hotel. 'Not a whole heck of a lot, sir.'
MATTHEW HAD PLACED HIS chair so he could keep watch on the front of the hotel diagonally across the street from his marshal's office. The westering of the sun had caused the shadow of the hotel's false front to wriggle most of the way across the rutted street by the time Bobby-My-Boy slammed out through the bat-winged bar doors and lurched down towards the Mercantile. Clearly he'd been drinking, and Matthew worried that Ruth Lillian might disobey her father's instructions to stay upstairs. He was trying to decide between following B. J.'s orders to keep an eye on things, and obeying his impulse to run down there to make sure she wasn't in danger, when Bobby-My-Boy came back out onto the street clutching to his chest a toppling stack of small boxes hooked clumsily beneath his chin. That would be the ammunition Mr. Kane kept for the miners. Bobby-My-Boy returned to the Traveller's Welcome, and for the next hour Matthew heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He was watching the sun melt, dull red and plump, onto the foothills, his eyes gritty with staring toward the brightness, when his breath suddenly caught in his throat. Lieder was crossing the street, heading directly for the marshal's office. Matthew barely had time to drag his chair to beside the table and snatch up a Ringo Kid book before the door banged open and Lieder was standing on the threshold, silhouetted by the setting sun. Matthew looked up from his book, blinking and shielding his eyes with his hand. 'What is it? What do you want?'
'So you're the marshal, are you? Well, how about that!' His tone was yeasty with derision.
'Shoot, no, I'm not the marshal!' Matthew said with a dry chuckle. 'This place was abandoned when I come to town. Its roof looked pretty tight, and the privy hole hadn't caved in, so I… well, I just moved in.'
'I'm awful disappointed. I was looking forward to an epic face-off: me against that famed and feared lawman, the marshal of Twenty-Mile.'
Matthew forced a deprecatory laugh. 'Twenty-Mile ain't had a marshal since heck was a pup. So… ah… have you decided what you're going to do?'
Lieder glared at him for a moment, then he laughed aloud. 'That's a pretty subtle way you've got of prying information out of a man, boy. You'd make one hell of a spy.' He chuckled. 'No, I haven't decided… other than to make myself comfortable until that silver shipment comes along to fill my war chest. Meanwhile, I'll just gather up all the guns in town, because I am concerned for the welfare of my fellow man. Everybody carrying weapons inevitably leads to dispute and conflict. But once all the guns are in my hands, the weeds of dispute will blossom into cooperation, and the tares of conflict will flower into obedience. Chapter 7, verse 13, Paul to the Democrats.' He winked.
Matthew's eyes flinched from the sunset halo behind Lieder, but he didn't allow himself to glance up toward the big shotgun, hanging directly above Lieder's head. 'The fact is, sir, there ain't much call for guns in Twenty-Mile. It's a peaceful place, and there's no hunting worth talking about. The blasting up at the Surprise Lode has scared off all the game. But heck, I don't know, there might be a few guns around. Maybe Mr. Kane down to the Mercantile keeps guns to sell to the miners.'
'I already had a little talk with Mr. Kane,' Lieder said, stepping into the room. 'He doesn't keep guns. Says he hates them. Now, isn't that a funny thing for an American to say, considering how our forefathers fought and died for our constitutional right to bear arms? But then of course… Mr. Kane ain't a true-born American, so I suppose we've got to expect him to scorn and ridicule all the things that made this land of ours great.'
'You're right. Mr. Kane is kind of strange. If you ask me, it comes from living all alone like he does.' Suddenly Matthew realized that when Lieder turned to leave, he would see the gun hanging over the door. He stood up. 'Sir?'
'What?'
Matthew sucked air in through his teeth. 'Gee, I hope you won't get mad.'
'Mad about what?'
'Well, I just realized that I've been lying to you.'
'Lying to me?'
'Yes, sir. Fact is, I do have a gun. The granddaddy of all guns, you might say. But it slipped my mind because… well, because it can't be shot. There ain't no shells for it. But if you want it, there it is, hanging over the door right behind you.'
Lieder turned. 'Well, I'll be damned! Look at that monster, will you?' He took the antique shotgun down. 'I ain't never seen the likes.'
'It's handmade. The only one like it in the world.'
'Where'd you ever find a thing like this?'
'It was my pa's. He got it from his grandpa. I don't know where he got it. From Methuselah, maybe.'
'Just look at this thing, will you? It's a wonder that hammer doesn't get blown back into someone's face.' He broke it open and looked into the breech. 'Lord love and protect us! If a man fell into there, it'd take a search party to find him!' He shouted down into the breech, 'Hello! Hello-o-o!' Then he cocked his head as though he were listening for an echo. 'You say there's no shells for this cannon?'
'No, I'm afraid not. They was handmade too, and my pa shot off the last of them years ago.'
'Too bad. Wouldn't you love to walk down the street with that thing over your arm? The citizens would take one look and they'd know they was dealing with a force of nature!' Lieder snapped the gun shut. 'Damn thing must weigh a ton.'
'You don't have to tell me! I lugged it here all the way from Nebraska.'
Lieder looked at Matthew, and the amused glitter in his eyes faded out. 'How come you lugged it all that way, if it can't be shot?'
'Well, sir, the truth is…' Matthew lowered his eyes. 'That gun's all I've got to remind me of my pa.'
'Yeah? Well, count yourself lucky, boy! When my pa died, I had lots to remember him by. A broke collarbone, welts all down my back from his razor strop, a busted nose. I wish I'd of had a cannon like this when he was beating on me. You shoot a man with this thing, and you don't have to worry about burying him. You can just dab him up with a cloth and toss it into the stove. You're cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die sure there ain't no shells for this gun?'
'I only wish there was!'
'So's you could shoot me and become the town hero?' He grinned.
'No, sir. I wish there were shells for it, so's I'd be able to sell the damn thing. Boy, if I could scrape together a little money, I'd be out of this town so fast that all you'd see was the dust settling where I used to be standing.'
'I take it you ain't overfond of this town.'
'No, I ain't. Nor of the folks that live here. They pay me next to nothing for my work, and they don't respect me.'
'Why'd you come here in the first place?'
'No reason. I just drifted west along the Union Pacific line, looking for a place where people wouldn't come looking for you. I didn't have nothing special in mind.'
'Just like me! I left prison and attended to some business, then I drifted up in this direction because I needed riches to finance my struggle. I'd never even heard of Twenty-Mile before that old prospector told me about the silver train. But I'm convinced there's no such thing as coincidence. There is a great plan behind everything that happens. I have been sent to Twenty-Mile for a reason. Why were you looking for a place to hide, boy? What did you do?'
'Well… the fact is, I run off. My pa was pretty free with his fists, like yours. That's why I took his gun. To spite him.'
'I see.' He settled his eyes on Matthew, then he said quietly, 'I thought you said your pa was dead.'
'No, sir. What I said was that the gun was all I had to remember him by. Say, you wouldn't want to buy it by any chance? I mean, you travel around a lot. Maybe you'd run across some ammunition for it. I'd sell it real cheap. I'd only ask… oh, say about-'
'If I wanted this gun, boy, I wouldn't buy it. I'd just take it. That's how I do business. I don't only cut out the middleman, I cut out the wholesaler and the retailer too! But the last thing I need is a ten-ton chunk of useless hardware to weigh me down. Here!' He tossed it to Matthew with such force that it stung his hands when he caught it. As he was hanging it back over the door, Matthew thought of the canvas sack under his bed containing the last dozen of his pa's handmade shells. He'd better draw Lieder out of the marshal's office before he got to snooping around. So he nonchalantly stepped out onto his porch as though to take in the sunset and said over his
