“Because I tell you to.”
Rock laughed. For the moment he was himself, Doc Martin forgotten, and he had never stepped aside an inch for any man in his life.
“You go plumb to hell,” he said. “I’ll be on the Marias when you are going down the road talking to yourself.”
“All right,” Buck told him very slowly. “This is the second time I’ve warned you. You know what I mean. You’re huntin’ trouble. You’ll get it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Rock retorted. “Say it in plain English. What’s eating you?”
“I’ve said all I aimed to say,” Walters declared. “You know what I mean, well enough.”
“If I had never laid eyes on you before,” Rock answered quietly, “you have said enough right now to justify me in going after you. Is that what you want? Do you want to lock horns with me? The light’s good. Pop your whip, you skunk!”
Rock spat the epithet at him in a cold, collected fury. He meant precisely what he said. There was such an arrogant note in that cool intimidation. It filled him with a contemptuous anger for Buck Walters and all his ways and works and his veiled threats.
“You are just a little faster with a gun than I am,” Walters replied, unruffled, the tempo of his voice unchanged. “I take no chances with you. I am not afraid of you, but I have too much at stake to risk it on gun play—by myself. If you do not leave this country, I will have you put away. You can gamble on that.”
Rock took a single step toward him. Walters held both hands away from his sides. He smiled.