“Damn,” Kyle said.

“Yeah,” Matt replied. “I see them.”

The two were looking at vultures, wings outstretched as they rode the thermal waves.

“Coyote?” Kyle suggested.

“No. Too many for a coyote. It’s bigger than that.”

“Deer? Horse?”

“Look how they are staying away,” Matt said. “If it was a deer or a horse, they’d be on it. No, whatever it is, they are afraid of it.”

“There’s only one thing they are afraid of,” Kyle said.

“Yes,” Matt replied. He didn’t have to say it aloud. He knew, and he knew that Kyle knew, that what the buzzards were circling was a man.

It took at least half an hour before they reached the body. It was hanging from the branch of a cottonwood tree, twisting slowly at the end of the rope. Some of the vultures had gotten brave enough to descend to the upper branches of the tree, but none had actually reached the body yet, because it showed no signs of vulture feeding.

“It’s Dempster,” Kyle said.

“He was just a drunk. Who could a drunk make angry enough to do something like this?”

“He had stopped drinking,” Kyle said. “And he is the biggest reason the governor granted you a pardon.”

“I’ll be damn,” Matt said as he sat on his horse and looked at Dempster’s body. “He tried to defend me in the trial. I guess he never gave up.”

“And my guess is, that’s what got him killed,” Kyle said. “He made an enemy of Cummins and his deputies.”

“We can’t leave him just hanging like this,” Matt said.

“Want to bury him?” Kyle asked.

“No. I have a better idea.”

Matt and Kyle arrived in Purgatory at just about supper time, and along with the spicy aromas of Mexican cooking, they could smell coffee, pork chops, fried potatoes, and baking bread.

Matt was pulling a hastily constructed travois. Dempster’s body was in plain sight, tied onto the travois.

“Frederica?” a woman called.

“Sí, señora?” a young Mexican girl answered.

“Take the clothes down from the line, will you?” the woman ordered.

“Sí, señora,” the servant girl replied.

The servant girl, startled by sight of the dead man on the travois, gasped, and took a step backward. Matt touched the brim of his hat in greeting, then urged his horse on.

A game of checkers was being played by two gray-bearded men in front of the feed store, watched over by half-a-dozen spectators. A couple of them looked up at Matt and Kyle rode by, their horses’ hooves clumping hollowly on the hard-packed earth of the street.

“Son of a bitch!” one of them said. “That’s Dempster. That’s Bob Dempster’s body he’s a’pullin.”

Amon Goff came through the front door of his shop and began vigorously sweeping the wooden porch. His broom did little but raise the dust to swirl about, then fall back down again. He brushed a sleeping dog off the porch, but the dog quickly reclaimed his position, curled around comfortably, and within a minute was asleep again.

Goff watched the two men ride by, then, nervously, went back into his shop and started pulling down window shades.

“What are you doing that for, Amon?” he wife asked. “It ain’t time to be a’closin’ yet.”

“Hush, woman, and get into the back,” Goff said.

“What?”

“Do like I say, woman!” Goff said. “There’s about to be some killin’ and we’d best be out of the way.”

Matt and Kyle stopped in front of the city mortuary, and Matt dismounted, then cut the travois loose. A tall, cadaverous-looking man, dressed all in black, stepped out of the building.

“You the undertaker?” Matt asked.

“Yes, sir, Prufrock is the name.”

“Take care of him, Prufrock,” Matt said.

“Well, I—uh, would be glad to,” the undertaker replied. “Is the city going to pay for it?”

Matt handed the undertaker a fifty-dollar bill. “No,” he said. “I’m paying for it. The city will be paying for the others.”

“What others?” the undertaker asked, clearly not understanding what Matt was talking about.

“Marshal Cummins and his deputies,” Matt said flatly.

“Wait,” Kyle said. “Prufrock, my name is Ben Kyle. I’m a United States marshal. I’m going to ask you just one time and if you know what is good for you, you will tell the truth. Have you ever heard of a man named Jerome? Cornelius Jerome?”

Prufrock didn’t answer.

“You have five seconds to answer,” Kyle said. “Or when we have finished with Cummins and his crowd, we will be coming back for you.”

“He’s buried out here in Boot Hill,” Prufrock said quickly. “Under the name Bill Smith.”

“If you knew his name, why did you bury him as Bill Smith?”

“It was what Marshal Cummins ordered,” Prufrock said. “He killed him.”

“Cummins killed Jerome? Why?”

“He didn’t mean to kill him. He was tryin’ to shoot his hat off his head. It was an accident,” Prufrock said.

“An accident?”

“Yes.”

“This is what I want you to do, Prufrock. I want you to write that out for me and sign it,” Kyle said.

“I can’t do that,” Prufrock said. “Cummins would—”

“Don’t worry about Cummins. He’ll be dead,” Kyle said in a flat, matter-of-fact voice.

Leaving the startled undertaker with Dempster’s body, Matt and Kyle rode slowly down to the far end of the street, then tied their horses off at the hitching post in front of the Pair O Dice Saloon. When they dismounted, Kyle drew his pistol, pointed it into the air, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the quiet streets for a long time. Then it was silent.

The gunshot attracted several of the townspeople and they looked toward the saloon, at the two men who were standing in front, one with a smoking gun.

A curtain fluttered in one of the false fronts.

A cat yowled somewhere down the street.

A fly buzzed past Matt’s ear, did a few circles, then flew away.

A face appeared over the top of the batwing doors, then looked out at Matt and Kyle.

“Are you one of Cummins’s deputies?” Kyle asked.

The man shook his head no.

“Then get the hell out of the saloon.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Get out or get killed,” Kyle said.

Without another word, without even looking back into the saloon, the man left and walked hurriedly on down the street.

“Hear me!” Kyle shouted.

The two words echoed back down the street. “Hear me—hear me—hear me.”

“Anyone in the saloon who isn’t with Marshal Cummins, come out of there now!” Kyle called.

From inside the saloon, Matt could hear the sounds of chairs and tables being scooted across the floor as people hustled to leave. A few seconds later, almost a dozen men came through the front door, then hastened to get out of the way, though they didn’t go so far as to not be able to see the show they were certain was about to take place.

Kyle looked over at Matt.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Matt didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped up onto the porch, then pushed through the batwing doors and went inside, backing up against the wall as he did so. At the bar, a glass of beer in front of him, his lips dripping with moisture, stood Cletus Odom. Also at the bar, but separated by the length of the bar from Odom, stood Marshal Cummins.

Matt’s lips twisted into an evil smile. Part of him wanted to kill both men this very instant, while part of him wanted to delay the pleasure. He could imagine the fear Dempster had shown when about to be hanged, and he wanted these two men to know that same terror.

“Cummins,” Kyle said. His words were cold, flat, menacing. “As a United States marshal, and acting upon the authority of Governor Fremont, I am here to inform you that your office of city marshal, and the offices of all deputies under you, have been vacated. You no longer have any legal standing. In addition, I am placing all of you under arrest.”

Cummins didn’t turn around, didn’t even look up at the mirror. Instead, he just stared into his glass of beer.

“Now just what makes you think I’m going to let you do that?” Cummins asked.

“There’s no letting to it, Cummins,” Kyle said. “We’re doing it.”

“You and that murderer with you?”

“This man is a deputy U.S. marshal,” Kyle said.

“A deputy U.S. marshal, is he? And what does that mean?”

“That means I can kill every damn one of you and it’ll be legal,” Matt said in a cold, deadly voice.

“I’m going to ask all of you now to unbuckle your gun belts and let them drop to the floor,” Kyle said.

“No, thank you. I got no plans to go hang.”

“You’re going to die at the end of a rope, or you’re going to die here today,” Kyle said.

Cummins turned away from the bar and looked toward Odom. Odom and Cummins were at opposite ends of the bar. Jackson and Crack were also in the saloon, Jackson near the piano, Crack by the little potbellied stove. The four men were all spread out, which was going to make them more difficult targets than they would have been if they were closer together.

“Could be that you two are the ones that’s goin’ to do the dyin’,” Cummins said. “You might’a noticed that there’s four of us and only two of you.”

“Marshal, you take Cummins,” Matt said flatly. “I’ll kill Odom.”

Saying that he would “kill” rather than that he would “take” Odom was deliberate on Matt’s part, and it had the desired effect. He saw Odom flinch slightly; then he saw Odom’s tongue slide out to lick his dry lips.

Matt’s comment was followed by a long pause, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock that stood against the back wall.

“Now!” Cummins suddenly shouted, and he, Odom, Crack, and Jackson all started for their guns.

Matt reacted to the sudden move quickly, drawing his own pistol faster than he had ever drawn it before. He had his own gun out in time to take quick but deliberate aim and shoot Odom in the gut. Odom, the barrel of his own pistol just topping the holster, pulled the trigger, shooting lead into the floor. A red stain began to spread just over his belt buckle.

Cummins had his gun out before Kyle and his pistol shot cracked an instant after Matt’s. The bullet from Cummins’s pistol hit Kyle in the left shoulder, even as Kyle was pulling the trigger of his own gun. Kyle’s bullet hit Cummins in the chest and the outlaw marshal went down.

Even as Odom’s gun was clattering to the floor and he was putting his hands over his belly wound, watching the blood spill through his fingers, Matt was turning his attention to Jackson and Crack. But, because they were some distance apart, he had to be very deliberate in selecting his target, so he went after Jackson first, getting what was his second shot off, even before Jackson could fire his first. Matt’s bullet hit Jackson in the forehead, and he pitched back crashing into the piano, raising a cacophonous and discordant clang before bouncing off and landing on the floor.

An acrid, blue smoke from the discharge of the weapons formed a big cloud that was already beginning to drift toward the ceiling.

Knowing that Crack was behind him and had not yet fired, Matt threw himself down just as Crack did fire. Crack’s bullet fried through the air exactly where Matt had been but an instant earlier.

Firing up from the floor, Matt’s bullet hit Crack under the chin, then burst out through the top of his head, emitting a detritus of blood, skull bone fragments, and brain matter.

Getting up from the floor but still holding on to his smoking gun, Matt looked over at Marshal Kyle. Kyle was leaning against the bar, holding his hand over the bleeding wound.

“How bad is it?” Matt asked.

“It hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll live,” Kyle replied.

Hearing Odom groan, Matt walked over to look down at him.

“You know why I shot you in the gut instead of the head?” Matt asked.

“Because you couldn’t hit me in the head,” Odom answered. He tried to laugh, but it came out a barking cough. Little flecks of blood sprayed out on his lips and on his shirt.

“Oh, I could have,” Matt said. He stood up and rammed his pistol back in his holster. “But I wanted you to die real slow.”

“Why?” Odom asked. “Why did you take such a personal interest in killing me?”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand,” Matt said.

From outside, there came the sound of dozens of footfalls on the boardwalk. Both Matt and Kyle whirled toward the batwing doors, their pistols raised and ready.

“No, hold it, hold it! Don’t shoot!” a man shouted, pausing just outside the batwing doors. He had both hands up to show that he wasn’t armed.

“It’s all right, Jensen, I know him,” Kyle said. “Bascomb, what are you doing here?”

“We came to check up on you, Marshal,” Bascomb said.

“Well, you’d better get out of here before the rest of Cummins’s deputies get here.”

Bascomb smiled. “You don’t have to be worryin’ none about them, Marshal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Duke, Warren, and Gates are in jail,” Bascomb said. “Soon as the folks comin’ out of the saloon told us what was goin’ on, we figured them boys would probably be goin’ down there to help out Cummins. So we just waited for ’em, and got the drop on them.”

“You got a doctor in this town?” Jensen asked.

“Yeah, we do,” Bascomb answered.

“Well, quit standing here palavering. Go get the doctor for the marshal.”

“Oh,” Bascomb said. “Oh, yes, I didn’t think about that.” Turning, he yelled up the street. “Get Dr. Urban up here! Get Dr. Urban up here to tend to the marshal.”

“To hell with tendin’ to the marshal, let the son of a bitch die!” someone called back.

“I’m talkin’ about U.S. marshal Kyle,” Bascomb replied. “Marshal Cummins is already dead.”

Matt waited until Dr. Urban arrived, then stood by as the doctor examined the wound.

“How bad is it, Doc?” Matt asked.

“Not bad at all,” the doctor said as he began cleaning the wound. “Looks like the bullet just left a little crease. If it doesn’t putrefy, it should heal up quickly.”

“That’s good to know,” Matt said. He took the badge off his shirt and handed it to the marshal.

“You are welcome to keep that deputy’s badge,” Kyle said. “I can always use a good man like you. The law can always use a good man like you.”

“I appreciate it, Marshal,” Matt said. “But I think I’ll just be getting on.”

“Where are you headed?”

Matt paused for a moment, then smiled. “You know—I haven’t really given that any thought.

“What about me?” Odom asked.

“What about you?” Matt replied.

“Ain’t you goin’ to let the doctor look at me?”

“It wouldn’t do any good for the doctor to see you. You’re going to die no matter what he does,” Matt said.

“But you can’t just leave me here to die on the floor,” Odom said.

Matt thought of Suzie Dobbs, and all the others, killed and injured in the train wreck caused by this man.

“You can’t leave me like this!” Odom shouted again.

Matt started for the door. Then, just before he left, he looked back at Odom. “Yeah, I can.”

“You son of a bitch! I’ll see you in hell!” Odom shouted.

“Not likely,” Matt replied. “I’ve done my time in Purgatory.”