Gun Shy. Les Savage Jr

      He was the only cowhand Gordon had ever seen who wore a hard hat. It was round-topped and black and so battered that Gordon thought he must sleep on it. Union was an immensely tall man with an undershot jaw puckered by smallpox scars. His longhorn mustache was stained yellow by chewing tobacco. A chaw always made a leathery bulge in one cheek. He ground on it as placidly as a cow with its cud, his eyes half-closed in bovine contentment, the methodical movement of his jaws making the shiny bulge move up and down his cheek like a loose goiter.

      He stopped at each building, searching for fresh sign around the door, and then looking carefully inside. Gordon thought it was mighty careless, until he realized the implications. The man was hunting for Gordon Conners. He must be pretty certain there wouldn’t be any shooting.

      Gordon crouched in the door, staring hopelessly at the Colt where he had thrown it, only a few feet from the door. He might get it without being seen, but he knew Union was right. He couldn’t shoot, even as much as he might secretly wish to. Union had been with the bunch that had killed his parents. Perhaps a bullet from Union’s gun had smashed Bob Conners’ face. Another bullet could have finished his mother. Tears stung his eyes. He remembered the fiasco with the rabbit. He might tell himself he could shoot, but when it came time, he knew he couldn’t.

      He wondered why that was all he feared. He realized he didn’t feel any particular fear of Union. The man was out to kill him. He represented much more danger than the mere sound of a gun.

      Gordon knew it was futile to run. There was too much open country with no cover, once he left town. Union would see him. He would be as helpless as that flushed jack.

      He was still staring emptily at the Colt on the ground when it struck him that he might not have to shoot. He might still have a chance.

      Union was moving slowly up the street, inspecting each shack. When he found no sign around the door he took the extra precaution of glancing inside. Gordon had left sign all around the building in which he hid. It would give him away before Union got within twenty feet.

      But if he could get to one of those other shacks, where there was no sign. A shack Union would reach before this one. If he could find a back way in . . .

      He watched until Union reached a turn in the street. For a few minutes the man was hidden behind a line of tarpaper hovels. Gordon moved from the door, scooping up the Colt. Keeping the building between himself and Union, he moved to the rear of the neighboring shack. There was no back door. Furtively, he darted to the next one. Part of the rear wall was caved in. He slipped through the opening, moved across the littered dirt floor. The front door was half-open, sagging on its hinges. He took his place behnd it. He held the gun by its long blue barrel. It was a club now. When Union glanced in the door, for just an instant, he might be close enough. . .

      He strained against the wall, listening. His body began to ache with tension. He wondered how he could be so tense and still not be afraid. He knew how slim his chances were. He wasn’t afraid. He wished his father could know that somehow.

      He heard Union coming. The horse snorted softly. The hoofbeats made a dim sound in the dusty street, stopped for a while, started again. The sound came closer. But it didn’t seem to stop any more. It didn’t stop at the next door shack. It was coming toward Gordon’s shack. It went on by.

      Gordon moved to look out through the crack between the wall and the door. He saw Union leading his horse up the middle of the street, toward the shack where Gordon had slept. The man was looking at the ground as he moved. Gordon realized what had happened. Union had picked up Gordon’s prints at one of the spots where he had crossed the street this morning, and was following them to the other shack.

      Union’s back was to Gordon. He was hardly ten feet away. Gordon had a clear shot at him. All he had to do was reverse the gun and fire. It would avenge his parents, it would save his own life.

      He continued to hold the gun by its barrel, unable to do it. He closed his eyes, sick with fury at his own impotence.

      When he opened his eyes again he saw that Union had turned off the road. The man had seen the tracks of Gordon’s horse. He stood near the shack, studying the ground where the Morgan had been hitched. Finally he mounted his horse and headed slowly toward the sagebrush hills. The shiny bulge was sliding methodically up and down his cheek and he was studying the ground as he went, following the trail left by the drifting Morgan.

      Gordon leaned against the wall. He felt weak. He felt foolish. He wondered if he really could have hit Union.

      He allowed Union wasn’t such a prime tracker after all. It was logical for the man to assume that Gordon had ridden away. But any tracker who really knew his business would realize the prints weren’t deep enough for a ridden horse.

      Gordon put the gun in its holster. He knew he couldn’t stay in South Pass City any longer. Union might find the horse and return. Or there might be other Crazy Moon riders with him. All Gordon could do was head northward. There was bound to be a way station within fifteen or twenty miles.

      He moved across a sagebrush land white with salt deposits that had a blinding glare in the sun. The wind blew a chalky sand against him all afternoon till he was powdered from head to foot. On the blinding glare of salt flats he saw a rider. He hid for an hour in the grease-wood. When nobody came he thought it must have been a mirage.

      The road led him into the Wind Rivers by nightfall. He was stumbling, exhausted, dizzy with hunger. He got the idea again that somebody was following. He stopped and tried to sight them and couldn’t. He jumped a foot when an owl hooted at him. It sounded like the wheezing scrape of a distant bucksaw. He moved off the road into the cover of timber. He began to shiver uncontrollably. He had heard of the glaciers up here that never melted. He could see them through the timber, high above, where nothing grew, white and shimmering under a rising moon. Finally he could go no farther and he sank down against an aspen. He felt drugged. He must have slept. Then he was being shaken. Somebody’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. He opened his eyes to see a seamed, bearded face. Beyond the face was a horse. There was a Crazy Moon brand on its hip.

      “Git up, sonny,” the man said. “I been afollerin’ you a long time.”

      There seemed to be a weight against Gordon’s chest, a suffocating weight. His legs had gone to sleep, doubled under him, and he could hardly stand up. He held himself rigidly against the tree, speaking thickly.

      “Which one are you?” he asked. “I never seen you with MacLane before.”

      “I’m Blackhorn,” the man said.