“This piece of shit shot at me,” George said.

“Well, he’s not shooting at you now, is he? Stop!”

McCrea maneuvered to get between the two. He kneeled in front of the young man. “What’s your name, son?”

All he got back was a blistering glare. His eyes showed pure hatred.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” McCrea said. “Are you armed?”

“Goddamn right I’m armed,” he said.

There was a clatter of hardware as rifles came to bear.

“Easy, guys,” McCrea said. “Listen, I need to call you something.”

“Call me the guy who’s gonna kick your ass.”

“Okay. Guy it is. You say you’re armed. Are your weapons on you?”

Guy continued to stare.

McCrea sighed loudly. “Okay, then. Have it your way. George, Joey and Eric, search our friend and take custody of any weapons.”

The townies pounced on Guy. They lifted him to his feet by his armpits and patted him down as roughly as McCrea had ever seen anyone searched. When they were done, they launched him back onto his butt with a hard shove.

George displayed a folding knife with a three- or four-inch blade. “This is all he had.”

“There’s a rifle by his knee, though,” Eric pointed out. “I think he was a shooter.”

Joey took a menacing step closer to Guy. “Oh, he’s definitely a shooter.”

McCrea pulled a tied bundle of what would have been clothesline in a different setting from a patch pocket in his trousers and tossed it to Eric. “Tie his hands behind him.”

“Bullshit,” Guy spat, and he bolted for safety.

Joey dropped him with a savage kick to the balls that took the fight out of him, at least for the time being. Joey pressed Guy’s face into the mulch while Eric kneeled on the small of his back and reached for an arm. Guy tried to buck him off, but stopped fighting altogether when Eric bounced his knee against his prisoner’s spine.

“Not too tight,” McCrea instructed. “It’s a long walk back to town and I don’t want to cut off circulation entirely.”

“What are we going to do with him when we get back to town?” George asked.

“We’re going to find out what we can about his gang of merry marauders, and then we’ll try him for his alleged crimes.”

George looked like he’d been slapped. “Alleged crimes? Are you shitting me? Look at all this stuff. Ryan’s body is still in his truck. There’s not a lot to allege, do you think?”

“There are no courts,” Joey added. “Hell, there aren’t even any cops.”

“We’re the cops,” McCrea said. “I think you were in the room when I agreed to this madness.”

“I didn’t vote for that,” Eric said.

“Okay, Eric, what do you think we should do with him?”

“Bullets are cheap,” Kyle Foster said.