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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN I stopped pacing when Doc came out of his back room. “How is he?” Doc sighed. Somehow it was worse than a head-shake. “He’s in bad shape, Marshal,” he said. He wasn’t calling me Matt. That was an even worse sign. “The worst is,” he said,...

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX By mid-afternoon I was back sitting in my office. The heat was back and almost unbearable. The kid was off with Shiloh again, though they’d be back any minute. They were just rubbing down Clay Richard’s strawberry roan, which the kid had taken quite...

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE After I finished having breakfast heaped on me, I said thank you to Ma Schnieder and her grand-daughter and rode back to Dodge with Kitty. “You old liar,” said Kitty as soon as we were away from the house. She was smiling at me out of the corner of...

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Early the next morning I rode out to Ma Schnieder’s place. I left Chester in the office, with instructions to cut Rance loose when he woke up. I was pretty sure there’d be no more trouble from the Drag-R herd. At least not this year. And maybe word...

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE I waited for half an hour while Green and the others spread the word to close up the saloons. The lights gradually went out up and down the street, and I left the office. Alone. I found Rance in front of the Texas Trail, and I was able to reach...

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO It was after two o’clock in the morning. Doc had finished his surgery about an hour before, after working like the devil to save the cowboy’s life. Chester and I had come back down to the jail so that when the trouble really started people’d know...

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The government paid for my office and the jail behind it, so I stayed there. I was sure that Constable Willard Bann, fat, broke, and humble, wasn’t going to manhandle any randy Texas cowboys and throw them behind bars. And the first twenty-four...

CHAPTER TWENTY Chester dropped a small pile of circulars and telegrams on my desk. “I got the mail, Mr. Dillon – what there was.” I was finishing my report on the events at Howard’s ranch. “I’ll look at it later, Chester,” I said. “I have a lot of time.” “Yessir,”...

CHAPTER NINETEEN Fortunately for Dodge, the rain had not only doused the prairie fire, it’d also kept the Drag-R cowboys out of trouble. They’d kept to their cards and their beer and stayed out of the rain like sane men. But with the skies clearing and the day heating...

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN  We rode back to Dodge through the downpour. I had my hat pulled low and my shoulders hunched. I was wearing my coat again, the one that now had a hole in the left pocket the size of a finger. “It’s sure not lettin’ up, Mr. Dillon,” said...