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Before Evan McCall knew
     what was happening, the third man fell in quick order. To Evan’s mind, the rapid succession of unerring shots could only have
     beenfired by a handful of men, one of whom was his own brother, Sam.
    He looked toward the batwing doors and saw Sam standing there, a grin on his face.
    “There’s one left, brother,” Sam said, holstering his shotgun.
    Evan gave his brother a nod and then turned his attention to Carl Dekker.
    “By God, Dekker, draw your gun!”
    Dekker, who’d had his coat thrown back so that he could reach his weapon, had been so surprised by the turn of events that
     he had not been able to draw.
    He wet his lips. “McCall—”
    “Draw your weapon or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
    “You can’t,” Dekker said. “There’s too many witnesses who’ll say I didn’t have my gun out.”
    “And there are enough witnesses who know that you and your friend tried to backshoot me,” Evan said.
    “They’ll stand behind my story. Which is it to be? Will you die like a man, or a coward?”
    Dekker’s eyes darted about the room, searching for salvation. When he saw that none was coming he looked back at Evan McCall.
    “Damn you, McCall!” he shouted, and went for his gun.
    Evan McCall fired once, the bullet striking Carl Dekker on the bridge of the nose. Dekker’s jaw went slack, his hand fell
     to his side, and he keeled over backward.
    Evan shoved his gun back into his shoulder rig and walked over to where his brother was standing.
    “Much obliged, Sam.”
    “Anytime, brother.”
    Before they could exchange another word the doors swung open to admit a hoard of blue-coated policemen.
    The officer in charge surveyed the damage before speaking.
    “Who killed these men?” he demanded.
    “We did, Officer.” Evan told the truth because there was no hope of denying it—and no reason to.
    The officer, tall, barrel chested, in his forties, gave them a stern stare and said, “You’ll both turn your weapons over to
     me and accompany me to jail.”
    “Jail?” Sam McCall said. “These men tried to back-shoot my brother.”
    “You and you brother are still standing, my friend,” the officer said loudly. “Until I can get the whole story, you two are
     the only ones I can take to jail—and by God, that’s where you’re going!”
    Suddenly the other officers surrounded the brothers, giving them barely enough elbowroom. Sam and Evan McCall exchanged a
     helpless glance before turning their weapons over to the policeman.
    At the jail they were given separate cells, but it was a simple enough thing to move the pallets over to the common set of
     bars and talk.
    “We shouldn’t be here too long,” Evan said. “Enough people saw what happened.”
    Sam nodded.
    “So tell me, brother,” Evan said, “how did you happen to be in the right place at the right time?”
    Sam stared at his younger brother through the bars for a moment, forming the words in his mind before he spoke them.
    “Ma and Pa are dead.”
    “What?”
    Sam took the telegram from his shirt pocket and handed it through the bars. He studied his brother while Evan read it.
    He hadn’t seen Evan in a couple of years, not since their paths had last crossed in New Orleans. Evan was five years younger,
     but Sam was still struck by how muchyounger than that he looked. He seemed closer to Jubal’s twenty-four years than his own
     forty-three. At thirty-eight Evan McCall had none of the gray that streaked Sam’s own dark hair. He was clean shaven, whereas
     Sam wore a heavy mustache that completely obscured his upper lip. Sam had always thought that while Evan and Jubal actually
     looked like brothers, he did not share very many of their attributes. He was larger and heavier, and his facial bone structure
     was that of their father rather than their mother. Sam had a strong, squared jaw and high cheekbones, while Evan and Jubal
     had their mother’s finer features. Evan and Jubal also had their mother’s