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...." I clenched my fists so hard they hurt. "I wish we could think his gun right back into the holster or something!" Ben and Buck were about forty feet apart now. Ben was coming on steadily, his hand over his gunbutt. He was a good man with a gun, Ben--nobody around these parts had dared tackle him for a long time. But he was out-classed now, and he knew it. I guess he was just hoping that Buck's first shot or two wouldn't kill him, and that he could place a good one himself before Buck let loose any more. But Buck was a damn good shot. He just wouldn't miss. The professor was staring at Buck with a strange look in his eyes. "He should be stopped," he said. "Stop him, then," I said sourly. "After all," he mused, "if the ability to perform telekinesis lies dormant in all of us, and is released by strong faith and desire to accomplish something that can be accomplished only by that means--then our desire to stop him might be able to counter his desire to--" "Damn you and your big words," I said bitterly. "It was your idea," the professor said, still looking at Buck. "What you said about thinking his gun back into its holster--after all, we _are_ two to his one--" I turned around and stared at him, really hearing him for the first time. "Yeah, that's right--I said that! My God ... do you think we could do it?" "We can try," he said. "We know it _can_ be done, and evidently that is nine-tenths of the battle. He can do it, so we should be able to. We must want him _not_ to more than he _wants_ to." * * * * * "Lord," I said, "I want him not to, all right...."