Gunsights

No one was facing this way.

Only the young newsman, Maurice. Moon was over by the others, moving them toward the house. Kate thought, You have to hurry. They have to hurry. This is what they were waiting for. Bren was walking Billy Washington across the yard, the wildwest show impresario holding onto Bren's arm with one hand, gesturing with the other as he spoke, waving his arm in a wide arc to take in the world.

“Dana!”

Moon came around, alert to his wife's tone. He looked out toward the wall, his gaze holding as he came back toward the gate opening. He stood there, as if to greet Sundeen coming across the open ground.

Kate said, “Dana?”

He didn't look at her now. Kate turned to the wall where the Henry rifle rested on the flat surface, pointing out. She stood some fifteen feet from her husband.

Maurice stood between them, but several feet back from the wall. He didn't know if he should stay here. No one had said anything to him. Sundeen had reached the flat piece of ground beyond the wall. He was about fifty feet away now. Beyond Moon-and the group of Apaches and Mexican farmers spaced farther down the wall-on the rise off to the side, the photographer was fooling with his camera, the assistant holding open the black cloth for him to duck underneath. From Beuhman & Hartwell, Tucson. Maurice remembered that. He wasn't sure of the spelling though. Or how to spell the colored man's name-the two colored soldiers in their army braces and boots, off beyond Moon's wife. Sundeen's belt buckles glinted in the direct sunlight. Sundeen with a revolver on each hip, bullet belts crossed in an old-time desperado style…My God, was Moon armed?…Yes, the shoulder rig. He was in his shirtsleeves and wore braces and there seemed to be all ma

Did he say something? Mention Sonora?

Maurice could see all the hired manhunters waiting down there at the edge of the scrub. There was sky behind Sundeen's head and shoulders.

He said, “Your first, Moon, then your friend. Where is he at?”

“He doesn't come right now,” Moon said, “you'll never see him again.”

This took place in moments, right before Maurice's eyes. Bren Early was somewhere behind him in the yard. Maurice wanted to turn around, but couldn't take his eyes off Sundeen…or Moon, he could see by shifting his eyes a little. He wanted to call out Bren Early's name, get him over here. But at this moment there was an awful silence. Two armed men facing each other. Was there a signal? Men shot each other from a distance or sneaked up or came into a place shooting if one wanted to kill another. Did this happen? Maybe it did, for it was certainly happening now, Maurice thinking: Before your very eyes.

Sundeen said, “Your move.”

Maurice saw Moon's right hand cross his body.

He saw Sundeen's right hand with a revolver in it. Like that. He saw the glint of sunlight on gun metal.

He heard an explosion, a heavy, hard report and a quick cocking lever action in the echo…to his left, where Kate Moon stood holding the big Henry rifle at her shoulder…and Sundeen was stumbling back, firing with a shocked look on his face, firing wildly again as Moon extended his revolver and fired and Kate fired the Henry, the two of them hammering Sundeen with .44's and that was the end of him. There was a silence. Sundeen lay on his back with his arms and legs spread out.

Maurice heard voices, someone in the yard calling out, ru

Bren saying, “You got him?…You got him!” At the wall now, pointing a revolver down the slope and yelling at his men, his Apaches and Mexicans and pair of old cavalrymen, “Now! Pour it into'em, boys!”

Moon turned away. Bren looked at him, a dumb, bewildered expression.

“We got to finish it!” All excited.

Moon shook his head. “You're too late for your glory.” He looked at his wife. “When did it happen?”

Kate said, “I think it was over before it started.”

“I guess so.” Moon said then, “You shoot good for a little girl.”

She said, “I wasn't go

Bren looked at them, from Moon to Kate and back. His gaze moved to Sundeen stretched face up on the bare ground and beyond him to the men standing in the scrub, Bren full of desperate energy brought to a halt.

“His people are still there…look.”

But with little conviction in his tone. A last, toolate call to battle.

Remember it, Maurice thought. All of it:

Bo Catlett sitting on the wall, lighting a cigar. The other cavalry veteran leaning against it, his back to the scene of battle.

The Mimbre Apaches-gone. Where? Just gone. The Mexican farmers and the young one with the sword, moving away, walking off past the newsmen and the bill-show dude standing on the porch.

Moon gazing in that direction-

He said, “Well, we've paid up and lived to tell about it.”

The bill-show man in buckskins was coming out toward them now, getting important-looking papers out of his pocket.

Moon watched him. He said to Bren, “It wouldn't hurt to travel, see the sights, would it?”

Kate shook her head, resigned or admiring or both. She said to Moon, “You're the sights. You and your partner.”

Maurice Dumas got out his notebook and started writing it all down as fast as he could.