"Iron Marge!" the gunslinger on the street yelled. Another shot echoed outside, making Margaret Tanner flinch where she crouched behind the bar. Above her, a bottle exploded and rained shards of glass. The gunslinger knew she was in the saloon, but so far, he hadn't actually shot anyone. He'd ridden into Carson on a big black stallion waving around the Texan flag. There was nothing to do for it, the brass star on Margaret's breast obligated her to go out there and face this hooligan.

"Give me my hat, Thomas," she said to the teenage boy hiding at the far end of the bar.

Thomas reached onto the counter and picked her hat off the top, then scurried over. He also carried a rifle.

"Don't fire at him unless I die. Understand? Pass the word to the rest of the posse."

"Iron Marge I know you're in there you yellow bellied bitch!" His next shot hit the player piano in the corner and the drum began to turn, ticking out a slow mournful dirge.

Margaret settled her hat on her head, drew her revolver, and walked quickly for the bat doors. "I'm here, gunslinger. Stop shooting up my town."

The gunslinger stood in the street with his nonchalant horse behind him. He held a pole in his left hand, on which flew the lone star. Margaret scanned the street. Most of her lads were up on the roofs, crouched behind crenelations and rain barrels. The npcs had scattered to their usual places, cowering inside shops and alleyways. They wouldn't help, even the ones armed were useless in a fight between players.

Margaret stepped to the center of the street, her spurs clicking. The gunslinger wore a wide sombrero and two crossed bandoliers on his chest. One of his revolvers was still holstered, and he lowered the other and slid it away. Margaret nodded. She holstered her own weapon. It was going to be a quick draw.

Margaret imagined that he stared at her from under that sombrero. Only the tip of a black beard poked from under the shadow. His hand twitched at his hip, not touching the gun, but ready.

From the corner of her eye, Margaret saw Thomas slide into place on the saloon roof. This was going to be messy. There was something familiar about this gunslinger, something that made her think she ought to know him. "You know why they call me Iron Marge?" she asked.

"You don't flinch," the gunslinger said.

What a lie that was. "Are you sure you want to do this? I'm the fastest draw there is."

The man smiled, showing a row of bright white teeth, and one that glinted gold. And suddenly he moved. His hand struck like a serpent, and his gun barked twice in quick succession before Margaret had even closed her hand. Her badge leapt from her chest, propelled on a spurt of blood, and spun in the air before her. There was a hole dead center in the star. The sun glinted off the violently polished metal where the bullet had burst through. His second bullet grew larger, filling her vision, then obliterating her. She died before she felt the pain in her chest, with her revolver still in its holster.

Margaret sat bolt upright. A dull ache throbbed in her breast and behind her left eye, but they were already fading, just after images on imaginary nerves. She was upstairs above the saloon, in her big feather bed. No one drew that fast. No one was that accurate, except James Sniper. But James couldn't draw like that. Iron Marge was the fastest there was. Unless he had upgraded. She climbed out of bed and put on her boots. Gunshots sounded in the street below, dulled by the fuzz of death.

Margaret pushed the curtains aside and looked through the dirty glass. If that was James down there, he was acting odd. James hated the Texans even more than Margaret did. That flag was too overt, an over-the-top proclamation of a false loyalty. Her posse would buy it wholesale.

The gunslinger turned toward her and fired. She didn't flinch, but his aim was directed higher anyway. Thomas yelled and fell past Margaret's window. He struck the porch roof, then slid down and landed in a cloud of dust on the street. His body shimmered and vanished as the rune of recall took him. The gunslinger looked around for someone else to shoot, and apparently finding no one, holstered his weapon.

Margaret took her own gun from the hook by the door, and her - where was her hat? James, if that was James down there, must have shot it off. Fuck him if he had put a hole in her favorite hat. She buckled on her gun belt and went downstairs.

The bat doors stood open, propped by a dead npc. The piano still played the same song. Outside, the gunslinger dragged a different dead npc toward a pile of corpses in the center of the street. One of his sleeves had turned crimson.

"You about done, James Sniper?" Margaret called from the saloon porch.

The man turned toward her and took off his sombrero. It was James, and his quick smile hadn't changed since the last time she'd run into him years ago. He fanned himself with the sombrero. "You tell me Marge, I shot eleven of them."

"Aye, that's all."

"That Tafferty girl winged me before I got her." He poked a finger through a hole in his sleeve, laughed, and went back to pulling the body through the dirt.

"I'll be sure to let her know. You want to explain why you killed all my boys and girls, James?"

James looked up again, grinning. "Sure looks like a Texan vaquero did this, Marge." He took the lone star on the pole and thrust the sharp end down into the latest body, so that it stood upright. "Expected more of you. Where's Fran?"

"He went to Window Rock to check on something the Americans are up to."

"It took you twenty minutes, Marge. How long do you think the queue is?"

Marge grunted. If she had been out for twenty minutes, then Thomas wouldn't wake up for hours. "I reckon there's enough time to talk before I shoot you. Why don't you start by telling me how you drew so fast?"

"What's the matter Marge, upset that you aren't the fastest anymore?"

"You know damn well I'm upset. How would you like it if some fucking desperado rolled in and killed your entire posse?"

James gave her a look that reminded her where he came from. The Texans had done just that to Jaurez, more or less. And she'd heard terrible rumors from there, of the Mexicans barricaded into their saloon, trapped in their rooms until they surrendered to the Texans and went meekly to work in Texan gold mines.

James shook his head. "I'm going after the big prize, Marge."

"Like a boss raid?"

"Bigger," he said with a smile. "I want the developer."

"You ought to get to the part where you convince me not to shoot you." Margaret crossed her arms and leaned against the porch post. She wouldn't shoot him, at any rate. She had done her duty by going out there and being the first to die, and she expected James planned to be gone before the first of her posse woke up. And where the fuck had her hat gone? It wasn't anywhere in the street.

James waved a hand toward his pile of corpses, with the lone star flying in the center of them. "Texas did this to Carson. That's what you'll remember, anyway, and what you'll let your boys and girls believe."

"Half my boys are Texans."

"Are they loyal to you or to Austin?"

She studied him, willed her eyes to become daggers and stab him, and he just looked back with his insufferable smile.

"Why do you stick around here, Marge? You could be running Austin."

"I could," she agreed. Ten minutes or so before the first of her posse sprang screaming from their bed. Some of them would wake up in Austin or Phoenix, and not be back for days. Those were the ones she ought to be angry at James about. They'd all get hassled. "I prefer Carson. The people are nicer. I wouldn't expect you to understand. You've always been a lone wolf, a gunslinger. You forget, I do too sometimes, how young a lot of my children were when it happened. Some of them have grown up in here. The game is more real to them than the life we all lost."

"You turning into a mom, Marge?"

"More like a teacher. Do you got a plan to get the Developer this time, or is this just another whim? Answer carefully, if you came here on a whim I'll see you dead. You can wake up in Jaurez, locked in the saloon again."

"There's a trading post on the west side of the great basin, in between here and Phoenix," James said. "You know of it?"

"Aye, I know of it."

"Bring only yourself. One week. None of the children, understand?"

"And your plan?"

"Marge," he said, in a reassuring tone. He spread his arms to indicate the slaughtered town. "This is the plan. Your posse is going to get revenge on Austin for this, and I'm counting on you to lead them."

Someone cursed upstairs.

"You best go," Margaret set. "And you owe me a hat."

James nodded and swung onto his black stallion. "You're going to like this one, Marge. It involves a lot of justice."

"Git, will you?"

With a final nod, James Sniper spurred his horse and rode out of town. Margaret sat in the rocking chair on the porch of the saloon and looked at the pile of bodies in the street. The npcs wouldn't care, they didn't have the capacity. And they never remembered anyway. But her children - when they saw that lone star flag speared through Mr. Wilkes, who ran the general store, it would take every bit of influence Margaret had to keep them from riding off to Austin immediately. If they went in brashly, all they'd get is killed, and a ticked off Austin.

Margaret sighed and listened as the piano finally wound down. As the last notes faded, Alexandra burst onto the porch holding a shotgun, her blond hair billowing around her bare shoulders. She hadn't taken the time to put on shoes or pants. "Fuck," the girl spat. "Is he gone already?"

"Been gone," Margaret said. "Go inside and stop the others as they wake up. We can't afford any rash decisions here."