“Damn, Maggie, you’ve pointed to everyone but Ray. Are you sure it wasn’t Ray?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t him,” Maggie said. “I would have remembered if it was him.”
By now, the five other women had come downstairs. Even if Titus did not know what kind of an establishment this was, he would have been able to tell by the makeup and dress, or more accurately the undress, of the women.
“Were any of you women hurt?” Titus asked.
“No,” one of them answered. “We were scared, but we weren’t hurt.”
“Did any of you see which one of them cut Maggie?”
The women all looked at each other, then shrugged.
“None of us seen it,” the oldest of the bunch said. She looked nearly forty, though Titus knew for a fact that she was not yet thirty. The dissipation of her occupation had taken a severe toll on what had once been a very pretty young girl.
“Well, pick one of them,” Titus said. “I can’t make an arrest unless you press charges.”
“Oh, I’m not going to do that,” Maggie said.
“You aren’t going to do what?”
“I’m not going to press charges,” she said.
“Why the hell not?”
“I’m trying to run a business here, Marshal,” Maggie said. “If I pressed charges every time someone got a little rowdy, I wouldn’t have any customers.”
“Ha!” Cletus said. “I reckon that means you ain’t got nothin’ on us. So, why don’t you just go on back to marshalin’ and leave us alone.”
“Get out of here,” Calhoun said.
“We’re goin’, we’re goin’,” Cletus said. “Come on, boys, let’s go over to the Hog Waller. The girls over there ain’t as pretty, but they’re a hell of a lot more friendly.”
“No,” Titus said.
“No? What do you mean, no? No what?”
“No, you aren’t goin’ over to the Hog Waller,” Titus said. “When I told you to get out of here, I mean go on back to your ranch. I don’t want you in my town tonight.”
“You got no right to run us out of town,” Cletus complained.
“You’ll either leave town, or spend the night in jail,” Titus said.
“On what charges?” Cletus asked. “You already heard Maggie say she wasn’t going to press no charges.”
“I’ll press charges myself.”
“Oh, yeah? And just what would those charges be?”
“I would charge you with pissing me off,” Titus said. “Now, go on, get!”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Titus looked over at Ray. “There ain’t neither one of you got as much sense as your youngest brother. But Billy isn’t here, and you seem to be a little smarter than Cletus. Get him out of here, Ray. Get him out of here, or I’ll throw his ass in jail, then shoot him in the middle of the night for trying to escape.”
“What?” Cletus shouted. “Ray, did you hear what that son of a bitch just said?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Ray replied. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, I—”
That was as far as Cletus got before Titus pointed his pistol at Cletus, then pulled back the hammer. The clicking sound of the pistol being cocked stopped Cletus in mid-sentence.
“Come on, Cletus,” Ray said. “Let’s go.”
With his eyes glaring hatred at Marshal Calhoun and his two brothers, Cletus reluctantly followed his own brother outside.
Titus, Travis, and Troy went out on the front porch with them, then watched them mount up and ride away, amidst the cheers and catcalls of the crowd gathered there.
“Troy, Travis, get yourselves a rifle,” Titus said. “If any one of those men come back into town tonight, shoot them on sight.”
“Gladly,” Travis said.
“Thank you, Marshal,” Maggie said. She smiled. “I thank all three of you. In fact, you three have one free visit coming,” she added. “You can choose any girl you want.”
Overhearing Maggie’s offer, the men in the crowd laughed out loud.
“What about us, Maggie?” one of the men called. “Don’t we get a free visit?”
“Sure,” Maggie said.
“Great!”
