“Git on outa here!” Marshal Logan ordered. “Take your friends’ miserable carcasses back to your boss, and tell him Bristow is off-limits to the Boone spread. I see anybody from the Triple B walking the streets from here on out, I’ll shoot ’em on sight.”

The BB&B cowboys grudgingly picked up their three dead comrades from the street and took the reins of the horses carrying their four other dead hands. Paul nudged his prisoner off his mount and let them take that animal, as well. The cowboys grudgingly moved off.

“Into the jail,” Paul said, prodding the no-longer-laughing rustler with his Spencer.

While Marshal Logan locked their prisoner in the cell with Wade Boone, the Ranger turned to Pritchard and Paul.

“That was the finest piece of pistoleering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen gunplay from New Orleans to the Dakota Territory,” he said. “I’m Tom Franchard, of the Texas Rangers. What’s your name, son?”

“Joe Atherton,” Pritchard said, adhering to his alias. “This here is Paul Clemson.” They shook hands. “We own a spread not far from here. A spread the Boone family has been plundering.”

“I’m not surprised. I tracked Wade here from Waco. I was hoping to bag him before he got home, to avoid exactly this kind of showdown.”

“Why didn’t you boys just hang him when you caught him rustling?” Marshal Logan asked, motioning to their now-despondent prisoner. “Might’ve saved us both some trouble. Nobody on this side of the law would have cared a whit.”

“There weren’t no trees around,” Paul said.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” Pritchard said.

“Tell me,” Franchard asked, “how old are you boys?”

“I’m eighteen,” Pritchard said. “Paul’s twenty-one.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“Necessity,” Pritchard said, “and the war.” He removed his hat and revealed the bullet-hole scar on his forehead.

“Have you ever considered a career with the Texas Rangers?” Franchard asked.

* * *

Five violent, eventful, years had come and gone since Pritchard parted ways with Ditch and Paul Clemson and cast his lot with the Texas Rangers.

He bid his friends good-bye, refusing to take payment for his share of the ranch, and accompanied Ranger Thomas Franchard to Waco with Wade Boone in tow. As expected in cattle country, the Triple B rustler Pritchard and Paul deposited in Bristow’s jail was tried and hanged within days of their departure.

“Ranching was never the life for me,” Pritchard told Ditch, as they shook hands before he left. “I’m better with guns than horses and cows.”

“I know,” Ditch said, thinking of the death-shadow that hung over his friend. “Good luck to you.”