Sam didn’t know what to do. He looked at Gray Ellen.

“Sam, Sam—trust me, Sam. It’s all right. It was nothing improper.”

He nodded. He did trust her. She never lied, not to him or anyone. He felt the whole day draining down into his shoes—the violence, the guilt, the whiskey, all of it. He lowered the revolver. “No, I’m not going to shoot you,” he said. He wanted somebody to realize that he was trying to do the right thing—that he had been trying all day long.

Grant whipped out his two-shot Bulldog derringer. “Don’t pity me, white man,” he said softly. “So you don’t have the stomach for it?” He straight-armed the derringer toward Sam’s face. Sam just stood there, dumbstruck, drunk enough to wonder if it were really happening at all.

Gray Ellen’s mouth fell open, but she had no words.

Grant cocked the hammer. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” He fired once. The kitchen exploded in Sam’s ears. Something whizzed by his ear and slammed into the wall behind him. He dropped his revolver and staggered backward. Grant cocked the hammer and fired the second shot.

Sam was sitting on the hall floor, amazed to be alive. He moved his mouth until words came out. “You deliberately missed.” Gray Ellen was a statue at the edge of his vision, smoke curling around her head. His ears rang—hard. His own voice sounded far away.

Grant said, “Did I?” He laughed heartily, an exaggerated laugh from deep in his belly. “Work it out for yourself. Write the story.” Then he was gone out the back door. His bloody shirt still hung across the chair back. Sam heard a buggy clattering down the alley in the rain.

Only then did Gray Ellen move to his side. She knelt next to him and cradled his head to her breast. He sobbed into her damp bosom. She was done crying. She knew Ivanhoe Grant had missed on purpose. Against all his instincts, he had shown mercy. For her sake, she believed.

In a few minutes, she would make a pot of coffee. They would sit up all night at the kitchen table. It had been a long day. They had a lot to tell each other.

After a while, Gray Ellen said, “You have to be better than what goes on around you. We all must. Promise me.”

He promised. Then he went to work.

It was a very complicated story. Sam would have to remember the details carefully, for somewhere along the way he had lost his notebook. He would write it from memory. He would tell the whole truth. Memory did not lie.