The Rifle

Quite a gathering outside the church.Not a smart, Sunday-best crowd though. More a weekday-shabby, work-stained bunch. But then Serrano Dinero was a pretty shabby kind of place. No gold in them thar hills any more. Just a bare living to be scratched from the land.And if, looking at the meeting house, the man called Edge thought the citizens had the Old Time Religion, he was wrong.Not a service but a sale. No preacher man but an auctioneer. All the worldly goods of a man called Seth Fry—who could let everything go to the poor on account he was due to die at noon.A forced sale, vigilante law and a bunch of men getting liquored-up to face the hanging. Not a good time for a stranger to ride into town. And for Edge, things were about to get a lot worse fast.