It was about an hour later, and cooling off just a little. There was a breeze. Dust motes floated in the air.
“Guess the funeral’s over,” said Chester.
“There’ll be others,” I said.
“Funny, though,” said Chester. “Now I miss that bell. Awful quiet, ain’t it? It’s about –“
Chester stopped talking when he heard them. A mob was coming down the street.
“Just about on schedule,” I said. “You ready, Chester?”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.”
I stood up and put on the coat Doc had given me at Chistmas. It was too hot for it, but I put it on anyway and made sure to pin my star over the breast pocket.
“I’d use the shotgun if I were you, Chester,” I said. “It’s more effective when there’s a mob to be dealt with.”
“Oh yessir, I aim to.”
I turned towards the back room. “Ziegler! And you too, son. If trouble starts, lie down flat on the floor and keep your head down all the time. Don’t gawk to see what’s happening. Understand me?”
The Dutchman just nodded. The kid said, “Yessir, Mr. Dillon,” in a good parroting of Chester. It made me want to smile, but I didn’t.
“All right,” I said.
Outside I heard Adam Richard’s voice. “Dillon! Dillon! Come on out here, Dillon!”
“Chester,” I said, “I want you to stand here in the doorway after I go out where you can cover the backdoor and me at the same time.”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.” He had the shotgun out of the locker and resting against his shoulder.
“All right, Chester,” I said. “Open the door.”
I walked out to jeering and shouting. I couldn’t understand too much of what was being said, but I didn’t have to. Adam was in the front of the crowd, the only one not yelling. He looked sober, and he was heeled. I kept my eyes on him as I said, “It’s my duty to warn all of you that you’re in the breach of the peace. I’ve sworn to uphold the law. I’ve killed in order to do it, and I’m prepared to do so again.”
Someone in the back called out, “Give us the Dutchmen, Dillon!”
I took a risk and took my eyes off Adam and dead-eyed the crowd. They were looking back and forth between me and Chester’s shotgun. “Men! Men! I ask you to be sensible and to leave quietly! But if you refuse to listen to reason, if you insist on being fools and’ve already decided to act like wolves instead of humans, then there’s nothing I can say to make you change your minds.”
They were too far gone. This time when the bum shouted, “The Dutchman!” more voices joined in. “The Dutchman! Give us the Dutchman!”
They didn’t know me. Not anymore. And not as a lawman. I felt that fire rising in my belly – the fire that had gotten me into so much trouble when I was younger, the fire I thought I had left behind in Arizona and Texas and Mexico. But it was a fire that had kept me alive.
“All right!” I said. “You want Peter Ziegler? Well, he’s not more’n twenty feet behind me, so come on and get him, any of you! One at a time or all at once! Come on! Which one of you wants to die first? You? You?” They started backing up – probably because I was walking out towards them. “You, Adam?” I asked. Richards took only one step back before steeling himself. “Well, what do you say, Adam? You led ‘em here! Don’t let this star on my coat stop you! C’mon!” With my left hand I plucked off the star and tossed it into the dirt. “There, I’m not wearing it now. Well, c’mon, draw, Adam, draw!”
He drew. My hand dropped to my hip and I janked on my gun. My left hand was already hovering over the hammer, and I hit it back once. There were three shots between us. A window shattered behind me. The smoke hung in the air between us. The crowd had cleared to either side of us, and they were silent now.
I heard Chester’s voice. “You all right, Mr. Dillon?”
“Yeah,” I said without turning. I was eyeing the crowd. “Get his gun.”
Chester hadn’t budged from the doorway, but now he stepped into the street and pocketed Adam’s gun. “Man alive, I couldn’t even see your hand move.”
Doc Adams came running up the street. “Marshal! Oh, don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!” He sounded positively jubilant.
I holstered my gun and rounded on him. “Doc, you make one single funny remark and I’ll knock you down! You just take him to your office and get to work.”
Doc was flustered. “Well, I – I never do mean to offend, Marshal. In my line of work, well, bodies, they’re just so much lumber.”
I reached down and picked up my star from the dirt. “Make all the jokes about him you please, but not to me and not in my hearing. In my line of work, there’s nothing humorous about death.” I pinned my star back in place and turned to go back into the office. “Give him a hand, Chester,” I said.
“No, no,” said Doc quickly. “I can handle him Marshal, thank you just the same.”
“Fine,” I said. “C’mon, Chester.”
Turning back towards the jail I saw a fair head duck back behind the window. One of the panes of glass was broken.
Back in my office, the kid was practically bouncing out of his skin. “That was something! You sure out-skinned ‘im, Mr. Dillon. He barely cleared leather.”
“Not now, son,” I said. He watched as I opened the chamber of my pistol and replaced the single spent cartridge.
“Bullet went about an inch past my face – I could feel the air as it went by!”
“You should’ve kept your head down,” said Chester. “You almost got yourself killed.”
“Not me!” said the boy. “I ain’t gonna die unless it’s in a real gunfight. Then I can’t die, ‘cause I’ll be faster’n anybody. Faster’n Mr. Dillon, even!” He made to draw an imaginary gun. “Pow!”
“Chester,” I said, “I’m going over to the Texas Trail for supper. Think you can keep our young friend here company?”
“Why, sure, Mr. Dillon.”
“I wanna go with you,” said the kid.
“Saloon’s no place for a youngster,” said Chester.
I took off the coat. It made me look like an undertaker. I didn’t want people to see that I was heeled, but I also wanted them to think of me as a lawman, not a gunslinger. Fella I know used to wear a coat like that. A dentist turned gambler and gunslinger. I didn’t want to be like him.
“In about an hour, you can cut Ziegler loose,” I told Chester. “There won’t be any more trouble until the trial.”
“Yessir, Mr. Dillon.”
I nodded towards the kid. “Don’t let him shoot off your guns or anything.”
“No, sir,” said Chester.
“And Chester?”
“Yessir?”
“I’ll send over a couple of steaks and some beer.”
Chester smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Dillon.”
