With twenty veteran gunmen aiming at Henry from less than thirty meters, not to mention the legendary Barrett facing him, Wolf and Bond couldn't imagine any scenario where their target survived.
They had given their men strict orders: wait for the pastor's signal, then open fire simultaneously.
Henry stood ready, four double-action Colts holstered at his waist. He had anticipated an ambush. As long as his enemies were within range of his guns, he feared nothing.
As the pastor began to recite his prayer, the tension in the square became unbearable. Some of the women in the crowd couldn't bear to look, staring down at the ground.
"God bless him," Barbara, the waitress, whispered. "He's too handsome to die."
"Come on, Henry," Trish muttered to herself. "We haven't even fucked yet. You can't die."
Pastor Philip finished his appeal to the Almighty, then raised a revolver into the air. "Ready!" he called out.
In that instant, even the hot summer wind seemed to die. A suffocating silence fell over the square, as if the ghosts of the dead were holding their breath, waiting to welcome a new member to their ranks.
Barrett took a shallow breath and exhaled slowly. He felt the blood begin to burn in his veins. He lived for this feeling—the razor's edge between life and death.
Danger! Besides Barrett, eight men to my left, twelve to my right! They will all open fire within a second! Two of them—the leaders—will fire in half a second!
Henry's hands blurred to his hips.
At the exact same moment, Pastor Philip's signal shot rang out.
In that instant, Henry's mind felt like a computer processor, a perfect image of all twenty-one of his enemies reflected in his consciousness.
Take out the two half-second threats first!
BANG! BANG!
Two shots. Wolf and Bond collapsed, a neat, smoking hole in the center of each of their foreheads. The bullet meant for Bond screamed past Luke's ear with a high-pitched shriek, the heat of its passage searing his skin.
A grey pearl husk shattered without a sound.
Henry's preemptive move had triggered Barrett's combat reflexes. He fired an instant after Henry, his bullet crossing the thirty meters in a tenth of a second and slamming into his target.
Expressionless, Henry fired again—one shot for Barrett, one for the next fastest outlaw.
A hole blossomed on Barrett's brow. The light in his eyes froze, his expression a mixture of profound regret and utter confusion. His instincts had betrayed him. He'd seen Henry fire sideways and had fired back, assuming an easy kill, only to realize too late that Henry's first shots hadn't been for him at all.
But he should be dead… my bullet hit him…
And then, Barrett's consciousness plunged into an eternal darkness.
To the onlookers, it was a blur. They saw Henry fire at the two men in the crowd, then trade shots with Barrett simultaneously. It all happened in less than two-tenths of a second; the details were impossible to follow.
Henry continued to fire, emptying both revolvers in under a second, his twelve bullets felling Barrett and the eleven fastest outlaws. He let the empty guns drop from his hands and drew the two from the back of his belt.
The crowd finally broke. Screams erupted as people began to run, creating chaos that momentarily hindered the remaining outlaws.
Though Henry had eliminated the fastest threats, he was still facing too many guns. As he raised his second pair of revolvers, three more grey husks silently shattered.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
His face was a mask of cold fury. He was a demon with eight arms, methodically executing his targets in the order his preternatural senses dictated. The scene was chaos, but in his mind, it was a perfectly ordered sequence. He was a master watchmaker, seeing every tiny, intricate gear turning in perfect synchrony.
The remaining nine outlaws fell one by one, nearly all of them with bullets through the eye, brow, or throat, dead before they hit the ground.
Another grey husk shattered.
From the first shot to the last, less than three seconds had passed.
Henry stood in the center of the carnage like a god in control, his pistols the divine thunder he wielded to punish the guilty.
Luke and the new deputies had only just raised their own weapons when they realized the fight was already over. The onlookers, blinded by the speed of it all, never even realized Henry had been hit. All they saw was the impossible speed, the impossible accuracy.
"Do not panic!" Henry's voice boomed across the square. "The outlaws and the assassins have been eliminated!"
The fleeing townsfolk slowed, turning to see that, indeed, the gunmen in the crowd were all down. The thunder of gunfire had ceased. Sheriff Henry stood tall and untouched, a fearsome, reassuring sight that gradually quelled their panic.
The moment the shooting had started, Mayor William's guards had surrounded him. But before they could act, it was over. They now stared at the lone figure in the square as if he were a demon.
"Luke," Henry said, his voice calm. "Gather the bodies of these assassins. I'll inspect them in a moment."
He walked over to where Barrett lay and knelt. He gently closed the man's unseeing eyes. Sorry, he thought, offering a silent eulogy. I have a get-out-of-death-free card. Barrett had acted with honor. He deserved to know the truth, even in death.
He searched the body. A single Colt 1873, sixty rounds of ammunition, an Elgin pocket watch, and a pouch with just over $2,200.
Henry took the pouch and stood. "One of you," he said to the new deputies, "get a wagon from the office. Take all these bodies, except for Barrett's, back for processing."
He then walked over to the bodies of Wolf and Bond and began to search them. By the time the wagon arrived, he had collected the wallets and money pouches from all twenty of the outlaws. Barrett's pouch had already been quietly transferred to his storage space.
This was his loot, won fair and square. In this town, unless Mayor William himself objected, no one could deny him the spoils of his victory.
"Thor, Hank, go to the hotel where Barrett was staying and collect his belongings," Henry commanded, his voice sharp and clear. "Luke, take ten men and find where these outlaws were staying. Arrest anyone who's left and confiscate their property. The remaining four of you will escort the bodies back to the office, take inventory, and work on identifying them."