He gestured at Max. "Get back on the door."
Max walked back through the bank to the front door and looked out again.
The street was still deserted. He stood there, quietly alert.
Ed's voice came to him from the back room. '"Tie the bastard to the chair."
"What are you gonna do?" the bank clerk protested in a weak voice.
Max walked back and looked in the room.
Ed was kneeling in front of the potbellied stove, stirring the poker in the live coals.
Charlie straightened up from tying the clerk and looked at Ed curiously.
"What're you doin?"
'He’ll talk if this red-hot poker gits close enough to his eyes," Ed said grimly.
"Wait a minute," Charlie protested. "You think the guy is lyin', kill him."
Ed got to his feet and turned on Charlie angrily.
"That's the trouble with you young ones nowadays. You got no guts, you're too squeamish.
He can't open no safe if he's dead!"
"He can't open it if he don't know the combination, either!"
"You don't like it, scram!" Ed said savagely. "There's fifty thousand bucks in that there safe. I’m goin' to git it!" Max turned from the door and started back toward the front of the bank. He had taken about two steps when he was stopped by Ed's voice, coming from the back room. "This’ll work, believe me," Ed was saying. "
'Bout ten, twelve years back, Rusty Harris, Tom Dort an' me gave the treatment to an ol' buffalo-skinner an' his squaw- "
Max felt his stomach heave and he reached for the wall to keep from falling.
He closed his eyes for a moment and the scene in the cabin came back to him – his father hanging lifelessly, his mother crumpled on the floor, the orange glow of the fire against the night sky.
His head began to clear. He shook it.
A cold, dead feeling replaced the nausea. He turned toward the back room.
Ed was still kneeling in front of the stove. Charlie stood across the room, his face white and sick.
"The ol' miser had gold stashed somewhere aroun' the place. Everybody in Dodge knew it- " Ed looked up and saw Max, who had crossed the room and was standing over him. "What're you doin' here?
I tol' you to cover the door!"
Max looked down at him. His voice was hollow.
"Did you ever git that gold?" A puzzled look crossed Ed's face. "You didn't," Max said, "because there wasn't any to start with."
Ed stared at him. "How do you know?"
"I know," Max said slowly. "I'm Max Sand."
Recognition leaped into Ed's face.
He went for his gun, rolling sideways away from Max.
Max kicked the gun from his hand and Ed scrambled after it as Max pulled the white-hot poker from the fire.
Ed turned, raising the gun toward Max, just as the poker lunged at his eyes.
He screamed in agony as the white metal burned its way through his flesh.
The gun went off, the bullet going wild into the ceiling above him, then it fell from his hand.
Max stood there a moment, looking down. The stench of burned flesh reached up to his nostrils.
It was over.
Twelve years and it was over.
He turned dully as Charlie pulled at his arm.
"Let's git outa here!"
Charlie shouted. "The whole town'll be down on us in a minute!"
"Yeah," Max said slowly. He let the poker fall from his hand and started for the door.
Mike was holding the horses and they leaped into the saddle. They rode out of town in a hail of bullets with a posse less than thirty minutes behind them.
Three days later, they were holed up in a small cave in the foothills.
Max came back from the entrance and looked down at his friend.
"How you doin', Mike?"
Mike's usually shiny black face was drawn and gray.
"Poorly, boy, poorly."
Max bent over and wiped his face.
"I’m sorry," he said. "We ain't got no more water."
Mike shook his head.