"After all," he mused, "if the ability to perform telekinesis lies dormant in all of us, and is released by strong faith and desire to accomplish something that can be accomplished only by that means—then our desire to stop him might be able to counter his desire to—"
"Damn you and your big words," I said bitterly.
"It was your idea," the professor said, still looking at Buck. "What you said about thinking his gun back into its holster—after all, we are two to his one—"
I turned around and stared at him, really hearing him for the first time. "Yeah, that's right—I said that! My God ... do you think we could do it?"
"We can try," he said. "We know it can be done, and evidently that is nine-tenths of the battle. He can do it, so we should be able to. We must want him not to more than he wants to."
"Lord," I said, "I want him not to, all right...."
Ben and Buck were about twenty feet apart now, and Ben stopped.
His voice was tired when he said, "Any time, Buck."
"You're a hell of a sheriff," Buck sneered. "You're a no-good bastard."