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Your hand finds the worn walnut grip of your Colt, thumb already moving to the hammer. Twenty years of muscle memory takes over—the draw, the cock, the aim—all one fluid motion.
"Verily I say unto you," you begin, your voice carrying that old sermon cadence, "whoever lives by the sword—"
The Colt roars.
The youngest Clayton spins backward clutching his shoulder, his pistol never clearing leather. Blood sprays across the weathered boards behind him.
"—dies by the sword."
The other two are moving now, but you're already shifting aim. The second brother gets his gun half-drawn before your next shot catches him in the thigh, dropping him screaming into the mud. The bearded one—Jed—is faster than he looks. His shot cracks past your ear as you lean hard left in the saddle.
Your third shot takes him center mass, but he's a big man and it doesn't drop him clean. He staggers back, firing wild. One bullet catches your mare in the neck.
The horse screams and goes down hard. You kick free of the stirrups, rolling through the mud as she falls. Your fourth shot, fired from your knees in the filth, punches through Jed's throat. He drops, hands clutching his neck, blood pooling fast.
Three men down in under ten seconds. The whole town is watching from windows and doorways. You stand, mud dripping from your coat, and put a mercy bullet in your mare's head. Then you grab the middle Clayton by his collar, hauling him upright despite his screaming.
"You're going to live," you tell him. "Long enough to tell me who's paying you."
