Kilkenny 03 - Kilkenny (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

move.
    Slowly, Kilkenny relaxed. “So that’s how it is?” he said contemptuously. “Nerve enough to order a man killed but not nerve enough to face it yourself!”
    Deliberately, he turned his back and walked across the street and into the hotel, leaving behind him a blanket of silence.
    Jared Tetlow stared around him as if coming out of a trance. Realization came to him. He had been challenged, had been dared to draw and he had made no move. There were thinly veiled smiles on some of the faces, worry on others. Around him the crowd was melting away.
    His definite, known world seemed suddenly shaky. He had grown to manhood in a family that fought as a unit. He had trained his sons and his riders the same way. It was always the Forty against everything and everybody, but one man had thrown a challenge into their teeth and he himself had backed down.
    Grat got to his feet, sullenly beating the dust from his clothing. The wide cut on Jess Baker’s face seeped blood. Red, at the hitch rail, was being violently sick. Tetlow glanced around and saw Ben standing in front of the harness shop. His emptiness filled with fury. “You!” he roared. “Where were you? Why didn’t you do something?”
    “What could I do? If I had made a move he would have killed you—just like he killed Bud.”
    Jared Tetlow went stiff with shock. “That…it was…
he
killed Bud?”
    “That’s the man,” Ben said quietly, “and if anyone had made a wrong move he would have killed you!”

Chapter 4
    K ILKENNY ENTERED THE hotel to find Leal Macy waiting for him. The sheriff seemed unusually quiet. “That took nerve,” he commented, “what if he had tried it?”
    “He wouldn’t,” Kilkenny said. “He’s a cinch killer. I saw them work against Lott the other day.”
    “But he might have.”
    “Yes, I thought he would, to be honest. Or maybe I just didn’t think. Their kind get in my craw.”
    “Mine, too. But you’d better get out of town for a few days at least. They’ll never rest now until they get you.”
    “What about the hearing?”
    “We’ll have it.” Macy spoke flatly. “We’ll have it and we’ll see what a local jury does. The fact is, your stand here in the street may make all the difference. They may not hesitate to bring in a bill against them. Or against Havalik.”
    “You’ll have a fight if you try to arrest him.”
    “Then I’ll have it.” Macy was grim and quiet. “There are a few good men in town. Early is one of them, Doc Blaine is another.”
    “Doc?” Kilkenny was surprised.
    Macy nodded. “Oddly enough, he’s a fighter. Plenty of sand and a fine rifle shot.”
    “You can count on Dolan.”
    “Dolan?” Macy stared, half angry. “You think I’d call on him for help?”
    “Why not? It doesn’t look to me like you have much choice. I’d say call on him. Dolan,” he added, “is a former Army man. He was a soldier for quite some years. Despite the fact that he’s on the edge of the law now, such a man is deeply marked with his former experience, and against mob action. Dolan will stand hitched, and keep his boys so. Also, he considers the Forty as fair game.”
    Macy considered that. It went against the grain to ask help or even accept offered help from a man of Dolan’s stamp, yet Macy had been a soldier himself, and he knew how deeply the years of training were imbedded in a man’s nature. And Dolan had not been a citizen soldier, but a Regular Army man, a sergeant of long experience, accustomed to order and discipline. He still bore the mark of it in his neat dress, his square shoulders and his walk, and the sharpness of his actions. It was possible that Kilkenny was right.
    “I’ll stay if you want,” Kilkenny volunteered. He admired the stand this man was taking. It was such men whom the West needed if ever there was to be peace and order.
    “No, you’d only be another bone of contention. They’ll be out to get you now, and your presence might make all the difference. You