The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Draw, by Jerome Bixby

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Title: The Draw

Author: Jerome Bixby

Illustrator: Wm. Ashman

Release Date: March 25, 2010 [EBook #31778]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1954. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

THE DRAW

BY JEROME BIXBY

_Illustrator_: Wm. Ashman

_Stories of the old West were filled with bad men who lived
by the speed of their gun hand. Well, meet Buck Tarrant, who
could outdraw them all. His secret: he didn't even have to
reach for his weapon...._

* * * * *

Joe Doolin's my name. Cowhand--work for old Farrel over at Lazy F
beyond the Pass. Never had much of anything exciting happen to
me--just punched cows and lit up on payday--until the day I happened
to ride through the Pass on my way to town and saw young Buck
Tarrant's draw.

Now, Buck'd always been a damn good shot. Once he got his gun in his
hand he could put a bullet right where he wanted it up to twenty
paces, and within an inch of his aim up to a hundred feet. But Lord
God, he couldn't draw to save his life--I'd seen him a couple of times
before in the Pass, trying to. He'd face a tree and go into a crouch,
and I'd know he was pretending the tree was Billy the Kid or somebody,
and then he'd slap leather--and his clumsy hand would wallop his
gunbutt, he'd yank like hell, his old Peacemaker would come staggering
out of his holster like a bear in heat, and finally he'd line on his
target and plug it dead center. But the whole business took about a
second and a half, and by the time he'd ever finished his fumbling in
a real fight, Billy the Kid or Sheriff Ben Randolph over in town or
even me, Joe Doolin, could have cut him