As he ejected the fired brass casing and slipped in a fresh cartridge. Scott wondered what it meant that he knew about things like that. In the 27th century. it was completely useless, trivial knowledge, and yet he had researched such obscure facts with relentless fascination, long before it ever occurred to him that he might one day enlist in the Temporal Corps. Why, in a time when lead projectile weapons had been obsolete for several hundred years, had he become so fascinated with them? Why had he devoted so many long hours to practicing with them, going to all the trouble of making his own bullets from scratch, only to perfect an arcane form of marksmanship and self-defense that would have no use whatsoever for him in modern life? Why had he been so intensely interested in the history of the Old West, more so than in that of any other time, and in the lives of the men who became frontier legends? Was it fate?
All his life. Scott had felt he had been born in the wrong time. Then when he had first clocked into this temporal scenario, he had felt suddenly and inexplicably at home, as if this was where he truly belonged. In the other timeline, he-or his twin-apparently did belong here. Maybe that was the anomaly. Maybe he should have been born in this time in the first place, only because of some temporal disruption brought about by time travelers before him, something had gone wrong and he had been born about eight hundred years too late. A man out of time, returned by Fate to the time in which he really belonged, completing some sort of temporal cycle, a missing piece of the puzzle finally dropped into place. Only now that he was here, was it his fate to live or die? The fate of billions of future lives could rest on the answer to that question.
He held the handsome, engraved and silver-plated Colt in his hand. It felt as if it had always belonged there. He had dreamed of owning such a revolver all his life. He thumbed back the hammer and sat for a long moment in silent thought. What would happen if he stuck the barrel in his mouth, angled upward, and squeezed the trigger? The big. 45 caliber bullet would smash through the roof of his mouth and into his brain in a inert fraction of a second. There probably wouldn’t be time to feel any pain.
Perhaps that was the solution. If he killed himself, then he wouldn’t be able to do anything to upset the balance of the timestream and bring on that disaster in the future. If he was, in fact, at the center of the whole thing, then killing himself might be the perfect solution to it all. It would absolve Priest, Cross and Delaney of having to do it. And if it could save lives, then he was prepared to do it.
But, on the other hand, what if that was exactly the wrong move? What if the act of his suicide triggered off whatever was supposed to happen? But, if that were the case, then Priest, Cross and Delaney would be in a position to do something about it. To stop him, perhaps. Wasn’t that what Darkness had told them? In that case, maybe he should go ahead and do it… and see if they arrived to stop him in the nick of time. Only if they didn’t
Scott was in an agony of indecision. He had never wanted to live so much as he did now. He had never felt as vibrantly alive as he did now. He had never been in love the way he was with Jenny. It was as if, after all those years of living out of time, he had finally found himself. Only what was he to do?
He started at the loud knocking on his door. He picked up his other gun and cocked it.
“Who is it?”
“Wyatt Earp. Open up, Kid.”
Scott holstered his pistols and went to open the door. The tall figure of the marshal confronted him.
“You’ll have to come with me. Kid.” said Wyatt.
Scott stared at him. Then he looked down and saw the gun.
“I’m putting you under arrest for the murder of Ross Demming. Hand over your guns.”
The two rustlers waiting in the alley never knew what hit them. One moment, they were standing near the entrance to the alley, staying out of sight and keeping a watch out for Delaney, the next, they were suddenly being grabbed from behind by black-suited commandos. They felt hands being clapped over their mouths and then an agonizing, incandescent pain as the razor sharp, nine-inch combat blades did their grisly work. Their bodies slumped to the ground. Without wasting any time, the S.O.G. commandos quickly strapped warp discs to the corpses’ wrists and clocked the bodies out. One of them spoke into his wrist communicator.
“Mattick to Team Leader.”
“Go ahead, Mattick
Two down.”
“Roger. Stand by.”
On Third Street, just around the corner of the Aztec Rooming House, two gunmen were shocked out of their wits when two black-uniformed men in commando masks suddenly appeared before them out of nowhere. That one second of shock was plenty of time for the two men who clocked in behind them to move up and slit their throats.
“Sagretti to Team Leader.
“Go ahead, Sagretti.”
“Four down, two to go.”
“That’s a roger. Stand by and stay out of sight. Okay, Miller, Donninger. you got a clear shot at the two out front?’
“That’s a roger.”
“Drop ’em.”
The two commandos stationed on the roof across the street from the rooming house fired. One of the rustlers slapped his hand to his chest.
“Ow! Jeez, damn skeeters-” then he spasmed and dropped dead as the fast-acting poison did its work. His partner collapsed a fraction of a second later. Capiletti spoke into his radio. “Okay. Sagretti, get those bodies out of there! Now! Move it!”
The black-clad commandos blended with the shadows as they quickly ran around the corner and up to the fallen rustlers. Seconds later, the bodies were gone.
“Well done. Lieutenant.” said Stone. He pulled back his sleeve and spoke into his own radio. “Listen up. This is Stone. I’m going in Give me five seconds once I go through the front door, then move in behind me. We’re taking that house. Miller, Donninger, you keep to your posts. Cover the street.”
“Roger. Captain.-
“Okay, here we go.” said Stone. He turned to Capiletti who, unlike the other commandos, was dressed in period clothes He was wearing jeans, a cotton shirt, boots and a Stetson hat. Only beneath his coat, his holsters held a laser and a plasma pistol. “Let’s go.” said Stone.
Together. the two men started across the street, heading toward the rooming house.
O’Fallon stood among the crowd, looking down at the body of Ross Demming. There was a slight tic at the corner of his mouth. He balled his hands into fists. Idiots, he thought. Goddamn idiots! A simple job, one shooter on the street, another on the roof to cover him. How in hell could they possibly have bungled it? And where in hell was Brocius?
“All right, move aside.” said Wyatt Earp, pushing his way through the crowd. He looked down at the body sprawled out on the street. “Demming.” he said, with a grimace. “Had a feelin’ he’d wind up like this, sooner or later “
He bent down and picked up the Winchester that was lying next to the corpse. He checked it. “It hasn’t been fired.” He glanced around at the crowd. “Anybody see what happened?”
“I saw the whole thing. Marshal,” said O’Fallon. “It was the Montana Kid. He shot Ross down in cold blood. Never even gave him a chance.”
“He’s lying!” Jenny shouted.
Wyatt turned toward her. “What do you know about this, Jenny?”
“I was right here.” she said. “I was leaving the saloon with Scott when Curly Bill came up behind us and jerked his pistol!”
“Then what’s Demming doing here?” asked Wyatt.