that had pooled in his palm. When he looked back at Matt, there was an almost whimsical smile on his face.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I’ve been kilt.”
“Yeah, you have,” Matt replied, still holding the gun.
Houston slid down into a sitting position, his position supported by the bar itself. His right arm stretched out beside him, the pistol free of his hand except for the trigger finger that was curled through the trigger guard. The eye-burning, acrid smoke of two discharges hung in a gray-blue cloud just below the ceiling.
Matt turned back to the bar, then slid his beer toward the bartender.
“I believe I’m going to need something a little stronger than beer,” he said.
The bartender drew a whiskey and handed it to him.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, Mr. Jensen. If you want anything, just ask,” the bartender said.
Matt tossed the whiskey down.
“What’s your name, barkeep?” he asked.
“It’s Moore, Mr. Jensen. Harry Moore.”
“Did you know that gentlemen, Mr. Moore?”
“Only by his reputation,” Moore said.
“What kind of reputation was that?”
“He was fast with a gun,” Moore said. “Folks said he was the fastest.”
“That’s what folks said, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” Moore said.
“And what do you say?”
“I say folks was wrong.”
Chapter Ten
Behind Matt, the silence was broken as everyone was engaged in spirited and animated discussion about what they had just seen. The gunsmoke had cleared out but the smell of burnt gunpowder still hung in the air as Marshal Drew, the town marshal, arrived.
“What happened here?” the marshal asked. Drew was in his late fifties or early sixties. He was clean-shaven, bald-headed, and with a pronounced paunch. Before the war he had been a Texas Ranger, but when the Texas Rangers were broken up after the war he wandered from town to town, and eventually from state to state, here working as a sheriff’s deputy, there as a policeman or city marshal. He had come to Sussex because it was a small town and he hoped to close out his career in a place that offered a minimum amount of stress.
“Houston tried to brace this fella,” Moore said.
“Houston started the fight?”
“That’s right. Houston drew first.”
“You’re telling me that Houston drew first, but this man still beat him?”
“That’s right, Marshal,” one of the saloon patrons said. “Harry is tellin’ it like it is.”
Marshal Drew stroked his chin as he looked at Houston. Death had made the young would-be gunman’s face appear slack-jawed and distorted.
“Mister, if you beat Houston fair and square the way these folks are tellin’ it, you must be some kind of a gunfighter,” Drew said. “What’s your name?”
“Jensen,” Matt replied. “Matt Jensen.”
“Matt Jensen? Sumbitch! Did Houston know who he was tanglin’ with?”
“He called me by name,” Matt said.
Marshal Drew looked back toward Houston. “I reckon you run across punks like Houston here more times than you can count, don’t you? Tryin’ to make a name for himself.”
“From time to time,” Matt said. “Most men have more sense than he did. And less guts,” he added in a begrudging acknowledgment of Houston’s misplaced courage. “But I don’t think he was trying to make a name for himself. He had another motive.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me he was hired to kill me.”
“Hired to kill you? By who?” the marshal asked.
“I’d like to know the answer to that as well.”
“Are you here to meet with Mr. Frewen?” Marshal Drew asked.
“Yes, how did you know that?”
“I’m the one who suggested he get in touch with you.”
“Do we know each other?” Matt asked.
