Pritchard lowered the hammers and dropped the pistols at his feet. Several deputies moved in and roughly grabbed him by both of his thick arms.

“Just as well you gave up,” Eli Gaines’s whiny voice spoke in Pritchard’s ear. “We both know you didn’t have the balls.”

“Oh yeah?” Pritchard replied. “Whyn’t you ask Bob Toole and Glenn Bedgley about that?”

“Talk tough while you can,” Gaines said. “Come tomorrow morning, you’ll be swinging from a rope like your old man.”

Pritchard stared hard into Eli Gaines’s eyes, his own blazing. “I don’t remember tellin’ anybody Pa was hanged.”

In reply, Gaines showed Pritchard his infected grin.

“Get him over to the jail,” Shipley told Marshal Stacy, “and do it quietly.” Stacy passed the order to his men.

“The rest of you folks,” Shipley again addressed the crowd, still in his conciliatory tone, “simmer down and put away your guns. We’ll need cool heads and every bit of ball and powder we’ve got before this night is through. I want all the menfolk to line up and report to Sheriff Foster. He’ll assign you posts around town. The womenfolk and kids are welcome to take refuge inside the hotel.”

“We’ll do as you say, Shipley,” one of the men from the crowd of townspeople spoke up again, “but come first light I’m leaving town and heading home. Any man who gets in my way is gonna catch a ball.” A chorus of voices signaled their agreement.

“That’s only fair,” Shipley said magnanimously. In truth, his charade about needing to keep the townspeople in Atherton to stave off Confederate raiders had merely been a ploy to allow the six riders he’d dispatched earlier that day room to operate unhindered out in county territory with as few witnesses as possible. Samuel Pritchard’s arrival nearly spoiled that.

The riders had been given strict orders. Kill Thomas Pritchard, burn his house, but damage no other of his assets, and do the same to a couple of other nearby farms and ranches so it wouldn’t look like Pritchard alone was targeted. They were to hang any men they killed, to make it look like border ruffians or Confederate raiders. They were to wear reb coats in case they were seen, and above all, they were not to remove their masks.

Four of the riders, Eli Gaines and three other county deputies, had sneaked back into town unnoticed before sunset, as ordered. Two of the men he’d sent, Toole and Bedgley, never returned. When Pritchard showed up with the wayward men strapped over a saddle, Shipley learned why.

Toole and Bedgley had jeopardized everything by allowing themselves to be caught and killed by a teenage boy. As far as Shipley was concerned, they got what they deserved, just like Samuel Pritchard said.