“Give me a hand, will ya?” Ditch called out. He’d cut the rope and was struggling with Thomas Pritchard’s large, heavy, body.

Pritchard lowered the revolver’s hammers, stuck both guns into his belt, and helped his friend lower his father to the ground.

“Looks like he put up a fight,” Ditch said, pointing to the skinned knuckles on both of Thomas Pritchard’s hands. Pritchard parted his father’s shirt and saw several gunshot wounds on his torso.

“As much fight as one unarmed man can put up,” Pritchard said grimly, “against a pack of armed cowards.” He took some solace in hoping his father might have already been dead when they hanged him.

“Get Toole’s gun,” Pritchard told Ditch.

“No thanks,” Ditch said. “I ain’t takin’ a gun out of a dead man’s fist.” He pointed to the dismembered hand, still wrapped around the Navy Colt. It lay several feet from Toole’s body.

“Safest way to take a gun from a man is when he’s dead, I reckon,” Pritchard said. He picked up the detached hand and pried it from the gun. Then he tossed the hand aside and examined the pistol. Holding the weapon up to the fading firelight, he checked the load.

“Only four unfired,” he announced. “Toole shot Pa at least once.” He spat on Toole’s body, tossed the gun to Ditch, who reluctantly caught it, and walked back over to where the deputy lay writhing.

“How about you, Deputy?” Pritchard said, examining one of the Remingtons in his belt. The revolver was unfired, and all six of the chambers in the cylinder were still loaded. The Remington revolver was designed with safety notches between the cylinder’s charge holes. This meant the pistol could be safely carried with all six chambers fully loaded. Everyone knew only five chambers in a Colt’s cylinder could be loaded, if the bearer didn’t want to shoot off his own foot.

The second Remington, however, had only four cylinder holes still charged, and the barrel was blackened with burnt powder. “Looks like you put a couple into Pa, didn’t you?”

“Go to hell,” the deputy hissed. He turned his head and vomited blood.

“Who else was riding with you?” Pritchard asked.

“I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’,” came the reply. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get me on a horse and into town to Dr. Mauldin.”

“Where’re my ma and sister?” Pritchard said. “They’d have been home before dark unless something was keeping them.”