The outlaw felt the whizz of the bullet and he winced, thinking maybe today was the day. His hat fell-floated to the ground. The shot had come from behind him. He bent over and picked up his hat. The seared circular edge of the hole indicated it had missed his head by a few inches.
“You don’t miss, Taggart,” the outlaw said to the lawman, who was kneeling behind a water barrel next to the undertaker’s building. “So you vant to talk, I assume.”
“I’m bringin’ you in, Vadek,” the other shouted at him. “Put your hands up and step toward me.”
Somehow, the Russian knew it might end like this. He put his hat on, kept his hands up, and started walking backward.
Another shot rang out, from across the undertaker’s, and the lawman dropped like a bag of potatoes, a hole neatly rent through his forehead.
Vadek squinted his eyes to see who had done the shooting. Slowly his hands went down.
“Vell, look who it is,” he whispered. “Preacher man come back from ze dead.”
“Don’t get any ideas, Russki,” the man of God replied. “I have plans for you.”