Free One-Man Massacre by Jonas Ward

quick in the mind you are, rush ing Mr. Smith back here with the keys. And brave, open ing that door in the face of all those guns! You're not funny, Billy Neale. You're a fine man, and some day you'll be the biggest rancher in the Big Bend."
    It was quite a speech, and he looked at her for several moments without saying anything.
    "I'm all those things, but you want him?"
    She returned his steady gaze, nodding her head.
    "Suppose he lives in the mountains because he's on the dodge?"
    "Oh, no, he couldn't be a criminal. I'd know that about him in the first instant."
    "All right, maybe not a criminal, but suppose he's wanted, like those gunmen wanted him tonight. What kind of life would that be for a woman?"
    "I've already told you," she said patiently. "He's turned me down."
    "But you're not going to take no for an answer. Is that it?"
    "What's all the shouting about?" the rumbling voice of Buchanan asked, startling them both badly.
    "How long you been awake?" Neale asked him gruffly.
    "Awake? How long've I been out?"
    "Not long enough," Rosemarie told him worriedly. "How does your poor shoulder feel?"
    "Tender. How'd I wind up here —and where's the little guy?"
    "You're in Mr. Smith's shop," she told him. "Mr. Mul chay is fine."
    "That Captain Gibbons was here a while ago," Billy Neale said then. "He gave you what he called safe con duct out of town."
    "Yeah?"
    "It's good for twenty-four hours, Gibbons said."
    "Hope somebody thanked him for me."
    "You gonna take it?"
    "The safe conduct?"
    "Yeah."
    "I don't know about that," Buchanan said thought fully. "But one thing sure —I've got to be on my way before any twenty-four hours . . ."
    "You couldn't!" Rosemarie objected. "Not possibly, Tom!"
    He regarded the girl with a face that was expressionless, th en a smile broke through and he glanced at Neale.
    "You have trouble gettin' this one to agree with any thing you say?"
    "With most everything."
    "But of course you can't go anywhere," Rosemarie in sisted. "Not for weeks! What in the world are you doing?"
    What Buchanan was doing was rolling on his good shoulder and pushing himself up. The girl stepped for ward and put both hands on his chest.
    "Lie back down there this instant!" she commanded.
    But it was as though she weren't there as he swung his legs over the edge of the cot.
    "Lie down!" she ordered again. "You're bad wounded!"
    He stood up, and even Neale watched that with open wonder. His daddy's legends of the Territory giants of fifty years ago were coming true before his eyes.

"Better take it easy, Buchanan," he told him doubt fully. "Don't push your luck."
    "Don't push what luck? I was in pretty fair shape till I came down here."
    "Please, Tom, lie down," Rose m arie asked him plain tively.
    "Man, just look at my duds," Buchanan said, observing for the first time that half his shirt was cut away, that only one trouser leg was intact. "Town looked so peaceful, too, from the mountain."
    "I'll outfit you," Neale said, bridling at the disparage ment of Scotstown. "But don't blame the folks here for your troubles. It came from outsiders, just —"
    "Just what?" Buchanan asked him. "Outsiders just like myself?"
    "True, ain't it? You're a stranger, and all of them are strangers. You just happened to pick this town to fight it out."
    "Billy!"
    "Well, that's what happened, isn't it?" Neale replied to the girl. "This is quiet, decent cattle country. Every body works hard and takes time out Saturday night. Fist- fights, sure. But a man don't take a gun into town." He paused, stared defiantly at Buchanan. "I'm twenty-eight years old," he said, "and you're the first man I ever knew that killed another —that ever even pointed a loaded gun at another."
    "Billy —stop!" Rosemarie cried. "He did what he had to do tonight. They gave him no choice ..."
    "No," Buchanan said, his voice calm against the charged emotion of theirs. "I had a choice. In the saloon I could have walked out, like the proddy told me to. In the dance-hall I