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went on: ‘You are all in this to the end. In coming here you have made a commitment that you cannot go back on. You will have seen the men stationed around the perimeter of town. They will shoot anybody who tries to leave. They will also shoot anybody who tries to enter.’
He counted the second rule off on his fingers. ‘There is to be no fighting outside of the tournament. You will each of you shortly be paired with an opponent drawn at random and given a time when you will fight. You will fight only with that opponent and only at the allotted time. Any act of fist-fighting, wrestling or any attempt to draw down on another contestant will be met with lethal force, without hesitation, by my invigilators.
‘Lastly, no fight will be deemed to have finished until one of the combatants is dead. You will all fight to the death and if you do not kill your opponent with the first shot you will carry on shooting, reloading if necessary, until he is dead. The last man left standing at the end of the tournament will be deemed to be the winner by virtue of being the only survivor.’
Several of the contestants began glancing around at each other, trying to gauge who would win and who would die. Shane had made his own predictions already and they did not bode well. There was not a single fighter in the room that he was not confident he could beat, assuming of course that he chose to fight at all. He was not being cocky. It was not without good cause that men had once claimed he was the best gunfighter who had ever lived. Six years on and he was undoubtedly out of practice, but even so he knew that it would not take long for him to get back into his stride.
He just didn’t know if that was something he wanted to do. The risk was too great that if he started killing he might never stop.
Whisperer passed Nathaniel a bag, which he held up for everyone to see. ‘In this bag are the names of each contestant. Sadly, there is one contestant who is absent this evening. Her name will be drawn for her and she will be advised of her time and pairing in due course.’
‘Who is she?’ It was David Sullivan who spoke. ‘And why ain’t she here?’
‘Her name is Chastity, and she is currently resting. Chastity is . . . different.’ Nathaniel replied.
Shane had never heard of any gunfighter who went by the name of Chastity, and there were few enough women gunfighters that, if she had any reputation at all, he should have heard of her. The fact that he had not struck him as unusual. Lately, too much information that he would have expected to have heard had managed to slip him by, and he did not think it a coincidence.
Nathaniel began drawing names from the bag. ‘The first match of the first round,’ he said. ‘Will be held at half-past ten tomorrow morning, and will be fought between. . . Matt Nesbitt and David Sullivan.’
The two men each turned to look the other over. David Sullivan, the unrelenting bounty hunter and Matt Nesbitt, the die-hard lawman. Whisperer chalked their names up on a chalkboard at the foot of the stairs. Shane was relieved that his name had not been one the first to be drawn. He tensed when Nathaniel drew the second pairing:
‘Escoban Cadero and the absent Chastity. To fight at half-past-eleven.’
Cadero, the scarred Mexican outlaw, wrinkled his face in disappointment. He knew nothing of his opponent, whether she was a challenge or if he could beat her easily. He poured himself a drink and knocked it back.
Nathaniel drew again. ‘The third match will be held at half-past-twelve and will be fought between Vendetta and Luke Ferris.’
The woman gunfighter barely acknowledged the call. She stared at her table, where she had been drawing abstract images in a pool of spilt beer.
Nanache and Daniel Blaine were drawn next, followed by Tom Freeman and Kip Kutcher. Freeman was a serious-faced black man from North Carolina with more than eighty kills to his name and Kutcher was the young man who had brought his girlfriend