“I’ll tell you what,” Ingraham said. “Falcon, suppose you put your pistol back in your holster. I’ll count to three, then both of you can draw. A duel to the death like that would make much better story than if I wrote that you merely shot him. You would like that better, wouldn’t you, Slayton? I mean if Falcon MacCallister put his gun away and actually gave you a chance to draw against him? It wouldn’t be much of a chance, I admit—but it would be a chance. Better than him just shooting you, here and now.”
“Yes,” Slayton said.
Falcon put his pistol back in his holster.
“I mean no!” Slayton shouted, quickly, holding both his arms out in front of him, palms facing outward. “I mean no I don’t want to draw against you at all. I ain’t goin’ for my gun! Do you see? I ain’t goin’ for my gun!”
The young woman was tending to her bleeding lip, and she looked up at Slayton. One of her eyes was black and nearly swollen shut. “If it was left up to me, I would tell you to shoot him,” she said.
“No,” Slayton said. He began shaking uncontrollably, and he wet his pants. “Please, don’t kill me,” he begged. “I swear, I’ll never touch the girl again. Please, don’t kill me.”
Lucy turned to the others in the saloon. “Did you all hear the promise Mr. Slayton just made?”
“We heard it, Miss Lucy,” one of the other patrons asked.
“Will you see to it that he keeps his promise?”
“Oh, he’ll keep his promise, all right,” the cowboy who was leaning back against the bar said. “’Cause if he don’t keep it, me an’ some of the boys will find him, and we’ll string him up ourselves.”
“Go home, Mr. Slayton,” Lucy finally said in a cold voice. “And don’t come back here until you know how to behave around a lady.”
“Behave around a lady?” Slayton said in a contemptuous tone. “What do you mean around a lady?”
The next sound was the deadly double-click of a pistol sear engaging the hammer and rotating a shell under the firing pin. Once again, Falcon was holding his pistol pointed at Slayton.
“Are you going to try and say that you don’t see any ladies around here?” Falcon asked.
“What? No, no, I see a lady,” Slayton stammered. He looked around at the other bar girls. “I see a lot of ladies around here!” Still holding his hands out in front of him, as if warding Falcon off, he turned to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Falcon called.
Slayton stopped.
“Before you leave, shuck out of that gun belt. The pistol stays here,” Falcon said.
“Who the hell says that it stays here?” Slayton asked, in one last attempt at bravado.
“I say it,” Falcon replied as calmly as if he were giving the time.
Slayton paused for a moment longer, then, with shaking hands, unbuckled his gun belt. He let it drop to the floor.
“Now you can go,” Falcon said.
“When do I get it back?” Slayton asked.
“Whenever the lady says you can have it back,” Falcon said.
“Are you crazy? I ain’t leavin’ my gun with no whore!”
“I will give it back to you, Mr. Slayton, when you have learned to behave as a gentleman,” Lucy said.
As soon as Slayton stepped outside, there was a collective sigh of relief, then everyone started talking at the same time.
“Did you see that?”
“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it in my whole life.”
“Never thought I would see anyone back down Ethan Slayton,” one of the patrons said.
“Well, it wasn’t just anyone,” another said. “It was Falcon MacCallister.
Falcon reached down to pick up the gun and belt that Slayton had shed. Carrying it over to the bar, he handed it to the bartender.
“It might be a good idea to empty the bullets before you hand the pistol back to him,” Falcon suggested. “Someone with a temper like he has is liable to start shooting the moment he gets his hands back on it.”
“Don’t you worry none about that, Mr. MacCallister,” the bartender said. “I’ll have this gun empty before you can say Jack Sprat.”
“Johnny,” Lucy said.
“Yes, Miss Lucy?”
“Would you please pour these three gentleman a drink, on me?” she asked, referring to Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham.
“Yes, ma’am, I’d be glad to,” Johnny said, reaching for the house’s finest bourbon. “But you are only goin’ to pay for half of it. I’m payin’ the other half my ownself.”
Preston Ingraham’s notes from his book in progress:
