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said. “I want to get it right.”
    â€œDave, you ain’t the smartest puncher in the bunkhouse, are you?” Gable said.
    â€œOne more time, Jess.”
    â€œAnd you ain’t a listener.”
    â€œOne more time, Jess.”
    â€œAll right,” Gable said, sighing again, “here’s how it will go down. After I kick in the Ranger’s door, I’ll start shooting. You’ll stay back and cover the room, just in case he’s got somebody in there with him. You savvy that?”
    Randall nodded.
    â€œMan, woman, or child, you kill anybody that’s in there,“ Gable said.
    â€œI got it, Jess.”
    â€œI’ll make sure the Ranger is dead, then we run downstairs, mount up, and light a shuck,” Gable said. “It ain’t real complicated, Dave.”
    â€œHe killed Black John,” Randall said. “That was something.”
    â€œYou told me that already,” Gable said.
    He pulled his Colt and slid a round into the empty chamber that had been under the hammer.
    â€œThe Ranger lying in bed up there ain’t the same man as done for Black John,” Gable said. “He’s at death’s door, or so they say.”
    â€œHe was a rum one was Black John,” Randall said.
    â€œSave the conversation for later,” Gable said. “Let’s go kill ourselves a lawman.”
    Â 
    Â 
    Hank Cannan woke with a start and, his eyes wide, listened into the darkness.
    Nothing.
    Not a sound.
    Yet his heart hammered in his chest and the night seemed oppressive, as though the walls of the hotel room were closing in on him.
    His instinct for danger clamored, even as he told himself that he was acting like a scared old lady who hears a rustle in every bush.
    There!
    A faint creak... just a whisper in the silence.
    It could be the protest of a stair step recently repaired with green timber or the wooden floor in the hallway reacting to a man’s weight.
    It was time to move.
    Cannan grabbed his Colt from the holster and rolled out of bed. His head swam, and his weak, wounded body shrieked in pain.
    The danger was very close now. He could sense it. Smell it.
    Still fevered, Cannan sweated as he kneeled behind the bed and pulled the pillows down to form the vague outline of a sleeping man.
    His hands were wet, slippery, too sweaty to hold the Colt steady.
    He dragged the sheet off the bed and wrapped a corner of it around the gun handle. He grasped the revolver again, his hold firmer now.
    Cannan eased back the hammer, its triple click loud in the room.
    He fought for breath, fear spiking at him. He grabbed the sheet with his left hand and wiped sweat from his face.
    God, he was sick, much weaker than he’d thought. He was in no shape for a gunfight, or any other kind of fight, come to that.
    Slow seconds slid past, then...
    A booted foot crashed into the door. The door splintered on its hinges but held firm.
    A second kick, harder this time. The door crashed inward and scattered shards of wood buzzed around the room like stinging insects.
    A man, his bulk huge in the darkness, thumbed two shots into the bed.
    An explosion of pillow feathers erupted into the air and then lazily drifted downward like fat flakes of snow.
    Cannan fired into the dark, hulking silhouette of his would-be assassin.
    Hit, the man cried out and staggered back against the doorframe.
    A gun blasted from Cannan’s left.
    There was another man in the room!
    The gunman’s bullet tore through the Ranger’s left bicep and into his ribs, just below his armpit. Cannan swung his Colt to cover the second assailant, but the sheet had tangled in the trigger guard and the Ranger’s shot was delayed.
    But it didn’t matter.
    The gunman, his head covered with a hood, bolted for the door, jumped over the sprawled, groaning form of his companion, and Cannan heard the thud of his boots on the stairs.
    The Ranger pushed on the bed for support as he climbed unsteadily to