Sliphammer

The imprisoned miner made a strangling sound. Cooley reached forward to grab the miner. If Tree held on, the miner’s arm would break-of course Cooley knew that, but didn’t care.

Tree let go of the miner, who scuttled away, rubbing his numb arm, until he ran unsuspectingly into Warren Earp’s fist, which knocked him down. The miner looked around in a daze and thought better of getting up.

With the space between them cleared, Cooley laughed. It was a curious, taut laugh-the sound of a man precariously close to the edge of sanity, or perhaps already past it. “Jestro,” Cooley said, his mind grappling slowly with primitive simplicities. “Jestro.” He waded in like a bear, upper body twisting from side to side with his hip-rolling gait. He probably had eighty pounds on Tree.

There was something in the rules that said you couldn’t use a gun on an unarmed man. Tree had already forgotten Wyatt Earp’s words. It did not occur to him to draw a gun. Nor did it occur to him to square off with his fists and box the man. Fair fights were for dilettantes; Cooley was a killer.

When Cooley was within range, Tree dropped to a crouch, planted one boot flat against the wall behind him, and launched himself at Cooley’s knees. It took Cooley by surprise. Cooley went down, over Tree’s back. Tree wheeled, up on one knee, lifting Cooley’s right foot in both fists. He bent the leg double and twisted the foot almost parallel to Cooley’s buttocks. Belly flat, Cooley was pi

Tree said, “Now we’ll just sit like this until you cool off and start using your head again. Hear me?”

Cooley’s only response was to snarl and beat the floor with his fist. Tree glanced up and saw Wyatt Earp frowning at him. Earp seemed about to say something, but held his tongue.

The brawl in the rest of the room was begi

Eyes went to the bloody, faceless miner on the floor. Someone approached him gingerly and spoke in a broken voice: “He’s still breathing but God knows how.” There was the sound of retching.

The crowd milled forward to make a circle around the maimed miner. McKesson’s voice rode over the growl of the crowd: “Who did this?”

Someone said, “Reese Cooley done it, Ollie, but this son of a bitch had a knife and Cooley didn’t.”

“How in hell did he make such a godawful mess of this man’s face?”

“Busted bottle.”

Cardiff’s voice came through the crowd-Tree couldn’t see him. “Cooley done it in self-defense.”

“Nobody could do this in self-defense,” McKesson said, voice throbbing. “Where’s Cooley?”

Someone must have pointed without speaking; momentarily McKesson appeared on the near edge of the crowd. His eyes fell on Tree, then descended to Cooley on the floor. Tree was still gripping the twisted boot but Cooley was lying quite peaceably, getting his breath, eyes closed with an expression of rank disgust.

Tree said mildly, “Say something, Cooley, and I’ll let you up.”

Cooley said testily, “All right, all right. What you want me to say? Uncle? Hell, you got lucky once, that’s all. Forget it. I’ll try you on some other time.”

“Why bother?” Tree said wearily, but he let go of the twisted boot and got to his feet.

Cooley sat up and massaged his ankle, not ready yet to stand and test his weight. He looked up at McKesson and said, “I heard you, Ollie.”

McKesson said, “That was a terrible thing you did to that man’s face.”

“Turrble thang shit. He was all set to carve me in strips. Sumbitch had a knife a foot long.”

Wayde Cardiff said, in a warning voice, “Leave him be, Ollie.”

McKesson shook his head. “Have you taken a good look at the man’s face? Or rather, what’s where his face used to be.”

With abject disgust Cooley said, “Shee-yit,” and got carefully to his feet. When he put his weight on the twisted ankle he tested it with great caution and then slowly limped over to the bar, ignoring the group that carried the maimed miner out right past him. At the bar Cooley pounded with his fist and demanded whisky in a baleful, husky voice.

McKesson said to Wayde Cardiff, “I go a good part of the way with you fellows most of the time and you know it, or you’d hire another sheriff. But if I arrest those poor beat-up miners out in the street and Cooley goes scot free, it’ll be too much for the town to take. Too much for me to take, which is more to the point. Now how’s it to be, Wayde?”

Cardiff waved a hand at him. “Don’t arrest anybody, then. That ought to suit them. I reckon they learned their lesson anyway.”

“I doubt it,” McKesson growled, and stalked out of the place, hatless, his white hair a moving beacon.

The crowd began to mill and stir, voices rolling with charged emotions; the fight was done and now the participants and spectators had to post-mortem it into the ground. A few men slipped out of the salopn to carry the tale through town. Everybody began to settle down. Patrons walked around to set tables and chairs right side up and sit down. A kid swamper came in with bucket and mop and began to sop up the spilled whisky and beer, much of which had already soaked into the carpet. Front win dows were thrown open to help ventilate the place. One of the bartenders stood behind the bar stooping, leaning on his elbows, face in his hands, his head shaking slowly back and forth with aggrieved helpless ness. To Tree it seemed a miracle that none of the mirrors, and very little furniture, had been broken.

Tree picked up a chair and set it by the big table, Josie Earp came over. She smiled at him and he held the chair for her. She said, “Now, then, where were we?” Her grin was childishly i

When Tree sat down, Earp said to him, “You made a mistake.”

“Did I?”

“You had Cooley down-you could have kicked his face in. That was a mistake. It would serve you right if he killed you.”

‘Sure,” said Tree. He was in a sour mood; it hadn’t been a cheery day.

Earp said, “If you let that kind of man walk on you, then he’ll walk on you. You’ll save yourself a good deal of grief-maybe save your hide, if you choose him out right now, stop him cold. Stomp him till he’s hurt too bad to want to go around with you again. Otherwise he won’t ever quit-you’ll have five or six fights with him and sooner or later he’ll get the advantage. When he does-well, you saw what happened over there.”

Tree was watching him speculatively. Earp said, very soft, “Do it now.”

“I thought he was a friend of yours.”

Wyatt Earp made no answer. There were, Tree thought, two possibilities. One: Earp respected him and was only giving his honest opinion. Two: if Cooley killed an Arizona deputy sheriff it could prove awkward for Earp, might shift the uneasy political balance, might alienate Governor Pitkin enough to make him sign the extradition papers. Or maybe it was both.

Earp said, “Do it.”

“I guess not,” Tree intoned, and got up from his chair.

“Your funeral, then,” said Wyatt Earp.

It was the second time today someone had^said that to him. He nodded his head with noncommittal gravity and turned to go.