Eli Gaines, walking behind Idelle with one of his revolvers in her back, came out of the saloon. They stepped around the bale of hay and stood on the wooden sidewalk before Pritchard.

Pritchard couldn’t tell if it was fear or rage emanating from Idelle’s features. Whatever it was, it was visible from across the street.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Gaines said. “Your gun against mine. Winner takes all. If you win, I die. If I win, you die, and I marry Idelle. Either way, whoever comes out on top runs Atherton. What do you say?”

“Sounds good to me,” Pritchard said. “Holster up.”

Eli Gaines holstered his gun, pushed Idelle roughly aside, and stepped past her onto the street from the sidewalk. It was the first time since she’d been kidnapped at the schoolhouse that she wasn’t surrounded by men with guns.

Jackson County, Missouri’s chief deputy squared his narrow shoulders and faced Pritchard with both of his arms dangling over the butts of his twin revolvers.

Pritchard stood opposite the deputy with his rifle in his left hand, using it as a cane to steady himself. His right hand hung loosely at his side.

“You look right healthy for a dead man, Samuel Pritchard,” Gaines said through his toothless grin. “I’m about to change that. I’m going to finish what I started ten years ago.”

“I ain’t bound, this time,” Pritchard said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Neither man got a chance to draw their guns.

Idelle, standing behind Gaines, suddenly withdrew the Colt Cloverleaf revolver she had concealed inside her dress. She shot the deputy in the back of the head. He fell face-first into the dust.

“Mama gave it to me,” she explained as she dropped the engraved pistol. She fell to her knees, sobbing. “Oh, Mama.” Pritchard dropped his rifle and rushed to embrace her.

Ditch came running around the corner. “I heard a shot,” he said. Pritchard gestured to Gaines with his chin.

Ditch rolled the deputy over with his boot. Gaines was still alive, though wouldn’t be for long. There was an exit wound in the center of his forehead.

His open eyes were rolled back, he was convulsing, and his chest slowly rose and fell. He emitted a wet, rasping, gurgling noise from deep within his throat. Ditch recognized the all-too-familiar sound.

He flashed back, to the first time he’d heard a death rattle. It was ten years prior, also in Samuel Pritchard’s company, and not far from where he now stood. Since then, Ditch had heard too many death rattles to count.