with a man, I don't take it lightly when one of my deputies tries to shoot him."

"I figured you wanted to take him after what he had done," the man said sullenly.

"If I had, I'd of done my own gunslinging." He reached out and yanked the small metal star off the man's vest. "You ain't a deputy any more. If I catch you wearin' guns, I'll run you in—or shoot you, whichever's handiest."

Still holding his injured hand, the man turned and walked out of the saloon. The sheriff turned around to Brek.

"That was mighty fast and accurate shootin', son. What'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't say yet," Brek said, reholstering his weapons. "But as a matter of fact, it's Ed Calhoun. As I said, I don't want to cause no trouble, but I'm glad to oblige them that comes lookin' for it." He laid a ten-dollar gold piece on the bar. "Here's an eagle, barkeep. Let's have them drinks."

One of the other men at the bar looked quizzically at the sheriff. "Sheriff, maybe you hadn't ought to of done that to Cactus. How's the boss gonna take it?"

The sheriff looked at him for a moment. Then he looked at the others. "Let's get one thing straight here. John Sager's an important man hereabouts, and I don't deny it. He needs good gunslingers to guard his property, and I'm only too glad to deputize 'em. But, by the Almighty, if a man don't behave himself, if he ain't to be trusted with a gun, then he ain't goin' to wear a badge as long as I'm sheriff."

He turned to Brek. "I got to uphold the law, son. I asked you to turn them guns in and you wouldn't do it. I'm damned if I'm goin' to' try to take 'em away, so there's only one thing to do." He handed Brek the star that he had taken from Cactus. "Hold up your right hand," he said.

Half an hour later, Brek found himself sitting at a table, drinking beer and talking with the sheriff and a man named Chuck. He'd answered questions about his past with the purely fictitious data that he'd received from the hypnorobot, but all the time his mind had been on the man who was "an important man hereabouts"—John Sager.

Sager. Sagginer. It could be the same man.

"By the way, Sheriff—who is John Sager?"

"Owns the bank," the sheriff said. "Got property up on Chloride Flats, too. That's the 

 Prev. P 5/12 next