“Julian!” he shouted, but Julian was inside the shop looting the goods which was exactly what Firebaugh had been waiting for. Matthew had to make a split-second decision. With the pistol in one hand he caught up the dagger and jumped out in pursuit. His boots sank into the crust, but that same crust was hobbling Firebaugh. Still, the man was running as if his ass were aflame. The nightgown flew around his thin body like a distress flag. Matthew had a quick sense of the street being deserted, the morning’s light hardly the glow of a few candles against the clouds. Firebaugh was running for an alley up the way. Suddenly he slipped and fell, got up and ran on and then Matthew’s feet slipped out from under him and he also went down. Firebaugh was about ten yards from the alley. If he got into it and into the maze of streets beyond, he—

—might have escaped, but for Julian coming in at an angle across Matthew and hitting Firebaugh with his body like a four-horse team.

Firebaugh gave a squalling sound as he fell. As Matthew reached them Julian was standing over the doctor with his free hand gripping the front of Firebaugh’s nightgown and the pistol at his forehead.

“Go ahead,” said Firebaugh. Snow whitened his red beard and his eyebrows. He grinned. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Julian shot a glance at Matthew. He let go of Firebaugh and said to Matthew, “Hold this.” He offered the pistol, and at the same time he took the dagger from Matthew’s hand.

Then without hesitation he grasped hold of Firebaugh’s left ear and drove the dagger through it.

Firebaugh’s scream echoed up and down the street. Dogs started barking from somewhere near.

Julian tore upward with the blade. Though the dagger was not so useful in cutting as it was in sticking, it still took away a large part of the upper half of Firebaugh’s ear. The man screamed and thrashed and threw blood upon the snow. Then Julian grabbed the front of the doctor’s nightgown again, pulled the man’s horror-stricken face up close to his and said in a voice matter-of-fact and without emotion, “You will not try to run again. You have another ear and a nose. Understand?”

Firebaugh nodded. But Julian wasn’t finished. He sliced a thin groove with the dagger across the doctor’s forehead and through his right eyebrow. “That,” said the bad man to Firebaugh’s sobbing, “is so you really do understand.”

“Yes yes I do I swear it!”

Julian caught Matthew giving him a look that said he’d gone a slice too far. “I’ll start anew and afresh tomorrow,” Julian said. “So shut up.”