Gunslinger

XVI

By the time he arrived at Kennerly’s, a queer obscurity had come over the northern horizon and he knew it was dust. Over Tull the air was still dead quiet.

Kennerly was waiting for him on the chaff—strewn stage that was the floor of his barn. “Leaving?” He grinned abjectly at the gunslinger.

“Yes.”

“Not before the storm?”

“Ahead of it”

“The wind goes faster than a man on a mule. In the open it can kill you.”

“I’ll want the mule now,” the gunslinger said simply.

“Sure.” But Kennerly did not turn away, merely stood as if searching for something further to say, grinning his groveling, hate—filled grin, and his eyes flicked up and over the gunslinger’s shoulder.

The gunslinger sidestepped and turned at the same time, and the heavy stick of stovewood that the girl Soobie held swished through the air, grazing his elbow only. She lost hold of it with the force of her swing and it clattered over the floor. In the explosive height of the loft, barn swallows took shadowed wing.

The girl looked at him bovinely. Her breasts thrust with overripe grandeur at the wash—faded shirt she wore. One thumb sought the haven of her mouth with dreamlike slowness.

The gunslinger turned back to Kennerly. Kennerly’s grin was huge. His skin was waxy yellow. His eyes rolled in their sockets. “I – “ he began in a phlegm—filled whisper and could not continue.

“The mule,” the gunslinger prodded gently.

“Sure, sure, sure,” Kennerly whispered, the grin now touched with incredulity. He shuffled after it.

He moved to where he could watch Kennerly, The

hostler brought the mule back and handed him the bridle.

. ,

“You get in an tend your sister,” he said to Soobie.

Soobie tossed her head and didn’t move.

The gunslinger left them there, staring at each other across the dusty, droppings—strewn floor, he with his sick grin, she with dumb, inanimate defiance. Outside the heat was still like a hammer.