“Thanks,” Betty replied as she took Smith’s arm and they started down the street.
“You’re not going in there,” Smith told her. “We’re getting a room at the hotel and you’ll wait there until this killing business is finally finished.”
“But …”
“Don’t argue with me,” Smith told her in a firm, but quiet voice. “If you were with me when I braced Dave Marble, I’d be thinking about you maybe taking a stray bullet instead of how I needed to drop Dave in his tracks. You could be my fatal distraction.”
“All right then,” she said as they approached the recommended hotel.
They had a room in less than ten minutes, and then Smith said a quick good-bye. “Betty, don’t you worry. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Dave is very cunning, very dangerous,” she warned, following him out into the hallway. “You don’t give him any chance at all or he will think of some way to kill you.”
“All right,” Smith called back over his shoulder as he hurried down the hall.
The Medallion Saloon was a pigpen with a filthy sawdust floor, cobwebs in the rafters, and a rough-looking crowd of heavy drinkers. Smith supposed he had seen the interior of worse-looking saloons, but they were beyond his immediate recollection.
He quickly spotted Dave Marble, although he might have missed identifying him if he hadn’t been told by the liveryman about how Dave had been beaten by his brother. Dave’s face was dark with angry bruises and his fist- busted lips were black smears of crusty scabs. One of Dave’s eyes was almost swollen shut and he looked as if he ought to be in a hospital instead of a saloon. The man was seated at the rearmost table with his back to the wall. He was surrounded by four other men, and although there was a deck of cards on the table, they weren’t playing.
Smith wondered if he should try to lure Dave away from his friends, then decided to hell with it. The urge for revenge was so strong in him that nothing would do except to walk right up to the outlaw and force a showdown.
“You’re Dave Marble,” he said, coming to a halt before the table.
“That’s right,” Marble said, looking up. “What of it?”
“You and your gang set fire to my house in Denver and killed my wife and son. Now I’m going to kill you.”
Marble had been slouched down in his chair, but now he straightened up in a hurry, raising his hands and saying, “Whoa, there, stranger! When did this awful thing happen?”
“A few months ago.”
“In Denver, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“I ain’t been in Denver for almost two years!”
“Stand up,” Smith rasped, hand shadowing the butt of his six-gun.
“Now wait a damn minute here!” Dave shouted. “You got the wrong damned man!”
“No I haven’t,” Smith assured him with a cold grin. “I already killed Skoal and Trabert, and now I’m going to kill you!”
Dave gulped and developed a twitch at the left corner of his mouth. “Now … now I don’t know who you are, mister, but you’ve got no quarrel with me. I tell you, I haven’t been to Denver in two years. You got the wrong man.”
“Stand up and make your play, or take a bullet sitting down,” Smith commanded, ignoring the protests. “Either way is the same to me.”
Dave threw up his hands. “If you kill me, it’ll be murder and you’ll hang! Ain’t that right, boys?”
His companions nervously nodded their heads.
“For the last time,” Smith ordered, “stand up and fight!”
Dave jumped up, heaving the table away from himself into Smith and diving for cover as he reached for his six-gun. The heavy table struck Smith in the groin, knocking him off balance. Before he could recover, a shot rang out and Smith felt a searing fire explode against his shoulder. He went reeling backward and then crashed over another table. His gun spilled from his hand and his head struck the dirty sawdust floor. Smith knew that he was about to become a dead man.
Dave Marble jumped forward, smoking gun clenched in his big hand. “You sonofabitch! Did you really get lucky enough to kill my friends?”
“Damn right!” Smith choked.
“You’re going to die real slow,” Dave said, raising his six-gun and taking aim at Smith’s knee. “I’ve got five bullets left in this gun and you’re going to feel every damn one of them.”
Smith tried to kick out and knock Dave over, but the man was smart enough to stay out of reach. He laughed scornfully at Smith’s feeble effort and again took careful aim.
The Winchester clenched in Betty’s fists boomed and caused Dave Marble to take an exaggerated goose step backward. His chin dropped to his shirt and he stared down at the hole in his chest as a bright crimson trickle of blood sprang from his mouth. Then, with his legs beginning to buckle, he looked up and stared at the woman standing in the doorway.
“Betty?” he croaked, trying hard to focus.
“That’s right.”
