“I meant, have you hunted the buffalo?”
“Oh. Yes, I have. But the buffalo are getting very scarce now. I fear we have about hunted them out. During the building of the railroad they hired hunters to provide meat for the workers, and there was almost wholesale slaughter. And that’s a shame. They are really magnificent animals.”
“I should like to see one in the wild.”
“I imagine you will on your land,” Falcon said. He took in all the other animal heads. “All these as well.”
Duff and Falcon both ordered pot-roasted buffalo with potatoes, onions, and corn on the cob.
“This is an ear of corn, isn’t it? How does one eat it?”
“Like this,” Falcon explained, spreading butter on the corn, then adding salt and pepper. He picked it up and began biting the corn off.
“My word,” Duff said. He followed suit, took a bite, then smiled. “It is quite good,” he said.
“Stay here long enough, you’ll learn to eat properly,” Falcon teased.
After supper, Duff declared that he would like to take a walk around town to have a look.
“I’ll come with you,” Falcon ordered.
Duff held up his hand. “There’s no need,” he said. “I mean, I’m not trying to stop you, if you genuinely want to come with me. But don’t feel that you must.”
“All right,” Falcon said. “I tell you what. Take your walk around town, then if you feel like it, drop into the White Horse. We’ll have a drink together before we turn in.”
“I would enjoy that,” Duff replied.
The night air felt good as Duff strolled along the board sidewalk. He could hear piano music from the White Horse. Then, as he walked farther, that piano faded out and he heard another piano from a different saloon. Most of the buildings along the street were dark as the businesses were closed, but there were at least six brightly lit buildings, every one of them a drinking establishment.
As he reached the end of the sidewalk, he could hear the sounds from the houses that were close in. A baby was crying somewhere, a dog was barking, and he heard the loud, complaining voice of a woman berating someone. He assumed it was her husband.
He crossed the street here, and then started back down on the sidewalk on the other side, his boots clopping loudly on the wide plank boards. Toward the middle of town there were a few greenish-glowing gas streetlights, and from the saloons, light spilled through the front windows and doors to project clearly defined gleaming squares on the walk and out into the street.
He heard the clopping sound of a horse coming toward him, but he couldn’t see it as yet. Then the horse passed under the first street lamp and he saw a rider, wearing a duster, slumped in the saddle. He watched the horse until it passed through all the lighted area, then disappeared into the distant darkness.
Roy Jameson saw him when he passed under the first street lamp. He was too far away now, but he was coming closer. He pulled his pistol, wincing with the pain of grasping the handle. The pain was bearable, in fact, almost welcome, as it underscored what he was about to do. He cocked the pistol, then braced it against the wall. Just a few more steps now, and he couldn’t miss.
Duff saw a glint of silver light on the boardwalk and looking down, saw that it was a coin. He bent down to pick it up.
Concurrent with the sound of a pistol shot, he felt the air pressure of a bullet passing but an inch above him. Had he not bent over for the coin, the bullet would have hit him in the head. Pulling his pistol, he instinctively fell, then rolled off the walk into the street. A second shot hit the walk, plunging through the board, but sending out a little shower of splinters into his face.
This time Duff was able to see the flare of the muzzle flash, so he knew where the shot had come from. Keeping as close to the ground as he could, Duff inched forward on his stomach, his movement shielded by the elevation of the walk. When he reached the first watering trough, he moved over to get behind it.
Now, with his position improved, he looked back toward the gap between the two buildings where he had seen the muzzle flash. It was much darker there than out on the walk itself because the buildings blocked out the street lamp. It was so dark that Duff wasn’t even sure that whoever had shot at him was still there. He was going to have to smoke him out, and there was only one way to do that.
Cocking his pistol and taking a deep breath, he stood up.
“Here I am,” he called.
As he hoped he would, his adversary, whoever it was, stepped out onto the walk with a scream of rage. He fired at Duff, and Duff returned fire. Duff saw the man drop his gun, then grab his chest. He fell back against the wall, then slid to the ground.
By now several people had come into the street. The first to approach him was wearing a badge on his vest, and it flashed in the light as he approached with a gun in his hand.
“Drop your gun,” the lawman called.
“Aye,” Duff said, dropping his pistol as ordered.
A hearing was held the next morning in the courthouse to determine the circumstances surrounding the shooting incident on Central Street the night before, resulting in the death of Roy Jameson. The Honorable Anthony Keller, judge of probate, was presiding. Billy Ray Rawles was the first to testify.
“This here foreign feller shot Roy in the hand yesterday for no reason at all. So it ain’t no surprise to me but that he decided to finish the job,” Billy Ray said. “If you ask me, it’s murder, pure an’ simple and I think the son of bitch ought to be took out to a tree and hung.” He pointed to Falcon MacCallister. “And this here feller was in cahoots with him. Yesterday, after the foreigner shot my friend in the hand, this here man pulled his gun and made ever’one in the whole saloon put their guns into the piano.”
“In the piano? I don’t understand.”
“He made the piano player open up the back of his piano and had us all drop our guns down inside.”
“Is that right, Mr. MacCallister?” the judge asked Falcon.
