“C’mon,” Finn said, shooing us forward with his hands. “I want to get a good seat for the show.”

   We fell in with the stream of people heading toward the bleachers at the far end of Main Street. Space heaters were set up along the sidewalks, with several more clustered all around the bleachers, although they did little to drive back the harsh winter chill. Still, despite the cold, there was a full house for the show. I wanted to go up to the top row of bleachers, so that I had a bird’s-eye view of everything, but Finn insisted that we sit in the front row and so he elbowed a couple of people out of the way to make it happen. So that’s where we ended up.

   The crowd chattered, and several folks raised their phones, snapping photos of all the cowboys and other costumed characters who were cordoning off the street for the upcoming show. I pulled out my phone and snapped some pictures too. Not because I wanted any mementos, but just in case Hugh Tucker was lurking around somewhere. I hadn’t spotted the sneaky vampire during our stroll through the theme park, but maybe I’d get lucky, find him in a crowd shot, and reassure myself that I wasn’t going crazy and that my rampant paranoia wasn’t finally getting the best of me.

   “Isn’t this great?” Finn asked, bouncing up and down on the bleacher like a kid hopped up on sugar.

   “Yeah,” Bria said. “Great.”

   She sighed and stuck her chin down into the collar of her navy peacoat, trying to stay warm and obviously wishing that the show were already over. Owen’s lips twitched, as if he was holding back a laugh at Bria’s obvious misery. She gave him a dirty look, which only made his lips twitch again.

   Finn flagged down a guy selling concessions and bought a bag of caramel-apple popcorn for Bria and himself. Owen got a popcorn too, but I shook my head when he offered me some. Popcorn wasn’t my favorite thing. Besides, I was still too busy scanning the crowd to think about food.

   I didn’t spot Tucker anywhere, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to my friends and me. So I sat back and tried to relax, even though I couldn’t shake the feeling that the vampire was here somewhere, watching us.

   The earsplitting screech of a sound system’s being turned on filled the air, making everyone wince, and Ira Morris stepped into view, taking up a position on a small dais off to one side of the bleachers. The dwarf still wore his garish Christmas sweater, which he’d topped off with a red suit jacket and red suspenders that hooked into his black jeans. Black cowboy boots covered his feet, while a black bowler hat with a red ribbon around the brim perched on his head. He looked like he belonged in an old-fashioned barbershop quartet, but the odd outfit suited him.

   Ira made a big show of hooking his fingers through his red suspenders, then letting go of them, so that they snapped back into place. He gave the crowd a wide grin, looking far more cheerful than he had in his office, and grabbed a microphone from a passing saloon girl. A hush fell over the crowd, and Ira kept grinning until everyone had quieted down.

   “Why, hello there, ladies and gentlemen,” the dwarf drawled in his low, gravelly voice that would have been perfectly at home in a hundred old Western movies. “Welcome to our little corner of the world, Bullet Pointe. Or home, as we like to call it.”

   He let out a hearty chuckle. Bria looked at me and rolled her eyes, as if to say, Really? There’s more of this? Cheesy theatrics weren’t my thing either, but Owen seemed to be enjoying it, and Finn was completely enraptured, his gaze fixed on Ira, not even looking at the popcorn he was stuffing into his mouth. If Finn was focused on the show, then he wasn’t thinking about Deirdre and all her betrayals, so I supposed that was some progress. I’d take what I could get, even if I had to suffer through a corny show.

   “Now, since y’all are new here, you might not be aware, but we have some outlaws in these parts,” Ira continued. “Some of the meanest, nastiest folks you’ll ever come across. The infamous Dalton gang.”

   As soon as he finished saying the word gang, loud whoops, shouts, and hollers sounded, and a dozen men on horses erupted out of one of the alleys, riding straight into the middle of Main Street, firing their guns up into the air. The crowd gasped and ducked, even though they knew that it was all just part of the show.

   The Dalton gang kept circling their horses around and around, shooting off their weapons. Each of them was dressed like a typical cowboy in boots, chaps, and hats, but one guy was bigger and broader than all the rest, a giant who was well over seven feet tall. He was a handsome man, with wavy, dark brown hair and a heavy five o’clock shadow already on his chin. He was dressed all in black, from his boots, jeans, and shirt to the black-and-white paisley bandanna looped around his neck and the black Stetson on his head. He was also a bit more enthusiastic about firing his gun up into the air than the other gang members. Ah, the villain of the piece.

   Finally, the gang members lowered their weapons and marched their horses over to a long wooden rail outside the Feeding Trough barbecue restaurant. They dismounted, tied the animals to the rail, and ambled back over to the wide-open space in front of the bleachers.

   “Now, there’s a rumor going around that Brody Dalton, the leader of the gang, has a mind to rob the bank when the next shipment of gold comes into town,” Ira continued.

   The muscled giant in black spun his silver revolver around and around on his finger as he paced back and forth in front of the bleachers.

   “I’m tired of living out on the range with nothing but hardtack and stale biscuits to eat,” Brody Dalton said in a deep baritone. “I’m aiming to take what I want, and what I want is gold—and lots of it.”

   He didn’t look at the crowd, even though everyone knew that he was talking to us.

   He pointed his revolver in the direction of the Gold Mine jewelry store, which apparently also doubled as the town bank in this scenario. The other gang members gathered around, all of them eager to follow his lead.

   “But, Brody,” one of the other giants called out, “what about Sheriff Roxy?”

   On cue, the swinging double doors to the saloon opened, and Roxy Wyatt strode outside. She was still wearing the same cowgirl getup as before, with one notable addition—a bright silver sheriff’s star was pinned to her chest. Sheriff Roxy took off her white hat and waved it back and forth in front of her face, as though she were hot, despite its being all of twenty-five degrees outside. But I supposed in this little drama, it was always a hot, sunny day in the Old West.