Suddenly Buck stiffened, looking out the window. He
got up, his bulging blue eyes staring down at us. "Randolph's coming
down the street! You two just stay put, and maybe--just maybe--I'll
let you live. Professor, I wanta talk to you some more about this
telekinesis stuff. Maybe I can get even faster than I am, or control
my bullets better at long range. So you be here, get that?"

* * * * *

He turned and walked out the door.

The professor said, "He's not sane."

"Nutty as a locoed steer," I said. "Been that way for a long time. An
ugly shrimp who hates everything--and now he's in the saddle holding
the reins, and some people are due to get rode down." I looked
curiously at him. "Look, professor--this telekinesis stuff--is all
that on the level?"

"Absolutely."

"He just _thinks_ his gun into his hand?"

"Exactly."

"Faster than anyone could ever draw it?"

"Inconceivably faster. The time element is almost non-existent."

I got up, feeling worse than I'd ever felt in my life. "Come on," I
said. "Let's see what happens."

As if there was any doubt about what was bound to happen.

We stepped out onto the porch and over to the rail. Behind us, I
heard Menner come out too. I looked over my shoulder. He'd wrapped a
towel around his head. Blood was leaking through it. He was looking at
Buck, hating him clear through.

* * * * *

The street was deserted except for Buck standing about twenty feet
away, and, at the far end, Sheriff Ben Randolph coming slowly toward
him, putting one foot ahead of the other in the dust.

A few men were standing on porches, pressed back against the walls,
mostly near doors. Nobody was sitting now--they were ready to
groundhog if lead started flying wild.

"God damn it," I said in a low, savage voice. "Ben's too good a man to
get kilt this way. By a punk kid with some crazy psychowhosis way of
handling a gun."

I felt the professor's level eyes on me, and turned to look at him.

"Why," he said, "doesn't a group of you get together and face him
down? Ten guns against his one. He'd have to surrender."

"No, he wouldn't," I said. "That ain't the way it works. He'd just
dare any of us to be the first to try and stop him--and none of us
would take him up on it. A group like that don't mean anything--it'd
be each man against Buck Tarrant, and none of us good enough."

"I see," the professor said softly.

"God...."