There was another dust cloud coming down the road. Mendoza and Tony Gibbs saw it coming; a tall sorrel horse, running heavily from a double burden. At two hundred feet from the hitchrack, the sorrel jerked to a stop, and Cultus Collins dropped to the street. He ran around toward the rear of the saloon, while Bad News, hatless, his face grimy with dust and perspiration, spurred up to the hitchrack, where he dismounted quickly, not stopping to tie the horse, and came slowly toward the doorway of the saloon, shifting his holster across his thigh.
He looked keenly at Mendoza and Gibbs, as he came up to them.
“Eenside,” said Mendoza quietly, and Bad News nodded as he stepped past them and into the War Dance.
“I’m going,” repeated Kendall Marsh. “Come on, Alden.”
No one tried to stop them. Marsh stumbled on the little step, as they went out, and his hand shook when he closed the door softly. Then they almost ran to the buckboard.
“You ain’t goin’ no place,” said a voice, and they whirled to see Cultus Collins. He was standing within twenty feet of them, his legs braced apart, his right thumb hooked over his belt above the holster.
“What do you mean?” asked Marsh huskily.
“You know what I mean, Marsh.”
Alden had sagged back against the left rear wheel of the buckboard, but now he whipped away his coat and drew a six-shooter from inside the waistband of his trousers. With what seemed a single motion, Cultus drew and fired. Alden fired too, but his bullet sang over the top of the War Dance, when his arm crumpled at the elbow.
At the sound of the shot, Butch Van Deen sprang outside. He had already drawn his gun, but before he could understand just what had taken place out there, Cultus fired twice in rapid succession, and Butch fell backward through the open doorway.