They were balanced and complete and efficient and tightly integrated and purposeful. He liked shooting guns because he was good at it and because it was so complete an act. See something, aim at it, fire the gun, kill the something. There was always closure to a gun. And he didn’t mind the camps. He liked the company of other men who liked guns. He liked the rare meat and strong coffee and the rhythm of the day’s shooting. He liked the sense of space and possibility at night with the vast overlay of sky promising measureless likelihood. He didn’t mind the killing. It was part of the rhythm of life as he understood it. But he didn’t like the long, slow conflagration of death, its stench drifting invisibly from the degenerating corpses. So finally he sold the Sharps to Bat Masterson, wrapped his clothes and money in his bedroll, strapped the bedroll behind his saddle and rode his blue roan gelding northeast with an 1873 Army Colt stuck in his belt.

He was an assistant city marshal in Dodge when he met Clay Allison on Front Street at the time of early evening when the sun has set but it’s still light and the air has a bluish tinge to it.

“You know me?” Allison said.

“Yes.”

“You the fella shot Georgie Hoy?” Allison said.

“Yes.”

“You heeled?”

He opened his coat and let Allison see the Colt for which the city had bought him a holster. Allison looked at the gun for a moment.

“Next time I see you I’m going to kill you,” Allison said.

“Maybe.”

The two men stood close together in silence. He could almost feel the evening deepening.

“You ain’t afraid of me much, are you?” Allison said.

“Not much.”

Allison nodded as if to himself.

“You will be,” Allison said.

Allison turned and started to walk away and stopped. Ten feet behind him and off to his right was a double-barreled, 10-gauge shotgun, the kind that Wells Fargo issued. Holding it steady on him with both hammers back was a young man who looked a lot like the city marshal he’d just braced.