Grawson looked at him, enraged. The hammer moved back on the pistol.
“You’re a lawman,” said Chance. “You were then.” He looked at Grawson. “You knew more about men and living and dying than Frank ever found out-you were smarter than Frank ever was-Frank was a fool.”
Grawson looked at him strangely. “No,” he said, “Frank was smarter-always smarter.”
“You knew men,” said Chance. “You knew I’d fire.”
Grawson looked at him, tears streaming down his face.
“No,” he said, “I believed it-I didn’t think you’d fire.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Lucia.
“Be quiet,” said Chance. “For God’s sake, be quiet.”
“It’s true,” yelled Grawson, “it’s true!”
“No,” said Lucia, calmly, “it is not.”
“Please shut up, Lucia,” begged Chance. “For God’s sake, shut up.”
“Nonsense,” said Lucia, and her voice was very clear and very calm, like knives of logic, and it sounded irritatingly prim, very school-teacherish; Grawson had probably heard such a voice, as had Chance, a thousand times in his youth, in a dozen classrooms, from a dozen righteous women instructing him, correcting him, pointing out his errors. “It seems to me quite clear,” said Lucia, “that you are confused on this matter.” She paused. “It also seems to me unlikely that you really entertained a serious affection for your brother.”
“I loved him!” yelled Grawson, sweating, his face jerking, the gun in his hand trembling.
“Shut up!” yelled Chance to the girl.
“Perhaps your parents wished you to do so,” said Lucia, “or perhaps you felt it was your duty, but I regard it as quite unlikely that you actually did so.”
“I loved him!” screamed Grawson.
“Is that why you killed him?” she asked.
There was an awful silence in the room, and in the world. It seemed not even the wind moved outside the soddy.
Slowly Grawson turned to face Lucia, numbly.
Chance, his hands up, tensed, wondering if he could reach the large man. The risk. Lucia.
“I didn’t kill him,” he said, like a little boy.
“You most certainly did,” said Lucia crisply.
“No,” said Grawson, shaking his head, the word indistinct, protesting.
“Most certainly you did,” said Lucia. “You told him Mr. Chance would not fire. Obviously you knew this to be incorrect. Thus, knowingly, you sent your brother to his death and thus, clearly, it is you who killed him.”
Suddenly Grawson screamed and swung the gun on Lucia eyes wild face hideous jerking she twisting screaming Chance leaping striking the weapon it firing four times three times into the wall of the soddy once into the air.
With his right hand Chance, weak from the loss of blood, tried desperately to bang onto the barrel. His left arm was all but useless. Lucia scrambled for a stick of wood near the wall for a club. Grawson tore the barrel from Chance’s hand, cutting the palm of his hand, a bloody line, with the weapon’s sight.
Grawson, breathing heavily, stood covering them both with the weapon, his back to the threshold of the soddy.
They had lost.
“I get it,” said Grawson. “A trick,” he said, “a good trick.” He drew a long breath. “It didn’t work,” he said. He eyed them. “You’re both killers,” he said. “Both of you.”
“Not the girl,” said Chance, “not her.”
“Her too,” said Grawson, sweating. He looked at Lucia. “You’d kill me, wouldn’t you, Lady, if you had the chance, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Lucia. “I would.”
“Her too,” said Grawson. “She’s a killer, too. Both of you.” He wiped his glistening face with the back of his left hand. He looked at them. “I am the law,” he said. “I am justice. I do not swerve. I do not yield. I am an eagle with arrows in my claws.”
Chance looked at him, feeling sick.
Grawson pointed his gun at him. “You killed Frank, didn’t you?” he said.
Chance said nothing.
Grawson turned the gun toward Lucia.
Chance thought he heard the snort of a horse, some yards away, outside.
“Yes,” said Chance, “I killed him.”
“Guilty,” said Grawson. He looked at Lucia. “You,” he said. “Lady, you’d kill me if you could, wouldn’t you?”
“No, she wouldn’t,” said Chance.
“Yes,” said Lucia, “if I had the opportunity I would most certainly kill you.”
Grawson looked at her. “Guilty,” he said.
“What are you going to do to her?” asked Chance.
“I am the law,” said Grawson.
Then he looked at Chance and shook his head. “I’m not an Indian,” he said, “or a bad man-I won’t do anything to her-nothing like that just kill her-only that.”
Chance closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
“Believe me,” said Grawson.
“I believe you,” said Chance.