2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

64 blisters changed to calluses, I couldn't offer him any competition at all. * don’t think I was scared much, going into the Crazy-Horse. Just the same, I didn’t swing those doors very fast or sudden. You don’t startle men like Vern Sanders if you can help it. Coming in out of the sur’ I didn’t see him for a moment. Then I heard the voice that I remembered after fif- teen years. “Harley Ferris,” he said, not very loudly, and I saw him then, sitting over in the corner by the window. If it had’t been for the voice, I don’t be- lieve I would have recognized Vern, he looked that old. And tired; I never saw anyone look so tired. His body was as hard and lean as ever, but his face looked sixty years old. The dust and sweat had gathered in the little creases around his eyes, and the skin over his cheek-bones was too tight, too shiny. There was an irregular grey crust, like alkali, around: the band of his hat. His faded shirt was sweat-stained. He looked casual and relaxed, but I knew it wasn’t by chance that he could watch both doors and the street from where he sat. “Hello, Vern.’ My own _ voice sounded too loud in my ears. The place was empty except for myself, Vern, and the bartender who looked just then as though he would have been happier somewhere else. ERN ASKED me to sit down, but when I pulled a chair up to his table he said in a tired, patient way, “Not there, Harley,” and I realized I’d put myself between Vern and the front door. I moved. I wanted to come out with it right away. I wanted to say: Don’t kill him Vern, don’t kill the old man, just get back on your horse and ride out of Spanish Lick and everything will be all right. But I didn’t say it. “It’s been a long time, Vern. How are you?” He _ smiled his twisted smile, and for a moment he was the same quiet, intense kid who used to ride with me up the dry-wash, with his new gun gently bumping the sad- dle, and his alert eyes watching for 2-GUN WESTERN the movement of an unlucky jackrab- bit in the brush. His eyes were alert now, all right, but not for any jack- rabbits. “I’m still alive.’ The way he said it, it wasn’t a joke. Not a joke at all. He didn’t talk about himself. He didn't have to. Things like that get around. He asked me about old Bar- tow, and I told him how Bartow had died and I was running the store now, and I told him about the livery-stable fire and a lot of other little things that had happened around town. Vern seemed interested, but I got the feel- ing that he was waiting. He knew why I was there, and he was waiting for me to get to it. So, finally, I got to it. “Jed is fifty-eight,” I said. “He’s not as fast as he used to be.” “I know how old Jed is.” His face was a mask. There was no emotion whatever in his voice. I waited. “You could pull out. You don’t have to wait for him.” Vern Sanders pushed his dusty hat to the back of his head, and wiped the sweat from his temples. He gave a slow sigh, as though he had come to the end of a long, hard journey. “I’m going to stay in Spanish Lick, Harley. I rode all the way up from the San Juans, riding nights, circling towns. I’m home. I’m sick of riding. I’m going to stay in Spanish Lick as long as I live.” I didn’t know what to say. We sat for quite a while in silence. It was Vern who spoke first. “Let me tell you how it is with me. Do you want to know where I’ve been for the last year, Harley? Where I’ve been for a whole, stinking, miserable year? Living in a lean-to in the San Juan mountains, like a damned go- pher! The one time I rode into town I had to-kill a man. Only he wasn’t a man. He was a kid. A sniveling kid with a fancy belt and a nickel-plated pistol, trying to collect a reward. Try- ing to be a big man.” Vern sneered. Deliberately, easily, he drew his gun, spun it in his hand, and laid it on the table with the butt toward me, so lightly it hardly made a sound, I stared. “Yeah, same gun,’ Vern said. “I EOPMICLCOLKKS (E@)