Six pointed at the gun on his hip. “What about that? The story’s bigger now.”
“Me and my magical gun,” Lanphier said, and laughed off-key. He unbuckled the gunbelt and held it in his fist. “Here. You take it. I want you to have it, Jeremy. I won’t be touching a gun again, not even to tinker. I’m good with just about any kind of machinery and maybe I can find myself some work fixing plows and wagons.” He handed the gun and belt to Six and looked at Six as if he expected an argument.
Six nodded slowly. “It might be the best thing, Gene. I wish you both all the luck there is.”
“Thanks, Jeremy.”
Six watched him walk down the street, shoulders slightly bent, and went back inside the infirmary.
Marianne looked up. A wan smile crossed her face and when she saw that Six was about to speak she said, “I’ll be all right. You don’t need to make up reassuring words, Marshal.”
She was strong as tempered steel, this girl; he remembered the glimpse of her, struggling with McQuarter for possession of the gun with which McQuarter had tried to kill her, just before Danziger had stumbled forward, streaming blood from his chest, to bat McQuarter away from her. Not every man could handle a girl like this one; not every man would want a girl like Marianne. But Danziger would be a good man for her, and she a good woman for him.
Six took her hand, held it silently for a moment, and finally left the infirmary, putting on his hat. It had a clean .45 caliber hole in it—he had come that close to death in the gunfight between Terrapin and Warbonnet.
Cruze and Canaday would probably spend the rest of their lives in prison; Griff Jestro, who had tried to kill Marianne with a pillow, would most likely hang. McQuarter and Hanratty were dead, and so were the two gunfighters Lanphier had killed earlier, and five cowboys a long way from their Texas homes. There was the bartender Candy Briscoe had bludgeoned to death …
Six forced himself to stop making tally, to stop thinking about it. It didn’t work very well. He knew he wouldn’t stop thinking about it for a long time to come. He was the marshal and it was the marshal’s job to keep the peace. Peace was a hard-won commodity at the best of times on the frontier, but just now he knew he had done an exceptionally poor job of obeying his duty.
His boots turned toward Clarissa’s and carried him forward with a frown on his face. A man did the best he could, and that was about all there was to say.
About the Author
The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA’s most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen – which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print.
A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time.
Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay.
To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Brian Garfield died on December 29 2018. He and his wife lived in California.
The Marshal Jeremy Six Series by Brian Garfield,
Writing as ‘Brian Wynne’
Mr. Sixgun
The Night It Rained Bullets
The Bravos
The Proud Riders
Badge for a Badman
Brand of the Gun
… And more to come!
Marshal Jeremy Six #6 Page 16
