“I see the big fella across the room with a shotgun,” Bragg said.

“Eight-gauge,” Cole said.

“Good idea, spreading out like that.”

“It is,” Cole said.

Bragg gestured toward the bar, and one of Bragg’s men brought him a bottle of whiskey and a glass. Bragg poured himself a shot and looked at it, like he was thinking about it. Then he drank the shot down and poured himself another one.

“You a drinking man?” he said to Cole.

“Not so much,” Cole said.

“And Mr. Eight-gauge over there?”

“Everett,” Cole said. “Everett Hitch.”

Without looking at me, Bragg said, “You a drinking man, Everett?”

“Not so much,” I said.

“Hard to like a man that don’t drink a little,” Bragg said.

His high, black hat was set square on his head. Even sitting, you could see that he was tall, and the hat made him look taller. He had on a starchy white shirt and black pants with a fine chalk stripe tucked into hand-tooled black boots. His spurs were silver. His gun belt was studded with silver conchos, and in his holster was a Colt with white pearl grips. Cole smiled.

“But not impossible,” Cole said.

“Well,” Bragg said, “we’ll see.”

He drank most of his second drink and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger, pinching his lower lip in the process.

“You shot three of my hands,” Bragg said.

He wasn’t looking at Cole when he said it. He was carefully pouring more whiskey into his near-empty glass.

“Matter of fact,” Cole said, “I only shot two. Hitch shot the other one.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“Point is,” Bragg said, “I can’t keep having my hands come in here and you boys shooting them.”

“I can see how you’d feel that way,” Cole said.

“So we need to make an arrangement,” Bragg said.