The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Mr. Wagner arrived and took his place in a quadrille. It was observed that the belt of Mr. Wagner now upheld that Colt’s pistol of the ivory butt. Aroused by this solecism, Marshal Ed descended upon Mr. Wagner and captured his unlawful embellishments. He was holding the six-shooter in one hand and Mr. Wagner in the other when Mr. Walker, sober and suave, drew near.

“If you’ll give him to me, Ed,” remarked Mr. Walker, “I’ll take care of him.”

Since the proposal provided for the peace of Dodge, Marshal Ed accepted it. He made over Mr. Wagner and the weapon of ivory butt to the soft-speaking Mr. Walker. Thereupon Mr. Walker conducted Mr. Wagner outside.

Taking Mr. Wagner to the rear of the Dance Hall, where no ear might listen and no eye look on, Mr. Walker perfidiously readorned him with that ivory-butted treasure of a Colt’s-45.

“Now,” observed Mr. Walker, as he buckled the belt and its dependent ordnance where they would do the most harm, “if I was you I’d go surgin’ back into the Dance Hall an’ if any jimcrow marshal tried to pounce on my gun I’d blow his lamp out.”

Marshal Ed had emerged from the Dance Hall into the glare of light which issued from its front windows when Mr. Wagner, walking deviously, his broad-rimmed hat cocked at an insulting angle, the offensive six-shooter flapping ostentatiously against his leg, brushed by. Mr. Wagner wore a challenging glance and was snorting defiance of the law.

It was now that Marshal Ed displayed that want of caution and indifference to precedent whereof Mr. Masterson had warned Mr. Kelly. Under the conditions presented vide licet the sudden, not to say warlike, return of Mr. Wagner, it was officially the business of Marshal Ed to shove the muzzle of his own gun into the face of Mr. Wagner and, to quote the words of Dodge as it digged the graves next day, “stand him up.” In case Mr. Wagner did not hold his hands above his head, Marshal Ed was to officially unhook his gun and put a period to Mr. Wagner’s career.

So far from following this rule of conduct, Marshal Ed reached out with both hands and seized Mr. Wagner by the shoulders. Thereupon Mr. Wagner yanked the Colt’s pistol of ivory butt from its scabbard; as a counter-move, Marshal Ed, while retaining a right-hand grip on Mr. Wagner’s shoulder, grabbed the pistol with his left hand and held the muzzle to one side. There the two stood, Mr. Wagner powerless to bring his weapon to bear, and Marshal Ed unable to wrest it from his grasp.

At this juncture Mr. Walker, who, in anticipation of what might occur, had privily provided himself with a pistol, came out of the darkness to the rear of the Dance Hall and thrust the weapon in the face of Marshal Ed. Mr. Walker pulled the trigger, the hammer descended, but instead of the expected report there came nothing more lethal than a sharp click. The cartridge, ashamed of the treachery in which it found itself employed, had refused to explode.

Before Mr. Walker could cock his weapon for a second trial three splitting flashes burned three holes in the night. Bang! bang! bang! The three reports were crowded as close together as the striking of a Yankee clock. Mr. Masterson, from sixty feet away, had put three bullets into Mr. Walker before the latter could fall. It was like puffing out a candle. Mr. Walker of the Cross-K was dead.