The Arizonans by Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.)

Author:Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) [Pronzini, Bill & Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western Fiction
Publisher: Fawcett Gold Medal
Published: 1989-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

“Well, Ernie?”

A big man with a big cigar in one corner of his mouth was speaking to him across a battered desk.

“Well, I—I reckon I might take that sheriff job—but I got to get a hundred a month. I—uh—I'm savin’ a little stake to get an outfit o’ my own.”

“Batchin’ outfit, Ernie?”—gravely.

“Aw, shet up, Jedge—you gimme a pain!”

“Haw-haw! Well, of man Greaves’s gal is right pretty.”

“Aw, you gimme a pain! Do I get the hundred?”

“You danged—! Oh, well—pin this on yore chest.”

Now, that sheriff job—

“Well, what you going’ to do about it, Ernie?” Coolly, sarcastically.

The gaunt towheaded young man with the dissipated face was standing opposite him on the board sidewalk, grinning down at him tolerantly because he was so short. Whitey Remsen was bad; he’d killed Sheriff Cox, whom nobody had wanted to replace until Judge Laviter had talked to Ernie; and they said Whitey’d shot Walter Nunn just to see him kick.

“I’m a-goin’ to see that you git out o’ town in five minutes, Whitey. That rough stuff don’t go here no more.”

“Oh! Think yo’re tough since you got that tin badge?”

” I don’t think nothing—only that yo’re a-gittin’ out an’ quick.”

“What if I don’t go, Ernie?”

“We-ell, one of us is goin’, Whitey—feet first, if we have to.”

A flash of hands…Whitey’s gun was clattering on the boards of the sidewalk, and Whitey was holding his right elbow with his left hand; he’d never make another fast draw. Blood was streaming through Whitey’s fingers and dripping down the front of his trousers…

And there went Whitey, riding down through the thick dust of the street, a dirty bandanna tied around his arm. Yeah—that was right; go after the toughest one first, and then the others wouldn’t give him no bother…

“Spike, don’t you think the climate o’ Californy might be what you need awhile?”

“Reckon it might be, at that, Ernie—yo’re the doctor.”

Slim, good-looking Spike was grinning at him recklessly, carelessly, with a brown cigaret dangling from his mouth. Spike Driscoll was a good kid, only that he’d got in with the wrong bunch.

“Have a drink with me, Spike, before you go—jest to show there’s no hard feelin’s?”

“Hell, yes. Yo’re all right, Ernie. If I was half as slick wife a gun as you are—”

And there went Spike Driscoll, riding off, whistling. Heck, he’d straighten out yet—he’d meant what he promised back there in the saloon.

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