Pounding after the shooter, Matt rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. The dark man had disappeared. Scanning the nearby buildings and hiding places, he saw that Moss Grimmick's stables was the most logical place.
Realizing what an obvious setup and trick it probably was, he knew he had to go inside. This cat-and-mouse game had to end.
Pushing open the creaking door, Matt kept to the side and then darted inside, rolling and coming to a stop behind a small stack of hay bales.
Immediately a series of rapidly-fired rifle shots pelted the hay bales from a man hiding up in the loft.
"This is Marshal Dillon! Throw your gun down NOW!" Matt fired three shots up towards the loft, making the gunman jump back and fall flat.
"Guess ya don't know about my FOUR brothers, do ya, Marshal?! Remember the Shepards, Marshal?! Used to be six of us 'till ya murdered baby brother Joe last Spring. We ain't leaving Dodge 'till you're dead too, MARSHAL!"
Matt crouched down behind the bales. He had been forced to kill young Joe Shepard when the drunken man had fired at him after killing the dealer in the Long Branch and threatening a terrified saloon girl. Now John, Jim, Sam, Juke, and Ted were wanting their revenge. He peered around the dark insides of the stables, imagining possible vantage spots for their ambush.
Taking off his Stetson and barely looking over the top of the bales, he once more had to dive for cover as shots rang out from at least three different directions.
Unafraid, but furiously trying to think of a plan, Matt was startled by a shotgun blast from the back of the stables, followed by the thud of a body from the hay loft hitting the floor.
Matt stood up and rapidly fired at the startled brother who had stood up to his right, and who soon joined the first man on the straw-covered floor.
Another shot, this time from a pistol, caught a third brother by surprise as he tried to sneak around behind the Marshal.
Matt ran under the loft, fired up through the boards, and the fourth brother he had caught a glimpse of thudded down.
The fifth brother now came out of a nearby stall, hands up, pistol dangling from his right thumb.
"I give up, Marshal! I give up! Don't shoot!" The wide-eyed cowboy tossed his pistol towards Matt.
As Matt kicked the gun away, and yanked the man's hands down into handcuffs, a tall, slender man with a Remington pistol in his belt, and holding a shotgun, stepped out of the shadows and limped over.
"Mr. Dillon. Sometimes there's jest too many snakes, and sometimes I guess there jest ain't enough rocks."
Matt clapped his big right hand on Chester's shoulder, and smiled gratefully into his friend's determined deep brown eyes.
End.