“Cummins,” Kyle said. His words were cold, flat, menacing. “As a United States marshal, and acting upon the authority of Governor Fremont, I am here to inform you that your office of city marshal, and the offices of all deputies under you, have been vacated. You no longer have any legal standing. In addition, I am placing all of you under arrest.”
Cummins didn’t turn around, didn’t even look up at the mirror. Instead, he just stared into his glass of beer.
“Now just what makes you think I’m going to let you do that?” Cummins asked.
“There’s no letting to it, Cummins,” Kyle said. “We’re doing it.”
“You and that murderer with you?”
“This man is a deputy U.S. marshal,” Kyle said.
“A deputy U.S. marshal, is he? And what does that mean?”
“That means I can kill every damn one of you and it’ll be legal,” Matt said in a cold, deadly voice.
“I’m going to ask all of you now to unbuckle your gun belts and let them drop to the floor,” Kyle said.
“No, thank you. I got no plans to go hang.”
“You’re going to die at the end of a rope, or you’re going to die here today,” Kyle said.
Cummins turned away from the bar and looked toward Odom. Odom and Cummins were at opposite ends of the bar. Jackson and Crack were also in the saloon, Jackson near the piano, Crack by the little potbellied stove. The four men were all spread out, which was going to make them more difficult targets than they would have been if they were closer together.
“Could be that you two are the ones that’s goin’ to do the dyin’,” Cummins said. “You might’a noticed that there’s four of us and only two of you.”
“Marshal, you take Cummins,” Matt said flatly. “I’ll kill Odom.”
Saying that he would “kill” rather than that he would “take” Odom was deliberate on Matt’s part, and it had the desired effect. He saw Odom flinch slightly; then he saw Odom’s tongue slide out to lick his dry lips.
Matt’s comment was followed by a long pause, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock that stood against the back wall.
“Now!” Cummins suddenly shouted, and he, Odom, Crack, and Jackson all started for their guns.
Matt reacted to the sudden move quickly, drawing his own pistol faster than he had ever drawn it before. He had his own gun out in time to take quick but deliberate aim and shoot Odom in the gut. Odom, the barrel of his own pistol just topping the holster, pulled the trigger, shooting lead into the floor. A red stain began to spread just over his belt buckle.
Cummins had his gun out before Kyle and his pistol shot cracked an instant after Matt’s. The bullet from Cummins’s pistol hit Kyle in the left shoulder, even as Kyle was pulling the trigger of his own gun. Kyle’s bullet hit Cummins in the chest and the outlaw marshal went down.
Even as Odom’s gun was clattering to the floor and he was putting his hands over his belly wound, watching the blood spill through his fingers, Matt was turning his attention to Jackson and Crack. But, because they were some distance apart, he had to be very deliberate in selecting his target, so he went after Jackson first, getting what was his second shot off, even before Jackson could fire his first. Matt’s bullet hit Jackson in the forehead, and he pitched back crashing into the piano, raising a cacophonous and discordant clang before bouncing off and landing on the floor.
An acrid, blue smoke from the discharge of the weapons formed a big cloud that was already beginning to drift toward the ceiling.
Knowing that Crack was behind him and had not yet fired, Matt threw himself down just as Crack did fire. Crack’s bullet fried through the air exactly where Matt had been but an instant earlier.
Firing up from the floor, Matt’s bullet hit Crack under the chin, then burst out through the top of his head, emitting a detritus of blood, skull bone fragments, and brain matter.
Getting up from the floor but still holding on to his smoking gun, Matt looked over at Marshal Kyle. Kyle was leaning against the bar, holding his hand over the bleeding wound.
“How bad is it?” Matt asked.
“It hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll live,” Kyle replied.
Hearing Odom groan, Matt walked over to look down at him.
“You know why I shot you in the gut instead of the head?” Matt asked.
“Because you couldn’t hit me in the head,” Odom answered. He tried to laugh, but it came out a barking cough. Little flecks of blood sprayed out on his lips and on his shirt.
“Oh, I could have,” Matt said. He stood up and rammed his pistol back in his holster. “But I wanted you to die real slow.”
“Why?” Odom asked. “Why did you take such a personal interest in killing me?”
“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand,” Matt said.
From outside, there came the sound of dozens of footfalls on the boardwalk. Both Matt and Kyle whirled toward the batwing doors, their pistols raised and ready.
“No, hold it, hold it! Don’t shoot!” a man shouted, pausing just outside the batwing doors. He had both hands up to show that he wasn’t armed.
“It’s all right, Jensen, I know him,” Kyle said. “Bascomb, what are you doing here?”
“We came to check up on you, Marshal,” Bascomb said.
“Well, you’d better get out of here before the rest of Cummins’s deputies get here.”
Bascomb smiled. “You don’t have to be worryin’ none about them, Marshal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Duke, Warren, and Gates are in jail,” Bascomb said. “Soon as the folks comin’ out of the saloon told us what was goin’ on, we figured them boys would probably be goin’ down there to help out Cummins. So we just waited for ’em, and got the drop on them.”
“You got a doctor in this town?” Jensen asked.
“Yeah, we do,” Bascomb answered.
“Well, quit standing here palavering. Go get the doctor for the marshal.”
“Oh,” Bascomb said. “Oh, yes, I didn’t think about that.” Turning, he yelled up the street. “Get Dr. Urban up here! Get Dr. Urban up here to tend to the marshal.”
“To hell with tendin’ to the marshal, let the son of a bitch die!” someone called back.
“I’m talkin’ about U.S. marshal Kyle,” Bascomb replied. “Marshal Cummins is already dead.”
Matt waited until Dr. Urban arrived, then stood by as the doctor examined the wound.
“How bad is it, Doc?” Matt asked.
“Not bad at all,” the doctor said as he began cleaning the wound. “Looks like the bullet just left a little crease. If it doesn’t putrefy, it should heal up quickly.”
“That’s good to know,” Matt said. He took the badge off his shirt and handed it to the marshal.
“You are welcome to keep that deputy’s badge,” Kyle said. “I can always use a good man like you. The law can always use a good man like you.”
“I appreciate it, Marshal,” Matt said. “But I think I’ll just be getting on.”
“Where are you headed?”
Matt paused for a moment, then smiled. “You know—I haven’t really given that any thought.
“What about me?” Odom asked.
“What about you?” Matt replied.
“Ain’t you goin’ to let the doctor look at me?”
“It wouldn’t do any good for the doctor to see you. You’re going to die no matter what he does,” Matt said.
“But you can’t just leave me here to die on the floor,” Odom said.
Matt thought of Suzie Dobbs, and all the others, killed and injured in the train wreck caused by this man.
“You can’t leave me like this!” Odom shouted again.
Matt started for the door. Then, just before he left, he looked back at Odom. “Yeah, I can.”