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hand, he started toward the saloon’s batwing entrance.
    The shots had stopped for the time being, but they might start again without any warning, especially if Tate charged in there blindly with his gun drawn. As the lawman reached the bat wings, The Kid called after him, “Marshal, maybe you’d better—”
    With a crash of glass, a man came flying through one of the saloon’s front windows. He landed on the boardwalk, rolled under the railing, and dropped off the edge, landing limply on the ground with a heavy thud.
    Tate had paused with his left hand on one side of the bat wings, ready to thrust it open. He turned his head to stare in surprise at the man crashing through the window. Before the marshal could start inside again, a big man bulled his way through the doorway, slapping the bat wings aside.
    The swinging doors smacked into Tate and drove him back a step. One of his boot heels caught on the planks of the boardwalk, and he lost his balance and sat down hard.
    The man sneered at Tate. “Better watch where you’re going, Grandpa.”
    Anger welled up inside The Kid. “No, you’re the one who’d better watch out, mister.”
    The man glared murderously as he swung his head around to look at The Kid. He was huge, with slab-muscled shoulders seemingly as broad as an ox-yoke, long, gorilla-like arms, and a big gut that looked soft but probably wasn’t. Black stubble covered his cheeks, and his hat was pushed back on a thatch of equally coarse black hair.
    “What’d you say, mister?” he demanded in a rumbling voice.
    “I said you should watch where you’re going,” The Kid snapped. “That man you just knocked down is the marshal of Copperhead Springs.”
    A bark of laughter came from the big man. “What, that old fool?”
    Tate made a lunging grab for the revolver he had dropped when he fell. “I’ll show you who’s an old fool, you big lummox!”
    The big man’s face went from being arrogant and mildly amused to cold, vicious, and ruthless in an instant. He drew back a leg that seemed as big as a tree trunk, and The Kid knew he was about to kick Tate before the old lawman could reach the fallen gun.
    In a blur of speed, The Kid palmed out his Colt and pointed it at the big man. Even though the Colt was a double-action, his thumb looped over the hammer and drew it back.
    Something about the sound of a gun being cocked froze the blood of most men.
    “Don’t do it,” The Kid warned. “I’ll put a bullet in you before I let you hurt that man.”
    The big man trembled a little from the need to lash out that obviously gripped him. He said between clenched teeth, “You don’t know what you’re doin’.”
    “I’m helping a friend,” The Kid said. His voice was hard and flat. “Marshal, can you get up?”
    “Of course I can get up,” Tate snapped. He snatched his gun from the boardwalk and scrambled to his feet. “I’m not hurt. I just tripped and lost my balance.”
    “That’s good,” The Kid said. “Maybe you’d better go check on that fella who got thrown through the window.” Ever since he’d gotten his first glimpse of the massive hombre he was covering at the moment, he’d had a pretty good idea what had happened. He didn’t know who had fired the shots, though.
    Tate went down the steps and hurried over to the man who still lay huddled in the street next to the boardwalk. He knelt beside the still figure and rolled it over.
    A moment later, Tate lifted his head and announced in grim tones, “This man’s dead, Kid. He’s been shot three times.”
    “Self-defense,” the big man rumbled. He hadn’t moved since The Kid threw down on him, but his eyes burned brightly with hatred. “You can ask anybody in the saloon. They’ll tell you.”
    The Kid had a hunch the people in the saloon would say whatever they thought this monster wanted them to say. A number of pale, worried faces were looking through the windows, intently watching the tense confrontation on the boardwalk,