Showdown at Gila Bend. Kingsley West

angered by that and chose not to be though the edge on her voice remained.

      “Did you see anything. . . and don’t tell me you saw them fighting. I know that much.”

      The feel of the pistol was smooth and clean and comforting, different from the Winchester; closer to you and more like a part of you; an arm, maybe, or a hand. In Gila Bend a gun could be a friend.

      “Saw what I was looking at.”

      Her breasts rose with a sharp intake of breath. He found her eyes uncertain, ready to be exasperated but afraid. “You’re not on a horse now, ma’am,” he said calmly. “Wouldn’t talk down to people if I were you.”

      She didn’t look away and the wrath didn’t rise. “Are you a cowhand, looking for work? If you are I can help you.”

      “No, ma’am.”

      She was disappointed. “You’re stubborn!” she said.

      He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m stubborn.”

      “I’ve broken horses before, mister!”

      He placed the last bullet and with a twist of the fingers spun the chamber. “Ever break men?”

      Her eyes did not leave his face. She should have flared up by now. He was surprised that she hadn’t. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I’ve broken men. I did it with a whip in my hand.”

      “I guess they never fought back, ma’am.”

      “I had the whip!”

      He recognised the barrier of starch and stubbornness between them, a barrier he could walk away from but which imprisoned her because there was something on his side that she wanted. That put him on the horse and the woman on the ground. Her face didn’t change at all when she spoke again but her voice was different.

      “Was there . . .” she asked. “Was there . . . a woman present?”

      That changed things. She was a woman after all, not so high, not so mighty as she appeared, like all women who were uncertain or with cause for jealousy, sheltering behind the armour of pride. But now, because this was something she needed to know, she will willing to step from behind the shield and ask.

      Joe was the good-looking man and he had an eye for the dark girl on the horse. The man with the moustache could be the girl’s father and that might mean that Joe wasn’t welcome in one quarter and forbidden from another.

      This woman wasn’t sure of herself, or of Joe.

      “I’m a stranger here, ma’am,” Latigo said deliberately. “Don’t know anything about a woman.”

      The anger came back with a rush, stronger for being held down. Her eyes blazed and his cheek stung when she slapped his face.

      “You’re a liar!” she said.

      He watched her out of the store and past the window, his face smarting. Ed Harrison came round to the gun counter. “Heard the last part of it,” he said. “I liked the bits with the venom in them.”

      “I’ll take the Colt,” said Latigo.

      “Suits you. Sam Colt’s a busy man these days. Want something else?”

      “Got a list of things here. Make it up while I fetch the buckboard.”

      “Sure. You figuring on staying a while?”

      “I’ll be here for a long time.”

      “You want I should open an account with you? This here’s quite a list.”

      “You trust me?”

      “Never saw you before but you sure wouldn’t want all this stuff unless you were planning to stay. If you aim to stay then I reckon you also aim to pay your bills. I’ll put your name down in the book. What’re you called, mister?”

      “Lansen.”

      Ed Harrison’s eyes were sharp. “You Jeremiah Lansen’s boy?” he asked. Latigo nodded. The big storekeeper looked at him. “That why you bought the gun?”

      “No,” answered Latigo. “Vanity, pure and simple. John Mallow down at the land office said I’d look better wearing a gun.”

      Harrison eyed the gunbelt. “He was right, mister. You do look better. You know who that high-stepping filly is who just slapped your face?”

      “Somebody important?”

      “Hildy Kincaid. Her father owns most of the valley by now. Pity she’s so uppity. Best looking woman hereabouts.”

      Hildy Kincaid and Joe, thought Latigo. Her father owns the valley and Joe looks like a cowhand. It didn’t seem right. “Where does Joe come into it?” he asked.

      “He’s Kincaid’s foreman.”

      “They’re more than friends, I’d say.”

      “You might be wrong,” differed Harrison. “Joe wants to be more than friends. Fact is, he wants to marry Hildy.”

      “And she doesn’t?”

      “Seems to me like she’s not sure. Reckon she wants to get married all right but maybe she doesn’t want it to be Joe.”

      “She keeps a pretty tight rein on him.”

      “That’s because he does what she tells him. He knows what’s good for him. The way I figure it, Joe’s not the man she really wants.”

      “Why not? He’s beautiful.”

      Harrison ruminated, pursed his lips. “Strange thing about Joe, mister. Good cowpoke, good foreman, good with guns, always looking for a fight, but he never broke a horse in his life. And she sure is uppity.”

      It came out without thought. He didn’t know he was going to say it. “You reckon there’d be a chance for somebody else?” asked Latigo.

      Harrison nodded. “For the fellow who can tame a horse, son, I’d say there was lots more than just a chance.” Latigo walked to the door and the storekeeper spoke again. “You do look better wearing a gun, mister.”

      “Latigo’s the name. Latigo Lansen.”

      He loaded the buckboard and started for home knowing that he would itch all night in new blankets and maybe not sleep on the mattress. The gelding trotted alongside the wagon.

      The sky was westering when he reached the ranch, calm and still in a breathlessness that reached back through the furrow of years to when the first light paled the dark and rushed forward into years not yet spent for its effects of magnitude and wonder. Soon his thin column of blue smoke rose from the stone chimney into the vastness above. Even the river was silent in the face of heaven-burning glory. Creation displayed itself in every variation of splendour, for him alone it seemed, since he had the world to himself.

      The narrow shadow of the Apache lance traversed the circle of whitened stones, faded and disappeared. Darkness came, then bright moonlight. When the shadow of the lance appeared again in ghostly white radiance from the night sky Latigo raised his head from the pillow and listened.

      The house was still and silent. There was no creaking of wood. There was hardly a rustle of wind in the alder and larch behind the house. Then he heard it again.

      The sound of horses.