Leaving Epitaph: The Sons of Daniel Shaye

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Holcomb and Thomas each pushed their man through the bat-wing doors, then entered right behind them.

“This is the sheriff!” Holcomb shouted. “Keep your hands away from your guns.”

The thirteen men in the room froze momentarily. The four men they would have taken orders from were not there. As a result, they had to make their own individual decisions.

At the sound of Holcomb’s voice, the others made their moves.

James and Deputy Strunk opened the office door and stepped out, guns in their hands. James’s heart was pounding, and he tried to ignore it.

Matthew and Deputy Winston stepped through the curtained doorway with their guns out. Matthew’s mouth was dry. He still wasn’t sure that he was with his father and brothers on what they were going to do, but this seemed okay to him. After all, they were acting with the local law.

Shaye stood up straight and pointed his gun at the men on the first floor.

“Play it smart and lay down your guns,” he called out. “You’re surrounded!”

Red Hackett looked up and saw Shaye looking down on them with his gun out. He didn’t recognize the man, or any of the others, but he knew two things—they were lawmen, and he and his compadres outnumbered them.

“Surrounded, my ass!” he shouted, and went for his gun.

That was all the others needed. They all went for their weapons, and the shooting started….

“What the hell!” Ethan said.

He started for the door with Ben Branch in tow. Morales looked at Aaron, who shook his head. From the sounds outside the room, all hell had broken loose.

“Ethan, wait!” Aaron shouted.

“What for?”

“The law’s made their move.”

“But there was only supposed to be three of them.”

“Sounds like a lot more than that to me,” Aaron said, “and if they got the drop on our men, it’s gonna be bad.”

“So what do we do?” Ethan asked.

Aaron waved his arm at the stacks of money on the table. “We pack this money up and go out that window,” he said. “There’s a roof out there. We can make it to the street and get our horses from the livery.”

“But—”

“There’s a lot of money here,” Aaron said, “and a lot more if it’s only split four ways.”

Ethan hesitated.

“What do we do, Ethan?” Branch asked.

Morales was ready to draw his gun to back Aaron Langer’s play. He’d leave Ethan to his own brother, and he would take out Branch, if it came to that.

“Ethan,” Aaron said. “What do we do?”

The shooting in the saloon was getting impossibly loud. It sounded like a war.

“Pack it up, Aaron,” Ethan finally said, “and let’s get the hell out of here.”