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it. It wasn’t enough. He stumbled backward, slamming into the dressing table and knocking the last of the glass out of the devastated mirror. Then he shook his head and came at me headfirst. He tripped over Yardlinger’s outthrust leg and pitched forward his full length to the floor at my feet. The room shook.
    â€œWhat the hell did you do that for?” Cross barked.
    â€œFor this.” The former marshal pushed a telegraph form under the weathered deputy’s nose. “Blackthorne’s confirmation,” he said to me. “I was reading it when the clerk came to complain that some rough-looking road agent posing as a deputy marshal was tearing his hotel apart.” To Cross, “Murdock’s the law in this town until someone in authority says different.”
    â€œNot my law he ain’t.” He started to take off his badge.
    â€œLeave it alone,” I said.
    He paused, staring down the muzzle of my hip gun.
    Earl had started to push himself to his feet. He held his crouch, glaring up at me from under pale brows.
    I said, “I’ve been appointed to keep the peace in Breen, and until I’m off the hook that’s what I aim to do. That means I’ll need every man in this room. I may hang for it later, but I’ll blast a hole a yard wide in whoever reaches for that doorknob.”
    â€œHe’s bluffing,” said Earl.
    â€œRaise or call,” I countered.

    There was a short silence.
    â€œHell,” said a voice, “that’s too rich for my blood. I’m in.”
    I’d almost forgotten the old man, seated now on the edge of the stepping stool next to the bed. His rheumy eyes glistened under his floppy hat as he placed a fresh cut of chewing tobacco skewered on the end of a wicked knife into his mouth. He spoke with a high Ozark twang dragged over Mississippi gravel.
    â€œI like you, mister. You remind me of this here Yankee lieutenant a bunch of us boys cornered in a pigsty by Ox Ford. Sergeant Maddox shot him in the hand when he went for his side arm. He grabbed for it with his other hand and Maddox smashed that one too. Then he threw out his stumps and charged. The Yank warn’t three feet off when ole Mad opened a hole in his chest you could drive a four-horse team through. He went down, but you know what? He crawled the rest of the way and bit ole Mad on the leg!”
    His cackling turned to a hideous, racking cough and he bubbled off into silent convulsions that ended only when he stuffed a pink-mottled handkerchief into his mouth. He was a saintly old fellow.
    â€œWhat about it, Randy?” Yardlinger asked the man with the shotgun. “I can handle Murdock’s threats. In or out?”
    Cross chewed on his ragged moustache. His bullet-like eyes surveyed me without affection. “I don’t know,” he said. “I ain’t ever run from a fight yet, but I can’t watch my front and my back at the
same time. How do we know he’s what he says he is?”
    I laughed harshly. “I can’t blame you for being suspicious. I bet they’re beating down your door to be made lawmen in this town.”
    He ruminated on that for a moment. “I still don’t know. How about you, Oren?”
    â€œI never had any choice in it, you know that.”
    â€œWell, if it’s good enough for you.” I wouldn’t have bet a Confederate dollar on the conviction in Cross’s voice.
    â€œIt ain’t good enough for me.”
    I looked down at Earl, who hadn’t moved from his starting position on the floor. “Who said I wanted you? Hit the street and leave the star here.”
    â€œHe’s a good man,” Yardlinger cautioned.
    â€œHe whines too much and he hides his gun. People who don’t want you to know they’re armed are looking for a chance to squirt one at your back. Besides, I think he’s our spy.”
    â€œWhat makes you think so?”
    â€œI don’t like