LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Listen, mister,” the man with the mustache said through clenched teeth, “I got a sick wife and a baby. Nothin’ to eat hardly. It ain’t like you think.”

      Garrett drew a silk bandanna through the bullet hole in the meaty part of the man’s thigh, then splashed whiskey over the wound. The man screamed and almost fell out of the chair.

      “This is Triangle A land,” Garrett told him. “You’re squatting.”

      “I know that, but my wife took sick. Wasn’t nobody here. Been tryin’ to get to Lander. Matilda, that’s my missus yonder, she’s got a sister up there.”

      Garrett looked at the woman, feverish, lying on a cot, saw Seth Thomas bouncing the baby girl on his knee, and ran the man’s story through his head once again.

      Three riders stopped for the night, each with an extra horse, suggested he help them round up some cattle, said they’d pay him five dollars. He didn’t know the stock was stolen, just thought he was helping out.

      That part was a lie. They’d taken the cattle to a box canyon, worked the brands with running irons. No, this gent knew they were rustlers. But…well…Garrett had thrown a wide loop in his younger days, too. Lots of cowmen had.

      Once they had driven the cattle back here, the wounded man had said, the three strangers had left the winded horses in the corral, saddled fresh mounts, and ridden out with the cattle. Tracks Garrett had found told him that much was probably true. The three horses left behind were most likely stolen.

      “You didn’t suspicion them when they left their horses behind?” he asked.

      The man grimaced. “Mister…” was all he could say, sweating heavily.

      “You left your wife, sick as she was, and kid here?” Garrett asked him again.

      “Matilda insisted on it. Said she was feelin’ better. Wouldn’t be gone more’n a couple of days, and five dollars is a lot of money to me.” He bit his lip against the pain. “When I got back, Matilda had taken another bad turn. You gotta believe me, mister!”

      “You butchered one of those steers.”

      “They let me. Give me a steer instead of money. Wife’s sick. My girl’s only eighteen months old. You tell me you’d let your family starve. I’ll work off whatever I owe for the beef. And for the week I been at your cabin.”

      “You’ll work it off, mister,” Jason C. Hughes said from the doorway. “With a rope.”

      The man’s eyes widened. “Look, I got a wife, a daughter, you can’t—”

      “Where’d your pards go?” Garrett asked him.

      “They wasn’t my pards. Just strangers.”

      “Their names?”

      “I don’t know. One called hisself Red. There was a tall one, about your size, went by the name of Ed. The other fellow was a Mexican. He never said much. Never heard his name that I recollect.”

      “Where’d they go?” Garrett asked again.

      “Think they said Virginia Dale. They’re in Colorado by now.”

      “Todd and me have the rope ready, old man,” Jason C. Hughes said. “Let’s string him up.”

      “Shut up,” Garrett snapped. He started to stand, saw the rustler’s eyes flash in warning, and Garrett reached for his Colt, turning, knowing he was too late, catching the blur of Mauser’s stock as it slammed into his head.

      A blacksmith pounded iron against an anvil inside his head, but Garrett forced his eyes open, tried to reach up and test the walnut-sized knot above his temple, felt the hemp rope tight against his wrists, and saw Seth-Thomas-Like-The-Watch-Company sitting in front of him, Garrett’s own .44 pointed in his direction.

      Beside him, the baby girl played with Garrett’s spurs, spinning the rowel, laughing when the bobs jingled. The mother slept fitfully.

      “Where are the others?” Just speaking caused Garrett’s head to ache.

      Seth Thomas glanced nervously toward the open door. “Todd and Abraham do whatever Jason says.”

      “Looks like you do, too.”

      The dude shook his head. “I…I didn’t. Jason says it’s law, the law of the West.”

      “It’s murder.”

      “He stole your cattle.”

      “You won’t get away.”

      Seth Thomas sighed. “I can’t go against Jason, Marshal Garrett. His uncle is…well. And the man’s guilty. You know that.” Trying to convince himself of it, he swallowed. “Just like The Virginian.”

      “It ain’t nothing like that, boy. Them’s words. This is real.”

      Outside, he heard laughter. Inside, the spurs chimed. Garrett nodded at the baby.

      “Y’all going to hang her, too? And her ma?”

      “No. I wouldn’t let…uh…. Jason’s a little…crazy. This is…well…the law…Western law.”

      “We strung up horse thieves when I wasn’t that much older than you,” Garrett said. “Biggest mistake I ever made in my life, and I’ve made a passel. You think about it.” He closed his eyes.

      When his eyes opened, he saw Seth Thomas squatting in front of him, pistol on the floor, opening the blade to a folding knife, and Garrett decided not all dudes were so damned worthless.

      “Mister,” Jason C. Hughes said with a drunken laugh, “get ready to be jerked to Jesus!”

      Colt in his right hand, Garrett stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of the three dudes, drunk on whiskey, maybe drunker on power, the wounded rustler standing on a flour keg, a rope over his neck, looped around the branch of an ancient cottonwood.

      And they saw him.

      Garrett felt young, invincible, the way he had felt years ago, back when his life had a purpose. Abraham’s hand darted for the automatic in its holster, and Garrett shot him. Todd had already turned and was running, and Garrett’s second shot kicked up dust between his legs. The dude stumbled into the dust, crying, “Don’t shoot me! For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”

      Jason C. Hughes had grabbed his Mauser, working the bolt, cursing angrily. Garrett’s third and fourth shots splintered the stock, and the heavy rifle dropped to the dirt. So did Jason C. Hughes, shaking his hands, groaning, then freezing as Garrett steadily drew a bead on the dude’s forehead.

      Garrett climbed out of the wagon, and turned back to face the woman and her baby, and her husband, resting inside the wagon. “Nearest town’s Saratoga,” he said. “Closer than Triangle A headquarters. Got some mineral baths there, and a doctor. Get you fixed up in no time.” He looked behind him at Todd and Abraham, hands tied to the horns of their saddles, as tight as Garrett could manage, a stripped bed linen wrapped around the bullet hole in Abraham’s side. “Got a jail, too.”

      “God bless you, Marshal,” the woman said weakly.

      “I ain’t no marshal, ma’am. Not anymore.” What I am, he thought, is a damned fool.

      Smiling, he walked around the wagon and looked up at the driver. “You sure you can handle a team, Seth Thomas?”

      “I’ll try,” the boy replied, and glanced uncomfortably at the flour keg and lynching rope.

      “Get moving.” Garrett went to his horse, gathered the reins, and swung into the saddle. He turned the bay and nodded at Abraham and Todd. “You boys follow the wagon. Try something foolish, I’ll shoot you dead, or leave you like I’m leaving Jason C. Hughes.”

      “Old man!” Jason C. Hughes yelled. “You…I…my

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