They don't shoot on site. They'll want to talk first. Arrest me, maybe. Gloat. Ror likes the sound of his own voice.
I heard it in the canyon. So, I ride in at noon, bold as brass, right down the middle of Main Street. And I arrest the first deputy of his, I see, in front of the whole town with a federal badge and a federal warrant. And I ride back out with him across my saddle. Kane stared at me.
That is insane. That's the idea. Nobody expects it. And then Ror has a choice. Let a renegade marshal walk out of his town with his own deputy in irons and look like a fool in front of every voter in the county or trade.
Trade yon yon for his man out in the open on the flat where we can see everything. Tavana's eyes narrowed. And while every eye in that town is watching you, somebody with quiet feet walks into the sheriff's office through the back. Ror's the kind who writes things down. Men like him always do.
Ledgers, receipts, who got paid when, for what? Kanye and Isha looked at each other, then at Tavana. Tavana looked at me for a long time. Then she reached out and straightened my collar. Just that, a small, practical, intimate gesture, like a wife checking her husband before church.
Her fingers brushed my neck and were gone. Do not die in his street, Marshal. It would be very inconvenient. For who? For me.
Saguaro Wells at high noon was the kind of town that looks like it's holding its breath. One long street, false fronts, a water tower on stilts at the east end, a livery at the west, a bank with brick on the front and adobe on the sides like a man in a borrowed collar. Dogs asleep in the shade. Nobody else in the street at all until me. I rode straight down the middle on the sorrel.
Coat open, badge out where the sun could find it. I didn't hurry. A man who hurries looks like he's running from something. A man who walks his horse looks like he owns the road. Faces at windows.
A woman on the boardwalk pulled her shopping basket against her chest and backed into a doorway. Two old men on the bench outside the barberh shop, stopped arguing and stared and nailed to the post in front of the general store, still crisp the ink hardly dry, a fresh paper with my own name on it. Wanted Boon Halleran Renegade. $1,000, a thousand, twice what they'd put on five women. I didn't know whether to be flattered. The deputy came out of the saloon, wiping his mouth.
Young, rabboned, tin star, crooked on his vest and a long-barreled rifle in his hand. His boots were red with canyon dust to the knee and on his cheek fresh and swelling, the mark a rifle stock leaves when a man fires downhill and holds it wrong. So the man on the rim, he saw me, saw the badge, saw my face, which matched the paper on the post. His mouth fell open. You're under arrest.
Put the rifle on the boardwalk. You can't arrest me. You're wanted. I'm wanted. I'm not fired.
Rifle down. His eyes jumped to the windows to the sheriff's office across the street, back to me. His hand tightened on the stock. I'd already drawn. Most men don't see it.
The cult was on him and cocked before his brain finished telling his hands what to do. What's your name, son? Lon. Lon spivvy. Lon, I'm going to give you a choice that nobody gave Clee Dupre last night.
You set that rifle down, you live to see a judge. You lift it, you don't. Either way, you're coming with me. He set it down. I got off the sorrel and put the iron on him right there in the street in front of the barber shop in front of the two old men and the woman in the doorway and every face in every window.
I wanted them to see it. Every bit of it. You hear me? Saguaro Wells loud clear bouncing off the false fronts. My name is Boon Halleran, Deputy United States Marshal.
I am arresting this man for the murder of Clee Dupre, a federal prisoner shot from ambush in Devil's Canyon last night. Your sheriff is a party to murder and kidnapping. He's holding a woman against her will. And that paper on the post is a lie printed on county money. Your money?
That's a mighty big speech for a dead man. Across the street, the door of the sheriff's office. Thaddeus Ror came out onto his porch like a man stepping out to admire the weather. I'd heard his voice twice. Now I saw him 50 or past it. broad silver at the temples and a neat gray mustache.
Embroidered vest under a black frock coat. A gold ring on his right hand. Easy smile. The kind of face you'd let hold your money. The kind of face that counts on it.
Morning, Thaddius. Afternoon by my watch. He looked at Spivey and Irons. Looked at the windows at the people coming out onto the boardwalks now slowly by ones and twos. Voters.
All of them voters. His smile didn't move, but something behind it did. You let my deputy go, Marshal, and nobody has to get hurt. Your deputy put a bullet in DRI to stop him talking. Then put one through a man trying to surrender.
He's going to Tucson with you. You'll be lucky to make the edge of town. Then shoot me here now. In front of all these good people, a federal officer with his hands full of prisoner. I let that sit.
Go on. They're all watching. He didn't. I watched him not do it. Watched him count the windows.
What do you want? Halleran? Trade. Your man for the woman you took from the canyon last night. 3:00. The flat east of the old mission.