"You believe in the Devil?" the Marshal asked me. I'd just come back from checking a busted section of fence over at the Bartlett place, and the question surprised me. The Marshal was sitting at the desk, working on the monthly paperwork for the territorial authority—how much we had spent on meals for prisoners, how much for laundry, that sort of thing, which was paperwork he hated and I hated too. So, at first I thought he was asking about the tedium of the papers that came with the job, so I said, "Sure seems like I do, every month, doing all that writing."

But he said, "No, not like that. I mean the real, honest-to-God devil, Lucifer himself. You believe in him?"

To tell you the truth I hadn't hardly ever thought about it, so I considered for a moment, and then said, "No sir, I don't believe that I do. I haven't given it much thought, though. Why do you ask?"

He paused for a moment, looking off into the dusty light streaming through the window that looked out on the dusty street, and took a deep breath, and said, "Because I think I just might have met him this afternoon."

I looked again, and he looked real serious, not like he was trying to be funny. "Do tell," I said, and I sat in the wooden chair catty corner from his desk.

"Aw hell," he said, "I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know." He sighed, and put his boots up on the desk, leaned back, looked up at the ceiling and started in.

"I was sitting here, earlier this afternoon. You'd gone off to the Bartlett place to check that busted section of fence, so it was just me, and this gentleman walks in. He's tall, maybe as tall as you are, and he's dressed real nice. A clean white Stetson; and a dark Green long coat, which was clean, too; pinstriped pants; and shiny black boots. Clean, you know? No mud, no sweat, no dust. Clean."

"'Good afternoon,' I says to him."

"'Good afternoon,' the Gent says to me. 'I just killed a man. I didn't even know his name.'"

"'Excuse me,' I said, and I remember I sat up a tad straighter."

"'Yes, indeed,' the Gent says to me. 'About fifteen, twenty minutes ago, over at the Mossy Horn.'"

I knew the Mossy Horn, a rowdy saloon for rowdy hands who'd just come in off long drives, with a big thirst and pockets full of cash. Over at the edge of town, far enough off so that you might or might not hear a shot, depending on which way the wind was blowing. Not the sort of place in which you'd expect to find a gentleman like the Marshal had described.

"I hadn't heard any shot," the Marshal said, as if he'd read my mind, "So I asked him, 'what happened?'"

"Oh, I forgot to say," the Marshal interrupted himself, "the Gent had an accent. English, I think. He spoke real well, good grammar, very articulate, but with an accent."

"So, anyways, the Gent says, 'I am travelling, St. Louis to San Francisco, and got off the stage with a bit of a thirst, as I'm sure you can understand. Being new to town, I wasn't sure of where to go when I saw a small group of your cow hands? Is that what they're called? Cow hands? Walking into the Mossy Horn. So, I followed them in.

"'It certainly is an odd phrase, isn't it,' the Gent says, 'Cowhands. One could almost suppose that they were men with hooves. Obviously, I jest, of course, but really, you must agree that the term has a certain element of absurdity.'"

"I thought that was odd, very odd—here's a man who's just confessing to killing someone, laughing at the word cowhands. 'Go on, I said.'"

"'Well, Sheriff,' he said, 'I went in through the crowd up to the bar and asked the tavernkeeper for a bourbon. Which he very promptly gave me. I turned, hoping to find an open table, or at least an unoccupied chair, and as I turned, I bumped into a cowhand. Or, one might say, he bumped into me. No matter. It was purely an accident. Or so I thought. I mumbled some brief word of apology, a little rueful that a good portion of my bourbon had spilled out of the glass. And I thought that that would be the end of it.'

"'But the young man whose path had intersected mine was not prepared to accept my apology, or to end the interaction. For I now saw that some of the bourbon had spilled onto his blouse, or shirt.'

"'"My new shirt, you—" here the young cowhand used a vulgar term, which I need not repeat—"what the hell did you do that for?"'

"'He was quite visibly drunk, swaying, bloodshot eyes, the odor of alcohol strong on his person.'

"'Again, I repeated how terribly sorry I was, and offered to buy him another drink, since I supposed that it was a desire for more alcohol which had brought him up to the bar.'

"'He continued to swear and grew increasingly agitated. He clenched his fists and swung at me. I was astounded—all this rage over a small bump and a small spill, which even now was drying in the heat.'

"'He called me names, insulted my heritage, mocked my speech, and finally called me out. The entire bar, by this time, I must say, was quiet, and I stood waiting, in the serene hope that someone would intervene, drag the poor drunkard back to his table, and put an end to this madness. But no one intervened. No one interceded. "Draw!" he fairly roared at me.'"

It was a common enough story, I thought. Me and the Marshal had had to deal with our share of drunks, just come in off the trail and feeling like they's ten feet tall. Usually it doesn't end in gunfire, though. Fists, sure, or, like this Gent was hoping, someone grabs one of the two would-be gunslingers, and there's an end to it. But this Gent had told the Marshal that he'd killed someone, so I was guessing that this story didn't have a happy or peaceful ending.

"So, then what happened," I asked John. John is John Withers, U.S. Marshal for the Territory. Me, I'm his deputy, Cale Grant.

"That's what I asked the Gent," John said.

"'I said "I don't have a gun" to the drunk,' the Gent said."

"And then the Gent says to me—I swear this is true, Cale, he says, 'I did have this,' and he snapped his arm, and pow! He was holding a derringer. Jesus! I jumped about a foot. And I noticed that he was real careful not to point it my way; just held it in his hand where it had appeared like magic."

"'But,' the Gent went on, 'I didn't think that such a weapon would suffice in this case, and I hoped that by explaining that I had no gun that the dispute would be defused.' And then the Gent flicked his arm again and that derringer disappeared. Damnedest thing I ever saw."

"'So, they didn't know you had that?" I asked the Gent, and he said, 'Correct. I kept—and keep—it concealed, only for use if my life should be threatened in a small or intimate situation. Hardly appropriate for a gunfight.'

"'I see. Please continue.'

"'Well, as I say, I hoped that someone would intervene, or that, seeing as I had no pistol, the matter would simply end. It did not. Some helpful person placed his six-gun on the table nearest me and said, "Here! You can use mine. It shoots real straight. All you got to do is pull the trigger." Not the outcome I had hoped for.'

"'I noticed, just then, that the bar had cleared. Everyone was way off to the side or had gone out into the light and heat, leaving the drunken man and me facing each other. I knew then that there was no avoiding this. I knew that he was drunk and I was sober. I knew that I would kill him. "Pick it up! He screamed at me. "Pick it up!"'

"'As though in a dream, I took a step closer to the table. I could see the gun lying there, dull silver, with brown wooden grips. I stalled for time. "What are the rules?" I asked the drunken young man. "Do you wait until I have picked up the gun? Do we turn our backs and pace off ten steps?"'

"'My questions seemed to confuse him. "Pick it up!" He yelled again.'

"'I picked up the gun. It came to my hand easily, as though with long practice. Of its own volition, it aimed itself. I heard the noise as he fired his gun and missed me entirely. I hesitated, wondering if, after missing, after seeing my gun aimed at his heart, he would relent, but he did not. He staggered a little and swore and fired again. And missed again.'

"'I shot and did not miss. Or, rather, say that I did miss, for my shot did not kill him, as I had intended. I missed his heart, and shot him instead, low, in the abdomen. He fired twice more, once very near to me, and another into the floor between us. I shot again, and this time my aim was true. I shot him between the eyes, as he stared at me. His eyes and mouth both open very wide. What do you think he saw, what do you think he thought, in those last instants of his life?'

The Marshal dropped his feet down to the floor. "Jesus, Cale, have you ever heard anything like that? And look, here."

He fished through the papers on his desk and found the piece of paper he was looking for. "Then the Gent pulls this out. It's a list, he says, of witnesses to the shooting. Names, he told me, that we'd know. People who would confirm that it was a shooting in self-defense. And we do know them. Curly Joe, and Kate, and Bill Winslow, and the Packer brothers. And Santiago and Lopez, too.

"So, The Gent tells me that he's going to be in town for the next three days, until the Westbound stage comes through again, and I tell him that I'd appreciate it, so's I can go check out his story. He tells me he's going to be staying at the Gold Star Hotel, and leaves. And I figure that I'll go on over to the Mossy Horn and see if I can find any of these witnesses and hear what they have to say."

The Marshal reaches over and has a sip of that cold coffee which he likes to drink all day long, and then continues.

"Which I do. I go over to the Mossy Horn and some of them are still there. There's Curly Joe, and Kate, and Don Packer, and Miggy Lopez. The others on the Gent's list have gone, but I talk to them that are still there, and each one of them confirms what the Gent has told me. The cowboy, whose name they didn't know, but who I later learned was Joel Watson, seemed drunk and ornery; and it was like he just kept getting madder and madder, no matter what the Gent said or did. And then he shot at the Gent—drew and fired first, and then the Gent shot him—twice— gut shot, and then right between the eyes, just like he told me. Pretty clear case of self-defense, I was thinking to myself. Thinking I'd head over to the Gold Star and tell the Gent that he was cleared, and could leave town whenever, figuring that he'd be here for the three days until the stage came anyway, cause where else was he going to go?

"Only then something odd happens. I'm turning to leave the Mossy Horn, and this little fella comes up out of the shadows, from the corner where I guess he'd been sitting. Louis his name was, Darnell Louis, a drummer, sells canvas from town to town.

The Marshal takes another swig of that coffee, and a deep breath, and sighs, and then says, "He comes up to me, and says, 'Marshal? Can I talk to you for a minute? Somewhere private?' 'Yes Sir,' I says, and leads him over to the other corner of the bar, where no one is sitting, no one is nearby, and I say, 'so, what's on your mind?' He says, 'I heard you asking them all what happened, and I heard what they said, and they all got it right, just as it happened. Only, I just wanted to tell you this. I've been on that stagecoach with the English gentleman ever since we left St. Louis, almost two weeks now, what with stops and layovers. We've shared that coach all along. And I have to tell you that this is the third time this has happened.' He's looking at me real earnestly, like he's trying to tell me more than his words can say.

"'That what has happened,' I ask him.

"'This,' he says, 'this shooting. Third time that he's gone into a bar, gotten into a fight, and shot somebody dead. Three times in two weeks. I just thought you should know.'

"Well, Cale, that set me back for a minute, I can tell you. So I ask the drummer to come back to the office here, and fill me in. Which he did. It's the damnedest thing. The way he tells it, the same damn thing has happened three times now, us being the third time. The Gent goes into a bar, bumps into a cowboy or something—some minor little thing— and the cowboy gets more and more mad, crazy mad, calls him out, the Gent borrows someone's gun, and shoots the cowboy dead. Three times.

"Oh, it's always self-defense, never the Gent's fault, but it sure seems odd, don't it? And I'll tell you what else. Remember how I said that the Gent asked me, right after he'd shot the guy between the eyes, he asked me, 'What do you think he saw, what do you think he thought in those last instants of his life?' Remember? Yeah? Well, he was smiling when he asked me that. Weirdest damn feeling I ever had."

He sighed again, sipped again. "So, what in the world are we gonna do? He didn't do anything wrong. Pure self-defense. Only three times running?"

"Well," I said, "why don't we go talk to him, find out what he says, and suggest that maybe, henceforth, he might stay out of bars where the cowhands are so apt to be so prickly."

"Yeah," John agreed. "Let's go talk to him. Henceforth—good word, I like that."

Walking up to the Gold Star, I had a couple more ideas.

"You said, these cowhands got real mad, all of them? Way overreacted? That seems a bit odd, doesn't it? Why do you think that is? Think it's got something to do with him?

"I honestly do not know," John said.

"And he's got that derringer, huh? Little two-shot thing? Maybe we shouldn't stand right next to each other when we talk to him, you know?"

John agreed. "Yeah, good idea. I'll ask the desk to send up for him, meet him in the dining room. You can already be in there, off at your own table, and as far as he knows, I'll just be there talking to him myself. How's that sound?"

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

Which is what happened. Me sitting at a table nursing a beer, when the Gent comes in and walks over to the Marshal up near the bar. I was close enough to hear the conversation, but that's not what concerns me right now. It started just the way you'd suppose, the Marshal telling him it was self-defense, and that he was free to go, but then it took a turn when he started asking the Gent about these other two episodes. We'd set it up so that the Marshal had his back to me and I had about a three quarters view of the Gent's face. And was it the light or were his eyes now sort of reddish? Anyway, the Marshal starts asking the Gent about the earlier episodes, and the Gent mutters something, something under his breath, which I couldn't quite make out, and whatever it was, it set John off. He raises his voice and says, "Now look here, you! I won't have that in my town!"

The Gent says, "Now, Marshal," but it doesn't do any good, the Marshal is mad and getting madder. And the air seems colder somehow, and I'm getting mad, too, feeling waves of anger. Goddamnit, I'm thinking who the hell does he think he is? Only I'm not sure who I'm mad at, or who does who think he is. And I kinda wonder about that, as I'm loosening the tie-down on my holster.

But the Marshal is beyond wondering. He is boiling mad, mad as I've ever seen him, and he says, loud and belligerent, "I'd call you out, you son of a bitch, only you don't have no gun. Or does that little ladykiller you wear up your sleeve—will that do you right now, right here?"

The Gent laughs, a little. You can see just how happy he is to be here right now, so alive. And I ease my gun out of its holster, real slow and careful, and get ready, just in case.

I'm thinking he's going to flash that little derringer before the Marshal can even clear leather, so right quick I yell, "I've got a gun you can use."

Which is a lie, because the only gun I got is now pointed right square at the Gent's heart. As he soon discovers. He looks over at me, smiling a little, like to thank me for the kindly loan of the gun against the Marshal, only his face freezes and looks real serious when he sees that I'm wearing a badge, and pointing that gun right at him.

"Now, Sir," I say, 'cause I still don't know his dern name, "would you kindly raise up your hands, real, real slow?"

And is it me, or does he look different, somehow? Menacing, sure, but that's to be expected. Only the Gent now almost seems like he's glowing, and the wave I had felt before, of rage and madness, now seem to be swirling out more strongly toward me, inflaming and angering me. Only I had just seen how the Marshal got, and I was on my guard, so I took a step back, (still well within range if I needed to pull that trigger), and the waves of hatred seemed to subside.

"And I'd take it kindly," I said, "if you could stop that spell you're trying to cast on me. It won't work. You can't reach me."

I thought he was going to explode. Now his eyes looked black as the Pit, and he seemed to grow or swell. All the while glaring at me, hating and loathing me. And the gun I was pointing never wavered.

And after a moment, his arms went up, nice and slow like I'd asked, and he exhaled and the pressure went out of the room or something, and he seemed to shrink back down to normal dimensions. And smiled, ever so sweetly, ever so happily.

Well, now, what to do? That, I was hoping, was a decision for the Marshal. After all, what had this Gent, or whatever he was, what had he done? He hadn't said or done anything to the Marshal, not so's you could prove in a court of law. It was the Marshal that had called him out. And we'd already cleared him of the murder of that young drunk cowhand.

But I'll tell you what,I thought that Gent—or whatever he was—was pure poison. Rattlesnake dangerous. And I didn't trust him as far as I could spit.

The Marshal shakes his head like he's just waking up, just coming too, and rubs his hand over his eyes. "Jesus," he says. And I notice that his hand drops to his gun, and moves the tie-down off, and wiggles that pistol a little in the holster, making sure it isn't wedged in there too tight. Just in case, I guess.

"Now," he says, "I'd like you to come down to the jail with me, so's we can talk privately. And just before we leave, I'll thank you to hand me that derringer you carry. Real easy, now."

Well, the Gent couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating. He drops his arm, real slow, shakes his wrist, the derringer drops into his palm, and he offers it, nice and easy, over to John.

So why am I not relaxed?

"I'll be right behind you," I say to John as he and the Gent step out of the Gold Star. And I was—right about ten feet behind them, my gun hanging at my side, where I still kept ahold of it.

It was the damnedest walk I ever took. First off, Curly Joe's mule Ellie, tied out at the hitching post and normally a calm and placid animal, backed and shied and bucked and squealed when we passed. And then I saw probably a dozen rattlesnakes as we walked over to the jail, where I knew full well that they should ought not to have been any of them. And the Marshal, who always kept his wits about him, either didn't see them, or didn't think they were worthy of commenting on, or the idea came to me that maybe they weren't even real, that the Marshal didn't even see them, cause there wasn't nothing to see. That maybe the Gent was up to some trickery of some kind, although how, I couldn't say. Or maybe there really was just about a dozen snakes had come out to lie and warm in the late afternoon sun. Hell, I don't know.

Back at the office in front of the jail, the Marshal sat down in his seat, and the Gent took the wooden visitor's chair. And I stayed in back of him, near the front door.

Well, you can probably guess what happened, you probably already seen our mistake. What made us think that the Gent only had the one derringer? Maybe I was so damn busy thinking nonsense about mysterious spells and snakes and whatnot that I got dumber than I normally am, but whatever the reason, neither of us ever thought to pat the Gent down. Lord God, he was quick. He had the second derringer out and pointed at the Marshal before I could say boo. And I could swear I heard him hissing.

But I ain't as dumb as all that. Yes, I did forget to pat him down, I'll own up to it. But I hadn't ever trusted him, and so when we got back to the office, and I was standing right back of him maybe six, eight feet behind him, where I could watch him, and he couldn't see me, why, right then, I'd pulled that pistol up and aimed it at him. So quick as he was, quick as he had that derringer pointed at the Marshal, I was just that tiny bit quicker, and I shot him down. He managed to fire that little derringer as he was blown out of the chair, but only broke the Marshal's coffee mug. And then he was down on the floor and dead.

And this time, you'd better believe, we checked him real good. He had a knife in his shiny black boot. And a wallet, with papers saying his name was Ernest Hollowood. Nothing to say where he'd come from—England, or, who knows, maybe Pittsburgh or Boston, someplace back east. It didn't matter now—he was dead.

There wasn't hardly any blood, and what there was looked thick, and dark, dark red, almost black. And Harley, the undertaker, when he came over to pick up the body, said he didn't hardly weigh anything, sixty, seventy pounds tops; and this for a man as tall as me. I don't know—that's just what Harley said, and he's well known for drinking too much. Hell, I guess I would too if I was in his line of work.

So, there you go. The Marshal asked me if I believed in the devil, and I said no. And now, now I'm not so sure. And I wonder just what in the world—or out of this world—I shot there, anyway.