The Panicked and Dead (A Matt Gunn Story by Donald D. Shore)

      

        “They hung John Crowe on a Sunday. They hung him for farming in cattle country.”

         Sheriff Matt Gunn gauged the cattleman's reaction, then cast his eyes out across the flat golden country surrounding Bob Marcel's ranch.

         Bob Marcel was a man who knew how to keep his emotions hidden. His face was chiseled from stone.

       A couple of Marcel's cowboys rode up and stood smoking cigarettes beside the corral. Marcel's son, Will, was with them.

      Marcel, his voice as hard and deep as the crevices lining his tanned face, said, “We keep to ourselves out here, Sheriff. What's it to me if some sod-buster wants to try and scratch a living out of a little piece of country?”

     Matt took off his hat and wiped away his sweat with a kerchief. “Except, that little piece of country was right in the middle of prime grazing land. That might be of concern to a man like you.”

     “If it were,” said Marcel, “someone ought to have told the sod-buster to move on. We been grazing cattle down in that lot for twenty years. It's open range down there, Sheriff. I ain't the only rancher uses it.”

     Matt Gunn replaced his hat and shoved his kerchief into his vest pocket. “Last I heard,” he said, watching the cowboys lingering near the corral, “you bought out all the outfits around here. All the ranchers work for you now. That means every cow down in that valley is a part of your herd.”

     The cattleman's mouth formed what might have been a smile. “I'm a business man, Sheriff Gunn. If I wanted that sod-buster gone, I'd a just paid him to move on. I done it before. I expect I'll do it again. They come in here thinking that land is free for the taking, but it ain't. That land's been paid for in blood. Marcel blood.”

     “What if they don't want to move on, Bob? What happens then?”

     Bob Marcel grunted. “They always move on,” he said. “One way or another.”

     Silence wedged itself between the sheriff and the rancher. The land went quiet except for the distant snorts of the cowboys' horses.

      The sheriff said, “You and your boys missed church that Sunday, if I ain't mistaken.”

     “You ain't,” said Marcel. “This ranch don't run itself 'cause it's Sunday.”

     “No,” said Matt Gun. “I suppose it don't.”

      The sheriff stepped towards his horse, a sand colored dun, and pulled himself into the saddle.

     “You ride careful now, Sheriff,” Marcel said, his eyes shielded by the wide rim of his sombrero. 

     “One other thing I wanted to mention, Bob,” Matt said, leaning over the saddle-horn. “John Crowe had a brother.”

     “Half the Lord's creatures have brothers.”

     “This is a mean one. Ever hear of Jesse Crowe?”

     “Can't say I have.”

     The sheriff clicked his tongue and nudged his horse into a trot. “Well you have now. You're liable to hear a lot more here soon.”

     Marcel said, “Like I told you, Sheriff. We take care of ourselves out here.”

     Matt Gunn nodded. “Just passing it along.” He tipped his hat in parting to the old rancher. 

     Bob Marcel watched the sheriff ride out across the land, a cloud of dust gathering behind the dun's trail. Will Marcel came towards him from the corral. The front door of the house opened, and his youngest son, Pete Marcel, stepped out to the porch.

     “What did the sheriff want, Pa?” Pete said.

     Marcel kept his eyes on the departing sheriff's back. “You get in the house, Pete. Get to them books.”

     A shadow crossed over Pete's face. He opened his mouth to argue, but his father's hard eyes convinced the boy otherwise. Pete went inside and Bob Marcel's oldest, Will, remained next to his father. He said to his father in a low voice,“You think he knows, Pa?”

     “It ain't what he knows, son,” said Bob Marcel. “It's what he can prove.”

     “You want me to get some of the boys and ride out after him?”

     Bob Marcel cut his eyes like a whip on his son. “Matt Gunn ain't the one we got to worry about.”

                                                                    

                                                                     

                                                                        II.

       Matt Gunn rode towards the Crowe homestead. In the silence of the wide open country, the sound of his horse's clops echoed like a dull drum as he neared the sod house.

      Mary Crowe appeared in the doorway of her sod-house like a pale apparition. Her features were hard, with high cheekbones and eyes that left no question in the sheriff's mind as to what John Crowe had see in her.

     She stood quiet as Matt dismounted. He hitched his horse to a post and walked towards her, removing his hat. “Mary,” he said.

     “Did you arrest him, Sheriff?”

     “No, Mary,” Matt said, somewhat ashamed. “I don't have the evidence to arrest him. I ain't even sure he done it, or if he had his boys do it.”

     “You know Bob Marcel murdered my husband, Sheriff. Dragged him out of this house and hung him from that tree out yonder. You know he done it.”

     Mary Crowe stepped out of the sod-house towards the empty stockade. Her slender hands formed white knuckled fists, holding the sides of her plain brocade dress against the wind.

     “Only man who wasn't afraid of Bob Marcel was my husband. Now, he's dead and our stocks been run off.  Our crops destroyed. Marcel is going to take this land.” She turned on the Sheriff, fury showing through the smudges on her cheeks.

     “It ain't right, Sheriff,” she said.

     Matt stepped towards her.

     “I know it ain't right, Mary,” he said, “but I'm the law, not a vigilante. I can't just gun down Bob Marcel and his boys. I need evidence. Something I can take to a judge and get a warrant.”

     “You need sand, Sheriff. That's what you lack. A real man would go in there and do what needs doing.”

     “You sound like Bob Marcel.”

     Mary slapped Matt on the cheek. Her dark eyes shimmered like heated coals.

     “Never compare me to that man.”

     Matt nursed his face with a gloved hand. “You heard from Jesse Crowe?”

     Mary Crowe tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I don't have to hear from him to know he's coming. He'll hear about his brother, and sure as the wind blows, he'll come. He'll kill who needs killing.”

     “Killings the easy part, Mary. It's living with yourself when the smoke clears that's hard.”

     “I'll live with myself just fine, Matt Gunn. You go on and leave me be. I got work to do.”

Matt could see there was no work to do. The homestead was dead. The stock butchered or run off and the field uprooted. He put his hat on and tipped the brim. “I'll be out this way when I can, Mary.”

     “Don't bother yourself, Sheriff. Ain't nothing you can do for me.”

     Matt Gunn mounted his horse and started for town. He rubbed his gloved hand against the sting Mary Crowe had left against his cheek.

                                                                       

                                                                       III.

     Matt Gunn stood under the shade of the jailhouse awning drinking his morning cup of coffee when Jesse Crowe rode into town with a dozen hard men behind him.

     Bud Vern, Matt's deputy, looked up from the stick he was whittling on as Jesse Crowe and his men pulled reign in front of the jailhouse.

     Jesse Crowe, a man whose face the lawmen knew from a dozen wanted posters, looked down from his satin black horse. The outlaw's eyes narrowed as he sized up the sheriff. 

     Matt stepped forward, unflinching from Jesse Crowe's glare. Sipping his morning coffee, the lawman placed his eyes on the heaving stock the men rode.

     “Looks like you boys have been riding hard."

     Jesse Crowe leaned forward in his saddle. “You what passes for law around here?”

     Matt allowed his hand to drift towards the Colt Peacemaker he wore on his hip.

    “That's what this star on my vest has led me to believe.”

     Jesse Crowe spat. His creased eyes darted to the men behind and to the side of him before leveling on the sheriff like the twin barrels of a loaded shotgun.

     “You know who I am?”

     “You'd be Jesse Crowe.”

     “Then you know I ain't wanted in these parts.”

     Matt Gunn said,“Not yet, anyways.”

     “Then we ain't gonna have no trouble.”

     “Long as you and your boys follow the law, there won't be no trouble.”

     “We'll follow the law, Sheriff,” Jesse Crowe said. “Same as other folks around here do.”

     “I expect you're here to pay respects to your brother and his widow.”

     “I am.”

     “Then you'll be moving on.”

     “We'll see,” Jesse Crowe said. “Might be a few loose ends need tying up 'fore I go.”

     “Tie 'em up quick,” said Matt Gunn.

     Crowe turned his eyes on Bud Vern for a moment, and disregarded the slim deputy who only seemed concerned about the stick he was shaving away into nothing.

     “I don't reckon I caught your name, Sheriff.”

     “Matt Gunn.”

     Jesse Crowe gave a slow nod. “I thought so. I heard of you.”

     “Good,” said Matt Gunn. “Then you know I mean what I say. You and your boys are welcome in town, Jesse Crowe. Long as you abide the law. First one of you to step out of line will get it swift. Soon as you pay respects, I expect you all to ride back to where ever it was you come from.”

     Jesse Crowe said, “You this hard on the men killed my brother?”

     “That's my business, Crowe. I expect you to let me handle it.”

     “You handled it fine so far.”

     Crowe's words cracked like a whip.

     “Come on, boys,” he said. “We're done here. Lets go get a drink.”

     Jesse Crowe whipped his horse around and led his men down the road to the saloon. Bud Vern brushed wood shavings out of his lap and stood up next to Matt.

     “He's a mean one by the looks of him, Matt.”

     “I reckon he is.”

     “That one with the fancy mustache was Slim Watkins.”

     “Yes, it was.”

     “He's a mean one too.”

     Bud Vern looked up to the cloudless sky that stretched over the squared off roofs of the buildings that formed the town of Dusty Buttes.

     “There's a storm bruin', Sheriff. I see it on the horizon. Navajo call it a bad omen. I might would agree with them.”

     Matt Gunn sipped the last of his coffee and watched the Crowe gang dismount and file into the saloon.

     “There's a storm brewing all right, Bud,” he said.

     Matt Gunn set his cup down on the rail and stepped down from the boardwalk. He checked the cinch on his horse's saddle and gathered the bridle reigns in hand.

     “You going somewhere, boss?”

     Matt Gunn nodded. “I'm gonna take a ride out to the Crowe farm and have another talk with Mary Crowe. See if I can't stop this storm before it breaks.”

     “Want me to ride along?”

     Matt Gunn saddled up and shook his head. “I need you to keep on eye on those boys. They leave town, ride out and get me.”

                                                                       

                                                                         IV

     Mary Crowe stood alone in the ruined field next to her sod-house as if she had been waiting for Matt Gunn to arrive. Matt slung a leg over the saddle and dismounted before his horse came to a full stop. Mary looked up calmly, her eyes just as striking as ever, her lips creased in a pout that made her look lovely, even with the dark specter of mourning clouding her features.

     “It's a shame you didn't visit more often before. My husband might still be alive.”

     “You know why I'm here, Mary.”

      Mary Crowe turned her eyes to the big sky that blanketed the earth with a field of blue.

     “Mary, you got to tell Jesse Crowe to move on. His kind ain't nothing but trouble. I'm asking you to let me handle it.”

     “You done a fine job handling it so far, Sheriff.”

     “You don't want the trouble his kind brings, Mary. He's a cold killer and won't stop once it's started. This won't end until everyone is dead. I seen it before. When the bullets start flying, they don't care who they hit.”

     Mary stepped away, her eyes down, watching the blades of grass and dead stalks of what had been corn saplings drift in the wind.

     “It don't matter, Sheriff. What they done, they got to pay for. An eye for an eye –, “

     Matt grabbed Mary and pulled her around to face him. He stood for a moment, lost in the depths of her brooding eyes.

     “You don't know what you're saying, Mary. Innocent people are going to get hurt. You might be one of them. I'm telling you, you ain't never seen the likes of what's coming and you don't ever want to.”

     Mary Crowe glared at Matt defiantly. “You don't know what I want, Sheriff. What I want's buried in the ground right there. What happens now don't matter long as Bob Marcel gets what's coming to him.

     “Now, let me go.”

     He released her, and said, “Think, Mary. You're grieving now, but you don't want the hell that's coming.”

     “The only thing I want is justice, Sheriff. If you won't give it to me, Jesse Crowe will.”

     “That ain't justice, Mary. It's revenge.”

     Mary Crowe's eyes shifted past Matt Gunn. He turned. Bud Vern was riding hard towards them.

     “I'm going to ask you one more time, Mary,” Matt said, turning back to Mary Crowe. “Stop this while you can. Let me handle Bob Marcel.”

     “It's too late for that, Sheriff. You should have handled Marcel a long time ago.”

      Bud Vern reigned in next to Matt. The deputy breathed heavy as he said, “Sheriff,” and turned to Mary Crowe to tip the brim of his hat. “Ma'am.”

     “What is it, Bud” said Matt.

     “You told me to come get you if them boys left town,” said Bud Vern. “Well, they done rode out 'bout an hour ago.”

     “Which way did they ride?”

     Bud Vern spit the trail dust out of his mouth and wiped his lip dry with the back of his hand. “They rode out towards the Marcel spread. Liquored up and ready for trouble.”

     Matt Gunn turned to Mary. He thought he saw a smile play across her lips.

     “You might be right, Mary,” he said. “If it's too late to stop a war, you just remember one thing.”

     “What's that?”

     “It's on your head.”

     Matt Gunn mounted his dun and turned to Bud Vern. He said, “You got that twelve-gauge loaded?”

     “All the years you known me, Matt,” said Bud Vern, “you have to ask?”

     Mary Crowe said, “Sheriff Gunn.”

     Matt cut his horse around to face her.

     “I didn't start this war,” she said. “Marcel did when he murdered my husband. And you kept it going by not doing a thing about it.”

     Matt pulled on the bridle reigns and slapped his horse's rump. He put spurs to his horse's flanks and raced across the wind strewn grasslands with Bud Vern beside him. The time for arguing was over.

                                                                        

                                                                         V.

     Matt and Bud pulled their heaving mounts to a rest beside a shallow creek. The sun was high and hot, but a breeze made Matt think of Bud Vern's prophecy about a storm.

     “What do you reckon to do, Matt?” said Bud Vern. “Crowe and his boys could be about anywhere out here.”

     Matt dipped his hands in the cool running water and splashed his face, washing trail dust from his thick whiskers.

     “I figure they either went to the house or struck out after the herd.”

     “It's a big country, Matt,” said Bud Vern. “No telling where Marcel's herd is.”

     “That's why we're heading for the house.”

     “I got another question for you, if you don't mind,” said Bud Vern.

     “What's that?”

     “Well,” said Bud Vern, with his way of drawing out words to make them last longer than they should. “You got Bob Marcel with a dozen or so of his boys.”

     “Yeah.”

     “Then you got Jesse Crowe with a dozen or so of his boys.”

     “I don't hear a question, Bud.”

     “The question is, Matt, what are we going to when we get pinched between 'em?”

     Matt Gunn climbed back into the saddle and pointed his horse back towards the trail.

     “Same thing we always do, Bud,” he said over his shoulder. “Talk 'em down. If words don't work, we let our guns do the talking.”

     Matt galloped off, leaving Bud Vern to shake his head and mount his own tired-out horse.

     “I was afraid he'd say something like that.”

                                                                     VI.

     They rode up on Bob Marcel's ranch house. There had been no sign of Jesse Crowe, and that bothered Matt more than if he had ridden up on the outlaw posse.

     The old rancher stood in the shade of his porch, the brass of his Henry rifle glinting in the sun. Matt recognized Bob Marcel's youngest son sitting in a rocker behind the elder man. Bob Marcel said something over his shoulder to the boy, and Pete Marcel stood up, closed a book, and went into the house as the lawmen reigned up.

     Bob Marcel glared at them with his deep-set eyes that had seen death and what it takes to hold onto a piece of wild country.

     “What do you want this time, Sheriff?” Marcel said, his mouth working a wad of tobacco.

     Matt sat his horse in front of the house. “I come to warn you, Marcel. Jesse Crowe rode into town this morning with a dozen gunmen backing him up. They were seen heading this way near two hours ago.”

     Bob Marcel spit a stream of brown tobacco juice to the ground in front of the sheriff. He said, “All right. You warned me.”

     “If he ain't here,” Matt said, “I expect he rode for your herd.”

     “If he did,” Marcel said, “he's riding into trouble. I got my oldest boy out there, along with a dozen hands. Crowe wants to make trouble, they'll accommodate him.”

     “They ain't no sod-busters riding out there,” said Bud Vern. “They're hard men. I seen 'em myself, Marcel. Got Slim Watkins with 'em.”

     Bob Marcel's eyes flickered towards the deputy, then landed back on Matt.

     Matt Gunn said, “Tell us where the herd is, and let us do what needs doing.”

     “We handle our own matters out here, Sheriff. Been doing it for thirty years now. Fought off the Indians and the Mexicans and I expect we'll keep on handling it the way we been doing.”

     “You want more blood on your hands, Marcel?” said Matt.

     “This land was baptized in blood, Sheriff. Marcel blood. I don't need no tin star coming out here telling me what's what. Now, you and your skinny deputy there can just head on back to town. I'll handle it from here.”

     “Damn it, man,” Matt cursed.

     “We're done here, Sheriff,” Marcel said, shifting the weight of the Henry in his arms.

     Matt pulled hard on the reigns and whipped his horse around and Bud Vern followed him. They rode off a ways and the deputy said, “I reckon that's it then. Can't help folks don't want to be helped.”

     “We ain't here to help him,” Matt said, as he bounced in the saddle. “I'm trying to put out this prairie fire before it spreads to town.”

     “Might be too late for that, Matt,” Bud Vern said.

     Bud Vern took the silence that followed as his boss's refusal to admit defeat. He said, “Well, what now?”

     “Marcel ain't the type to sit and wait on news,” Matt said. “He'll ride for the herd, and when he does, we'll follow after him.”

                                                                          VII

     The two lawmen rode out from Marcel's ranch house. The land dipped down into a hidden culvert that made the flat prairie country so deceptive. Matt slung his leg over the saddle an dismounted. He ran a gloved hand across his horse's nose and took hold of the bridle, coaxing the animal down flat against the ground.

     “Get him down,” Matt said to Bud Vern, who was already following the sheriff's lead.

     With the animals flat, the lawmen laid their own weight against the horses to keep them prone, and stroking the horse's necks so they would remain calm.

     “There he goes,” said Bud Vern, watching Bob Marcel ride out fast across the prairie. “Just like you said he would.”

     “Let's trail after him and see where he leads us,” said Matt.

     They let the anxious horses up, and with practiced accuracy, took to their saddles mid-stride.

They galloped across the prairie, following the old rancher north, in a strange race where they gave their quarry a safe lead.

     “Reckon he seen us?” said Bud Vern.

     “I'm sure of it,” said Matt. “Don't matter. He's got to check on that herd. Specially with his boy out there.”

     Within the hour Matt spied the faint cloud of rising dust that marked a milling cattle herd. They climbed a rise, and spread out before them were Bob Marcel's thousand head of heaving cattle, scattered like the buffalo of old across the green prairie grasslands.

     “There he is,” said Bud Vern, pointing out the distant figure of Bob Marcel as the rancher rode up to meet his son and several cowboys. “I sure wish we could hear what they was saying.”

Matt was silent. His eyes searched the surrounding country. He shook his head and spat.

     “I don't like it,” he said.

     Bud Vern looked at Matt. He had learned long ago to listen to Matt's instincts.

     “Crowe and his boys should have been here by now,” said Matt. “Ain't no sign of them.”

     “Maybe they was here,” Bud Vern said, “and Marcel's boys run 'em off.”

     “No,” said Matt. He watched Marcel down in the valley. The old rancher's head swiveled across the herd, probably thinking the same thing as Matt.

     “We best ride back to the house, Bud,” said Matt.

     “You think Crowe doubled back on us?”

     “That,” said Matt, “or he was watching the house and waiting for the old man to leave.”

     Matt Gunn pulled his horse around and whipped the reigns against the animal's flanks, urging him into another swift race.

                                                                           VIII

     “Oh, Lord,” Bud Vern said as they pulled reign at Marcel's ranch, their horses wheezing and dripping with froth.

     Pete Marcel was tied to the corral post in front of the ranch house. His arms had been stretched out along the fence post and tied down and a noose had been tightened on the boy's neck. Even before Matt jumped from the saddle and closed the short distance that separated him from the boy, he knew Pete Marcel was dead.

     Matt pulled the rope from the boy's neck. Pete Marcel's lifeless bloody face fell forward on his chest.

     Bud Vern took his hat off and held it against his heart. Matt let the blood stained rope fall to the dirt.

     “He was just a boy,” said Bud Vern. “Couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen.”

     A thunder of hooves beat like a drum in the distance as Marcel and his men rode up.

     “The fire's started now,” said Matt, his voice a whisper beneath the clatter of riders. He turned and watched Bob Marcel race towards them.

     Marcel and his oldest boy dropped from their horses and sprinted towards Pete's body with a dozen cowboys behind them.

     Matt and Bud Vern stood silent as Bob and Will Marcel knelt over the dead boy. The elder Marcel ran his callused hand gently over his boy's broken body. He took Pete's hands in his own and placed them in the boy's lap.

     When Bob Marcel looked up, Matt saw a changed man. Marcel had always been made of leather and lead, but now his eyes held only hate. Matt had seen that look in other men just before they went for their guns.

     “Listen here, Marcel –, “ Matt started.

     Marcel cut him off. “I ought to kill you where you stand, Matt Gunn. You're as guilty of this boy's death as Jesse Crowe or that sod-buster whore.”

     “Now, see here,” said Bud Vern, only to be silenced by Marcel's raised hand and dead-shot eyes.

     The rancher turned back to Matt. “You got to the count of ten to get off my land, Gunn. If I ever see you here again, you'll get worse than what they did to my boy.”

     “This ain't the sheriff's doin', Marcel, and you dern well know it,” said Bud Vern.

     Marcel started his count. “One.”

     “Let's go, Bud,” said Matt. “There ain't no use talking to him. The fire's raging now. Only thing to do is let it burn itself out, and hope no more innocents get caught up in the blaze.”

      “Two,” said Marcel.

     Matt climbed atop his played out dun and Vern followed suit.

     “Three,” said Marcel.

     Matt turned one last time to Marcel. “For what it's worth, I'm sorry for your boy.”

     “Four,” Marcel counted, his eyes seething.

     Matt set his horse to a trot, all the bottomed-out animal could manage, and Bud Vern followed him out onto the prairie, passing Marcel's cowhands, their eyes promising swift vengeance for their boss.

     Matt aimed his weary horse for the Crowe homestead.

    “Going to talk to the Crowe woman again?” said Bud Vern.

     “Time for talking is done,” said Matt. “Someone has to answer for that boy's death. Best we get there before Marcel does.”

     “She didn't do it, Matt. You know well as I do who done it.”

     “I do,” said Matt. “I'm laying odds Jesse Crowe is up there right now bragging to her about it. I warned him what I'd do if he stirred up trouble. I'm going to call him on it.”

     “The two of us against a dozen pistoleros,” said Bud Vern.

     Matt said, “It ain't the first time we faced stacked odds, Bud. You looking to skin out on me now?”

     “No, sir,” said the deputy. “Just reminding you of our chances is all.”

     “Good,” said Matt. “Keep that scatter-gun handy.”

                                                                      

                                                                     IX

 

     The sky was blood red when Matt Gunn and Bud Vern rode onto the Crowe homestead. The Crowe gang's horses were in Mary Crowe's corral and several of the gunmen were posted outside the house.

     “You was right,” Bud Vern said, as they sat their horses a short distance away, out of gun range.          “There's a few of them gunslingers milling about. I expect Jesse's inside with Miss Mary. Don't know where the rest is.”

     Matt Gunn nodded. “Let's ride in and introduce ourselves to them boys.”

     Matt slipped the hammer catch off his pistol and Bud Vern pulled his shotgun from the saddle boot and placed it across the pommel of his saddle. They rode at a slow canter toward the group of men standing outside the house. One of them spotted the lawmen and signaled the others. They stepped out of the shade and stood waiting, their hands near the butts of their pistols.

     “Howdy, Sheriff,” Slim Watkins said, his lips curing into a smile beneath a thin mustache.

     Matt said, “You go get your boss from inside the house.”

     Slim Watkins laughed and his partners joined him. He said, “He don't want to be disturbed.” He tapped the butt of his pistol with eager fingers. “Maybe I can help you with something.”

     “Disturb him anyway,” Matt said, ignoring the threat.

     “What if I don't?” Watkins glanced at the half-dozen men beside him, then off to the prairie, where more men were riding in. His smile widened. “Seems you're traveling mighty light to be giving orders, Sheriff.”

     “You go get him,” said Matt. He turned to the gunslinger standing next to Slim Watkins, whose hand had drifted to the butt of his gun. “You keep clear of that pistol,” he said. “Or I drop you right here.”

     Slim Watkins said, “You going to drop us all before we get you, Sheriff?”

     “No,” said Matt. “Bud here's going to take your head off with his scatter-gun before you get your pistol clear of its holster.”

     “You think so?”

     “I know it,” said Matt.

     “Let's give it a whirl,” said the gunslinger.

     “Hold it!” a voice called from the house. Matt Gunn didn't move or shift his eyes, but he knew it was Jesse Crowe. “Ain't no need to die today, Sheriff. You and your deputy need to ride on out.   There's still time for you fellas to get a drink and settle in for the night.”

     Matt moved his eyes from the gunslingers in front of him to the house, where Jesse Crowe stood in the doorway with Mary Crowe behind him. Jesse had the tails of his broadcloth jacket pulled back, revealing the twin silver-handled pistols he wore at his hip.

     “I told you what would happen if you started trouble in my town, Crowe,” Matt said. “I'm here to make good on it.”

     Jesse Crowe said, “We didn't start no trouble in town, Gunn.” Crowe let a smile crawl across his face.

     “You talk like a big man, Crowe. It takes a real big man to kill a boy when he's got a dozen gunfighters to back him up.”

     “That boy weren't more than fifteen years old,” said Bud Vern, a rare anger at the edge of his voice. “I reckon you kilt the one soul ain't have nothing to do with any of this.”

      Jesse Crowe stepped out of the doorway.

     “Sometimes,” he said, “you got to make an example out of a man.”

     Matt Gunn said, “Pete Marcel was a boy who wasn't known to be armed.”

     Matt turned his eyes on Mary Crowe. “This what you wanted, Mary? You put yourself on the side of cold-blooded murderers.”

     Matt saw it wasn't only the shadows within the house that darkened Mary Crowe's face, but shame.

     “Marcel started this, Sheriff,” Mary Crowe said. “He and his boys killed my husband.”

     “They may have,” Matt said, “but there's going to be a lot more killing now. And I don't think John would have wanted the blood of a young boy on his hands.”

       Mary's eyes flashed. Her slender body grew smaller as she shrank back into the shadows of the house.

     Jesse Crowe spoke up. “You come here to scold us, Sheriff Gunn? To punish us? That how you handled my brother's killers? I see they're all walking free. All but one.”

     Jesse Crowe moved and his men moved with him, circling around Matt and Bud Vern like a noose, drawing tighter. The riders from prairie clattered in, bringing a cloud of dust with them. Bud Vern's horse twitched nervously, and scratched the ground, anticipating the hell that was about to come.

     “Seems to me,” said Jesse Crowe, “you picked the wrong side, Sheriff. Sure ain't the side of justice. That makes you my enemy. My enemies don't live long.”

     Bud Vern said, “I don't expect your friends live long neither.”

     Bud Vern had both hammers pulled back on the shotgun, the twin barrels aimed at Slim Watkins.

     “It's a hard country, Deputy,” Jesse Crowe said. “It's a lucky man lives past his prime.”

     “This ain't your country, Crowe,” said Matt Gunn.

     Jesse Crowe said, “My brother liked it just fine. Maybe I'll stick around. See if it grows on me.”

     The noose drew tighter. Matt's horse shifted, sensing danger. Matt let his hand fall to his pistol.  “You boys come any closer and we'll see who's in their prime.”

     Slim Watkins laughed. “The odds are in our favor, lawman.”

     Bud Vern leveled his shotgun on Slim Watkins. “They ain't in your favor, son,” he said.

     The gunslinger's smile turned upside down and his gun-hand twitched.

     “Enough of this,” said Mary Crowe. She stepped into the fading light of the prairie. “There won't be no shooting here today.”

     “Go inside, Mary,” said Jesse Crowe.

     “You won't tell me what to do on my own land, Jesse Crowe. And you, Sheriff. Unless you think you can take a dozen men, you best ride out of here. I heard what you come to tell me, and it don't make no difference. Bob Marcel started this. He'll reap what he's sown.”

     “We'll all reap it,” said Matt, “before this is done playing out.”

     “Just go,” Mary Crowe said. “Ain't nothing can be done now.”

      Matt sat his horse, eyeing every man there, then pulled reign, cutting his horse around to face Jesse Crowe's mounted men.

    “Come on, Bud,” he said.

     “I don't care to turn my back on this bunch here, Matt,” said Bud Vern, his eyes planted firmly on Slim Watkins. “Specially not that one. He's a back shooter if I ever seen one.”

     “Try me, old-timer,” said Slim Watkins. “Just turn around, and see what happens.”

     “You'd like that,” said Bud Vern.

     Slim Watkins pulled his pistol faster than Bud or Matt could react and sent a bullet into Bud Vern's shoulder. The prairie erupted in gunfire. Shots went off like a string of firecrackers as men pulled pistols and fanned hammers.

     Bud Vern let loose with the scatter-gun. The shot took Slim Watkins in the face. The force of the blow sent the gunslinger's body caterwauling backwards.

     Matt had his pistol in hand and fired two shots, one for each of his promised targets, knocking two men off their horses into early graves.

     Bud Vern's mount took a bullet to the neck and toppled like a giant to the earth. On the way down Bud unleashed the other barrel of his shotgun. His low aim took the leg off another gunfighter, whose screams joined the cacophony of the panicked and dying animals.

      Matt Gunn felt the stinging white heat of a bullet slam him in the chest. He kicked his mount and fired into the fray, taking another gunslinger out of the contest. A warm spray of blood drenched Matt's face, as a bullet slammed into his horse's head. He rolled away as the dun fell, but his strength was gone, the wound in his chest sucking it away like a dry well.

     Matt stared up at the dying sky. A shadow passed and Jesse Crowe stood over him with the smoking barrels of his twin forty-fives leveled at the sheriff's face.

     “It didn't have to end this way, Gunn,” said Crowe.

     “I reckon it did,” Matt said with a wheezing breath.

      Jesse Crowe sneered an awful smile. He straightened out his arm and pulled back the hammers on his pistols. Matt Gunn never heard the shot. Blackness overtook him.

                                                                            X.

     Matt Gunn awoke and reached for his Peacemaker. He didn't know where he was, and couldn't find his weapon. He was in a dark place that smelled like earth. Faces hovered over him. Mary Crowe was one of them. The other was Jesse Crowe.

     Their faces drifted away, but Matt couldn't move. He listened to their voices.

     “You should have let me finish the job.”

     “He wasn't part of this.”

     “He made himself part of this when he and that damned deputy killed five of my men.”

     “Just do what you come to do, and leave him be. The fever ain't broke yet. He could be dead by morning.”

     “If he ain't,” said Jesse Crowe, “he won't live much past it.”

     The blackness came again, and with it dreams. Dreams of the past and of people Matt knew. Some of the people he had loved and some he had killed.

     Some of the dreams made sense and some didn't, but they all told him one thing. It wasn't time for Matt Gunn to die.

                                                                     XI.

     Matt's eyes sprung open and he reached for his Peacemaker. He was inside Mary Crowe's sod-house. On the mantle, beside a tintype of John and Mary Crowe, was his gun-belt, coiled like a snake. Below it, next to the stove, was Bud Vern's shotgun.

     Matt pushed himself up and threw off the thin blanket that covered him. His arm was stiff and a bandage covered his bare chest. Using the chair beside the bed to support himself, he lumbered toward his gun-belt. Not until he felt the worn pearl handle of his Peacemaker in his grip did Matt Gunn feel whole again.

     The sod-house door opened. Matt spun, clearing his pistol free of its holster, and brought it up cocked and ready.

     Mary Crowe stood in the doorway with a lilting sun behind her. Her dark eyes were empty, as if all the love and all the hate she had ever felt or would ever feel again had burned away leaving an empty husk of what used to be.

     Matt kept his pistol on her. “Where's Bud Vern?”

     Mary Crowe stepped into the one-room house and picked up a pile of folded clothes from the top of a trunk.

     “Put those on and I'll take you to him,” she said.

     Matt lowered the hammer on his pistol and holstered the weapon. He set his belt on the bed and dressed, using his one good arm.

     They stepped outside, into the fading light of a dying day that brought water to Matt's eyes.

     “How long was I out?”

     “Four days,” said Mary Crowe. “I didn't know if you'd make it until the third. Just a matter of time after that.”

     “Guess Bud Vern ran out of time.”

     “Weren't nothing I could do for him.”

     Mary Crowe turned and started away from the house. Matt followed her across the field where his and Bud Vern's horses still lay, bloated and pecked at by vultures.

     “You couldn't do nothing about that?” said Matt. He hated to see such beautiful and trusted creatures turned to decay.

     Mary Crowe shrugged. “Nothing I could do,” she said, and kept walking.

     “Jesse Crowe lit out on you.”

     Mary Crowe walked on in silence until they came to where John Crowe had been buried. Next to his grave was a more recent one. Both were marked with simple wooden crosses.

     “Best I could do for either of them. Jesse took his dead with him, to be buried in town, I suppose.”

     Matt Gunn's eyes fell to the freshly laid dirt at his feet. He tipped his hat to Bud Vern, his best friend for over fifteen years. Then he turned away and started walking.

     “Where are you going?” Mary Crowe called after him.

     “I'm going to town.”

     “Jesse Crowe will be there.”

     “I hope he is.”

     “You going to walk the whole way?”

     “I reckon so. You best burn them horses, or bury them one, before you get sick.”

     “I'm already sick, Sheriff. Sick to death. Least, that's how I feel.”

     “At least you feel something. Bud Vern and Pete Marcel won't never feel nothing again.”

      Mary Crowe looked down to the graves in front of her and Matt Gunn left her to it.

                                                                      

                                                                      XII.

      A pale moon was high in the night sky when Matt Gunn entered the town of Dusty Buttes. The town was dark and quiet. Windows had been shuttered and doors bolted, as if to keep out bad spirits. Matt turned onto Main Street and saw the only lights in town come dripping out of the saloon. 

     Matt crossed the street and went into the jailhouse. It was empty, and felt even emptier knowing Bud Vern would never again be whittling a stick out on the porch. He took his Winchester down from the gun-rack and loaded shells into the breach. Bud Vern had left a piece of whittling stick on the desk. Bud had never made anything. He'd just sit there and whittle sticks down to nothing to pass the time.

     Matt levered a round into the Winchester's chamber and stepped across the room. He picked up the sharpened stick Bud had left there, and wedged it in his gun belt. The feeling of it there made him feel like Bud Vern was still with him. He left the jailhouse and stepped out into the street.

     The air and earth vibrated as riders came charging down the street from the edge of town. Matt turned and brought his Winchester up as lightening streaked across the sky like mercury, illuminating Bob Marcel and a dozen cowboys riding behind him.

     Thunder roared as the rancher and his cowboys reigned up in front of Matt, with dust swirling like a cloud in the electrified air.

     Matt stood his ground as the riders arced to either side of Bob Marcel, with Will Marcel coming to sit his horse next to his father, danger flashing in the young cowboy's eyes.

     “We heard you was dead, Sheriff,” Bob Marcel said.

     “Well, I ain't,” said Matt Gunn. “If you don't turn this outfit around and take them boys on home, there's going to be some who are.”

     Marcel leaned over his saddle, his eyes creased and his lips pulled back in a wolfish snarl. “Don't be a fool, Gunn. We come for Jesse Crowe and we ain't leaving without him. If you want to stand in my way, so be it. I'll deal with you same as I've dealt with every man's gotten in my way.”

     “Like you dealt with John Crowe.”

     “Hell yes, like I dealt with that sod-busting son of a bitch, and every other man that's crossed me. Now, move, or by God, I'll string you up next to the one I come for.”

     Gunn put the Winchester to his shoulder and thumbed back the hammer. “Bob Marcel,” he said, “you're under arrest for the murder of John Crowe.”

      Bob Marcel sat back in his saddle and laughed. Thunder rolled in the distance.

     “You're good, Gunn,” he said. “I'll allow you that. But you ain't that good.”

     “Maybe not.” Standing in the saloon's bat-wing doors was Jesse Crowe, his arms spread wide, wielding his twin forty-fives. “But me and my boys just might even up the odds a little bit.”

Crowe stepped into the street, his spurs jingling in the night, like a song carried in the wind. One by one, his men filed out of the saloon, until eight gunslingers stood ready, pistols in hand.

     “You stay out of this, Jesse Crowe,” Matt shouted. “I'll deal with you right after this business is concluded.”

     “You sure do have some sand, Sheriff,” said Jesse Crowe. “But I would suggest you step out of the line of fire before these guns start going off. You might not be so lucky this time.”

     “I'm the law in this town!”

     “There ain't no law in this country,” said Bob Marcel, “except the law of the gun!”

     Deep thunder rolled. The kind a man feels inside. The air lit up in the electrified night. A gun went off and one after another barrels flashed. Horses shrieked and glass shattered. Matt Gunn drew a bead on Bob Marcel and fired. The rancher's horse reared up and the old man fell. Will Marcel fired as men on both sides of him fell and horses fled. Matt Gun felt a hammer knock his leg out from under him. He fell and rolled as horses charged past him. Lead flew and men screamed or fell silent. Matt fired his Winchester from the ground, dropping cowboy and gunslinger alike with each shot.

Bob Marcel crawled on hands and knees. A bullet took the old rancher in the head, covering Will Marcel in his father's blood. The boy fired towards the saloon until his gun clicked dry. A bullet took the boy in the shoulder and knocked him to the ground.

     Matt dropped his Winchester and rolled to the cover of a horse trough. He drew his Peacemaker and chanced a look at Will Marcel. Panic had taken over, and the boy turned turned to run. A bullet caught him in the back and he fell face down in the street. He crawled, still trying to flee, and a bullet struck him in the back, stilling him forever.

     The gunshots faded, replaced by the screams and moans of the dying. Jesse Crowe and four of his men were left standing. Eight men lay dead in the street.

     From the cover of the water trough, Matt Gun shouted, “Throw down your guns, Crowe!”

     Jesse Crowe stepped towards the trough, his men flanking him on either side.

     “You're still outgunned, Sheriff. Them bullet holes in you ain't helping your odds none.”

     “I got enough left in me to finish this,” Matt shouted in defiance.

     Crowe laughed. “They said you was a tough son of a –,"

     Matt sprung up with his Peacemaker and fanned back the hammer. Four shots sent four men to their graves, but Jesse Crowe was fast. The gunslinger shifted to the side and sent a bullet at Matt. It took Matt in the shoulder and sent him down to the ground. Lightening cracked the sky and thunder rolled across the night. The rain broke and fell in sheets as Jesse Crowe once again stood over Matt Gunn with a pistol aimed at the sheriff's head.

     The gunslinger kicked Matt's Peacemaker out of reach and sneered.

     “There ain't no woman around to protect you this time, Gunn.”

     Crowe cocked his pistol.

     “There's just one thing I have to say to you, Jesse Crowe,” Matt said through gritted teeth.

     “Okay, Gunn,” Jesse Crowe smiled. “I'll bite. What do you have to say to me?”

     “I told you I'd kill you if you caused trouble in my town.”

     Jesse Crowe laughed. “Damn you –,”

     Matt pulled Bud Vern's whittling stick from his gun belt and drove the sharpened end into Jesse Crowe's thigh. A wrack of thunder drowned out the gunslinger's scream. Matt shifted his head as Crowe's gun went off. The bullet thudded to the ground next to him. He pulled the whittling stick from Jesse Crowe's thigh, reached up, and drove it into the gunslinger's belly.

     Jesse Crowe dropped his pistols and fell back, his hands trying to stop the spreading stain on his shirt. He looked at Matt Gunn with disbelieving eyes. The gunslinger's face went pale and he dropped to his knees. Jesse Crowe tried to speak, but his last words were lost in a gurgle of blood and distant thunder.

      Matt stood up. He went to Jesse's Crowe's body and pulled Bud Vern's whittling stick from the dead man's belly. He pushed the body over and let it fall into the flooded street, the prairie fire extinguished with the light of the gunslinger's eyes.

                                                                          

                                                                     The End

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