“It is quite true,” Nona declared. “Doc Martin is dead. He was shot from ambush ten days ago. This man, no matter how much he may look like Doc, is not Doc.”
“I told you that, but you wouldn’t listen, you were so hell-bent to hang somebody,” declared Charlie Shaw, opening his mouth for the first time and addressing Buck Walters. “Now it can be proved right here, unless you got to hang somebody for your own personal satisfaction.”
“Listen, all of you!” Rock put in. “I have told you, and Miss Parke has told you, I am not Doc Martin. Do you want to listen to proof, or do you want it proved to you after a bunch of men have gone to hell in a fog of powder smoke? Because, if you don’t want to listen to reason, there will be a lot of shooting before there is any hanging. And I will get you, Mr. Buck Walters, first crack, in spite of all your men. Just think that over.”
Charlie Shaw winked at Rock, then took two quick steps to the doorway and slid through. Walters’ right hand moved ever so little, suggestively and involuntarily, and the muzzle of Rock’s carbine pointed straight at his breast.
“Just one move,” said Rock, “one more little move like that, Buck, and the Maltese Cross will be shy your services for good. I will give you leave to hang me or shoot me, if you can, but this crowd is going to hear who I am before the ball opens. I am going to keep this gun right on your middle. If I feel anything or hear anything, I pull trigger. If one of your men should pot me, I can still kill you, even if I were dead on my feet. Now, I tell you again I am not Doc Martin. I came to this ranch the day he was killed—murdered, as a matter of fact. I helped to bury him. His riding gear and all his stuff is here in the house.”
The riders edged their horses nearer and craned their necks. At best, destroying a thief was an unpleasant task even for honest men who despised stock thieves with the contempt such a thief inspired on the range. Every word uttered on that porch carried distinctly to their ears. They were not fools. They knew, and Rock banked on that knowledge, that, whether the man in the doorway was Doc Martin or not, he had the drop on Buck Walters, and the chances were a hundred to one he would kill not only Walters but several of them before they got him. Perhaps too late they realized the tactical error of letting Charlie Shaw get inside. He was a TL man. Right or wrong, if there was a fight, Shaw would fight against them. They would have been confirmed in that supposition if they could have looked behind Rock. That young man’s heart warmed at the boy’s quick wit and unhesitating loyalty. A little behind him Charlie whispered:
“Stand pat. I’ll back any play you make. I got two guns on me.”
Elmer Duffy stared at Rock. He glanced sidewise at Buck Walters, then back to the man in the door.
“If you ain’t Doc Martin,” he said at last, “there’s only one other man you could be.”
“Hell and damnation!” Walters burst out. “Who else could he be? Are we goin’ to be old women and let him bluff us out with a fairy story?”