Free Town Tamers by David Robbins

had a flat roof.
    He didn’t look at the steeple or the roof after that, in case unfriendly eyes were watching.
    Asa cradled the Winchester and waited. He was good at that. Patience was his prime virtue, as Mary used to say. A legacy of his Indian blood, he reckoned, since Indians were noted for theirs.
    The sky darkened and night fell, bringing with it a cool wind out of the west and the ululating wail of coyotes.
    Asa didn’t move. He could stand there all night if he had to. Once, he could mimic a statue for days. His sinews weren’t what they once were, but they were still better than most.
    Few lights came on, and that wasn’t good. Fortunately, just when he had made up his mind to hunt George Tandy down, who should come walking up the street but Tandy and Thaddeus Falk.
    “Ask and you shall receive,” Asa said.
    “What?” Tandy said.
    “We demand you desist.” Falk got right to it. “We’ll pay you the full amount but pack up and go before they get here.”
    “Can’t,” Asa said.
    “It’s not a request,” Falk said.
    “Still can’t.”
    George Tandy was less arrogant. He tried being reasonable. “Please, Mr. Delaware. We’ve changed our minds. We realize a lot more blood will be spilled, and we don’t want that.”
    “You knew there would be blood going in,” Asa said.
    “Yes,” Tandy admitted, “your reputation preceded you. We anticipated violence. But imagining violence and experiencing it aren’t the same thing, we’ve discovered.”
    “Is that right?”
    “The bloodbath in the saloon taught us we’re not as bloodthirsty as we thought we were.”
    “Few are.”
    “You seem to be,” the banker said.
    “Part of the job.”
    “We want you to go,” the banker demanded.
    “No.”
    “Damn it, you pigheaded—”
    “Be careful,” Asa said before Falk said something worse. “You don’t want to go too far.”
    “Or what? You’ll blow my head off like you did that puncher’s?”
    “He was a rustler and a kiler and you know it.” Asa didn’t have time for a lot of talk, so he got to what mattered by saying to Tandy, “Have everyone along Main Street light their lamps as usual.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “But no lights at the bank or the millinery,” Asa amended.
    “People are scared,” Tandy said. “They’re hiding in their homes. They don’t want lights to draw attention to them.”
    “I need the edge.”
    “And what if we don’t?” Falk asked. “Will you give in and leave?”
    “Get it through your head I’m staying. I run now, and I won’t ever be asked to tame a town again. And Knox and his hellions will take that ‘bloodbath,’ as you call it, out on all of you.”
    “I’ll be damned if I’ll help you by having the lights turned on,” Falk said.
    “If you don’t and I live, the first thing I’ll do is come find you.”
    “Was that a threat?”
    “No,” Asa said. “A promise.”
    George Tandy broke in with, “Let’s be mature about this, shall we?”
    “The lights,” Asa said. “As quickly as you can have it done.”
    Tandy gazed up and down Main and reluctantly nodded. “Very well. I’ll see to it personally.” He was about to turn when his eyes narrowed and he bent toward Asa. “What are those things you’re wearing under your slicker?”
    “Bandoleers,” Asa said.
    “Good Lord. They must hold fifty shells or better.”
    “Fifty is right,” Asa said. More were in his pockets. Every pocket.
    “That might not be enough,” the banker said, sounding as if he hoped it wasn’t.
    “I’ll save one for you if those lights aren’t on.”
    Falk turned on his heel and stomped off muttering to himself.
    “You shouldn’t antagonize him like that,” Tandy said.
    “It’s good for a man to be reminded he’s not God now and then.”
    “That applies to you, too.”
    “If I were God, my wife would still be alive,” Asa said. It came out before he could stop it.
    “I heard about her. I’m sorry.”
    Of all of them, Asa liked