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general, a tall, rangy fellow with a magnificent, black cavalry mustache that rivaled Custer’s, had a shotgun leveled at Wes’s belly, both hammers eared back.
    Beside him, a smaller, slighter man, was similarly armed. He had the eyes of a snake and his fingers were crooked on the Greener’s triggers. “You are under arrest.”
    John Wesley tensed, a thing I’d seen before when he was determined to draw down on a man.
    But he was bucking a stacked deck and I think he knew it.
    It’s a hard thing to die in the street when you’re but seventeen years old with a great business idea.
    â€œLet it go, Wes,” I said. “They’ll cut you in half.”
    â€œTruer words was never spoke,” the rangy man said. “We have reason to believe you are John Wesley Hardin, the man killer. Give us any kind of excuse to gun you right where you stand and we’d sure appreciate it.”
    A dust devil spun between us and Custer and them, then collapsed. People had gathered in the street and judging by the eager expressions on their faces, they hoped Wes would make a play.
    â€œWe’re in a hell of a fix, Wes,” I whispered.
    John Wesley knew that as well as I did.
    As I said, a man who hopes to have a Wild West show one day doesn’t brace a couple hardcases with scatterguns. Not at a range of three or four feet, he doesn’t.
    Wes tried to brazen it out. “The soldier boy I’ve already met. Who the hell are you two?”
    â€œI’m not in the habit of giving out my name to low persons,” the rangy man said. “But since I’m arresting you and expect to watch you hang, I’m Lieutenant E.T. Stakes of the state police and this here is Constable Jim Smalley.”
    â€œWhat’s the charge?” Wes asked.
    Stakes’ grin was unpleasant. “Don’t worry about that, Hardin. You’re facing enough murder charges to send you to the gallows.”
    â€œMy name is Wesley Clements,” Wes said. “You got the wrong man.”
    â€œLet’s go ask Sam Luck about that,” Custer said.
    I guess that’s when Wes knew he was running out of room on the dance floor.
    â€œGo to hell,” he said.
    â€œConstable Smalley, the ruffian has two murderous revolvers under his armpits,” Custer said. “Do your duty and relieve him of those.”
    Stakes raised the muzzle of his shotgun. “Be careful, Jim. He can make fancy moves.”
    Smalley slapped the butt of the Greener. “I got the cure for fancy moves right here, Lieutenant.”
    Later, John Wesley told me that he’d had a passing fancy to go for his guns and that Custer would get the first ball. But when the muzzles of Smalley’s scattergun pressed into his belly and he looked into the man’s cold, reptilian eyes, Wes decided it was not the time to make a play.
    After Smalley removed the Colts from their holsters, Stakes slapped a pair of massy, iron handcuffs on John Wesley’s wrists.
    General Custer then stepped forward, his face like thunder. “You damned Texas cur.” His lips curled into a snarl as his riding crop slashed across Wes’s left cheek, leaving an angry red welt and drawing blood from the corner of Wes’s mouth.
    Wes took the blow without a sound, then leaned forward and spat a mix of blood and saliva onto the chest of Custer’s beautiful coat, right between the parallel rows of gilt buttons.
    Enraged and foaming at the mouth, Custer wielded his riding crop and rained cut after cut back and forth across Wes’s unprotected face.
    I heard Smalley as though he yelled at the far end of a tunnel.
    â€œHell, General, leave enough of him for us to hang!”
    By then I was already moving. I limped as fast as I could to Custer and threw my fist into his face.
    Small and stingily built as I was, my punch did little damage, but it made the general back off a step. I followed him, my puny arms windmilling as