Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

DRAW FAST—OR DIE! _ 57 room in the Tarryington Hotel thinking of the woman who could only lie in the half darkness of a hot lonely room, and listen as the guns flared and funeral processions passed on to Boot Hill. He stepped in and softly closed the door. On the white bed, the moon shone through the window. She stirred, and he saw that she - was awake. She was always awake, waiting, when he came home at dawn. He dropped to his knees beside the bed. Her hands were like a child’s, damp and cold. They seemed transparent to Barney as he held them. She was beautiful, Barney thought, even now. The moon made a golden shine on her hair. Her eyes were sunken in dark shadows, and her voice seemed to drift to Barney from a long way off. “lve been worried about you, Barney.” Barney buried his head in the damp coverlet. Her hand brushed the back of his neck, softly, gently. Every time her hand caressed him like this, it seemed it would be the last time. “T heard a lot of shooting, Barney. I thought they might have—” There was a sob in his voice. “Den’t worry about me, Clara. They aren't in- terested in me, nobody’ s gonna kill me.’ “We don’t belong here, Barney.” “We'll leave this town pretty soon now. ll get the money someway.” “But we don’t need much money, ney.” He jerked his face up and pounded the side of the bed with his fist: “Everybody laughed when we left. Remember that, Clara. They told me I was a young fool for not stayin’ there. But what was there, Clara? You always had money. That little piece a’ land of my dad’s wouldn’t ever have done anything for us. How did I know that law an’ order went out of this country when the Texas drovers came in? But I’m not goin’ back without money. They'll not be laughing when we go back, Clara. Tl see to that:” : She sighed and turned her face to the wall. Her voice was muffled. | “IT just lie here and worry about you, ‘Barney. I keep thinking every morning that you'll never come back.”’ | He straightened up slowly. He got to his feet.and slid back until he dropped into a chair. He stared at the dawn bursting over the town. Bar- CHAPTER TWO Barney Calls a Bluff ATE that evening, Barney went back to his nightly grind. His face was haggard, twisted with his thoughts. All he could think of were those thick yellow rolls of bills in the gamblers’ hands. All night long he had slept fitfully in a strange yellow rain, a rain of hundred and thousand dollar bills. If he got the money and got Clara out of here, she would forget that evening when he’d run from the Texans, lead slugs whining at his bare heels, his face white and his brain glazed with terror. Maybe even he would forget that too; even forget how he had stood frozen, par- alyzed, while Anson prepared to kill Seth Brackson. He avoided looking at Blacky Jethro as he mopped up behind the bar. He wondered if Blacky remembered him. He never gave any sign of recognizing him, but then Blacky’s face never showed anything. It was expressionless, a kind of bronzed dead mask. It was pretty quiet in the saloon, not yet late enough for the evening rush. Barney eased around the end of the bar and slipped ,up the stairs. He stood in the half-darkness of the upper hallway. He’d been here once before the night he’d lost all their stake in an all-night session of black-jack. The hall- way was studded with fourteen closed doors. These doors led into the card rooms. At the end of the passageway was an open doorway where an oil light still burned, faintly yellow. _ He’d see Brackson. Maybe he’d apologize for turning yellow that morning. Brackson had known there was a .45 at Barney’s finger-tips. But what the hell!—there was nothing he could say to Brackson. A door to his right was partly open, and voices filtered through, the sound of glass and the smell of thick smoke. A poker session, still going, Barney thought. His mind spun dizzily. He knew what kind of a game that ‘would be. Hun- dreds of thousands of dollars piled on that table like leaves on an Eastern road at fall. Stumbling a little, Barney went on down the passageway and looked inside Brack- son’s office. Next te it was Begbie’s OHIGE, closed and locked and silent. There, behind a flat desk, Brackson sat. comicbooks.c© inn