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"Day before yesterday Dolver an' me meets up in Lamo, an' Dolver asks me to help him give Morgan his pass-out checks on the ride over to Pardo which Morgan's intendin' to make. I ain't got any love for Morgan, an' so I took Dolver up." "You're a liar!" Harlan's fingers were sinking into Laskar's shoulder again, and once more the man screamed with pain and impotent fury. "I swear " began Laskar.
Harlan's grin was bitterly contemptuous. He placed the other hand on Laskar's shoulder and forced the man to look into his eyes. "You're a liar, but I'm lettin' you off. You're a sneak with Greaser blood in you. I don't ever want to see you again. I'm goin' to Lamo soon as this man Morgan cashes in. I'll be there some time tomorrow.
But he watched Laskar as the latter edged away from the other men, and when he saw Laskar's eyes widen with the thought that precedes action, with the gleam that reflects the command the brain transmutes to the muscles, his right hand flashed downward toward the hip. With a grunt, for Harlan had almost anticipated his thoughts, Laskar's right hand swept toward the butt of his pistol.
Laskar's eyes moved quickly, with an inquiring flash in them, toward Deveny and the sheriff. It was time for Deveny and the sheriff to precipitate the action they had agreed upon. But the sheriff did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position.
It was sheer rapidity, his hand moving so fast that the eye could not follow. And Deveny could get no pleasure from his discovery. Harlan had waited until Laskar's fingers were wrapped around the stock of his pistol before he had drawn his own, and therefore in the minds of those who had witnessed the shooting, Harlan had been justified. Sheriff Gage thought so, too.
For, after Laskar's body had been carried away, Harlan stepped to where the sheriff stood and spoke shortly: "You wantin' me for this?" Sheriff Gage shook his head. "I reckon everybody saw Laskar go for his gun. There was no call for him to go for his gun. If you'd have shot him without him reachin' for it things would have been different." Harlan said coldly, "I'm ready for that trial, now."
If I'd been an inch nearer, or if he'd have kicked me a foot lower, or a foot higher, I'd be layin' out there where Dolver is now, the coyotes an' the buzzards gnawin' at me." Unmoved by Laskar's incoherence, Deveny calmly watched him. And now, when Laskar paused for breath, Deveny spoke slowly: "A black horse, you said. How did a black horse get there?
For Deveny had seen the bullet from Laskar's gun throw up sand at Harlan's feet after Harlan's weapon had sent its death to meet Laskar. And Deveny had discovered the secret of Harlan's "draw." The pause was a trick, of course, to disconcert an adversary. But the lightning flash of Harlan's hand to his gun-butt was no trick.
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