“I ain’t worried about Sheriff Roxy,” Brody sneered. “Why, I’ve got pet rattlesnakes bigger than she is. Ain’t that right, boys?”

   The gang members snickered. Sheriff Roxy magically seemed to notice Brody and his crew, and she stalked in their direction, her hands dropping to the pearl handles of the two revolvers strapped to her waist.

   Ira cleared his throat, his voice far less enthusiastic than before. “Sheriff Roxy had heard the rumors too, and she decided to give Brody one last warning about what would happen if he tried to rob the bank.”

   “Brody!” Roxy called out. “This is your last warning. Don’t go causing no trouble now. Or I’ll have to put you down quicker than a cold sarsaparilla on a hot summer day.”

   The giant snickered and crossed his arms over his chest. “You talk big, but you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with those fancy guns of yours.”

   Roxy glanced over her shoulder. I hadn’t noticed it until now, but a couple of guys were busy setting out glass bottles on top of one of the storefront roofs. As soon as they were done, the men skedaddled out of view, leaving the bottles behind, a good hundred feet from where Roxy was standing.

   Roxy turned back to Brody and grinned. “That’s where you’re dead wrong, Brody. I’m the best shot in this here county, and I’ll prove it to y’all, right here, right now.”

   Even though I knew exactly what was coming next, I still jumped with the rest of the crowd when Roxy pulled her revolvers out of their holsters, spun around, and started firing.

   Crack!

   Crack! Crack!

   Crack! Crack! Crack!

   One by one, the glass bottles shattered. Not only that, but they actually exploded, with flashes of elemental Fire shooting up into the sky. Even across the distance, I could feel the hot blasts of magic rippling through the air. Roxy might have only moderate power, but she’d found a way to make it count.

   “Hey,” I whispered, “she’s using real bullets. Coated with real elemental magic.”

   Finn and Owen both shushed me, totally into the show. Bria muttered something about being cold and slouched down a little more. But I stared at Roxy, far more interested in her than before. Sure, she’d probably performed this act and had made those same trick shots dozens of times before, but it was still impressive. She was a sharpshooter in every sense of the word. And I’d never seen anyone use silverstone bullets coated with elemental magic before. Not just trick shots, but deadly ones at that.

   Roxy showed off more of her sharpshooting skills, hitting more glass bottles, tin signs, and even shearing several lassos in two. She didn’t just aim at things head-on and hit them like a normal shooter. She put her guns behind her back or over her shoulders or even down at her knees, twisting into more and more elaborate and impossible positions, with the targets getting smaller and smaller all the while. She even shot a cigar out of a gambler’s mouth using a mirror.

   The crowd was appropriately impressed, and Brody and his gang were appropriately slack-jawed, right up until Roxy put her empty guns away and told them to git out of town—or else.

   In return, Brody stomped around and made threatening noises that Roxy hadn’t seen the last of him and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. The scene ended with Brody and the other gang members untying their horses from the rail and leading them away under Sheriff Roxy’s watchful gaze.

   Ira brought his microphone back up to his lips. “Sheriff Roxy was no fool, and she knew that Brody would be back, just as soon as a payroll shipment of gold came into the bank.” He paused. “And now, folks, we’re going to take a short break, so feel free to grab some more concessions while we set the stage for the final act of our little drama.”

   Ira disappeared, and the concessions people reappeared, offering another round of popcorn, boiled peanuts, hot chocolate, and the like. This time, Finn bought a candy apple, while Bria gave in and got a wad of cherry cotton candy. Owen sipped a sarsaparilla served in an old-fashioned glass bottle, but I raised up my phone and took some more shots of the crowd, still searching for Hugh Tucker, although I didn’t see him anywhere—

   Suddenly, a great whooping and hollering rang out, along with the crack-crack-crack of gunfire. A few seconds later, a stagecoach erupted out of one of the alleys and careened out into the middle of Main Street, with the members of the Dalton gang hot on its tail on horseback.

   The gang quickly overtook the stagecoach and forced it to stop, right in front of the bleachers. Gasps rang out from the audience, especially when the gang members tossed the driver off the stagecoach. But the guy did a beautiful pratfall onto what looked like a suspiciously soft patch of hay-covered dirt. Probably the same spot he’d landed on a hundred times before.

   The gang pried open the stagecoach door, and two of the members reached inside, then set a locked strongbox on the ground, which Brody dramatically busted open with the butt of his gun. The giant reached down and pulled out a fistful of fake gold coins, which he let slide through his fingers and trickle back down into the box.

   “Whoo-eee, boys! We’re set for life!” Brody yelled to the enthusiastic cheers of the gang.

   The crowd was completely caught up in the story, and pretty much everyone—even Bria—was perched on the edge of their seat, wondering what was going to happen next.

   Just as Brody and his gang were trying to figure out how to load the strongbox of gold onto one of their horses, Sheriff Roxy came running out of the saloon, along with several good-guy cowboys. She sprinted across the sidewalk, leaped up onto one of those long wooden rails, and flew through the air, landing perfectly on top of her waiting horse.

   Shock jolted through me. I recognized that smooth, graceful acrobatic style. Those were more or less the same moves that Ms. Fedora had used when she’d jumped the fence outside Jonah McAllister’s mansion a few days ago. I’d thought that Roxy might be up to something, but I’d never expected her to be an assassin for the Circle.

   “Son of a bitch!” I muttered.