“You have a cartridge in that piece?” Falcon asked.
Manning nodded.
“Take it out.”
Slowly and deliberately, Manning rolled open the block and removed the cartridge.
“Have you had your dinner?” Falcon asked.
“What?”
“Dinner,” Falcon repeated. “Have you had your dinner tonight?”
“Uh, no. I had me some deer jerky while I was ridin’ down here,” Manning replied.
“Deer jerky’s not much of a dinner.”
“It’s all I had.”
“How about having dinner with me? I’ll buy.”
“Mister, what kind of man are you?” Manning asked. “I come here to kill you. You could’a kilt me, but instead, you’re askin’ me to have dinner with you.”
“I want you to get to know me,” Falcon said. “I want you to know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that I didn’t have anything to do with killing your boy. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder to see if you are trailing me somewhere.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Manning said. “You could’a kilt me fair and square, and you would’a been in the right, but you didn’t do it. I don’t reckon whoever back-shot my boy would be doin’ that.”
“Then you will have dinner with me?”
Manning smiled for the first time since coming into the saloon. “You reckon I could get me a piece of apple pie with that dinner?”
Falcon returned the smile. “I know a place that serves the best apple pie in Colorado,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Well, I thank you,” Manning said. “I thank you right kindly.”
The saloon remained quiet as a tomb until Falcon and Manning were gone. Then one of the cowboys said aloud what most of the others were only thinking.
“Damn! In all my borned days, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that, no way, no how.” Dozens of loud and excited conversations broke out throughout the saloon then, while at the back of the saloon the piano player resumed his music.
“Why is it, you reckon, that Tyree wanted me to think you was the one that kilt my boy?” Manning asked as he forked a piece of apple pie into his mouth.
“Tyree wants me dead,” Falcon said. “And if he can get someone else to kill me, all the better for him. And if that person gets himself killed trying to kill me, well, that’s no loss to Tyree. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t pick a fight with your son just to set this up.”
“It takes one evil son of a bitch to do somethin’ like that,” Manning said.
“You just described Jefferson Tyree.”
“You know, I should’a known better than to think you was the one who shot my boy,” Manning said as he forked a piece of apple pie into his mouth. “I’ve heard tell of you, and I ain’t never heard nothin’ bad about you before. I reckon I was just so heartbroke over losin’ my boy that I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. I hope you don’t hold that a’gin me.”
“I understand,” Falcon said. He chuckled. “By the way, Mr. Manning, if you ever decide to actually use that rifle on someone, may I give you a little advice?”
“A man’s a fool that ain’t willin’ to listen to a little advice,” Manning replied.
“Make sure you have the hammer pulled back,” Falcon said.
Manning laughed as well. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Yes, sir, I’ll remember that.”
“And, don’t go after Tyree. Believe me, he has made enough enemies in his life. Someone is going to take care of him for you. That is, unless you’re just burning to do it yourself.”
“I ain’t necessarily burnin’ to do it myself,” Manning answered. “I don’t care who kills him. As far as I’m concerned, dead is dead.”
Marshal Titus Calhoun was sitting at the desk in his office, going through wanted posters, when his brothers Travis and Troy came in.
“Titus, we got us a problem down at Maggie’s place,” Travis said.
Titus didn’t look up from his posters. “I told Maggie that if some cowboy doesn’t pay for his whore, that’s her problem, not mine. I can’t be wastin’ the city’s time or money collecting for her.”
“This ain’t nothin’ like that, Titus,” Troy said. “It’s the Clintons. The Clintons and a couple of their cowboys.”
“I thought Maggie said she wasn’t goin’ to let them in anymore.”
“That’s just it. She met them at the door and told them they couldn’t come in, but one of ’em cut her face pretty good; then they went in anyway. All the girls ran upstairs and have locked themselves in one of the rooms, and the Clintons are raisin’ hell down in the parlor.”
“How do you know all this?” Titus asked as he stood up and reached for his hat.
