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The smithy tinkered with the wheel for another few minutes while Gray watched, a bit bemused. Never in his wildest imagination did he think he’d be casually discussing the antics of barnyard animals with the town blacksmith. His wife’s animals, no less. If he was a drinkin’ man, he’d be certain he was in some sort of drunken hallucination.
“Can you fix it?” Gray asked, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin.
Tom wiped a handkerchief over his face and stood. “Oh, sure. I’ve got some spare pins around here that should do the trick.”
“Good. If Mercy has to go another day without her wagon, she’s going to start making me cart her and those damn bushels of apples all over town. I just don’t have the constitution for that kind of exertion,” he insisted.
The smithy chuckled. “No worries, Sheriff. We’ll get you fixed right—”
The faintest breath of a sound came from the doorway. A foot shuffling through the dirt. An exhale maybe. And the hair on the back of Gray’s neck stood up and goosepimples rippled down his arms. He pulled his gun, aiming and firing at the man who’d appeared in the blacksmith’s doorway before the man had even pulled his pistol all the way out of his holster. The shot struck the man square in the gut, and he collapsed to the ground, dropping his gun as he clutched at his stomach.
The smithy came to stand next to Gray and looked down at the man with a low whistle. “I didn’t even hear him come in. I guess they don’t call you ‘Quick Shot’ for nothing.”
Gray grunted. It wasn’t something that he’d ever wanted to have to prove again.
Several people hurried over, crowding the large open doorway of the smithy’s barn. Gray ignored them all, focusing only on the man on the ground. He’d seen him before. He was the tall, thin man who’d been watching him and Mercy the week before. Gray had had a feeling about him then. He should have listened to it.
Mercy burst in, saw what had happened, and hurried to his side, her face a frenzy of shock and worry. Gray sighed. He’d hoped she’d stay away.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, touching his arm.
“Fine.”
She looked down at the man and frowned. “Isn’t that…”
Gray nodded. “He’s been watching us.” He kicked the man’s gun away from his hand before he bent down to get a better look at him. He’d shot him in the gut—a killing shot, but one that would allow him to get a few answers first.
“Let me see him,” Doc said, bending down to examine the man. He whipped out his handkerchief and tried to apply pressure to the wound, not that it would do much good.
Gray barely spared a glance for the doc. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“I might be able to—”
“You can’t fix that,” he said, pointing to the man’s gut. “And I need some answers.”
Doc’s face hardened, but Gray ignored him and squatted down near the man’s head.
“Who sent you?”
The man smirked at him, and Gray gave him a cold smile that made the man’s face pale further than it already had from the blood loss. “We both know you’re done for. The only question now is how fast you want to go. You answer my questions, I’ll let you bleed out quickly and get it over with. Don’t answer me, and I’ll let the doc here try and save you. He’d probably have to dig around in that gut for a few minutes for the lead. Disinfect the wound with a bit of alcohol. The smithy over there has some good, strong rotgut that would do nicely. In fact, we’ll try so hard to save you it might be days before you finally die.”
Gray ignored the doc’s outraged hiss. He could save his saint routine for someone who hadn’t just tried to assassinate him.
“What’s it going to be?” he asked the man.
The man glared at him, his chest heaving as he struggled to drag air into his dying lungs. “Bounty,” he managed to say, though with great difficulty.
“There’s a bounty on my head?” Gray asked, surprised.
“Hundred dollars,” the man croaked.
“Oh, my God,” Mercy said, her hand fluttering over her mouth.
Gray snorted. “A hundred dollars? That’s it?”
Mercy’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, is that it? Isn’t that enough?”
“No! It’s insulting,” Gray said. “I wouldn’t get out of bed for less than three hundred.”
