By order of Buck Brady

Buck Brady was always whittling. Thin shavings were an obsession with Buck. He would sit for hours, tilted back in a broken chair against the shady side of his little office, knees almost touching his chin, his long, thin face serious over the task of reducing a piece of soft pine to thin shavings.

Buck was the sheriff of Mojave Wells, and Mojave Wells was a heat and sand scoured, false fronted town in Road Runner Valley. The town was invisible from a distance, because even the painted signs on the business houses had been sand blasted until they were unreadable.

It was the end of the roundup in Road Runner Valley, and Buck knew that before night the town would be filled with thirsty cowboys, whose overall pockets were lined with money, and that when whisky met cowboy there might be plenty of work for the sheriff.

The first to arrive was Ben Dolan, a thin faced, gaunt sort of cowboy, astride a weary looking roan. Instead of heading for a saloon, Ben dismounted in front of the sheriff’s office, dropped his reins in the dirt and sat down beside the sheriff.

“Hyah, Buck.”

“Purty good,” drawled Buck squinting at his handiwork. “Whatcha know, Ben?”

“Not much.”

“In kinda early, ain’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Ben made a few marks in the sand with a lean forefinger.

“Had a reason t’ come in early, Buck. Some of the boys said it wouldn’t do no good, but I thought I’d tell you how it was. ’Long about an hour from now Bud Hickman will ride in. He’ll have his gang with him and they’ll imbibe real freely. Mebbe ’long about that same time Pete Asher’ll ride in with his gang. They’ll also imbibe freely, and some of ’em will likely get kinda drunk. The boys are all thirsty, you know. I expect it’ll be kinda wooly around here t’night, Buck.”

“Uh-huh.”

Buck cut a particularly long shaving, looked at it critically and nodded with satisfaction.

“You shore rode in early to explain all this to me,” he said. “If you’re all through, you might tell me the rest.”

“It’s thisaway,” explained Ben seriously. “You know what a feud is, Buck?”

“Yea-a-ah.”

“Well, that’s what she amounts to right now. And it’s all over a danged girl!”

“I’m glad there’s a reason, Ben. Mostly allus them feuds starts over nothin’. Go ahead and tell me the details.”

“Rosie Smith.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what I said. You know how Bud and Pete kinda shined around her a month ago. I don’t guess she knowed which one to pick. Of course, Bud thinks it’s him, and Pete thinks it’s him. And there you are. It’s been kinda achin’ both of ’em, I reckon. Anyway, Chuck Lester makes a remark the other night that he supposed Bud wouldn’t be with us in Mojave Wells at the finish of the roundup, ’cause he’d stop along a picket fence before he reached the main street, and head straight through the gate.

“Pete was there, and I reckon it hit him in a sore spot, cause he chips in with a remark, which didn’t set well with Bud. There wasn’t much said, but it took all of us to take their guns away. We didn’t want no killin’ in camp. Bud was reasonable. He says to Pete, ‘We’ll settle this in Mojave Wells.’”

“Pete was agreeable. He says, ‘That suits me. We’ll make a truce until sundown, both agreein’ to keep away from her. When that sun goes down, all truce is off, and we shoot on sight.’”