Chapter Two

Barely ten years settled, the town of Sundance was already showing the effects of a constant high plains wind and half a score of harsh Montana winters. It lay on the prairie like a scrap of cloth dropped by a passing zephyr, curved around the east side of a knoll called Cemetery Hill.

The graves had been there first—five oblong rips in the sod, halfway to the top. The O’Keefe family—father, mother, three sons. They’d been bound for the gold fields, became lost, then froze to death. At least that was the conclusion of the men who’d found them the following spring—old Gerard Turcotte and Jacob Wilder and Jacob’s oldest.

Ethan had helped dig the graves, solemn of eye but hardly shocked by the brutality of the deaths, the unfairness of such loss. Theirs hadn’t been the first graves he’d helped dig.

There hadn’t been much to salvage, and no one wanted the dilapidated wagon or wolf-chewed harness, so they’d left everything where it lay. Later that summer, a man named Ira Webb used the lumber from the wagon to build a dugout on the leeward side of the hill. He established a store to serve the area’s hunters, but also carried a few items that might appeal to a settler—lamps, milk buckets, and the like. People passed. A few stopped but none stayed until the cattlemen started drifting in with Texas dust in the creases of their clothing. The grass here was rich, water plentiful in the rivers and creeks that flowed out of the Rockies to the west. With half a dozen cattle ranches within a hundred-mile radius, the town’s roots finally began to take hold. In 1878, the ninety-plus residents of the community decided to call their town Sundance, and a delegation had been sent to Helena to apply for a charter and a post office. Five years later, the town’s population had doubled, and there was even talk of someday enticing the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railroad to build a spur line into town. Ira Webb’s old dugout had been turned into a community icehouse, and streets had been scraped out of the sod like a giant game of tic-tac-toe.

Sundance’s survival, and its growth, had always amazed Ethan, who still vividly recalled the emptiness of the land on the day they’d buried the O’Keefes. He kept expecting to ride in someday to discover the whole town gone, citizens and buildings alike swept away on the wind, only the hill and its lonely graves remaining.

It was still light out when Ethan rode into town, although the sun had already made its descent behind the Rockies. He kept the bay to a lazy, dust-scuffing jog as he made his way down the center of Hide Street, its name an irritating reminder to a lot of the newer citizens of a time when hunters and traders had ruled over this region of Montana. Cemetery and Culver Streets ran east and west, and a narrow track, little more than an alley, ran north and south to parallel Hide Street on the west.

Sam Davidson was just closing up shop when Ethan reined in at the mercantile. The storekeeper paused with one hand on the CLOSED sign, his expression hardening. His gaze shifted briefly to the mule and its load of pelts, and he grudgingly jerked a thumb toward the rear of the building. Ethan nodded and rode into the alley beside the store. Davidson met him on the loading dock out back. Dipping his chin coolly, he said: “Wilder.”

Ethan hesitated with his right foot already loosened in its stirrup. “Sam,” he replied cautiously. “How’ve you been?”

Davidson was staring at Ethan’s mule. “Those hides aren’t going to bring much, this time of year.”

“Probably not,” Ethan agreed, dismounting. “But I wanted to get away for a spell, and figured I might as well make some money while I was at it. These are summer pelts, all right, but taken up high, near the Continental Divide.”

Davidson glanced suspiciously at Ethan. “You’ve been away?”

“Nearly two months.” After a moment, he added: “What’s going on, Sam?”

“Aw, hell, nothing that’s any of my business. Besides,” he sniffed, acting embarrassed, “you always were the sensible one.”

“The sensible what? You’re talking in circles.”

“Then maybe I ought to shut up and take a look at those skins. You say you trapped these up high?”

“Near timberline.”

“That’s up there, all right. Much snow on the ground yet?”

“A fair amount for as hot as it’s been down here all summer.” He loosened the near-side pack and heaved it onto the dock at Davidson’s feet. He knew the storekeeper had changed the subject, but was too tired to care why.

Davidson cut the leather thong holding the hides together, and the bale sprang open. He started to rifle through the pack, then suddenly stopped, eyes widened. “Damn,” he said softly, dragging a hide easily ten times the size of those around it to the side. “Where’d you get this grizzly?”

“Same place I got the wolves,” Ethan replied, rolling the second bale off his shoulder, onto the dock. “There’re two more in this pack, but they aren’t for sale.”

Davidson ran his fingers through the long shoulder hair. Several strands pulled loose, sticking to his hand. “Just as well, I guess, but if this was winter prime, I’d offer you fifty dollars for it.”

“If it was winter prime, I’d want seventy-five.” Ethan replied, grinning.

Davidson dropped the bear hide, picked up a wolf. “Well, you know there isn’t any market for summer hides, but the Cattlemen’s Association will pay you a three-dollar bounty on your wolf skins. They don’t care how poor the pelts are as long as it gets rid of a few more calf killers.”

“Three dollars apiece suits me.”

“Then throw these hides inside the storeroom, and I’ll get your cash and a receipt.”

It took only minutes to complete the transaction. Returning to the alley, Ethan straddled the bay, grabbed the mule’s lead rope. No one was around when he rode inside Palmer’s Livery, so he stabled the animals on his own, rubbed them down with a burlap sack to dry their sweaty backs, then fed them and made sure their water buckets were full. Leaving four bits on the hostler’s desk, he went back outside, arching his spine against the stiffness of muscles attached too long to a saddle. It was full dark now, the street nearly deserted, the night air chilly after the heat of the day.

Several businesses were still open, but it was Ira Webb’s Bullshead Saloon—run-down and wind-scoured, but swank compared to the dugout he’d started in—that caught Ethan’s eye. A weary smile flickered across his face. He was tired, but not that tired.

It was quiet inside the Bullshead, too, and Ethan wondered what day it was. He’d lost track in the mountains, where time didn’t have the same meaning as it did down here.

Besides Ira standing on the sober side of a plain bar, there were only two other people in the saloon when Ethan walked in. One was a stranger, sitting at a table near the back wall. The other was Tim Palmer, who owned the livery where Ethan had just stabled his animals. Palmer and Ira were standing hunched over the bar in private conversation, but Ira grinned a welcome when he saw Ethan.

“Well, hell, look what the wind blowed in!” the bartender hollered, voice rumbling down the bar like loose bricks.

Palmer’s expression didn’t change. He stepped back as Ethan approached, as if afraid of catching something contagious.

“Howdy, Ira . . . Tim,” Ethan greeted.

Pushing away from the bar, Palmer said: “We can finish this later.” He stepped wide around Ethan and walked to the door. Pausing there, staring at the street, he said: “Where’s your horse, Wilder?”

“I put my horse and a mule up in that back stall of yours. I left my money on your desk. Fifty cents, right?”

Palmer turned slowly, his mouth working as if trying to form words in a foreign language. Then he just shook his head and stalked out the door.

“What the hell’s he so prickly about?” Ethan asked.

“Aw, hell, Palmer was born with a burr up his ass. Ain’t nobody yet figured out how to pry it loose.”

“I’ve never seen him that way before.”

“I have,” Ira said dismissingly. Reaching under the bar, he brought out a quart of Kentucky bourbon. “Come on and have a snort of good stuff. It’s too damn’ quiet in here.”

Slowly, stung by Palmer’s reaction, Ethan leaned into the bar. “What’s everyone so touchy about?” he asked, then briefly related his experience with Davidson, before the storekeeper found out Ethan had been in the mountains trapping most of the summer.

Ira poured two glasses to the top, then corked the bottle and put it away. He stared at the slowly swirling liquor for a moment, then picked it up and took a long sip. Lowering the glass, he said: “Folks is uneasy lately. Been some killings down south nobody knows much about, but . . . well, I reckon it’s Joel that’s got Tim and Sam so riled up.”

“Joel? My Joel?”

“One and the same.”

Ethan chuckled. “Hell, Ira, Joel’s too lazy to rile anyone.” He waited a moment, smile fading. “What’s he done?”

“You know Lou Merrick . . . does handyman work around town?”

“I’ve seen him.” Ethan felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. He’d seen Merrick’s daughter, too, a solid girl of ample proportions, hair as blonde as corn silk, skin pale as a dawn sky. Suzie Merrick was pretty, for a fact, and sure to attract all the attention she wanted . . . .

“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Ira said philosophically, but then he shrugged and added: “Lou says he did, though. Says Joel’s been hanging ’round, talking bold and trying to get his little girl to walk out to the barn with him.”

“How old is Suzie Merrick?”

“I believe she’s sixteen.”

“Joel ain’t but eighteen.”

“I know, but he’s a Wilder, and . . . well, you know what folks think of your pa.”

Ethan’s lips thinned. “They thought pretty highly of him when they first came out here. If it wasn’t for Pa, half this town wouldn’t have survived their first winter.” His anger swelled. “It was Bar-Five beef that kept them from starving, Ira, and coal from that vein above the home place that kept them from freezing.”

“I’ve ate many a steak off of Bar-Five beef, Ethan, and was damn’ glad to get it, but folks ain’t so dependent on your family no more, and I’m thinkin’ it kind of grates on some of ’em that there was a time when they was.”

“Where’s Joel now?”

“I don’t rightly know. He rode out a couple days ago. Sheriff Burke went looking for him.”

Ethan scowled. “Why’s Jeff sticking his nose into it?”

“Hell, Ethan, I guess that’s what’s got folks so worked up. Now, I ain’t sayin’ he did it, mind you, but the night Joel rode outta here in a huff on account of Lou chasing him off, that gal, Suzie, come up with two black eyes and a whopper of a busted lip.”

“Bullshit, Ira. Joel never hit a woman in his life.”

“Joel’s a good kid, but he’s young and . . . well . . .” Ira shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “There’s them that’ll say all you Wilders are heavy-handed. Your daddy sure is, so it ain’t much of a stretch for ’em to think Joel’d be capable of roughing up a woman.”

Ethan’s grip tightened around his glass. He wanted to deny Ira’s accusation, but knew he couldn’t. Not after what he’d just left back at the Bar-Five—Ben on the run and his pa having to saw his way to freedom with a butter knife to escape a privy where he’d been trapped for nearly eighteen hours. The truth was, the citizens of Sundance had no idea how rough and woolly Jacob Wilder and his boys could get when they weren’t hemmed in by the niceties of civilization.

“Your pa’s got some hard edges on him, Ethan. He rubs a lot of folks the wrong way. I know you’re different, and maybe Joel is, too . . . .”

“No, we’re not so different,” Ethan said stonily. “It chaps me to remember how happy everyone was to see us that first winter, though. We gave those people those beeves, Ira.”

“I know you did. I was one of ’em, and I ain’t forgetting it. But a lot of these folks today wasn’t here back then. They don’t know how close a lot of us came to starving and freezing that year. And it saddens me to say, but some of them that were here want to act like it didn’t happen. Like they’re ashamed they had to take help from a man like . . . well, like your pa.” After a pause, he added: “On the other hand, I seen that little Merrick gal the other day, and she surely does look like a cross between a raccoon and a duck. Her eyes are black and her upper lip is swollen damn’ near past her nose. Someone hit her square in the face, Ethan, and Lou Merrick swears it was Joel.”

“Did anyone see Joel do it?”

“Nope, but he was seen riding off afterward. Whatever did happen took place in Merrick’s barn, where Suzie’d gone to meet your brother. Folks are whispering that maybe Joel wanted more than she was willing to give, she being a fair-to-middling Christian and all.” He studied Ethan closely. “You got any idea where he’s at?”

“Joel? Maybe.” Ethan was thinking of Gerard Turcotte’s cabin on the Marias, below the Bar-Five, but, before he could mention it, a chair scraped roughly across the wooden floor behind him, and Ira said—“Hell.”—under his breath.

Ethan turned to look. “Who’s that?”

“Calls himself Nolan Andrews, if you want to believe him. Drifted in here a few weeks ago from Colorado.”

“He’s a long way from home.”

“I’ve heard it whispered that he was sent for, although he ain’t mentioned as much to me. Passes himself off as a speculator in land and cattle, but he seems a mite too quick-tempered to be successful in such a position as that.”

Nolan Andrews was a solid man. Not fat, but short and heavy. Like a boulder. He was round-faced and dark-skinned, with a whisker-shadowed jaw and heavy black brows. He wore a dark suit with a string tie and a pleated white shirt, although both articles looked well worn and were powdered with trail dust. His eyes were hooded, his pace lethargic. Leaning on the bar with one elbow, he looked Ethan up and down. “You Wilder?”

“No wilder than most,” Ira replied, then ducked his head and snickered. Ethan grinned but didn’t say anything.

With elaborate effort, Nolan seemed to pull himself together. He took his arm off the bar and stood straighter, and a hot-coal look came into his eyes. “You’re cocky for an old fart, bar dog. It could get you in trouble.”

Ira’s good humor vanished. “You want another beer, Andrews? Something to take back to your table with you?”

“What I want is a bottle of that good stuff I saw you hide under the bar.” He turned to Ethan. “And I asked you if your name was Ethan Wilder.”

Ethan turned back to Ira. “Joel wasn’t at the ranch when I passed through there this afternoon, but I’ve got an idea where he might have gone. I’ll swing past there tomorrow . . . .”

“Yeah, you’re a Wilder,” Nolan interrupted, voice raised. “You’re not as big as I expected, though. I’d heard you were twice the man your pa is, but, even as runty as that old blow-hard is, he’s not that short.”

A familiar warmth flowed up Ethan’s spine, exploding at the base of his skull. He glanced briefly at the revolver on Nolan’s hip, a nickel-plated Colt with pearl grips.

“Like it?” Nolan asked, sneering. He drew the revolver and held it up to the light. “Tuned by an expert. If you cocked it, you’d swear something inside was broken, it’s that slick.” He returned the piece smoothly to its holster, as much a show of proficiency as pride in the firearm itself. “Of course, you’re never going to touch it. This gun doesn’t leave my side. Ever.”

“Must make taking a crap an awkward exercise,” Ira remarked dryly.

A muscle twitched in Nolan’s cheek, but he kept his eyes on Ethan. “Fact is, Wilder, I’ve been waiting for you to get back. I’ve got some business to discuss with you.”

“What kind of business?”

Nolan tossed a silver dollar onto the bar. “Get me that bottle, barkeep?”

Ira stared at the coin as if considering refusal, then scooped it into his pocket and set what was left of the bourbon onto the bar. “Here she be,” Ira said, cackling with satisfaction. “Or what’s left of her.”

Nolan picked up the bottle without response. “Well, Wilder, are you curious enough to hear me out?”

Ethan drained his bourbon in two deep swallows, then slapped the glass back on the bar. Tapping the rim with a finger, he said: “Pour me another one, Ira. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Ethan followed Nolan to his table at the rear of the room. A partially played hand of solitaire was spread out across the scarred wooden surface. Nolan gathered the cards with the same deftness he’d used handling his revolver, then sank into his chair, his back to the wall. Ethan sat down opposite him, ramrod straight, waiting. Nolan didn’t beat around the bush. “I’ve been sent up here to acquire land for a new cattle co-operative. It’s come to my attention that the Wilders own some of the best land north of the Marias. I want to buy it.”

“Sorry.” Ethan stood.

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss my proposal,” Nolan said. “I work for Westminster Cattle and Mining, out of their Bismarck office, and they’ve authorized me to make you a fair offer.”

“No,” Ethan said. “We’re not interested in selling.”

“You won’t even listen to my offer?”

“I’m afraid not,” Ethan replied. He walked back to the bar, where Ira stood grinning from ear to ear.

“Did he offer to make you rich?”

“You knew what he was after?”

“If it was your pa’s land, then I’d figured as much. He’s bought a few homesteads already, but all that land ain’t gonna amount to squat if he can’t get the Bar-Five. Your pa knew what he was doing when he bought that post and all the land around it.”

The Wilders—Jacob and his boys—had filed on five tracts of one hundred and sixty acres apiece when the government opened the land up for homesteads—nearly a thousand acres of rolling grasslands. It wasn’t much compared to some of the bigger outfits moving into the region, but it wasn’t the land Jacob had been after. It was the water contained within the boundaries of the Bar-Five, an even score of the best sweet-water springs between the Marias and the Canadian border. With ownership of the Bar-Five, the Wilders could lay claim to better than twenty thousand acres of prime grassland.

Ira poured a fresh drink, the cheap stuff this time, and Ethan swallowed cautiously. “There’s some kick in that one,” he said.

“It’s expected for them that don’t know no better.”

“You shouldn’t have given me a taste of the good stuff. Now I know better.”

Ira laughed. “I got another bottle of bourbon under the bar if you want to fork over some of that bounty money you got for your pelts.”

Ethan smiled, but his expression had turned reflective. “I expect we ought to start branding our stock again.”

“The Cattlemen’s Association is planning its fall roundup next month,” Ira said. “Throw in with them. It’d make it easier for everyone, and maybe get people to thinking more kindly of you boys. Part of what upsets folks so much is the way your pa acts like he don’t need no one.”

“He doesn’t, Ira,” Ethan replied. “None of us do.”

Ira shrugged as if miffed. “Suit yourself. I was just talking.”

“Who’s running the roundup this year?”

“Charlie Kestler’s been running it ever since . . .” Ira’s words trailed off.

Ethan glanced over his shoulder. Nolan Andrews was coming toward the bar, brows furrowed into a gun sight above a blunt nose. Stopping several feet away, he brushed the tail of his suit coat away from his revolver.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear, Wilder,” Nolan said softly. “You and I have business to discuss. You took off before we were finished.”

“No, you made yourself clear enough.”

Nolan’s lips drew taut. His fingers brushed the pearl grips of his Colt. But it was his eyes that sent a chill skittering down Ethan’s spine. He’d seen that same look in his pa’s eyes, right before all hell broke loose.

“I talked to your daddy a couple of weeks ago, and he was of the same opinion,” Nolan said. “People told me to wait until you got back, that, if anyone could talk sense into your old man, it would be you. It appears you aren’t as smart as people thought.”

“You’re likely right,” Ethan replied mildly. He turned away from the bar with weary reluctance. “We won’t sell, Mister Andrews, and that’s a flat-out fact, so let’s cut the crap and get to it.”

Nolan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “That’s bold for a man carrying an outdated cap-and-ball pistol.”

Suddenly the old, trail-scarred Remington Army felt like a chunk of anvil on Ethan’s hip, so snug in its Indian-made holster of rawhide and brain-tanned elk and fancy beadwork that he knew he’d never come close to outdrawing his opponent. But he wouldn’t back down. No Wilder would.

“Now, hold on,” Ira said in a disarmingly agreeable tone. “Ethan ain’t well-heeled at all, but I am.” There was a Derringer in Ira’s right hand; Ethan hadn’t even known he carried one.

Nolan swore softly and raised his hands level with the bar. “I would have figured you for a shotgun man, barkeep,” he said.

“I prefer a scatter-gun,” Ira admitted, “but too many people expect it. They don’t anticipate a belly gun, and that’s what gives me the edge.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ethan walked over to lift Nolan’s pearl-handled revolver from its hand-tooled holster. Backing away, he raised the Colt, muzzle up, and cocked it experimentally. “By damn, he’s right, Ira. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this thing was broken.” He handed the revolver across the bar.

“You think that’s funny because your friend’s got the drop on me,” Nolan said to Ethan. “It won’t feel this funny the next time we meet.”

“S-h-h,” Ira chided. “I’m trying to listen.” He was holding the Colt next to his ear, cocking it repeatedly and lowering the hammer. When he handed it back to Ethan, there was new respect in his eyes. “That’s a sweet pistol or I wouldn’t say so. I wouldn’t mind having my old hogleg slicked up like that.”

Opening the loading gate, Ethan rotated the cylinder until all chambers were empty. He looked up in surprise when the sixth bullet dropped into his palm. “I don’t know many people who carry a gun with six beans in the wheel. You’re either mighty confident, or desperate.”

Nolan didn’t reply. He was staring at Ira’s Derringer, silently seething. Ethan set the Colt on the bar, scattered the cartridges beside it, then unbuckled his own gun belt, and placed it beside Nolan’s revolver. “I always did say a gun was a coward’s way of settling an argument. Why don’t you and me do this as if you’ve got a spine behind all those big threats?” He raised his fists.

Nolan looked momentarily stunned by Ethan’s proposal. Then he laughed. “I’m going to enjoy beating the hell out of you, Wilder.”

“You haven’t done it yet,” Ethan replied, but his sentence was abruptly punctuated by a startled grunt, and his head rocked back on his shoulders as if hinged at the spine.

“Jesus!” Ira shouted, as completely caught off guard by Nolan’s swift response as Ethan had been.

Spun into the bar by Nolan’s punch, Ethan grabbed clumsily for the far edge, barely keeping his feet. Looking up, he saw Ira staring at him worriedly. Ethan felt the same way. He’d barely seen Nolan’s fist blazing across the empty space between them, hadn’t even begun to duck aside when it slammed into his chin.

He got his feet under him and turned, fists raised warily. Nolan was smiling broadly as he closed on the younger man. He led with his left foot, both arms up with the elbows tucked tight in front of him, backs of his hands turned outward. Ethan recognized the stance. He’d seen it a hundred times before in newspaper woodcuts and on broadsheets—the classic pose of a professional boxer.

Nolan feigned a left, then shot his right fist forward like a cannonball, but Ethan was ready this time, and parried it. Nolan’s brow arched in approval. He circled to his left. Ethan gratefully moved away from the bar, backing toward the middle of the floor where he had room to maneuver. Nolan followed patiently.

Ethan eased forward, fists moving in slow, erratic circles. He was looking for an opening, an edge, anything to even the odds. Without warning, he lunged forward, swinging low under Nolan’s elbow, aiming for his ribs. But Nolan was too wily for such a lumbering attack. He side-stepped the blow and launched a quick, short jab of his own. Ethan staggered backward into the suddenly twirling saloon. From a long way off, he heard Ira shout: “Watch it, Ethan!”

“Trying,” he muttered, swinging an uppercut that Nolan easily batted away, taking a sledge-hammer punch to his chest in return. The next thing he knew, he was on his hands and knees, staring at the thin carpet of sawdust on the floor. He could hear Nolan laughing. Or at least he thought it was Nolan. The sound seemed strangely distant, filtered by a roaring in his ears, the floor undulating in rhythmic waves beneath his nose.

“Get up, Ethan!” Ira shouted.

Ethan sank back on his heels. Nolan could have finished it then if he’d wanted to, but he apparently had other plans. Recalling the man’s attempt to goad him into drawing his gun, Ethan suddenly understood what he wanted. Nolan Andrews wasn’t a speculator in land or cattle or mining. He was a solver of problems—a killer, when the need arose—and he, or the men he worked for, wanted the Bar-Five. Nolan had tried to purchase the ranch legitimately, first from Jacob, then from Ethan. When that didn’t work, Nolan had tried to provoke a fight. Ira had prevented gun play, but like Ethan, a damned fool, had handed Andrews a second opportunity as handily as a waiter offering to refresh a cup of coffee.

Ethan hadn’t lost a fist fight since he was sixteen, when he’d gone toe-to-toe with his old man over a ruined supper of burned liver, but he realized he could lose this one, and the thought shook him badly. Growing up in a rough-and-tumble world, he knew how to fight. More important, he knew how to win. But he’d never met anyone like Nolan Andrews before. There was almost an art to the burly man’s moves, like the intricate steps of a waltz or the deft brush strokes of a painter. Ethan couldn’t win using Queensbury Rules; he didn’t have the training for that. But he could still win. There was a way.

With a bellow, Ethan surged to his feet. Nolan laughed harshly and brought his fist down like a pile driver, a blow that could have broken Ethan’s neck if it had connected. But Ethan had learned his lesson. At the last minute, he darted to the side, throwing a short, powerful jab to Nolan’s solar plexus as he passed. Nolan grunted and stumbled backward, a look of astonishment coming over his face. Ethan whirled and swung a hard left that caught Nolan behind his ear. The big man reeled. Ethan struck again, spilling blood and spittle from Nolan’s mashed lips. But that was all he got, three quick hammer-like blows that staggered the gunman, but didn’t drop him. When Ethan swung again, Nolan threw up an arm, deflected his punch.

Ethan didn’t even see the fist that rammed into his cheek. He fell back and would have gone down if not for the heavy table he came up against. Nolan pressed his attack, fists pumping. Ethan tried to block, to duck, dodge, and parry, but to no avail. His chest heaved and his lungs burned for oxygen; his feet seemed to drag over the sawdust-covered floor. He felt Nolan’s knuckles bounce off a bicep. Another blow struck his shoulder, close to his neck. Two more struck him squarely in the chest, and a fluttering darkness descended around him. In growing desperation, Ethan kicked out with his foot, catching Nolan in the knee. It was a lucky strike and lightly placed, but it was enough to cause Nolan to lurch and nearly lose his balance.

Ethan retreated. Nolan followed warily, spitting blood. The cocky, confident grin was gone now, replaced by a smoldering rage. Ethan had seen that look before, too, in the eyes of predators.

Blood was dripping from Ethan’s face, and sweat stung his eyes. Nolan was crowding him, attempting to draw him into the offensive. Ethan refused the bait. He knew Nolan had some trick up his sleeve, and he was determined to avoid it. Instead, he backed right into it.

Feeling something pressing against the back of his thighs, Ethan knew he’d come up against the table in the back of the room. The same table where Nolan had pitched his offer to purchase the Bar-Five.

He was trapped, nowhere else to go.

Feigning rage, Ethan leaped forward with a curse. Nolan stepped back, braced himself, then launched a right that should have unscrewed Ethan’s head from its shoulders. But Ethan wasn’t there. Using the same tactic he’d employed earlier, he dodged to his right at the last minute, grabbing the half-empty bottle of bourbon Nolan had left on the table as he did. As Nolan’s fist whistled past Ethan’s ear, Ethan swung the bottle with everything he had. The hard glass took Nolan behind his ear, felling the gunman in a deluge of broken glass and bourbon.

Gasping for air, Ethan sagged into a nearby chair. He thought that, if Nolan regained his feet now, he was finished.

“Lord God,” Ira breathed, coming over with a tumbler of whiskey. “That’s the best fight I’ve seen in many a year.”

“He’s been trained,” Ethan panted, trying his best to ignore the twirling lights of the saloon.

“He was good, for a fact, but you slickered him with that bottle of bourbon.” Ira chuckled.

“I’m glad he paid for it before you busted it over his head, though.”

Ira tried to hand Ethan the whiskey, but Ethan waved it away. His limbs were growing weaker, and he knew he was about to pass out. He didn’t want to do it here, though. He wanted to get outside, and tried to say as much to Ira, but his tongue felt stiff as a board and the words muddled up in his brain. The last thing he remembered was Ira asking if he was all right.