Now it was Firestick who gave a hard shake of his head. “No. I can’t go along with that. I gave you your two choices. That’s all there is to it.”
“I see there bein’ a third choice, Marshal,” said Wilson, his voice tight, fighting to stay controlled. “I could slap leather against you first . . . and then still get around to Wingate.”
A corner of Firestick’s mouth quirked upward ever so slightly. “You could do that . . . if you was good enough. Which you ain’t, but if you’re bound and determined to try, then that’d relieve me of any regret I might have over killin’ you. Because it would make you too damn dumb to let live.”
Chapman suddenly vacillated back the other way. “Can’t say I like the way you’re thinkin’, Rand. Can’t say as I want any part of goin’ straight up against the law over something so—”
“Don’t, then,” Wilson snapped. “Back away, you chicken-livered puke. Ain’t like I need you for doin’ what I got to do.”
Flailing his arms drunkenly, Wingate muttered, “Give me a damn gun. I’ll show you who ain’t chicken-livered.” But when his gestures accidentally bumped over the whiskey bottle, he forgot everything else and grabbed desperately to minimize the spillage.
“Don’t worry, you pathetic drunk. Your turn’s comin’,” said Wilson, all the while keeping his eyes trained on Firestick. “But first I’ve got to teach some manners to an old mossback who thinks havin’ a tin star on his shirt gives him the right to meddle wherever and however he sees fit.”
“It’s the right or wrong of a thing that makes me decide where to meddle,” said Firestick. “The way you been actin’ and runnin’ your mouth here tonight is wrong. But it ain’t nothing compared to how wrong it would be for you to try and skin that hogleg on me. That’d be the wrongest—and last—thing you ever did.”
A wild, reckless light flared in Wilson’s eyes. “I don’t see it that way. So that takes us to the point of there bein’ only one way to find out who’s got the straight of it. And I’d say the time for that is right . . . about . . . now!”
The cowboy’s right hand streaked downward for the shiny Colt riding loose in the tied-down holster on his hip. He was fast. His hand was a blur as it clamped on the grips of the shiny weapon and jerked it free.
But before the Colt’s muzzle could be raised and leveled, Firestick’s gun began to speak. Once, twice, it roared. The sound was deafening in the confines of the small room. Two slugs hammered into Wilson’s chest, an inch below his heart. The impact knocked him back against the bar, where he seemed to hang for a long moment, suspended awkwardly, before his loose, limp body started a slow slide down. The shiny Colt slipped from his dead grasp and clattered to the floor ahead of him.
CHAPTER 10
Next morning, over breakfast at the Double M, Firestick was relating to everyone the previous night’s events in the Mallory Hotel barroom.
“What about Chapman, the other Bar 6 rider?” Moosejaw wanted to know. “Did you just let him go?”
Firestick shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? True, he was part of givin’ Gus Wingate a hard time earlier on. But he didn’t join in the shootin’. Matter of fact, he even tried to talk Wilson out of goin’ ahead with it.”
“Too bad, for his pard’s sake, Chapman wasn’t more convincing,” said Beartooth.
“At least he tried,” Firestick allowed.
Around a mouthful of bacon and eggs, Moosejaw said, “How about Wingate? What became of him after the gunsmoke cleared?”
“The whole thing shook him up considerable,” Firestick replied. “Sorta jarred him out of his drunkenness. Enough, anyway, so’s he was able to climb onto his horse and head for home. Though not without takin’ a couple bottles of who-hit-John with him when he went. Accordin’ to Kate, that’s become a pretty regular thing for him lately.”
Moosejaw nodded solemnly. “Poor devil. Still tormentin’ himself for shootin’ Owen Rockwell, no matter how he got crowded into havin’ no choice. That’s what caused him to quit packin’ a gun, as well as what led to the hard drinkin’.”
“Maybe so, but from the way Firestick described it,” Beartooth pointed out, “it didn’t keep him from wantin’ to grab a gun—until he remembered, through his drunken fog, that he didn’t have one.”
“That’s a rather unfair assessment, don’t you think?” said Victoria, who was seated at the dining room table with the men of the Double M, including the vaqueros, Miguel and Jesus. “You can hardly blame a man for seeking to defend himself upon feeling threatened. Reaching for a gun came from force of habit—from always carrying one in the past. The fact that there was no longer one there to grab came from his greater will to never be put in a position where he’d have to use one again. That remains a commendable measure if you ask me.”
“I think Miss Victoria is lookin’ at it the right way,” Firestick said. “Goin’ unheeled was a choice Wingate made when he was sober and clearheaded. Grabbin’ for a gun later on, when he was in a drunken fog as you put it yourself, Beartooth, was exactly the kind of reaction he wanted to keep from turnin’ into another shooting. Except for the heavy drinkin’, I see him as a fella tryin’ hard to walk a better path after what happened with Rockwell.”
“Maybe so,” Beartooth said again. “But I think a man has to stay true to his nature, that’s all I’m gettin’ at. Somebody who’s always had a gun within reach—and I don’t mean those who make a livin’ at that kind of thing, just regular fellas, ranchers and wranglers and such. Those kind have always relied on havin’ that backup. You all of a sudden strip it away, either by their own choice or for some other reason, it’s apt to leave ’em exposed-like. Their thinkin’ is the same in a given situation, but now they don’t have all the tools to face it the way they used to. Like what happened to Wingate last night. To me, you go against your own grain that way, you’re plain puttin’ yourself at risk.”
“That only holds true,” Victoria countered, “in an environment where guns and violence are such an accepted way of life. If more honest, law-abiding men put away their guns, like Gus Wingate did, and left handling the varmints and owlhoots, as you call them, to duly appointed officers of the law . . . well, I believe the entire frontier would be better off.”
Beartooth paused with a piece of heavily buttered bread raised partway to his mouth. He smiled crookedly, enjoying seeing the color rise in Miss Victoria’s cheeks when she was on the scrap. “In other words,” he said, “what you’re suggestin’ is that the frontier needs more fellas like Firestick, Moosejaw, and me to make it a better place.”
Victoria started to make a quick reply, but then held herself in check. She could see that Beartooth was teasing her to get more of a rise out of her. Pursing her lips somewhat defiantly, all she said was, “Well. You are officers of the law, are you not?”
“You darn betcha we are,” declared Moosejaw, aiming to lighten things up a little. “Especially Firestick. He’s a real rip-snorter. All you gotta do is tally up everything that happened yesterday to see how he’s bent on clearin’ the bad hombres out of the territory—either by tossin’ ’em in the clink or by settlin’ their hash permanent-like.”
Firestick frowned. “Don’t make it sound like I enjoy those kinds of things too much, especially when it comes to takin’ a man’s life. But if a person crosses a certain line, then they’ve got to be dealt with. That’s all there is to it. If somebody don’t hold that line, then decent folks will never have the chance to live in the kind of place like Miss Victoria is hopin’ for.”
“Well