Shootout of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone

first, and Clark had been forced to return fire to defend himself.
    Clark hooked his canteen back onto the saddle pommel, then looked around at the little town he was entering. Nearly all the buildings were built from wide, unpainted, and weathered rip-sawed boards. Having collected the day’s heat, the town was now giving it back in shimmering waves that were so thick they distorted the view.
    There was no railroad coming into Eberhardt, but there was a stagecoach station with a schedule board announcing the arrival and departure of four stagecoaches per week. He had known many towns like this: isolated, inbred, and stagnant.
    Clark rode down the street taking inventory of the town’s commerce: a livery, a hardware store, a blacksmith shop, and a general store. The proprietor of the general store, wearing a white apron, was out front, sweeping the porch, the stiff straw broom making loud scratching noises. The scratching stopped as the grocer paused in his sweeping long enough to look at Clark, and to pay particular attention to the body Clark had draped over the horse behind him.
    Clark located the hotel, a restaurant, and of more particular interest to him, the saloon. By now, others had come out to watch him, drawn by their morbid interest in the body on the horse behind him. At the far end of the single street, Clark saw the jail and marshal’s office.
    Riding up to the hitching rail in front of the jail, Clark dismounted, and patted his shirt and pants a few times. The action sent up puffs of white dust, which hovered around him like a cloud. He cut a quick glance up and down the street, aware now that he was the center of intense interest. A few buildings away he saw a door being closed, while across the street, a window shade was drawn. A sign creaked in the wind, and flies buzzed loudly around the piles of horse manure that lay in the street.
    Clark didn’t have to open the door of the jail; it was opened for him. Someone wearing a badge—whether the marshal or one of his deputies Clark didn’t know—stepped out onto the porch. The lawman was overweight and his shirt pulled at the buttons, gapping open in the middle. He stuck his hand inside his shirt and began to scratch.
    “Find him dead on the trail, did you?”
    “No,” Clark replied. “I killed him.”
    The lawman got a surprised expression on his face and his eyes grew wide.
    “Look here! Are you telling me you killed him, and you are bringing him into town to brag about it?”
    “I didn’t come to brag, I come to collect my reward,” Clark said.
    “What reward?”
    Clark pulled a dodger from his pocket and showed it to the lawman.
    WANTED

    B Y THE S TATE OF N EVADA
    Dewey Gibson
    Reward:
$300.00
    “This is Gibson,” Clark said.
    “Yeah? You don’t mind if I take a look, do you?” the deputy asked.
    “Do you know Gibson?”
    “Yeah, I know him. We’ve had him in jail here two or three times.” The deputy stepped down from the porch and walked back to take a look at the body that was draped across the horse. He nodded. “That’s him, all right. What did you kill him for? I know he held up Mr. Fiddler’s store here, but as far as I know, Gibson never kilt nobody.”
    “He was trying to kill me,” Clark said.
    “Why did you bring him here? Gibson is from here. He’s likely to have a few friends around that won’t take too kindly to him bein’ kilt and all.”
    “I was here earlier, I heard that he had held up the store, so I went after him. Being as this is where he did his latest crime, I figured I would come here to claim my reward.”
    “I ain’t got no three hundred dollars to give you,” the lawman said. “I ain’t even got three dollars.”
    “That’s all right,” Clark said. “All I need from you is a receipt saying I brought him in. I can turn it in to the state and get the reward.”
    “I can give that to you. But, uh—”
    “Uh, what?”
    “What am I supposed to do with the body?”
    “Do you have an