“Me? Fellow, I’ve been playin’ the messenger of destiny.” Toothpick grinned over his shoulder as he headed his horse toward the livery stable.
“Darn idiot!” Jim Hogg spluttered as the four lined up at the bar of the Lone Star. “I’m plumb sick of this here mystery. My brother Sam is packin’ a gun under his vest and another on his hip. The sheriff is nutty with worry, an’ if yuh ask him anything he looks sick and scared. Tough hombres drift into town, and the sheriff gets him more deputies. I hear gents betting the judge don’t dare come back to town, and now I hears he’s due to arrive. I’m bettin’ Sam sent yuh boys to town to help guard him when he comes in.”
“Safe bet,” Windy admitted, “for he sure enough told us plain to stay sober and meet him at the depot.”
“Why for, did he tell yuh? Not any!” Jim Hogg continued his complaint. “Yuh can’t talk natural without some gent sayin’, ‘Hush!’ Toothpick disappears and comes back an’ says he’s the ‘messenger of destiny.’ What in blazes did he mean by that, and where’s he been for the last six days? Lava Gang! Why, this town is gettin’ so scared it’s going to drop dead of heart failure, an’ if yuh ask some one what he thinks, he looks over his shoulder and says, ‘Hush.’ Maybe yuh boys knows what it’s all about.”
Windy put his finger to his lips, looked over his shoulder, then whispered: “This here town is goin’ to have its sins wiped out, like Sodom an’ Gomore.”
“Yuh dang fool!” Hogg spluttered.
Here the bartender cut in. “I ain’t boastin’ that I knows anything, but I’ve kept bar all over this here territory, an’ I’m tellin’ yuh I never see so many tough gangs gathered together as they is in this town. Hell is sure goin’ to pop.”
“Why? How? When?” The irate little storekeeper shot out his questions like a machine gun. “What makes yuh think so?”
“Feel it in my bones,” the bartender hedged mysteriously.
They left the bar and headed toward the station.