“Is that how you’ve built your reputation, Mr. Matt Jensen? By frightening people into not drawing against you? Am I supposed to be afraid now, just because I am in the presence of the great Matt Jensen?”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Matt asked.
“No, I ain’t goin’ to let it go,” the little man answered. “You see, I make my livin’ with my gun, and I’ve been hired to kill you. Well, sir, I don’t want to be hung for murder, so the only way I can justify killin’ you is if it is a fair fight. So, that’s what I’m wantin’ to do now. I want to goad you into drawin’ on me.”
“What is your name?” Matt asked.
“The name is Houston. Kyle Houston,” the man replied. A slow, confident smile spread across his face. “I reckon you’ve heard of me.”
“Yeah, I have,” Matt replied.
Houston’s smile broadened. “Really? What have you heard?”
“I’ve heard that you are a bully and a coward, trying to make a reputation by back-shooting old men and young boys. I heard you’ve never faced a man down in your life.”
Matt hadn’t heard any of that, nor had he even heard of Kyle Houston, but he knew that it would make the man blind with rage, and so it did.
Houston’s smile quickly turned to an angry snarl. “Draw, Jensen!” he shouted, going for his own gun even before he issued the challenge.
Houston was quick, quicker than anyone else in this town had ever seen. And as he started his draw, a broad, triumphant smile spread across his face. He had caught Matt by surprise, and Matt was going to have to react to the draw.
Then, even before Houston could bring his pistol to bear, he realized that he wasn’t quick enough. The arrogant smile left, and one could see in the man’s eyes the knowledge, then the acceptance of reality. And the reality was that Kyle Houston was about to be killed.
The two pistols discharged almost simultaneously, but Matt was first and accurate. His bullet plunged into Houston’s chest, while the bullet from Houston’s gun smashed through the front window of the building.
Looking down at himself, Houston put his hand over his wound, then pulled it away and examined the blood that had pooled in his palm. When he looked back at Matt, there was an almost whimsical smile on his face.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I’ve been kilt.”
“Yeah, you have,” Matt replied, still holding the gun.
Houston slid down into a sitting position, his position supported by the bar itself. His right arm stretched out beside him, the pistol free of his hand except for the trigger finger that was curled through the trigger guard. The eye-burning, acrid smoke of two discharges hung in a gray-blue cloud just below the ceiling.
Matt turned back to the bar, then slid his beer toward the bartender.
“I believe I’m going to need something a little stronger than beer,” he said.
The bartender drew a whiskey and handed it to him.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, Mr. Jensen. If you want anything, just ask,” the bartender said.
Matt tossed the whiskey down.
“What’s your name, barkeep?” he asked.
“It’s Moore, Mr. Jensen. Harry Moore.”
“Did you know that gentlemen, Mr. Moore?”
“Only by his reputation,” Moore said.
“What kind of reputation was that?”
“He was fast with a gun,” Moore said. “Folks said he was the fastest.”
“That’s what folks said, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” Moore said.
“And what do you say?”
“I say folks was wrong.”
Chapter Ten
Behind Matt, the silence was broken as everyone was engaged in spirited and animated discussion about what they had just seen. The gunsmoke had cleared out but the smell of burnt gunpowder still hung in the air as Marshal Drew, the town marshal, arrived.
“What happened here?” the marshal asked. Drew was in his late fifties or early sixties. He was clean-shaven, bald-headed, and with a pronounced paunch. Before the war he had been a Texas Ranger, but when the Texas Rangers were broken up after the war he wandered from town to town, and eventually from state to state, here working as a sheriff’s deputy, there as a policeman or city marshal. He had come to Sussex because it was a small town and he hoped to close out his career in a place that offered a minimum amount of stress.
“Houston tried to brace this fella,” Moore said.
“Houston started the fight?”
“That’s right. Houston drew first.”
“You’re telling me that Houston drew first, but this man still beat him?”
“That’s right, Marshal,” one of the saloon patrons said. “Harry is tellin’ it like it is.”
Marshal Drew stroked his chin as he looked at Houston. Death had made the young would-be gunman’s face appear slack-jawed and distorted.
“Mister, if you beat Houston fair and square the way these folks are tellin’ it, you must be some kind of a gunfighter,” Drew said. “What’s your name?”
“Jensen,” Matt replied. “Matt Jensen.”
“Matt Jensen? Sumbitch! Did Houston know who he was tanglin’ with?”
“He called me by name,” Matt said.
Marshal Drew looked back toward Houston. “I reckon you run across punks like Houston here more times than you can count, don’t you? Tryin’ to make a name for himself.”
“From time to time,” Matt said. “Most men have more sense than he did. And less guts,” he added in a begrudging acknowledgment of Houston’s misplaced courage. “But I don’t think he was trying to make a name for himself. He had another motive.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me he was hired to kill me.”
“Hired to kill you? By who?” the marshal asked.
“I’d like to know the answer to that as well.”
“Are you here to meet with Mr. Frewen?” Marshal Drew asked.
“Yes, how did you know that?”
“I’m the one who suggested he get in touch with you.”
“Do we know each other?” Matt asked.
The marshal shook his head. “We’ve never met,” he said. “But I’ve sure heard of you. My name is Drew. And if I can be of any assistance while you’re, uh, doing whatever it is you are going to do for Mr. Frewen, please, just let me know.”
“All right, Marshal Drew,” Matt replied. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
Marshal Drew turned to the bartender. “Harry, I’ll get Welsh down here to pick up the body and get it cleared away for you,” he said.
“No hurry, Marshal,” Moore replied with a broad smile. “Havin’ Houston shot by a man like Matt Jensen is goin’ to bring in the business. Hell, I may get Dysart to come set up his camera. I’ll charge people to have their pictures took with Houston’s body.”
Leaving the saloon, Matt rode down to the end of the street where he had boarded his horse, Spirit, in the livery. Then, trying to stay on the board that crossed the road so as to avoid as much of the mud and liquefied horse apples as he could, he walked back to the mercantile.
There were seven or eight people in the store when he walked in, and from the way they reacted at seeing him, he knew that they had already heard the story of the shooting in the The Lion and The Crown. They moved aside to give him as much room as possible.
The frightened reaction people had to him used to bother Matt. He wanted to yell at them, to ask them if they thought he was going to go berserk and start shooting them all. Now he just turned his mind off to it.
A very overweight man with white muttonchop whiskers came up to talk to him.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Jensen. How may I help you?”
Matt was not surprised that the clerk knew his name. He figured that by now, everyone in town probably knew him. That also meant that Moreton Frewen, the man who had sent for him, knew that he was in town as well.