Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

GUN-MEETING AT MIDNIGHT 97 fastest man alive. But he had had to sacri- fice accuracy for the blazing speed. At a. short distance, there could be no beating him. But if he were forced to fight from a distance the width of the street—forty feet from boardwalk to boardwalk—then his slight wildness might be just enough to even the odds. Steve planted his feet wide apart on the planking, and waited. | The batwings burst open. Con Pardee’s tall, wedge-shaped body stood silhouetted against the curtain of light behind him. He was smiling, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man ; handsome, but with no touch of weakness in his even-featured face. Con Pardee stood between the batwings a long moment, smiling at Steve. He seemed to be relaxed, unhurried. He turned his head slightly to the left and said some- thing over his shoulder to the room behind | him and someone guffawed loudly. The devils on either side of him writhed in the flare light. The single gun on his right leg glinted dully. It was the first time Steve had ever known him to wear but one gun. : Pardee let the batwings swing shut be- hind him and stepped out on the boardwalk. Now, Steve thought. Now! His right hand blurred toward his gun butt, down and up again in almost the same movement. And at the same instant he threw his lean body to one side and felt the buck of the gun against his palm. Over there, across the street, anothér gun was thundering. Something’ sledge-hammered into Steve’s shoulder and he felt himself jerked almost completely around. The boardwalk tilted and swayed beneath his feet. The flare lights began to revolve lazily, floating slow- ly away from him, growing dim. And then his face was in the dust of the street and he was choking on it. The sharp bite of the dust on his tongue brought to him the realization of what had happened. He forced himself to his knees, reaching for the gun in his- left holster, his right arm a helpless, bleeding weight against his side. But the gun was no longer His right gun had been. in its leather. knocked from~his hand, and now his left gun must have. fallen out of its holster when a bullet knocked him to the ground. He heard a man shout, and somewhere a woman screamed. He jerked his head up just in time to see Pardee rushing him. And now he remembered what Pardee had promised the town he would do to him. He would wing him, he’d said—and. then kill him with his bare hands. And he’d winged him, all right! Even with that blazing speed, he’d been accurate as a man could be. And now he was lunging forward to keep the second part of his promise. Steve watched him coming, sick in the knowledge that his strategy had failed. He hadn’t even scratched Pardee. And now he had but one arm against the other man’s two—and he was losing blood from his smashed shoulder. He looked for his guns. He saw one of them, half buried in the dust, but it was too far away to help him now. E DUG his toes into the dust, and slithered to one side a split instant be-. fore Pardee’s heavy body crashed into his own. He was knocked flat on his back by one of Pardee’s flailing boots, and before he could move again, the bigger man had turned and was astride of him, his fists pounding against Steve’s face like pistons. Steve drew his legs up as high as he could and slammed his feet down hard. and arched his back. It threw Pardee back over his head. But Steve was free for only an instant. He scarcely had time to suck in his breath before Pardee was on him again, fighting with his feet this time, kicking at Steve’s head savagely with his high-heeled boots. One of the heels caught Steve on the side of his neck—afhd for a moment he thought the fight was over. But Pardee was too anxious to finish him. He rushed in too fast, too confidently. As his boot went back (Continued on page 104) COmiclbooks CO