“It’s like you don’t even exist.”

TODAY. . . .

“You, sir, are a hard man to track down.”

Following their manly breakfast of fish sticks and cheese, Roy had driven Graham to school, his first day back since Flora’s accident. Roy had been sure to make his son understand that he didn’t have to go back to the classroom until he was ready, but Graham had assured him that he was. Roy wasn’t so sure; a part of him thought that the boy would have said or done anything to get out of one more day with his father. But he drove him anyway, because that’s what Graham had wanted.

The breakfast had been nice, and so had the short drive to school. But the morning took a turn for the worse as Roy pulled up to the curb fronting his rowhouse to find Special Agent Harris Creighton sitting on the front porch. Roy brought the car to a stop behind an empty black sedan that he took to be Creighton’s.

Creighton sat on the stoop with a steaming paper cup of coffee in one hand, a folded-into-quarters Washington Post in the other. He rose to his feet, setting the coffee and paper on the steps as Roy got out of the car.

“A hard man to find,” Creighton said again. He held out a hand as Roy crossed the yard to his porch. Roy ignored it.

“Couldn’t have been that hard,” Roy said, folding his massive arms across his chest. “You’re here.”

Creighton’s appearance was dramatically different than it had been at the funeral the day before. His sloppy blond hair was still unkempt, maybe even more so, but the standard issue dark FBI suit had been replaced by a pressed pair of chinos, a loosely tucked oxford shirt, and a worn corduroy blazer. The forced attempt at casualness didn’t fool Roy in the least. Creighton appeared to him a man trying to be friendly. Trying too hard. Roy wondered if they taught that at the Academy. Creighton had failed that class, if they did.

Creighton shoved his hands deep into his pockets, hiking up his shoulders and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet in a pathetic attempt at an “Aw, Shucks” gesture. “Yeah, we found you,” he said. “Living in a home mortgaged to your wife. The phone’s registered to her.” Creighton watched for Roy’s reaction. Nothing. “The lights.”

Roy shrugged. “Flora has a better credit score.”

Creighton made a face, squinting his eyes, grimacing. Roy thought he was trying to convey confusion, but he wasn’t sure. “But it was more than that, though,” Creighton said. “We keep poking around, and what do you know? You don’t have a birth certificate. No social. You don’t pay taxes—”

“That’s because I don’t have a job.”

Creighton laughed. Genuinely, no affectations. “Right.” Creighton ran his right hand through his mop of blond curls, then returned it to his pocket. “Honestly, it’s like you don’t even exist.”

Roy shrugged again. “Well? Here I am.”

“Yep. Here you are.”

Creighton started to say something else, then stopped, reconsidering. Then he went ahead and asked it anyway. “Your boss, The Snowman. When’s the last time you saw him?”

“You asked me that yesterday.”

“No, yesterday I asked if you’d ever seen him. And you didn’t answer.”

Roy stared blankly at Creighton.

“Much like today,” Creighton said. “Look—can I be straight with you, Mr. Temple? We don’t give a shit about you. We’re interested in Harlan Frost.”

“Who?”

“And I would appreciate it you stopped patronizing me.” Creighton paused. “I’m trying to give you the opportunity to let me help you.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “Help me?”

Creighton pulled his hands from his pockets, more animated by the second, sensing an opening, however small. “Yeah, I could help you.”

“How’s that.”

Creighton went for it. “I could get you some information we’ve found regarding your wife’s accident.”

Roy moved in towards Creighton, forcing him to take a step backwards. His heel caught on the bottom step, causing him to lose his balance. He nearly fell over, but put a hand down to catch himself. When he straightened up, Roy towered over him, and Creighton was suddenly reminded of just how big Roy Temple really was.

When Roy finally spoke, he did so softly. “Why is the FBI investigating an automobile accident?”

Creighton shook his head, and started to say something before Roy cut him off, still speaking softly. “I think I’ll ask the questions for a bit, Agent Creighton.”

“Please—call me Harris.”

“I’d rather not.”

“You know, Roy, for a man who just lost his wife, you don’t seem very - “

“People grieve in different ways, Agent Creighton. Now answer my question: Why are your people looking at Flora’s accident?”

“To be perfectly honest here, Mr. Temple - we’re not so sure that it was an accident.”

Roy fixed Creighton with a stare that made the hair on the G-Man’s arms stand on end. Roy wrapped the fingers of his right hand with the collar of Creighton’s jacket and made a fist, pulling him in close, speaking through clenched teeth. “Explain.”

“I will—what do you remember about Ellis McCoy?”

“There’s always someone faster.”

The Gunman could not believe his luck.

Dollar Bill Wallach’s legend preceded him; the Gunman would recognize those silver-handled revolvers, that pushbroom mustache anywhere. He vividly remembered a ribald, druken night some two years ago in this very saloon, crowding around a badly out of tune piano to sing “The Ballad of Dollar Bill” at the top of his lungs.

The Gunman had finished only one book in his life: a ragged, well-used copy of a dime novel entitled Shooting From the Hip: The True Story of Dollar Bill Wallach, the Best Gun Money Can Buy. He had read it twice, in fact, read all about Bloody Kansas and Dodge City and the Range Wars in Wyoming. He knew everything there was to know about the man, and knew even more about the legend.

The Gunman had no doubts that it truly was Dollar Bill. He had never believed much in happenstance, but the facts in front of his face had him believing that maybe he should. Dollar Bill Wallach was drinking alone, sitting at the bar in Whiskey Bottom, Arizona, just about as far from anywhere as you could get. And the Gunman knew, without a doubt, that he would never get a better chance to become famous.

It was his destiny. As a child, the Gunman had excelled at everything: a little smarter than the other kids at school. A little quicker in a footrace. A little stronger when they wrestled. He sang beautifully in church on Sunday mornings. “That boy is special,” they all said. “Destined for greatness.”

When his father put a rifle in his hand at age ten, the Gunman found one more thing at which he excelled. His old man told folks at church that his boy could shoot the ear off a jackrabbit at fifty paces. It wasn’t exaggeration; he had done it, one spring morning on the ranch’s back forty. One shot clean through the rabbit’s ear, the second in his backside before he could recover.

He moved on to a pistol at thirteen, an old Colt of his father’s. He practiced on Mason jars lined up against the smokehouse, and after just two weeks he could skin it, shoot it, and holster it again quicker than the old man could simply draw. He was a natural.

He killed his first man at sixteen, on the same back forty he’d killed the rabbit. A rustler, making off with a couple of mares; one shot clean through the hat, the second in his backside before he fell.

He killed his first man for money at seventeen. A neighbor with rustler problems of his own had heard from another neighbor what the Gunman could do, and offered the Gunman twenty-five dollars for each problem solved. He set up camp at the neighbor’s place, sleeping out under the stars, reading his favorite passages in Shooting From the Hip by the light of the moon.

On the third night he found himself seventy-five dollars richer after plugging tres vaqueros up from Nogales and up to no good, catching them in the act. Two of the men were dead before they hit the ground, but the third took a bit longer to die. As he lingered, he tried to explain between bloody coughs that they had only been hired to return horses that the Gunman’s neighbor had stolen from Mexico in the first place. The Gunman simply shrugged, and walked away. He wasn’t being paid to arbitrate.

And now, at twenty, the Gunman was mere seconds away from fame. Real fame, not a bunch of old men telling tales about his prowess down at the feed store. Real fame - honest to God immortality. He would be known forever as the man who shot Dollar Bill Wallach.

He knew that he would have to instigate the confrontation; Dollar Bill never drew down unprovoked. And he never started a fight - he only finished them. The Gunman knew both of these from studying Dollar Bill’s “Gunfighter Ethics” in Appendix A. The Gunman took a deep breath, then knocked down a double shot of courage. He stood up from his table and reached inside his jacket pocket. As he made his way over to the bar where the legend now sat, he produced his tattered, soiled copy of Shooting From the Hip. He slapped it rudely on the counter in front of Dollar Bill.

“Sign this, you old bastard,” he said, filling his voice with as much bravado as he could find.

Dollar Bill didn’t even bother turning around. “That’s all you wanted, kid? Hell, I figured you was here to kill me, the way you been staring at me since I walked in. But an autograph? Piss off, kid.” Dollar Bill leaned back on his stool, reaching into his pants pocket. He pulled out one of his trademark dollar coins and slapped it down on top of the Gunman’s book. “Take this here dollar and buy yourself a decent copy—maybe then I’ll sign it for you.”

The other men in the saloon howled with laughter. A few even clapped. The Gunman’s face burned red. Didn’t they know who he was? Whiskey Bottom wasn’t too far from his hometown. Surely they’d heard.

If Dollar Bill would have turned around, the Gunman would have spit in his face. As it were, he couldn’t decide what to do. He settled on stalking back to his seat, ignoring the laughter that followed him back across the room.

He sat back down and poured himself another drink, staring straight ahead at his book, sitting on the bar beneath Dollar Bill’s coin. The saloon’s raven-haired waitress stopped by his table, asked if he was OK.

“What does it look like?” he said. She nodded politely and moved on to the next table. He felt immediately like a heel as he watched her walk away. She was just doing her job - his old man had taught him better manners than that. He’d tip her extra before he left, right after he plugged Dollar Bill Wallach right between the eyes.

The waitress finished her round of the tables, then headed back to the bar to fill the orders. As she passed Dollar Bill, he reached out and placed an open palm on her backside. “Whaddya say we go upstairs, sweetheart?” he slurred.

The waitress twisted free from Dollar Bill’s touch, flinching, smiling politely. “This isn’t that kind of place, Mr. Wallach,” she said, a trace of Mexico in her voice. Even from across the room, The Gunman could tell the girl’s polite smile was just that, all for show. The quiver in her eyes told a different story.

The room grew quiet as the waitress moved on back behind the bar to fix their drinks; the Gunman thought that perhaps they were embarrassed by the behavior of their legend. He watched her hands shake as she poured the shots, then lined them neatly on her tray. She stepped back out onto the floor to deliver the orders, and was stopped short by Dollar Bill climbing off his stool to block her path. “I mean, if you just wanted to go outside in the street and rut like animals in the mud, I ain’t particular.”

The girl lost control of her shaking hands then, sending the tray crashing to the floor. The bartender reached across the counter to grab Dollar Bills’ forearm. “Now look here—”

He had hardly started speaking when Wallach backhanded him across the bridge of the nose with his other hand. The bartender stumbled backwards into the back counter, sending stacked liquor bottles crashing everywhere, still more noise and glass. Dollar Bill pointed at the bartender with one hand - “Mind your business, Victor” - and roughly cupped the waitress’s breasts with the other. She stood silently, petrified.

The Gunman was as surprised as anyone in the room when the next voice he heard was his own. “The lady’s not interested, you dirty old bastard.”

Dollar Bill turned, slowly, dropping both hands to his sides, meeting the Gunman’s hard stare with an incredulous look of his own. “You say something, boy?”

The Gunman rose slowly to his feet, his eyes never leaving Dollar Bill’s, hands at his side, his posture aping that of the legendary gunslinger. “I think you heard me.”

A thin smile crept across Wallach’s face. The blurred drunkenness in his eyes disappeared, replaced by a sharp clarity. His breathing slowed to a nice, even rhythm. “You’ve been itching to die since you came in here, boy.”

“Skin it,” the Gunman replied simply.

Dollar Bill reached for those famous silver-handled revolvers at his hips - but never got there. An explosive roar of gunfire put him on his back, one hole each in his forehead, throat, chest, and groin.

The Gunman stepped over the fallen legend, smoke still trailing from both of his pistols. “Got something to say now, Dollar Bill?”

Somehow, Wallach managed a bloody smile. “Yeah,” he wheezed, air escaping the seeping hole in his throat as he spoke. “There’s always someone faster.” Wallach’s chest heaved weakly one last time, and then he was gone.

The Gunman reached down into Dollar Bill’s pocket and fished out a handful of gold coins. He splayed them across the counter, nodding at Victor. “For your trouble.”

He grabbed his soiled book off the counter next, stuffing it back inside his jacket. He didn’t need the money; what he had purchased that night was finer than any amount of riches. His hands had held the guns that had slain Dollar Bill Wallach; he would live forever.

He turned and tipped his hat towards the waitress, who was still trembling, leaning on the bar for support. Then he remembered his pledge from just five minutes before, and handed her the coin that had held his book down on the bar. “For your trouble,” he said.

She smiled, genuinely this time. She reached out and took the coin, and when her soft fingers grazed his palm, it was like being kicked in the head by a mule. “Some fancy shooting,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said dizzily. “Miss. . . ?”

“Florita.”

He smiled. “Little flower.” He smiled again. “I like it.”

“And what should I call you?” Her eyes twinkled. “My knight in dusty armor.”

The Gunman reached up and tilted his hat high up on his forehead, giving her a good look at his wide grin. “You can call me Roy,” he said. “Roy Temple.”