As he fired, his heart climbed into his throat. What if he missed?

  But he did not miss. The shot smashed Orozco’s hand. It slammed into Orozco’s knuckles and whipped the hand back, away from Clarissa’s throat. The knife glittered and fell out of sight. The unexpected gunshot spun Orozco half around and Clarissa fell out of Six’s vision. Orozco was reaching clumsily for his gun with his good left hand. The door slammed open and Dominguez stumbled inside, searching. Orozco’s gun came around to bear on Dominguez and Six fired again. The bullet punched a hole in the side of Orozco’s head and Orozco dropped like a stone.

  Dominguez reeled back, shaken; but he collected himself instantly and held up a hand in signal to Six. Dominguez reached down and pulled Clarissa gently to her feet to show Six that she was unhurt. Clarissa was pale and she looked ill, but she was not injured.

  Slowly, Six turned away from the window and pushed into the storm, going around toward the front door of the saloon. He had no feeling of triumph. His bones were frozen; he moved like a sleepwalker.

  The blizzard buffeted the embattled town mercilessly until seven o’clock, whereupon its early fury diminished and it settled down, its winds reduced below the first full gale force. No one could tell how long the lull would last, or whether the storm would increase in savagery again.

  In the Glad Hand, Dominguez stood at the bar talking with Nimble-Finger Buchler, and the three or four customers were deciding whether to break for home or stay in the saloon. Dominguez told them, “The guns Lime’s boys stole from you are over at the Drover’s Rest when you’re looking for them.”

  In the back office, Six sat behind Clarissa’s desk and Clarissa lay in nervous exhaustion on the divan. Dominguez had removed Orozco’s body. Six listened judiciously to the tone of the wind and said, “Storm’s settled down. I’d better get moving.”

  “Not just yet,” she said. Her head turned on the pillow. “Please, Jeremy.”

  “All right,” he said gently, and kept his seat.

  After a while she stirred and sat up. Her smile was wan and shaken. “I guess I didn’t thank you, Jeremy.”

  “Part of the job. I get paid to protect the citizens.”

  “No,” she said. She got up and came to him. The look in her eyes made him stand up. He folded her against him. She turned the side of her face against his chest. Her voice was muffled by his coat: “Thank you—for having the courage to decide what to do, and for doing it.”

  “I took a bad chance,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. I was laying your life on the line.”

  She threw her head back to look into his eyes. “If you’re not sure of yourself you haven’t got anything. You did the right thing, Jeremy. You knew it then, and you know it now.”

  “I guess so,” he admitted.

  “But if I had you worried about me, I’m happy about that, too.” She pulled away from him and shuddered, folding her arms and hunching her shoulders as if she were cold; actually, the stove kept the room quite warm. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life. He just sat there and played with that knife and watched me. I don’t think he ever blinked.”

  “It’s over.”

  “But I’ll be a long time forgetting it.”

  “I know,” he said, and added with sudden fervor, “I’m going to put Lime and his two prize apes away in prison long enough to turn them all into toothless old men.”

  She gripped both of his hands and looked into his eyes with quick concern. “Jeremy, don’t let it turn you hard.”

  He smiled slightly to reassure her. “I’m too old to change,” he said. “Don’t worry about me, Clarissa.”

  She murmured musingly, “That’s the finest thing about you. Somehow you’ve come through without calluses inside. I wonder if you know how lucky you are, Jeremy. You pretend to be so tough but it’s only part of the job—it’s not really you. So many of them forget how to be human.”

  She leaned against him and he kissed her; he held her head gently in both hands and for a long time neither of them stirred. He felt the warmth of her breath. He knew that she was drawing strength from his kiss; when she stepped away from him she was calm and crisp:

  “You’ve got your rounds to make, Marshal.” But then she smiled with soft tenderness. “Never forget to come back, Jeremy.”

  Sure of her for the first time, he held her against him for a moment and spoke into the turned hollow of her throat: “It’s the one thing I won’t forget.”

  He went out, met her sober glance once, and pulled the door closed.

  Nimble-Finger was playing the piano, hunched over it, gaunt and sinewy, swaying back, and forth with his eyes shut as he played. It was a quiet Viennese melody, and Nimble-Finger played with profound gentleness. Some of the soft notes were lost in the lowered moan of the storm outside.

  Six moved to the bar, where Dominguez stood alone with his big hands wrapped around a metal coffee mug. Six stood against the bar and spoke without looking at Dominguez. “When I took you on I wasn’t sure how you’d work out in the job.”

  “I wasn’t too sure myself,” Dominguez said. “Never been a law dog before. I used to be a pretty good cow hand.”

  The bartender came along and put a cup of coffee before Six. Six hadn’t asked for it, but he nodded his thanks and the barkeep went away, saying over his shoulder, “On the house, Marshal—and anything else you want for the next twenty years.”

  Six took a swallow of coffee and turned his head toward Dominguez. “You’ll do,” he said simply.

  Dominguez didn’t make any answer. Six thought that if there were any man alive in whose hands he would trust his own life, Dominguez was that man. He said as much: “I’ve never had a better deputy.” He put out his hand and Dominguez, suddenly discomfited, gave him a quick strong handshake, never looking at him. Six found humor in it. After the tight strain of the past hours it made him laugh and Dominguez, looking at him at last, could not keep from laughing in return.

  Six said, “The wind’s dropped. Check in on your wife and grab some sleep.”

  “I don’t mind,” Dominguez said. “Good night, boss.” He buckled up his coat and walked out. When he went through the door, the wind got a finger inside and made the shadows waver.

  In a little while Six went out to make his rounds. He stopped into each gambling hall and saloon along the rows of Cat Town; he dropped by Fat Annie’s purely out of routine but when he walked in he saw a newcomer there—Sammy Preston, slumped back in an overstuffed chair with a bottle loose in one fist and a glaze on his eyes. Fat Annie was standing nearby, her troubled gaze on Sammy. When Six entered she glanced at him blankly, without her usual coarse good humor. Six said, “What’s he doing here?”

  “He comes here once in awhile,” she said. “He likes to sit in that chair and get drunk. Never bothers anybody.”

  Sammy’s unfocused eyes wandered around toward Six and Sammy mumbled something unintelligible. Six said, “Well, you don’t want him passed out here. I’ll get him back to the hotel.”

  “No,” said Fat Annie. “It’s all right, Jeremy. I’ll take him back.” She added softly, “The poor kid needs a mother.”

  The cowboy was standing across the room in his undershirt, circles under his eyes. He had one arm around a girl. The cowboy said contemptuously, “What he needs worsen that is a little backbone.”

  Fat Annie said, “I don’t know why you roughnecks can’t learn that every man isn’t born to be a tough or a hero.”

  “Then tell him to quit swaggering around like one.”

  “Leave him alone,” Fat Annie said to the cowboy. “He hasn’t hurt you, has he?” She turned to Six. “I’ll get him back to the hotel, Jeremy. You’ve got your rounds to make.”

  “Sure you can handle him?”

  Fat Annie grinned. The corners of her mouth disappeared into the fat folds of her cheeks. “I can handle any man that was ever born,” she said, bubbling with laughter.

  “All right,” Six said. “Thanks. Bundle up—it’s still wicked out there.” He turned and strode out.

  The hotel lobby was vacant when Fat Annie boosted Sammy inside. It was, she thought, lucky that the cold wind had helped sober him up somewhat; otherwise she never would have been able to get him this far. Fat Annie was a pragmatic soul and it did not occur to her to question the instincts that had persuaded her to take Sammy under her ample wing.

  She was a heavy, shapeless woman with a swollen face full of good cheer at almost all times. Her clothing, underneath the man’s mackinaw she had worn against the storm, was the kind of attire dictated by her trade: sumptuousness carried to the extreme of the ridiculous. Her dress was loud-patterned and edged with massive embroidered frills. On Fat Annie it looked like a quilt, filled out by a bushel of petticoats. The wind had scraped away a good deal of the layered cosmetics on her face but she still wore plenty of powder and rouge.

  She steered Sammy to the stove and tried to induce him to accept a cup of coffee. He pushed it away, almost batting it out of her hand. His speech was slurred: “I want a Goddamn drink.”

  “You’d better wring yourself out, first.”

  “Who the hell gave you the key to my cell?”

  “Never mind,” she said. “You told me you had a room here.”

  “Yuh.”

  “Which one?”

  He waved vaguely toward the stairs. He shifted his feet; his shoulders weaved. “Up there,” he said, and swung his head around with a stubborn stare. “There’s gotta be a bottle around here someplace.”

  “Maybe later,” said Fat Annie. “Climb out of your coat.” Sammy’s fingers, numbed by cold and clumsy from drink, pawed at the clasps of his coat. Fat Annie brushed his hands aside and unfastened his coat. Sammy let it slip down his arms and fall in a heap around his boots. His fancy clothes were wrinkled and askew.

  Fat Annie bent down with a sigh of effort, got his coat and dropped it over a chair. She turned him around to toast his back against the stove. Her eyes were amiable and concerned. She said, “I had a kid once. I guess he’s about your age, maybe a few years older.”

  “Yeah?” Sammy answered without interest.

  “I hear about him now and then. He’s doing good. Has a good solid job, railroad conductor.”

  “To hell with him,” Sammy said.

  She said in a rougher tone, “You’ve had a lot more good breaks than my kid had, Sammy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  He was a little dizzy. He reached for the back of a chair for support. “Maybe I am,” he muttered, and then lifted his head and stared at her. “Damn it, you’re not my keeper. Who asked you to butt in?”

  “Everybody needs a friend,” she told him.

  He sneered. “I can do without your kind for friends.”

  If Fat Annie felt the rebuff, she didn’t show it. She fluffed her hair absently. “I’ve had rich friends and poor friends, good ones and bad ones.”

  Sammy said, “Annie, God damn it, stay on your own side of the tracks and don’t make trouble.”

  That was when his sister Amy came down the stairs. She had a cold stare for Fat Annie. “I think perhaps my brother’s right,” she said coolly.

  Fat Annie looked around and put on the solemn, deferential mask she wore whenever she had to face the better citizenry. “Of course, Miss Preston. I just wanted to make sure he got here all right.”

  “Thank you,” Amy said in a tone of exact courtesy bred by trained dislike.

  Fat Annie’s eyes were a little sad as she regarded Sammy. “Well,” she said abstractedly, “I guess he’s all right now, Miss.”

  “I’ll take care of him, thank you. I’d appreciate it if you would close your doors to him in the future.”

  Fat Annie drew herself up and said in a sharper tone, “Miss Preston, my doors have no locks. They’re open to any man who wants to walk through them. I don’t regulate the morals of Spanish Flat.”

  But it was evident that Amy was done with her. Amy ignored her; Amy took Sammy’s elbow and guided him toward the stairs, speaking sternly in a low voice. Fat Annie couldn’t catch the words. Sammy protested and waved his free arm around, but he went along with his sister. Fat Annie watched them go upstairs. Then she wrapped her shawl around her head, buckled up her mackinaw, and walked heavily toward the door. When she looked back, Sammy was out of sight and Amy, at the head of the stairs, gave Fat Annie an arch look and disappeared.

  Fat Annie latched the door but as she opened it a thin man, made bulky by his coat, swung inside. He shut the door and touched his hat, swept the room with a glance and said to Fat Annie, “Wind’s rising, ma’am. I wouldn’t go out just now.”

  His politeness impressed her. She said, “Afraid I haven’t got much choice,” and reached for the door again.

  “Suit yourself,” the thin man said, and removed his hat. When his face came into full view, Fat Annie’s eyes narrowed. Instead of opening the door she turned to give him a direct inspection. “I know you,” she said.

  “Maybe.” He was walking toward the registry.

  She talked to his back: “There’s talk Will January’s in town. You’d be January, wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t say anything. He had reached the registry by now. He swung the big leather book around, dipped the pen in the inkwell and signed the book. Then he studied the pigeonholes behind the counter, leaned across it and took down a key. Fat Annie waddled over to the registry and glanced at the book. “I thought so,” she said, reading his signature. She said, “I always wanted to meet you. I was a friend of your cousin Chris.”

  It made him look around. “You’d be Fat Annie?”

  “I am.”

  He nodded. He was going away, toward the stairs, when Fat Annie said, “Too bad about the way Chris had to die.”

  It stopped January in his tracks. He turned around. His stare burned across the space between them. After a moment he said, “What does it matter to you?”

  “I liked him.” Then she shrugged. “Matter of fact, I like most everybody.”

  “Heart of gold, eh?” he said softly. She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. But there was a tight straightness about his mouth and his eyes were hooded, and she knew it had not been a good idea to resurrect memories. She shifted the conversation away: “Is the wind really rising?”

  “Coming up fast,” said Will January. “How far do you have to go?”

  “Quite a way.”

  “Then you’d better stick it out here,” he said. “Wait it out—it will die down in an hour or two.”

  She frowned, considering it. “I’m built like an elephant’s caboose. I doubt there’s ever been a tornado that could budge this carcass of mine.”

  “The storm’s shifting around,” he said. “It wouldn’t be hard to get lost out there. But do whatever you want.” He put his boot on the first step and paused again, looking at her over his shoulder. “You took care of Chris, didn’t you?”

  “Until he cashed in.”

  He said in a level voice, “Then don’t go out in the wind, Annie.” He went up the stairs and she could dimly hear his boots moving down the corridor overhead. The wind lashed around the building, trying to find a way in. Something about the quiet consideration of January’s last words to her decided Fat Annie not to go outside. She moved nearer to one of the stoves, got out of her coat and shawl, and chose a chair big enough to accommodate her. She sat there in her shapeless loud-colored dress and brooded into the glowing red isinglass window of the stove.

  January moved down the corridor reading the numbers on the hotel doors, squinting in the bad light. The key in his hand was number eight, and when he found the door bearing that number he put the key into the lock. He had not turned it yet when a door came open not far down the hall and light splashed outward. January wheeled back against the wall. A revolver whipped up in his right hand; his eyes turned a brutal slate color.

  Half through the door, Amy Preston saw him, saw his gun. Shock widened her eyes. She stopped bolt still, raising one hand toward her heart. January grunted and slid his gun smoothly into its holster and began to turn away. In the room behind the girl, out of January’s sight, Sammy Preston spoke: “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” said Amy. “Go to sleep.” She stepped into the hall and pulled the door closed.

  January had his door open by then. Ignoring the girl in the hall, he struck a match and walked into the room, and lifted the chimney of the lamp on the painted wooden table. He had the wick lighted and the glass lowered when he felt weight behind him and looked around at the girl in his doorway.

  She said, “Do you always jump at shadows?”

  “Shadows have been known to take a shot at me from time to time.”

  “It can’t be very pleasant suspecting everything that moves behind your back.”

  “I stopped expecting life to be pleasant,” he said, “when I was eight years old.” He turned up the lamp wick and deliberately put his back to her, removed his bottle-green coat and hung it on one of the pegs that passed for a wardrobe in the drab room. It was his way of indicating that, as far as he was concerned, the interview was ended.

  But the girl ignored his manner. She asked, “Are you always so afraid?”

  The storm was making a racket outside the shuttered window. The air was stale with the musty odors of desert-dry wood and the spilled memories of whisky and beer and sweat, soaked into the bed and the floor. There was a metal washbasin on the table with yellow-brown rust stains. One arm of the wooden chair was broken off. January poked around in the pockets of his vest and finally brought out a flat tin. He extracted a tailor-made cigarette from it and leaned over the glass lamp chimney, holding the end of the cigarette over the thin wisp of rising smoke. He puffed on it until he had it going. Finally he straightened and looked at the girl as though he were mildly surprised to see her still there. He said bluntly, “Is there anything you want from me?”

  She was staring at him with fascination, the way she might have stared at a wildcat. She seemed to shake herself, then she said, “I intended to berate you.”