Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Longarm had never seen the man before, he was sure. The fellow was dressed in town clothes, not a laborer’s rough garb. He was nicely groomed, with a fresh shave and neatly trimmed hair. His collar was crisp and his tie carefully formed. Any veneer of civility ended there. A sawed-off shotgun lay partially underneath the body. Longarm examined both the gun and the man carefully. Of the two barrel tubes one remained loaded. The fellow carried no other weapons on him, not a revolver, not even a pocketknife. Odd, Longarm thought. The pockets held a perfectly ordinary collection of coins and tokens and lint. There was nothing to hint that murder for hire would have been a regular line of work, and no great amount of cash to show sudden good fortune. Longarm grunted.}

_{“Let’s take a look at the other one,” he suggested.}

_{Parson carried the lamp outside the remains of the woodshed—the roof at that end remained mostly intact— to the point where his leaping charge into the fray had carried him and his victim.}

_{“Nice work yourself, Parson,” Longarm said.}

_{The bodyguard gave him a look of shy gratitude in response to the compliment. “Thank you, sir.”}

_{No wonder Longarm hadn’t heard much in the way of grunting or scuffling. The man known as Parson had had nothing but a knife, yet had jumped a thug armed with a sawed-off shotgun. In the dark. Operating solely by feel. And had managed to dispatch the fellow so cleanly that the dead man’s hair was barely mussed. The man had died so quickly that there was very little blood seepage around a stab wound that passed through his coat into his back, led carefully between two ribs, and almost certainly had punctured the heart with unerring aim. It had to have found the heart, in fact, or there would have been quarts of blood soaking into the soil for yards around. As it was, there had been no more blood loss than a single handkerchief might wipe away. This one had died almost as quickly as the man Longarm had shot. It was impressively nice knife work, and Longarm had truly meant the compliment he’d given.}