Free The Law of a Fast Gun by Robert Vaughan

crestfallen from the exchange. He ran his hand across the smooth, glossy black surface. “However, I am sure you are discerning enough to understand what a wonderful piece of workmanship this is.”
    “I’ll take it,” Jessup said.
    Robert Griffin picked up his account book and wrote: One Eternal Cloud coffin to Major Clint Jessup .
    “I presume you’ll have the late Mr. McDougal’s body shipped somewhere?”
    “Yes,” Jessup said. “But first I want him put on display.”
    “I see. You want to arrange for a visitation and viewing so you—”
    “No,” Jessup interrupted. “No visitation.”
    “But I don’t understand. I thought you said you wanted him to be on display.”
    “That’s exactly what I said, and that’s exactly what I mean.”
    “How can there be a display without a visitation and viewing?”
    “I want you to dress him up in a suit, then I want you to open up the top half of that fancy casket I just bought and set him in the front window of this hardware store. I want everyone in town to see him if they happen by the store window.”
    “I don’t know if Mr. Robison would agree to that. He owns the hardware store.”
    “Find out how much it costs to make him agree,” Jessup said. “I want Shorty displayed in that front window.”
    “Very good, sir,” Jessup said. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
    “And I want you to have the sign painter paint a sign to put on the coffin.”
    “You want a sign buried with the coffin?”
    “Not buried with it,” Jessup said. “I want the sign put on the coffin while it’s on display in the window, so that everyone who happens by will be able to read it.”
    “What shall the sign say?” Robert Griffin asked.
    “This is what it will say,” Jessup said, handing a piece of paper to the undertaker.
    Leaving the mortuary, Jessup rode down to the railroad depot where the cows his men had just brought in were being loaded. Deekus was standing with the broker, watching as the cows were led up the ramp and into the car. As each car was filled, the train would move forward slightly, then the next car would be filled, thirty cows to each car.
    “How’s the count going?” Jessup asked.
    “Three hundred today, three hundred yesterday,” the broker said.
    “Eight more days and we’ll have them all loaded,” Jessup said.
    “Unless the town runs us off,” the broker said.
    “What do you mean, unless the town runs us off?”
    “Some of the folks in town are talking about closing the cattle shipping facilities here.”
    “Yes, Trueblood said something about that yesterday. But I’m not worried. They aren’t going to do that. They’d lose too much money.”
    “Maybe not. There are more farmers around Braggadocio than there are ranchers. If they closed the cattle pens, they could build more grain elevators. They say they don’t have as much trouble with the farmers as they do with the cowboys. That was one of your riders killed yesterday, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes,” Jessup answered. He nodded back toward the center of town. “As a matter of fact, I just stopped by to make arrangements with the undertaker.”
    “You going to bury him here?”
    “No, I’m going to ship him back to Iowa,” Jessup said. “But first, I want the people of the town to have an opportunity to see him.”
    The broker looked up in surprise. “Why in heaven’s name would you want that?”
    “Let’s just say that it is my way of reaching out to the town,” Jessup said.
     
    By mid-morning nearly half the town had wandered by Robison’s Hardware Store, where Shorty’s body lay on display in the front window. All talked about the beautiful black coffin with the bright, silver accouterments, and the cowboy who was dressed more elegantly in death than he had ever been in life.
    But the thing that got everyone’s attention was the neatly painted, hand-lettered sign that perched on the bottom half of the coffin.
    YOU SEE HERE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF
IAN “SHORTY” MC