“Give it up, Fargo!” the sheriff called from the front porch of the express office. “Your horses is gone, one of your men is down, and none of the rest of you is goin’ anywhere!”
“The hell you say!” Fargo shouted back, throwing a shot toward the front of the express office.
Falcon fired five quick shots then. He didn’t hit anyone, but he didn’t intend to. Instead, he put each bullet within an inch of the boots of each of the five men, showing them that he could kill them at will.
“Holy shit, Fargo, they’ve got us surrounded!” one of the men said.
“Give it up, Fargo!” the sheriff shouted again. Fargo hesitated for just a second; then he put his hands up.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Fargo shouted. “We give up!”
“Throw down your gun, Fargo. That goes for all of you,” the sheriff added.
Looking toward Falcon, with a snarl on his lips, Fargo threw down his gun.
“Tell your men to do the same thing,” the sheriff shouted. He made a motion with his own pistol. “Do it now!”
“Dagen, Ponci, Monroe, Casey, do like the man says,” Fargo ordered. “Throw your guns down.”
“I don’t give up my gun for nobody,” Dagen said with an angry growl.
“Have your own way, mister,” Falcon said. “Throw down your gun and live, or hang on to it and die. Makes no difference to me.” He aimed his pistol at Dagen and pulled the hammer back.
“Dagen, don’t be a fool,” Fargo said. “Look around you!”
Dagen and the other outlaws looked around as Fargo had instructed. By now several others, emboldened by Falcon’s quick move to join the fray, had come from houses and buildings as well, and they were all holding rifles, pistols, or shotguns. The outlaws were surrounded and vastly outnumbered.
“Shit,” Dagen said. He dropped his gun and, one by one, the others joined him, dropping their guns as well. Now, like Fargo Ford, they put their hands in the air.
“George!” a woman screamed, coming out of the express office. She knelt beside the man who was belly-down on the porch. “Oh, George!” she cried.
The woman turned him over; then, seeing that he was dead, she began crying uncontrollably.
“You boys are all goin’ to hang for this,” the sheriff said, coming toward them. “George Snyder was a good man, with a wife and two kids. Yes, sir, you’re all goin’ to hang, and I’m goin’ to enjoy watchin’ it. Wilcox, you and Baker take these men down the street and throw their asses in jail.”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff, we’ll be glad to,” one of the deputies replied. “Come along, fellas,” he said to the outlaws. “We’ve got a nice place all picked out and waitin’ for you.”
Seeing that everything was in hand, Falcon put his pistol back in his holster. The sheriff stepped down off the porch and started toward Falcon
“I don’t know where you come from, mister, but I’m glad you showed up. I’m Sheriff Ferrell.”
“Falcon MacCallister,” Falcon said.
“MacCallister?” the sheriff replied suspiciously. He stroked his chin. “MacCallister? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that name.”
“I had some paper out on me a long time ago,” Falcon said. “But it’s been recalled.”
Sheriff Ferrell shook his head. “No, I don’t think it was anything like that. Never mind. Whatever it was, it’ll come to me.”
Falcon nodded toward the men who were being led away. “They were after the money shipment, I take it?” Falcon asked.
“Yes, it looks like it. George got in fifteen thousand dollars in cash yesterday,” the sheriff replied. Again, he got a suspicious expression on his face. “By the way, Mr. MacCallister, you want to tell me how is it that you know about the money shipment? I thought it was supposed to be a secret.”
“It was rather hard to keep it a secret from someone who came in on the train yesterday,” Falcon said. “I saw you taking the pouch from the express car. Then, I played cards with George Snyder last night and some of the men around the table mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. Too bad things like this get talked about,” Sheriff Ferrell said. He pointed to the dead man and the weeping woman. By now a few others had come up to aid and comfort Mrs. Snyder. “If I had my way, nobody but the express company would have even known when money was being shipped.”
“Is that his wife?” Falcon asked. He pointed to an attractive woman who was on her knees beside the body.
“Yes. Her name is Emma Snyder. You say you met George last night?”
“I did. He was down at the saloon, and I got into a friendly game of cards with him and some of the other fellas from town.”
“Well, it’s too bad you just met him. You never got to know what a good man he is, or was,” Sheriff Ferrell said. He sighed. “I guess Fargo Ford thought that by hitting the express office early in the morning, nobody would be around. And ordinarily, he would’ve been right, but it just so happened that George had invited me ’n my deputies over for breakfast this mornin’, so we just happened to be here when Fargo and his gang showed up. The Snyders live there in the back, you see.”
“You called the leader of the outlaws Fargo?”
“Yes, Fargo Ford,” Sheriff Ferrell said. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
Falcon shook his head. “’Fraid not.”
