying to the General Peach; another thought that some of the Regulators had come in and scared up a Medusa miner. He crossed the street finally, to another group of men before the Billiard Parlor. Hutchinson, Foss, and Kennon were there.

“Carl got shot,” Foss told him. “It was Curley.”

“Dirty hound!” Kennon said, in a cracked voice.

“Where is he?”

“Forked a horse and lit out running,” someone said. “There is a bunch going to take out after him. They’re down at—”

“No—Carl!” he said.

“They took him over to the General Peach,” Hutchinson said. “He was bleeding bad.”

As Gannon ran back down Main Street, Kennon shouted after him, “You had better start getting a posse together, Gannon!”

There was another bunch before the General Peach, and a number of horses. “It’s Gannon,” someone said. “Here comes Johnny Gannon.” He made his way through them and up the steps, where Miss Jessie’s man Tittle barred his way with a Winchester.

“Listen, nobody else comes—”

He shouldered past, and Tittle stumbled back clumsily, banging his rifle butt against the door. “Where is he?” Gannon panted, starting back toward the hospital room. Then he saw Pike Skinner and Mosbie through Miss Jessie’s open door. Buck Slavin was there, and Sam Brown and Fred Wheeler. Morgan leaned on the foot of the bed, with the doctor beside him, and Blaisedell stood apart. Miss Jessie was sitting beside the bed, where Carl was.

“Well, hello, Johnny,” Carl said, in a breathless voice. He looked like a scared, white-faced boy with a pasted-on, graying mustache. Gannon hadn’t realized how gray Carl was. He moved over to kneel beside the bed, next to Miss Jessie’s chair. Carl wet his lips and carefully turned his head toward him.

“You will have to deputy alone awhile, Johnny.”

“Sure,” he panted. “Surely, Carl. We’ll make out.”

Behind him Pike Skinner said roughly, “We will help him till you are up and around again, Carl.”

Carl grinned thinly; he turned his head a little farther toward Gannon, and winked. “Sure,” he whispered. “There is some good boys to help. They have been rallying round. You’ll be all right, Johnny.”

“Hush, now, Carl,” Miss Jessie said, and patted his hand. She wore the high-necked, frilled blouse with the black necktie she had worn when she had come to the jail, and she smelled cleanly of sachet and starched linen. “You mustn’t talk so much, Carl,” she said.

“it’s all right,” the doctor said, in his clipped, curt voice.

“I have always been a talker, ma’am,” Carl said. “It is hard to quit being one now.”