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"Yes."
Lebo's shrug was eloquent.
They could hear the pound of hoofs now, and the train whistled again. Ruble
Noon eased his gun in its holster to be sure it was free to move fast.
Thunder rumbled . . . the storm was closer now.
They started for the station, leading the two pack horses. Fan walked beside
them, still holding her rifle. Little puffs of dust lifted from the road as
they crossed it. On the platform their footsteps sounded loud ... a brilliant
streak of lightningbulged a cloud with livid flame, and thunder cracked. A few
scattered drops fell.
Ruble Noon removed the sacks from the pack saddles and put them down on the
platform.
Then suddenly they were there, at the end of the platform, and he had no idea
where they had come from.
Lang was there, andManly , and there was another man-a Mexican, tall and
thin, wearing a wide sombrero, twin cartridge belts, and a thin black
mustache.
Cristobal!
Ruble Noon's agreement had been for four men and a woman.A woman? He would
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never have agreed to that.
Suddenly it was crystal-clear in his mind. He had not agreed to kill any of
them. He had agreed to free the ranch of outlaws by his own means, and he had
been warned to becareful of four men and a woman. Careful, and only that. And
the woman would be PegCullane .
So TomDavidge had known something about her, too. Now they might never know
what it was, but TomDavidge had known very well who his enemies were, and who
they might be.
Cristobalnow ... As dangerous a gunman as ever came down the pike. And there
he was, with Manly andLang. .. . Was nothing ever going to be easy?
"You can leave it right there, or you can die," Manly said. "You're
lucky-you've got a choice."
"The gold's gone," Ruble Noon lied. "All we have here is some lead shot. We
got the gold away, and used this to keep you off theregalar shipment, which is
halfway toDenver by now."
"You can't give us that," Manly said, "so don't try." FanDavidge had a piece
of the black-painted gold in her pocket and she held it up. "See?"
They did not want to believe it, they could not, but it worried them.
The train whistled again, and the sullen thunder rumbled. Big drops of rain
spattered on the platform.
Lebo released the pack horses, and they walked away to join the other horses
grazing under the trees.
Ruble Noon knew when a time had come. He could feel it deep within himself,
and he took a step to the side so as to pull the shooting away from Fan's
position.
"The train's coming," he said quietly, "and when that train comes in, we're
loading the sacks on it. Maybe we're lying about what's in them, maybe we're
not; but if you want to die to find out, you can have a try ... any time."
"The great Ruble Noon,"Cristobal said. His black eyes showed contempt. "I do
not believe he is that great. Always he shoots from nowhere . . . can he shoot
from somewhere at men with guns?"
The moment was here, and there was no time to waste in talk. When a fight is
inevitable, it is foolish to waste time in words.
"Now?" he said gently, and then he drew.
All three of them moved as one man, but Ruble Noon shot at Lang first. Lang,
the cool, the quiet, the man who did not talk ... Lang he wanted out of there,
and Lang knew it andwas smiling. He saw Lang's gun coming up, rising too high
... he was being too careful.
The report ofhis own gun was lostin a crash of thunder. He was moving ahead,
a careful step at a time, firing with precision, but with speed.
Lang, then Lang again, thenCristobal .Manly was down,too . .. Lebo must have
got him.
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From behind him somebody was shooting with a rifle, and that worried him, but
he did not turn.
Two forLang .. .another forCristobal , and a third one for Lang as the man
started to rise, his face and shirt bloody.
Lang was down, though for a moment he was trying to get back up.Cristobal was
still up, his fine white teeth flashing in a smile ... easy, taunting-and
dead. He was failing forward, the gun going from his hand.
The rifle behind them thundered again, and then the train came rushing along
the track. The shooting was over, and the rain had turned into a downpour.
The bodies lay on the platform like old sacks. Lebo was down, and Ruble Noon
was thumbing shells from his gun, and feeding cartridges into it. He had
stopped shooting when Lang went down, and he stood there in the rain, watching
Lang for signs of life.
People were staring from the tram windows. Fan was bending over Miguel Lebo,
and beside her was another
manwith a rifle in his hand. He was pointing with it to a window of the
station.
A rifle lay on the platform underneath the window, and hanging over the
broken glass was JudgeNiland , as dead as a man could be.
The man who was pointing his rifle toward the Judge was J. B. Rimes.
"Mr.Mandrin ," he was saying, "I'm a Pinkerton man."
"Not an outlaw at all?" Ruble Noon asked mildly. "I was ... once. They
recruited me to run down some train robbers. We had looked for you until the
reward was called off, but I had a guess atwho you were when you said your
name was Jonas." The rain continued to fall.
Fan tugged at Noon's sleeve."Jonas ... the train!" He picked up a couple of
the sacks. Rimes did likewise, and the express messenger took the others.
When they had reached the express car and loaded the gold inside, he looked
back at Lebo. The Mexican was on his feet and was coming toward them, limping.
His shirt was bloody. "Is it bad?" Noon asked. Lebo shook his head. "No ... I
think no."
"Get on. You're better off on the train than here. Let's go."
It was a three-car train-just the express car and two coaches. There were
four passengers in the first coach- two men together, obviously easterners,
and a slender, aristocratic-looking woman accompanied by a squarely built man.
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