"Bragg bought him that badge through two men on the town council. Since then, the marshal has ignored every threat, every beating, every dollar taken from us."
"Do you still have the marked card?"
Mrs. Holloway reached beneath the counter and removed a tobacco tin. Inside lay an ace of hearts, yellowed around the edges. A tiny crescent had been cut beside one corner.
"Thomas tossed it toward my table before he went outside," she said. "I picked it up after the shot."
"It proves the game was crooked. It does not prove who pulled the trigger."
"Your testimony does."
"If I live long enough to give it."
A board creaked on the rear porch. Both women stopped breathing. Another creak followed. Then a hand tested the back door.
Colette extinguished the lamp.
In many frontier communities, a town marshal and a county sheriff were not the same officer. A marshal enforced ordinances within a town; a sheriff answered to the county and might be days away when violence began. In territories such as New Mexico, judges also traveled between districts to hold court. That meant an arrest could happen tonight, while a proper trial remained weeks or even months away. A badge carried authority, but distance often decided whether anyone could hold that authority accountable. That is how a corrupt lawman could become more dangerous than an outlaw: an outlaw ruled through fear, but a corrupt officer could make fear sound like law.
Darkness filled the dry goods store. Colette drew the short Colt from beneath her right shoulder. Mrs. Holloway held the tobacco tin against her chest with one hand and reached for the shotgun with the other. The latch shifted once, twice, then stopped. Colette moved beside the door, keeping her injured arm close to her body.
The window at the front of the store shattered. A wrapped stone struck the floor and rolled beneath the display table. Colette did not turn toward it: the distraction came from the front, but the danger would enter from the rear.
The back door burst inward. Silas Bragg charged through with a revolver low against his thigh. Colette struck his wrist with the barrel of her Colt. His gun fired into a sack of flour; white dust filled the room.
Bragg drove his shoulder into her wounded arm. Pain dropped her to one knee. He kicked her revolver away. Mrs. Holloway raised the shotgun, but Bragg seized the barrels and shoved them toward the ceiling. The blast tore through the boards overhead.
Colette reached across her body; her left-hip Colt cleared leather. Bragg heard the hammer cock. He stopped with one hand around Mrs. Holloway's throat. Flour drifted through the darkness between them.
"Let her go," Colette said.
Bragg smiled without humor. "You already killed one of my men."
"He fired first."