Colette's wounded arm began to throb in time with her pulse. "You're certain?"
"I never knew his name in Carver's Bend, but I knew his face when he arrived here. I have passed that office every morning for more than a year."
"Why didn't you speak?"
Mrs. Holloway closed her eyes. "Because he recognized me, too. Three days after he took the marshal's badge, he came into this store and asked after my sister. He knew her name. Knew the street where she lived. Then he told me that people who remembered too much often left their families alone."
The shame in her voice angered Colette more than the fear—not anger at Mrs. Holloway, but anger at the man who had taught her to feel ashamed of surviving him.
"Tell me what happened after Thomas showed the card."
Mrs. Holloway steadied herself against the counter. "Whitfield struck him. Thomas pushed him away. Bragg stood at the end of the bar. He had been running the game with Whitfield, though no one understood that until later."
"Bragg was there."
"He lied to you. But he did not fire the shot."
"No?"
"Thomas walked into the street. Whitfield followed. Your brother had no gun in his hand. Whitfield called his name, and when Thomas turned..." Her voice failed. "He shot him once through the chest."
Colette saw Thomas as she had found him at the undertaker's: his hands scrubbed clean, a dark hole beneath his folded shirt, his expression strangely peaceful because someone had closed his eyes before she arrived.
For eight months she had placed Silas Bragg behind that gun. Now the weapon belonged to a man wearing a badge.
"What did Bragg do?" she asked.
"He took the marked deck from the table. Then he spoke to every witness. By morning, some remembered Thomas drawing first. Others remembered nothing. Bragg escorted Whitfield west before the county sheriff could question him."
"And one frightened drover saw them leave together," Colette said. "He saw Bragg's beard beside my brother's body, and believed Bragg had fired."
Mrs. Holloway nodded. "Bragg was willing to be suspected. Suspicion is not a conviction, and knowing the truth gave him ownership of a frightened lawman."
Colette looked toward the darkening street. "That is why Whitfield lets him control Hollow Creek."