"Doolin," he called. "I'll be in town around three this afternoon. Tell Ben Randolph for me that he's a son of a bitch. Tell him he's a dunghead sheriff. Tell him he'd better look me up when I get there, or else get outa town and stay out. You got that?"
"I got it, Buck."
"Call me Mr. Tarrant, you Irish bastard."
"Okay ... Mr. Tarrant," I said, and reached the bottom of the slope and turned my horse along the road through the Pass. About a hundred yards farther on, I hipped around in the saddle and looked back. He was practising again—the crouch, the fantastic draw, the shot.
I rode on toward town, to tell Ben Randolph he'd either have to run or die.
Ben was a lanky, slab-sided Texan who'd come up north on a drive ten years before and liked the Arizona climate and stayed. He was a good sheriff—tough enough to handle most men, and smart enough to handle the rest. Fourteen years of it had kept him lean and fast.
When I told him about Buck, I could see he didn't know whether he was tough or smart or fast enough to get out of this one.
He leaned back in his chair and started to light his pipe, and then stared at the match until it burned his fingers without touching it to the tobacco.
"You sure, Joe?" he said.