Resolution

65.

It was a bright night, with a nearly full moon, when Cato and Rose, and me and Virgil, rode on down into Resolution. There wasn’t much movement on the streets, but there was a lot of noise from the saloons. We rode in behind the Excelsior and turned into the passage that separated it from the laundry, and stopped. We sat our horses quietly in the shadows of the alley and waited.

“This ain’t gonna work more’n once,” I said.

“Once might be enough,” Virgil said. “Make them come after us.”

“And if it don’t?” I said.

“We need to get them out in the open,” Virgil said. “Can’t fight them in here. Too many, still.”

“So if this doesn’t work,” I said, “we find something else.”

“We do,” Virgil said.

Three men came out of the Excelsior and walked unsteadily down Main Street. They didn’t see us.

“Thing is,” I said, “if Wolfson wins this thing, he loses the town anyway.”

“To?” Rose said.

“Lujack,” I said. “Fella ain’t a shooter hires twenty shooters to work for him, and they’re together long enough, what happens?”

Rose grinned dimly.

“Fella that ain’t a shooter ends up working for the fellas that are,” he said.

“Pretty much what happened with us,” Virgil said. “Why Wolfson hired Lujack. He couldn’t trust us to do what he said, and he couldn’t make us.”

“Not so much fun being Lujack,” Rose said.

“He needs gunmen for what he wants,” I said. “And he ain’t one himself.”

“Like a rabbit hiring coyotes,” Rose said.

Two deputies came out of the hotel across the street.

“Making their rounds,” Virgil murmured.

Frank Rose slid off his horse and handed the reins to Cato.

“Mine,” he said. “Cato’s two ahead of me.”

Virgil nodded.

Rose stepped out into the street and walked behind the deputies. One of the deputies heard him and looked back, and said something to his partner. They both stopped and turned. Rose stopped about forty feet away and stood looking at them. They didn’t recognize him.

“You want something?” the deputy said.

“Kinda curious,” Rose said, “’bout them Colts you’re carrying.”

“Curious?” one of the deputies said.

“If you’re any good with them,” Rose said.

The two deputies moved away from each other, facing Rose.

“Why you wantin’ to know that?” the deputy said.

“’Cause I’m plannin’ on shootin’ you both,” Rose said. “’Less you’re faster than me.”

“You’re what?” the deputy said.

“I was you I’d draw now, ’cause I’m fixin’ to shoot,” Rose said.

Rose drew. The deputies drew. Rose killed them both. One shot each. Then he sprinted back to the alley where we waited, took his reins back from Cato, and stepped up onto his horse. Across the street, several deputies were easing out of the hotel door, guns drawn.

“Sixteen to four,” Rose said as he turned his horse.

“Every little bit helps,” Virgil said.

And we wheeled and rode out of town at a full gallop.