“Depends,” Virgil said.

“On what?” the kid said.

The other cowboys had gathered behind him. All of them were heeled.

“On what you all do,” Virgil said. “You pull on me and I’ll kill you.”

“All of us,” the kid said.

“You first,” Virgil said. “Everett will get some with the scatter gun. Then we’ll see.”

The kid looked around for a moment at the other cowboys.

“Wanna go at ’em?” he said.

Somebody behind him said, “Lazy L don’t back down from nobody.”

The kid nodded. He looked back at Virgil.

He was going to try it.

You do this enough you can sense it. I knew he was going to try. Virgil knew. We maybe both knew before the kid really did.

The kid’s shoulders twitched, and Virgil drew his gun and had the hammer back before the kid reached his holster. I had the eight-gauge at my shoulder. We were far enough apart so that they’d have to decide which of us to shoot at.

The kid froze with his fingertips on the black butt of his Colt.

“Jesus Christ,” the kid said.

“Might want to back down from this one,” Virgil said.

“How’d you do that?” the kid said.

“Done it before,” Virgil said.

“For crissake, you didn’t even move fast,” the kid said.

“Fast enough,” Virgil said.

The kid slowly moved his hand away from his gun.

“I’m really fast,” the kid said.

The tension had gone out of the room.

“Sure,” Virgil said.

“You coulda killed me easy,” the kid said.

“Sure,” Virgil said.

The kid started slowly toward the door. The other cowboys followed.

Virgil turned slowly as they moved. I did, too, with the shotgun still at my shoulder.

When they were gone, Virgil holstered his Colt. I lowered the eight-gauge.

“Lazy L,” I said. “Could be General Laird’s place.”

“Could be,” Virgil said.

“If it is,” I said, “they might be getting tired of us.”