William W. Johnstone by Massacre Mountain

horse stole, and now he’d lost his service revolver and other stuff in a rooming-house burglary.
    I got the letters all spelled out and then sat in that lamplit place alone. Burtell was out, checking up on places. But he’d see the log when I got in and probably have a good laugh on the sheriff.
    I sure wanted my gun back. It was an ordinary Peacemaker Colt in an ordinary holster. I’m good with a gun but I don’t much care what kind of weapon I’ve got as long as it’s easy to use. This here Colt of mine, it’d been put to use a few times, keeping the peace in Doubtful. It wasn’t filed down or slicked up. It didn’t have any work done on the trigger or the firing mechanism. That ain’t the way I use guns. When I need a gun I don’t much care if it’s fast or slow. I just want to get it aimed right and make sure it shoots true. All those fellers who work on slick holsters and fast draws are just finding ways to get themselves dead. That’s about the whole of it, too. Them that get reputations all end up under six feet of earth in a couple of years. I liked that revolver, with its forty-four caliber barrel and shells, and that’s all that needs saying. And now someone had it. Someone determined to push me out of my job, most likely. I’d get this solved one way or another, and then we’d see who might have the job, him or me. A stickup, a horse theft, and a burglary wasn’t exactly a recommendation for a sheriff job.
    I waited a while for Burtell, but he was off and gone. I was worn out. I’d had a long evening, seen the first show I ever saw, hung around afterward to make sure the town was at peace, and then went to my room only to find myself the victim of a burglary. I thought about going to my room and getting some shut-eye, but the truth of it was that I was not going to sleep that night.
    I picked up the sawed-off twelve-gauge from the rack, threw some shells in my pocket, and headed into the night. It was black and cool, with only a sliver of moon to light my way. I needed to walk my town. I needed to walk every street, pass by every house, and check the door of every business. Maybe it was because I was the one who’d been robbed, but the need in me was to be the protector of Doubtful, the guardian of the ones I disliked as well as the ones I liked, the peace officer walking his beat in the depths of the night so that the people behind all those dark windows and closed doors could rest peacefully. I don’t know where the need came from; it was just there, guiding me as I walked down Main, checking doors, studying windows. I’d do the south side first, because that was the poorer, the rowdier, the looser side, and then the north side, where the gentry lived in comfortable homes, with picket fences around them, and nice white privies behind big houses.
    I was all alone. I wasn’t sure what the hour was, but it was well after midnight, and Doubtful had pulled its shades and was slumbering. I carried the shotgun in the crook of my arm, easy-like. I knew how to swing it up and aim it fast, if it came to that, but this wasn’t a night for that. I worked my way past Turk’s Livery Barn, and saw the darkness within, and a few horses standing in the pens, legs cocked, dozing. I shook the doors of a couple of stores, Alden’s Drygoods and Marcella’s Millinery. I came to the red brick walls of the bank, and the granite stairs leading to its front doors. It had been built for permanence, unlike the rest of Doubtful. There were places that looked like they’d blow away in the next wind.
    The bank stared back at me, dark and cold and mean. This is where calculating men made hard decisions, and stared at columns of figures, and connived to ruin the rest of us. This was Hubert Sanders’s place, and from these granite steps he had demanded that I shut down the variety show and drive Ralston out of town, whether or not anyone had transgressed the law. I thought maybe Sanders wanted to live in a joyless