2-Gun Western, November 1955 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

10 2-GUN WESTERN be there’s only ten of them, but. it looked more like fifteen. What do you think of that, old man?” The street was as quiet as if there werent a soul up and down its length, so that Charlie Landry’s voice rang out clear and sharp, like how a voice sounds on a still, cold night. Seeing Sheriff Barton Keller standing between the law office and the store, and the Noren boys and Dick Foster on the saloon veranda, and Ed Spooner beside his horse where he’d stepped down at the res- taurant hitchrack, you would have done a double-take on them, for you wouldn’t have believed that so many people could be there without any of them making any kind of a sound. “T said what do you think of that, old man?” The liveryman muttered grudging- ly, “I don’t think nothing of it.” “Well, maybe you'll think some- thing of it when I fort up in your stinking stable and shoot it out with all them big, tough Rangers. Because right now that’s what I’m thinking of doing, old man. And then not. only my horse but all your horses too would get my attention, because like as not I’d fort right up behind them. “Because them big, tough Rangers wouldn’t want to mow down all them pretty ponies to get at me, and that way I could be mowing the Ranger boys down instead while they made up their minds.” Then Charlie Landry put his pale eyes on the group on the saloon porch. He might have been a good- looking kid except for those color- less eyes, though it was hard to tell any more whether their cold, dead look was a result of a lack of pig- mentation or lack of any shred of warmth behind them. It was difficult, in fact, to note much less remember any other detail of Charlie Landry’s face than his eyes. They were him; they and the lightning-fast gunhand. They seemed to get bigger if you could stand to look straight into them, until they fascinated you, hypnotized you. Even Landry’s flashy attire, even the jewel-studded black flat-crowned ‘stetson, and the purple silk shirt with fancy white embroidery on one of the two breast pockets, did not make the impression on you that the eyes did. “Who are the quiet little boys lined up on the veranda there?’ Charlie Landry said. Then one of his .45’s was suddenly glinting in his right hand and he was blistering the saloon with bullets, so that the Noren boys and Dick Foster had all they could do to dive onto the planking in time to escape the fusillade. “They’re yellow little boys, I see,” Charlie Landry said, deliberately reloading his gun. “Which is the sheriff?” he said a moment later. “You, fella?” he addressed Barton Keller. : The lawman stood as though fro- zen, his eyes wide on Landry, his hands flat on his belly, moving un- comfortably, as though he didn’t know what to do with them. “Hey, here come them Rangers, old man,” said amiably then to the hostler, for the gentle thud of hoofs had begun to sound on the still night air. “Dry night like tonight, sound ain’t carryin’ far, so they'll be comin’ in right quick, right, old man?” HE HOSTLER, having been standing stiff, suddenly grabbed a shotgun from behind a doorpost and was squeezing the triggers before he had the weapon lined. This was why he had little success, but it was at the same time the only reason he had any success at all. Charlie Landry had expected such a move, but Char- lie Landry didn’t blow the top of an old man’s head off in a hurried man- ner. There were times you needed to be fast; putting it on an old man was not one of them. That was how-come Charlie Landry’s left arm_ got brushed by the shotgun blast. He’d timed his draw for a split-second later. “Damn you!” he snarled, feeling the slugs rip his arm, the first taste Charlie Landry had ever had of hot lead, and in unleashed fury he emp- tied his gun into the already dead body, from which life had been torn by his first bullet. Sheriff Barton Keller went for his gun then, stepping out onto the boardwalk, but the Rangers were sweeping into town in this same moment, and Charlie Landry had QO conmlelooks.c©