by Ralph Cotton
With the shotgun out of play, the marshal lowered his Colt and walked over and looked down at Dahl lying on the floor. The young dove eased back and allowed him a better view of Dahl’s face and the bullet holes in the front of his shirt.
“Not a big bleeder, is he?” said Kern.
“He’s not bleeding at all,” said a man among the drinkers who gathered around closer.
Sara Cayes gasped slightly, noting for the first time, bullet holes, but no blood.
“Step back, sweetheart,” said Kern, touching the toe of his boot gently to the young woman’s shoulder, moving her aside the way he’d do with a cat or dog.
Sara moved back grudgingly, yet she stayed stooped down near the unconscious gunman. Dahl lolled his head back and forth in the sawdust and murmured something under his breath. Even with him knocked out on a sawdust floor, Sara thought him to be the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Too handsome for this place . . .
“What—what does this mean, Marshal?” she asked in a halting voice, staring at the bloodless bullet holes.
“What does this mean . . . ?” Kern squatted down beside her. He poked a probing finger down into a bullet hole and shook his head. “I’ll tell you what it means.” He stood up and looked around at the gathered crowd. “I’ll tell all of you what it means.” He gestured a hand around at the bloody aftermath of the gunfight. “It means the town of Kindred is going to have to get busy gathering up the guns if we’re ever going to be a respectable, upstanding community.”
“Here we go,” a voice whispered in the crowd.
“What’s that?” Kern asked, taking a step forward toward the man who made the remark. “You got something you want to say, Dandy?”
“No, Marshal,” said Ed Dandly, owner and manager of the Kindred Star Weekly News. He backed away as the marshal moved forward. “But it’s Dandly, not Dandy,” he corrected meekly.
Kern ignored him. “What I’m saying, gentlemen,” he continued, settling back in place beside the unconscious Dahl, “is that this sort of thing is going to just keep happening so long as we continue to allow guns being carried on the streets of this town.”
“The marshal’s right,” said a voice.
Kern raised a boot and rested it on Dahl’s shoulder. Sara tried to shove the boot away, but a cold look from the marshal halted her.
“I might not know what this was all about,” Kern said for all to hear. “But I can tell you straight up that it would not have happened if these men’s guns had all been hanging on pegs in my office instead of hanging on their hips.”
“For the record, is this where you’re going to tell us that as soon as our new mayor takes office this sort of thing is going to stop?” Ed Dandly asked. He whipped out a pencil and a small leather-bound writing pad.
“Yeah, I’ll say that,” said Kern. “I’ll say it, because it’s the truth.” Again he took a threatening step toward the newsman. “The people voted Coakley into office to clean this town up, and by thunder, that’s what he’s going to do.”
But this time the newsman stood his ground, knowing he was doing his job.
“No need to come closer, Marshal. I can hear you just fine from there,” Dandly said, scribbling as he spoke.
The sheriff stopped, realizing that whatever he said or did now would be in the next edition of Dandly’s weekly newspaper.
“So long as there are guns carried, there will be guns fired,” Kern said stiffly. “There will be gunfights just like this and people will die. Some of them will be innocent bystanders, like all of you here could’ve been.” He looked around the saloon from face to face. “Thank goodness, Mayor Coakley and myself will be changing all this. That’s what I’m saying.”
On the floor Sherman Dahl moaned beneath the marshal’s boot. Sara Cayes said, “Marshal, we need to get him some help.”
“You go do that, Sara,” the marshal said. He looked around at the gathered townsmen and said, “Some of you drag these bodies out into the street so Jake can get this place cleaned up and get to serving you again.”
“I’m sticking with Sara and this man,” said Ed Dandly, scribbling on the pad. “If he lives, I’ll find out what this was all about.”
“You do that, Dandy,” said Kern. He gave the newsman a cold stare. “Maybe you’ll find out what I said is true, if you’ll look at it with your eyes open.”
“I can assure you, Marshal Kern, my eyes are always open,” said Dandly. “If men can’t carry guns, what’s to keep them safe?”
“Safe from what?” said Kern.
“Why, safe from the wilds, Marshal—safe from savages, safe from one another.”
“That’s the law’s job,” Kern said, tapping a thumb against the badge on his chest. “It’s my job to keep all of you safe. That’s what I was appointed to do, and that’s what I will do.”
“Without guns, who or what will keep us safe from you, Marshal?” Dandly asked, speaking boldly with his pencil and writing pad between himself and the lawman.
Kern gave him a smoldering look. “Safe from me?” he said in a flat yet threatening voice. “What are you trying to say, Dandy?”
The newsman stood firm in spite of the marshal’s harsh demeanor. “I’m not talking only about you necessarily, Marshal,” he said. “I’m talking about the law and the government in general.”
“You’re saying you don’t trust the law,” said Kern.
“Not entirely,” said Dandly.
“You don’t trust lawmen,” said Kern.
“That’s correct,” Dandly said. “Not beyond what’s reasonable.”
“You don’t even trust the government,” the marshal said as if in disbelief. “What kind of a low, unpatriotic weasel are you, Ed Dandy?”