“Why don’t you just break his legs or arms,” the blacksmith suggested. “Or use my hammer and smash both of Ford’s hands so that he can’t use a pistol ever again. You could cripple or maim him so he’d be nearly harmless and leave him here. That way, you’d not have to worry about being ambushed and justice would still be served. What do you think?”
“There’s a big reward on him,” Trout interjected. “Me and Marshal Wheeler want it.”
“You can’t spend it if you’re dead,” the blacksmith said. “You see, Deputy, a very important lesson in life is that sometimes a man has to take his losses and go on, or else get stubborn and lose even more … maybe even his life.”
Longarm finished his plate and gulped down his coffee. He surveyed the town, feeling a lot of angry eyes directed at him. “You know something,” Longarm said, turning back to the blacksmith and giving him a cigar. “I appreciate your advice. It’s funny how some things look so clear to one man while the other is blind to ‘em.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think I’m a fool not to take your advice and leave Oakley here in Lone Pine. I think you’re a fool if you work your whole life and allow one pretty woman after another to clean out your hard-earned savings.”
The blacksmith shoved the cigar in his mouth. “Yeah, Marshal, but there’s a couple of big, big differences between your foolishness and my foolishness.”
“And that is?”
“I’m havin’ a hell of a good time with them young women while my money lasts, but you’re not having any fun at all hauling Ford Oakley off to some judge. And furthermore, a young thing isn’t going to kill me, but Ford or his friends are damn sure going to kill YOU.”
Longarm set his empty plate and coffee cup down and came to his feet. “Well,” he said, preparing to shake the dust of Lone Pine and be on his way, “you’re about half right.”
The blacksmith’s eyebrows shot up in question as he lit the cigar and inhaled deeply. “Just what does that mean?”
“I think that some pretty young woman will finally be the death of you.”
The blacksmith grinned and blew streams of smoke through his nostrils. Then he laughed and said, “Marshal Long, I sure as hell hope so!”
They both chuckled, and then Longarm picked up his Winchester rifle, climbed back up on the wagon seat, and called, “Deputy Trout?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Get inside with Oakley and shut the door. We’re getting out of this miserable damned town.”
“Yes, sir!”
Longarm waited until he heard the back door slam and then, with the Winchester resting across his lap, he whacked the lines down on the rumps of his wheel horses and the medicine wagon lurched forward.
“Marshal, you’re going to rot in Hell!” a hard case yelled from the door of a saloon.
Longarm kept his eyes restlessly shifting back and forth. He half expected someone to open fire on him from a dim alley or an open doorway or maybe even a rooftop.
He did not expect a shot to come from a big stack of yellow straw. Too late, he saw the barrel of a rifle poke out of the straw and then spit smoke and flame. Longarm felt a slug strike him in his left side. He quickly set the brake and in the same motion tried to draw up his rifle, but a second bullet struck and knocked the Winchester out of his hand.
“Uggh!” he grunted in pain as another rifle boomed and a splinter from his seat stabbed into his thigh.
Longarm knew then that he was a dead man if he didn’t get off the wagon and get off it fast. He threw himself sideways, and a bullet punched through the window at exactly the place where his back should have been.
When Longarm hit the dirt, he was grunting with pain and scrambling for the cover of a building, but another shot clipped his leg and he fell and rolled behind a water trough.
His horses panicked, but the brake was set and they did not run. The wagon’s back door flew open and Deputy Trout came flying outside. He struck the dirt with his gun in his fist and began to fire wildly in all directions. He was fast, all right, but foolish.
“Take cover!” Longarm cried. “Gawddammit, get down and take-“
Trout’s lean body began to jerk spasmodically as slugs poured into him from all directions.
“Marshal!” Trout screamed, sagging to his knees and emptying his last slug into the dirt.
Longarm jumped up, but a bullet creased his skull and he fell back down, but not before he’d seen the look of stark terror on Deputy Trout’s face.
Longarm raised up and fired until his gun was empty. Then he ducked again and began to reload. “Sonofabitch!” Longarm swore in helpless fury. “I hate this town!”
The shooting ended as abruptly as it had begun. Longarm, bleeding from three bullet wounds and feeling as if his chances of surviving another minute or two were slim to none, waited, grimly determined to sell his life dearly.
But the shooting was over. No one came to finish him off, and after a few minutes, a piano in one of the saloons began to tinkle and a saloon girl began to sing “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” Longarm peeked around the water trough and saw Deputy Rick Trout’s riddled body. The young man was staring up at the sky and he was dead.
Longarm twisted around and saw people coming back out on the street. They were all staring at him and the dead deputy from Gold Mountain. None were laughing, but they sure didn’t look disapointed either.
“Well if this just isn’t a pisser,” Longarm whispered, gripping the edge of the water trough and pulling himself
