Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

INJUN LIST - last bit of life left him had been killed. That little glow of false happiness was now a cold thing, as cold as the bleak. winter mornings when he made a fire in the saloon stove and fought back the terrible craving for a bottle. Pete Enright might have murdered him and done a more merci- ful thing. Sometimes the Judge would stand there in the chill dawn, looking at his name on the Injun List. He would stand there a long time, his mop in his hand, a strange look in his blue eyes, which no longer held the spark of a twinkle. It was as if he were reviewing his past, delving back into buried thoughts, torturing himself with bit- ter memories. His gaze focused on the Injun List, on the name that headed the list. “The Judge.” Then he would go back to work, looking older, his cheeks more gray, the luster gone from his eyes. There must have been times during those dismal hours when the Judge hated hig Pete Enright. Hated him as a. man can hate but few men. But there were other times, when he was shut in his cabin, warm, sheltered from the blizzards, his grub supply well stocked, tobacco to smoke, when he remembered that Pete Enright had given him all this. Even the set of Shakespeare, the battered law library, other books that Pete had picked up somewhere and had donated to the cabin, books that had kept the Judge from going mad at times, the gift of the one man in town who had befriended hin. Pete Enright had found him drunk, asleep in a snowbank behind the saloon one night. Pete had thawed him out, staked him to the cabin, given him that last chance to mingle with men once more. Pete Enright had befriended him. The Judge felt that he owed him a debt of honor. Even though Pete had put him on the Injun List. It was hard to hate a man like Pete Enright because Pete never sought:the enmity of any man. The Judge knew that. Besides, the Judge had never known how to hate. That was perhaps why he did what he did, right there at the end. 7 You see, Pete Enright had gotten in some time during the night. It was snow- ing hard and the town had gone to bed early. Only a few men in town knew that Pete was back from Butte. He had come cause he always made cash deals, he had brought the money with him. Fifty thou- sand dollars in currency. He had it in his pocket when he let himself into the Last Chance just about dawn. He wanted to put the money in the safe. The night bar- tender had locked up. The place was empty. Pete turned on the light in the office and squatted on his heels to open the safe. As he swung the door open a voice behind him spoke evenly. “Up with ’em, Enright. Plenty high. Make a move that looks bad and we'll kill you.” Pete raised his hands slowly as he got to his feet. His back was still turned to the man who had ordered him to stick ‘em up. He had on a long coonskin coat, its frogs fastened. No chance of getting to his gun in its shoulder holster. Not an easy job to put up a fight in a big fur coat. Nevertheless, Pete took a chance. He didn’t care about the money so much. But for Pete Enright, the big mogul in the camp, to be stuck up, that was what rubbed. He ducked and whirled. A gun roared in his face. He fell the hot thud of a bullet in his shoulder. Then he was fighting the three men who piled onto him, clubbing at his head with guns. The Judge had seen the light in the saloon as. he came in the back way. He — supposed the night bartender had forgot to put out the lights when he went off shift. Carrying his bucket and mop he came in the back door, then stood frozen in his tracks. . Up in front, behind the frosted-glass partition that marked the office, a terrible fight was going on. The Judge heard the | voice of Pete Enright, snarling curses. Other voices calling to each other drowned it out. Then someone said: “Kill ‘im, boys. We got to, now. He knows us. Git Enright!” There was a gun behind the bar. A -single-action .45. The Judge set down his bucket and mop and slipped along the bar. Now he rounded the end of the bar and his hand gripped the gun. He didn’t know much about a gun. He had never owned . so much as a .22 rifle. But he knew enough to thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger, aiming wildly at the three men who had clubbed burly Pete Enright to his knees. . COMicbookSs.cO 101. back to buy up some mining claims. Be-