Meryl felt the familiar ache in her forehead as her eyebrows came together, glancing around the circle of men pointing weapons in on the rest of them.

"I said I'd come quietly," McDonough repeated, more loudly. He stepped forward toward the sheriff again but each of the men surrounding them turned instantly to aim solely at McDonough. He stopped abruptly, hands raised at shoulder height, and the other men resumed their coverage of the group as a whole.

"What is this?" asked the man in red, frowning at the sheriff. Out of the corner of her eye Meryl saw the gloved fingers of his right hand begin reaching, ever so slowly, toward the revolver at his hip. Some yarz away, Milly and Bostalk's daughter still knelt by the fallen man, looking as alarmed as Meryl felt. One of the sheriff's men moved to stand just behind Milly, his rifle angled down almost at the back of her head. Milly caught Meryl's eye but conveyed nothing other than concern.

"An incredible stroke of good fortune," replied the sheriff, grinning. "I've thought on this for years, but never imagined such a perfect opportunity." He suddenly held up his hands and spread them wide as though tracing the outline of a long banner in the air in front of him. "Trapped criminal kills Mr. Bostalk! Sheriff forced to shoot bandit attempting resistance!" His grin grew, if possible, even broader. "Makes for a catchy headline, don't you think?"

Meryl's blood ran cold. The young woman had been right; the man was twisted.

"Stan! How dare you!" shrieked Bostalk's daughter. She jumped halfway to her feet but Bostalk suddenly seized her arm from where he lay, pulling her back down to her knees.

"No," the injured man warned. Then he spoke to the sheriff, choking out, "Please... not my daughter..."

The sheriff walked toward the other man and Milly tried to pull Bostalk's daughter back, out of the way, to put herself between the young woman and the sheriff. The sheriff just squatted down on his heels at Bostalk's side and took off his hat, smiling down at the other man.

"How does it feel to be on the other side of the scythe, 'Reaper?' " asked the sheriff. Then he chuckled, and clapped a hand hard on Bostalk's back, just over the bullet wound on his shoulder. Bostalk screamed in pain and the sheriff stood, grinning. He looked down at Bostalk's blood on his hand with an eerie detachment that made Meryl feel a little ill.

"As for the rest of you," the sheriff called, gesturing dismissively at Meryl, McDonough, and the man in red as he absently wiped Bostalk's blood from his hand onto his slacks. "Throw down your weapons." None of them moved immediately and the sheriff suddenly dropped his seemingly careless attitude, growling, "Now." His men stepped forward, closing the circle around them more tightly, and Meryl saw the barrel of the rifle trained on Milly actually brush the hair at the side of her head.

The man in red tossed his revolver onto the ground in front of them and McDonough's joined it a moment later. Meryl gritted her teeth and started to reach into the folds of her cloak with her right hand. Much to her surprise, the man in red surreptitiously caught the wrist of her free hand and squeezed. Glancing up quickly, Meryl saw the man give a jerk of his chin, just a fraction of an ich.

The sheriff began speaking again and Meryl realized what the man in red had already noticed; the other man thought she was unarmed.

"It's been fifteen years, Bostalk," the sheriff continued, looking around him at the street and dilapidated buildings. "Fifteen years in this miserable place, and I'm still just Sheriff while you practically own the whole town." He squatted down again, even closer, to address Bostalk directly, but he still spoke loudly enough for all of them to hear. "I remember, Bostalk, when you took this all by force. But you should have shared that wealth, because now I'm taking it from you instead." The sheriff pulled his gun from its holster, holding it loosely in his hand as he looked down at Bostalk. "The same way we did then."

"What?" demanded McDonough, stepping forward. "You were one of them?" The huge man leapt forward with a snarl of fury and the sheriff stood and spun around to face him, his gun pointed straight between McDonough's eyes.

The man in red had managed to seize hold of McDonough, restraining him, though it seemed to be taking a great deal of effort. Meryl had grabbed McDonough's other arm, but with her limited mass he was still dragging her forward despite her efforts to dig her heels into the ground.

"Stop," whispered the man in red, urgently, loud enough only for Meryl and McDonough to hear. "Stop! You'll just get yourself killed; you have to wait—wait!—to see how this plays out." McDonough was still breathing heavily and Meryl felt his anger radiating off him in waves but he stopped fighting them, shrugging out of their grasp, glaring so fiercely at the sheriff that Meryl thought it was remarkable the man didn't just burst into flames where he stood.

The sheriff only smiled, looking absurdly pleased with himself. Meryl couldn't believe the man could stay so blasé about the situation he had created, how ready he was to kill indiscriminately for what he wanted.

"Lovely!" he said, surveying the lot of them. "Like toothless stray dogs. It feels grand to be superior!" He drew a long breath through his nose and let it out contentedly.

"And what's your plan for us?" Meryl demanded, finally speaking up, still in disbelief at the man's deluded vainglory.

"I beg your pardon?" asked the sheriff, blinking at her as though seeing her for the first time.

"Me, and my partner," she said, gesturing at Milly. "This man—" the man in red stood next to her and she touched his arm "—we have nothing to do with this. You can't expect us to just—"

"Oh, my dear girl," the sheriff interrupted, giving a little laugh as he looked almost pityingly at her, wearing a small indulgent smile. He stepped closer to her and Meryl tensed, ready at any moment to reach for a derringer. "I'm afraid you'll be just a bystander caught in the crossfire," he told her, reaching out to touch her face.

Meryl recoiled and her fingers wrapped around the enameled grip of one of her pistols automatically. The man in red grabbed her wrist before she could draw, pulling her behind him as he stepped forward toward the sheriff.

"And how does it feel?" the man in red asked. Meryl felt a little shock to hear that other voice, low and dangerous, and she watched the sheriff's eyes harden as he, too, noted the sudden change. "To kill unarmed men and women?"

The sheriff sneered back at the man in red, refusing to back down, even seeming to enjoy the confrontation. A sick grin spread slowly across his face.

"How does it feel," replied the sheriff, his quiet voice scathing. "...to burn your garbage?"

If Meryl had thought McDonough's presence could fill a room, it was nothing compared to what she felt next. The man in red still held Meryl's wrist and though his grip didn't tighten even the slightest increment, she felt his surge of anger and disgust as an almost physical blow. It actually forced her a half-step backward and she felt like he'd knocked the breath from her lungs.

"Well then," said the man in red, his voice so low Meryl could almost feel his words more than hear them.

He gave Meryl no warning; she didn't need it. The man in red lunged sideways, tackling McDonough to the ground. Sweeping her arms up away from her sides, Meryl threw open her cloak even as she drew two derringers and began firing.

Some part of her always enjoyed that first instant of total shock on any adversary's face as he got a good look at her arsenal, and today Meryl got to see that expression a dozen times over, starting with the sheriff.

His sick, gloating grin vanished in an instant and he gaped at Meryl in open-mouthed astonishment. Then he threw himself flat to the ground and Meryl's first discarded pistols fell over his head and shoulders.

Across the circle, Milly had flattened Bostalk and his daughter to the ground as well, protecting them from the sudden gunfire. Meryl had already disarmed the man standing over them, burying her first two bullets in the old wood stock of his rifle, making him cry out in alarm and drop the weapon. The rest of the sheriff's men turned their own guns on her and Meryl dived sideways as they opened fire.

It was exhilarating; Meryl hadn't been in a good gunfight in over a year, not really, not single-handedly against a crowd. It came naturally to her, being able to see everything happening around her and react accordingly. She didn't wound if she could help it, but there were too many and even she wasn't fast enough to move before any of them could return fire. Meryl was careful to inflict flesh wounds only, aiming for arms and legs—avoiding hands especially—just incapacitating her opponents.

Two men cried out in unison as Meryl's bullets tore through the flesh of their upper arms, making them drop their rifles. She dropped both empty derringers and drew again even as she dropped into a roll, avoiding another man's return fire from nearly point-blank range, sweeping his legs out from under him and driving an elbow hard into his throat when he landed, making him choke for breath.

Across the circle Meryl dropped another man with a bullet in his thigh and he fell against the man next to him, knocking them both to the ground. She kicked the second man's gun out of his hand before he could push his compatriot's bulk off his chest, and disarmed the rest of the sheriff's men in a matter of moments.

Meryl stood upright again in the center of the circle of fallen men, breathing hard but feeling of adrenaline-induced invincibility. She pushed a nearby man's dropped handgun out of his reach with her toe and he looked up at her in mixed frustration and disbelief.

"You bitch!"

Meryl's neck gave a painful jerk as she hurried to look back over her shoulder. The sheriff was up on his feet again, his eyes wild with fury as he aimed his pistol at her chest. In the same instant the man in red had the barrel of his revolver an ich from the sheriff's face. The other man immediately turned to face off with the man in red and Meryl took in a relieved breath as the gun was pointed away from her.

The two men stood facing one another, each with his gun pointing straight into the eyes of the other. With his ludicrously long arms, the man in red held his revolver nearly against the sheriff's nose while the other man's pistol would reach no further than six iches away from his opponent. It would have been funny, if the situation wasn't deathly serious.

"So how does it feel to be at the mercy of a toothless stray dog?" asked the man in red. Then he glanced sideways at Meryl and she watched the corner of his mouth twitch up for an instant, though his voice remained completely level as he gestured toward her and added, "Or toothless stray bitch?"

Meryl felt her eyebrows twitch in automatic irritation.

"Dammit!" hissed the sheriff.

Meryl saw clearly each instant of the next second as it passed, almost painfully slowly: watched the sheriff pull the trigger, heard the gunshot, saw the man in red recoil—the whole of his body jerked oddly and the hand holding the revolver dropped suddenly.

"No!"

This quiet exclamation felt drawn unwillingly from her lips and Meryl started forward automatically.

But it was the sheriff who fell, landing hard on his knees in the dirt. Meryl felt her mouth drop open slightly in stunned surprise, her mind working furiously to understand what had just happened. There was a bright red mark slowly forming on the sheriff's face, shaped curiously like the butt of a heavy revolver...

"Relax," the man in red told the sheriff, who was now staring up at him, dazed but clearly terrified. "I'm not going to kill you. But I am giving this town back to its people." The man in red reached down and carefully pulled the sheriff's badge from where it was pinned to his lapel. Without looking up, he tossed the badge like a coin, high into the air, and Meryl watched it shimmer as the sun glinted off the rotating edges.

A few yarz away, McDonough caught the badge when it fell, looking startled. He glanced up to stare at the man in red, who turned to face him.

"This town needs you, McDonough," said the man in red. "Wouldn't you rather help make it all right again, instead of just punishing those who made it wrong in the first place?" He walked to where McDonough's revolver lay and picked it up, then pressed it into McDonough's hand and held it there, pointing the gun at the still-kneeling sheriff. "It's your choice." He released McDonough's hand and stepped back to stand at Meryl's side.

Meryl waited as McDonough just stood there, still holding his gun on the sheriff, for almost a whole minute. She watched the sheriff sweating, his earlier swagger and arrogance barely a memory as he stared, wide-eyed, up the barrel of McDonough's revolver. The sheriff had been responsible for the death of McDonough's family as much as Bostalk, and this man had no daughter to grieve him if he died. Meryl didn't know why she wasn't already intervening, jumping in to demand that McDonough let the law—the real law—deal with the man.

The sheriff still flinched as though shot when McDonough finally holstered the revolver. McDonough stared down at the badge in his hand for another long moment before he looked up again at the man in red, and nodded.

"If you still stand with him, get out," McDonough said, suddenly, and all the sheriff's men looked up at him, startled. "Leave this town now and the law won't follow you. But if your home is here, if your family is here... stay here and help me rebuild it."

Meryl watched all the men she'd disarmed or wounded glancing to one another, having what small exchanges they could without words. After a long minute, the man closest to McDonough stood up, wincing as he put weight on an injured leg. He carefully walked forward a few paces and bent down to collect his hat from where it fell during the gunfight. The man carefully brushed the dirt off the hat, put it back on his head—and tipped it to McDonough.

"Sheriff," said the man.

The others were all already retrieving their own hats, and there was a chorus of, "Sheriff," as every man there nodded to McDonough. Meryl could practically feel McDonough's swell of fierce pride and new hope as each man waited in line to shake his hand.

The man in red was silent at Meryl's shoulder and she looked up at him.

"Were you really that sure he wasn't going to kill him?" Meryl asked. "So sure that you would put that gun in his hand?"

The man in red glanced down to meet her gaze. For a moment he just watched her face in silence, and she saw a knowing look in his vibrantly green eyes that sent an odd shiver through her.

"Weren't you?" he asked her. Meryl didn't know what to say—Honestly? Yes—and after a moment the man in red seemed to read her answer anyway. He nodded, and then turned to make his way to where McDonough stood, surrounded by his new deputies. Meryl watched him go, and then looked to where Milly and the young woman were kneeling next to Bostalk. She could see a pool of blood under the man's body, but Milly was showing his daughter how to put pressure over the wound and Meryl knew they were both in good hands.

Now that it was over, Meryl really felt exhaustion for the first time. The adrenaline from the gunfight had long since depleted and she suddenly realized how long this day had actually been. In fact, it had started yesterday, spending the whole day on Thomas-back, then the night's journey skirting the sprawling graveyard on foot, then getting mixed up with the gunfight in the saloon and the duel in the street, and then this debacle with the sheriff. No wonder she could hardly stand without swaying.

Meryl glanced glumly around at her empty, discarded derringers, scattered across the ground. She'd only used a dozen or so but they were spread out along the whole street and she sighed. Bending down to pick up the first, Meryl's back gave a twinge of pain and she realized how much she wanted to just crawl into bed and sleep. Each time she stooped to retrieve a pistol it became more painful and finally, near the largest concentration of derringers, she just knelt instead, almost willing to suffer the indignity of shuffling around on her hands and knees just so she could collect the rest without any further backache.

As she tucked the last empty derringer away in its holster, a familiar bristly-haired shadow fell over her hands and Meryl sat back on her heels and looked up.

"What?" she asked, sounding a little more irritable than she intended, frowning and squinting up into the sun. But she knew the answer before he spoke, noticing the bandage and bottle of antiseptic he held as he stepped forward and shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight.

"For your arm," said the man in red.

"But Milly—" began Meryl, pointing toward her partner.

"Is still looking after Bostalk's shoulder," he finished. He nodded toward Meryl's arm. "It's just a graze, isn't it? Surely I can't screw that up."

And then he smiled at her.

Meryl almost fell over. It was modest and honest and lit up his face the way none of the Idiot's grins ever could. She realized her jaw had dropped slightly and she snapped it shut and nodded, and the man in red sat down next to her. Meryl shrugged off half her tunic to give better access to her injury.

As the man in red was opening the bottle of antiseptic Meryl decided there was no way in hell she would let him see her screaming like a little girl as she usually did at the sting of it. She gritted her teeth tightly and wouldn't meet his eye as he cleaned the wound. Instead she looked toward Milly, watching Bostalk and his daughter. The girl was holding her father's hand tightly as Milly tended to the man's shoulder.

"It must be hard for her, knowing now," said the man in red quietly, startling Meryl.

"What?" she said, realizing he'd put away the antiseptic and was carefully wrapping a clean bandage around her bicep.

"Her father's history," the man continued, his voice somber. "Could you imagine learning something like that about your parents?"

"I didn't know my parents," Meryl told him, though she had no idea why. The man in red seemed just as surprised by this confession.

"You were..." He left the sentence hanging, clearly not sure of the appropriate ending, waiting for her to explain. She just shook her head.

"No, not an orphan. Just... neglected," Meryl continued. "My parents didn't plan on having any children, so they didn't really know what to do with me." Childhood memories came floating to the surface of her thoughts and for some reason they kept pouring out of her mouth. "They already had the perfect life together; he worked all day and she took care of their home until they could be together in the evenings." Meryl swallowed hard but spoke again, still without understanding why. "They were devoted to each other, and there just wasn't really room in their home—or their hearts—for a third person. So I left."

The man in red said nothing and Meryl became self-conscious and looked down at her hands.

"I never knew my parents," the man said suddenly, and Meryl glanced up, startled. Now it was he who looked away, seemingly very intent on his bandaging of her arm. "I don't even know what I—" he stopped abruptly. "I grew up alone. Well, with my brother," he conceded. "Mostly."

Meryl was surprised by this and didn't know what to say—or even if she should say anything at all. Before she could come up with some kind of reply the man spoke again, his voice dropping to near a whisper. "And there was a woman... but she died in the Fall."

The fall?

The man in red looked up to meet her eyes again. For some time they just stared at each other and Meryl wasn't sure what was really happening or why either of them would offer up such intimate, personal information to the other. Then the man finished bandaging her arm and tied it off with a sharp yank.

"Ow!"

Meryl jerked her arm out of his hands, hissing against the sudden pain.

And the man in red was gone.

"Whoops!" said the Idiot, grinning somewhat sheepishly. He leapt to his feet and bowed low with a stern look on his face, saying, "A thousand apologies, madame!" Then he grinned again and skipped off toward where the young woman stood, watching two men carry her father off to the town's infirmary on a stretcher. She didn't follow.

When he reached her, the Idiot knelt at the woman's side and grasped her hand, kissing it. He looked up to her and though Meryl couldn't hear his words she saw the Idiot's lips moving as he spoke to her.

The woman slapped him hard across the face and walked away in a huff.

Meryl just sighed resignedly.

Idiot.