After a three-year courtship, Sam had decided to try married life again, and finally worked up the nerve to ask pony express station mistress Miss Emma Shannon to marry him.  Usually Emma was quite understanding about his job interfering with their private life, but everybody had their limits 
and he hoped he wasn’t pushing hers.

Forcing himself to think about the task at hand, he ordered his men spread out.  Suddenly the air echoed with the crack of a rifle.  Deputy Bob raised his arms and pinwheeled off his horse and landed face down in the water.  Other shots quickly followed and soon the air was alive with smoke and bullets.

“Take cover,” Sam shouted, but the others were well ahead of him.

Deputy Barnett, Jimmy and the Kid slid quickly off their horses and got behind the nearest tree.  As Sam took aim a bullet whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the tree he was standing behind.  Looking over his shoulder, he saw three men coming up behind them, blazing away.

Sam dropped to the ground and covered his head.  Suddenly it was fifteen years ago, Sam had been a wet behind the ears Deputy U.S. Marshal helping to track down a gang of thieves.  The posse he had been apart of hadn’t known that then Deputy U.S. Marshal Macklyn Walters was the ringleader of the thefts.  The posse had been led into a canyon and cut down by Walters’ gang in a vicious crossfire.  Sam had survived because he’d panicked and hid inside a crevice until the shooting had stopped.  If it hadn’t been for his then future wife, Jenny, he probably finished what Walters’ gang couldn’t.

“Hey, Sam,” Mack’s taunting voice called out over the gunfire.  “Looks like we got ourselves a little crossfire.  This seems familiar, don’t it?”

Marshal Cain saw Barnett pick off two of Walters’ men from across the creek before spinning around into a sitting position, clutching his neck and spitting up blood with a gurgling cry.  Ringo broke from cover and blasted down one of the jaspers that had snuck up behind them and wounding another.  Only to be shot in the chest by the remaining outlaw.

“You son of a bitch,” Jimmy roared as he rushed into the open, Navy Colts blazing.  He managed to cut down the last crossfire shooter and finish off the other.

Unfortunately he exposed himself to the outlaws across the water.  He was hit twice in the back and once in the leg.  Crying out in pain and frustration, Jimmy fell to his knees then dropped to his stomach.  Jimmy rolled over on his side, firing blindly and shouted, “Bastards.”  Suddenly his head snapped backwards and he groaned, a red stain oozing from his temple, then lay still.

Sam’s paralysis quickly turned to rage.  No.  Not again.  Not again.  He didn’t know how Mack remembered him, but the sound of his mocking laughter and the sight of his deputies dropping galvanized him into action.  Sam stood up and fired.  He only took aim once.

Marshal Cain walked purposely across the creek, emptying his Henry rifle into the gang on the other side.  When three of their number fell, a couple of then turned and ran.  Another leapt on his horse and charged him.  Sam raised his carbine to his shoulder, took precise aim and squeezed the trigger.  Click.  He realized he spent all his cartridges.  Grabbing the barrel of his rifle, he swung it like a club.  The rifle butt slammed into the outlaw’s gut throwing him from his mount.  In a fit of adrenaline induce rage, Sam splintered the rifle stock on the thrown rider’s skull, resonating with a sickening thud.  Tossing aside the useless Henry, Sam drew his colt and took a shot at Walters. Only to miss and plug the man behind him.  Walters scrambled away as Sam re-aimed.

“You killed my brother,” someone shouted.

Sam looked up and saw a man with a larger than average Bowie knife leaping towards him.  Sam dropped his gun as the two of them crashed into the water.  They were submerged for what seemed like a long time, before a blurred figure burst out of the water, knife in hand, and plunged it into the person still submerged and clawing at his attacker.  A few seconds later, Sam stood up and wiped his knife on his pants.  The man with the bowie knife bobbed to the surface and drifted down stream.

Sam cursed to the wind realizing he’d let Walters get a head start.  He found Bob face down in the mud and turned him over to confirm what he already knew.  He seemed to lose a lot of deputies this way, he didn’t know why.

All of a sudden, there was a shot, a scream and a splash, all in quick succession.  Sam spun around just in time to see one of Walters’ men falling into the creek.

“Got ’im,” came a strangled cough.

Sam looked and saw Kid sitting up against a tree, holding a smoking colt.  Kid wasn’t in good shape: he was clutching a serious wound on his chest and coughing up blood.  Kid dropped his gun arm as his head fell back against the tree.  Simultaneously, Sam heard someone coming out of the bush.  Drawing his gun, he saw Barnett stumbling into view holding his throat.

“Barnett,” Sam cried as he rushed to Kid.  “You okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he croaked making an okay sign.  “I’m fine.  Just gave me a really close shave.  That’s all.”

Sam motioned to Jimmy who groaned and was beginning to stir.  “Check him out.”

“Gotcha boss.”

Sam turned back to Kid.  If he’d been hit on the left side of his chest instead of his right he’d be dead now, but he still needed medical attention.

“How is he,” Sam called back.

“He’ll live,” Barnett choked and gave him an inventory of Jimmy’s wounds: two in the lower back; one in the leg; and a graze along his forehead.

Sam nodded.  “Alright.  Barnett you get these boys to Doc Barnes.”

“You goin’ after Walters by yerself boss?”

Sam nodded as he mounted his horse.

“You can’t,” Barnett exclaimed.  “It’s still three to one odds.  I’m goin’ with ya, you need someone ta watch yer back.”

Sam was in no mood to argue.  “They need your help to get back to town!”

“The hell I do,” Jimmy growled as he staggered to his feet.  “The day I need Barnett’s help to do anything, is the day you can make a snowman in hell.”

“He’s right Sam,” Kid moaned as he grabbed his horses reigns and pulled himself up.

There was no time to argue, so they set Jimmy and Kid on their horses and pointed them in the right direction.  “When you get to town, send someone back for Bob,” Sam ordered before him and his remaining deputy set off after the remaining outlaws.

“Of all the dumb luck, eh boss.” Barnett stated.

“Waddaya mean,” Sam said gruffly.

“Well,” he began.  “It’s just all this happening on the day you and Miss Emma finally decided to get married.  I mean right now, you should be enjoying the benefits of married life.  One would almost think - ” catching Sam’s dangerous warning glance, Barnett cleared his throat and said, “Right, ‘Barnett shut up and mind yer own goddamn business’ got it.”  After that, they road in grim silence.

As the sun was setting, the trail led them to an eerily mist swept ghost town.  Sam and Barnett split up to cover more ground.  Barnett came across two of them.  He managed to pick off one of them before the other got the drop on him.

Hearing the shots, Sam turned into the alley to find Barnett sprawled out on the ground, blood trickling from his temple and some jasper standing over him, pointing his gun Barnett’s chest.  Thinking quickly, Sam plugged the would be murderer square in the back.  He ran up to Barnett as the outlaw sank to the ground.  Seeing that Barnett was still breathing, Sam let loose a sigh of relief knowing that his only fulltime deputy was still alive.  Looking up he saw Mack Walters sprinting across the street.

“Walters,” Sam screamed and took off after him.

Walters ducked into a long abandoned saloon, Sam right behind him.  Walters turned and raised his pistol.  Sam did the same, and they fired simultaneously.  The two emptied their pistols into each other.  Sam wasn’t sure how many times he’d been hit, but he found himself leaning against the doorframe as he continued firing.  Walters’ suddenly stopped shooting and dropped to his knees, clutching his abdomen.

“You gut shot me, you sonuvabitch,” Walters’ choked as he coughed up blood.

“Let me make it up to you,” Sam wheezed and buried his last bullet in Mack Walters skull.  Sam took two steps toward the outlaw leader before being overcome with a strange feeling of dizziness and as everything went black, he could feel himself falling.

When Sam came too, he was lying in a bed wrapped up tighter than a turkey on Thanksgiving Day.  He saw Barnett sitting in a chair next to him with a stained bandage wrapped around his head.

“Welcome back to the world of the living boss,” Barnett smiled.

“How’d I get here,” Sam asked as he tried to sit up.

Barnett explained that after he’d come too, he found Sam then threw him over his horse and rode back to Doc Barnes as fast as he could.  “Miss Emma gave me an earful for not looking after you proper before bringing you back.”

Sam smiled.  Trust Emma not to cut him any slack.  Then he asked about the others.

“Well, Jimmy’s already up and around on crutches.  Doc patched up the Kid as best he could, and said its up to him now.  That little fella, Lou McCloud, is looking after him.”

Sam had always thought there was something peculiar about Lou and the Kid.  Whenever one was in trouble the other was never far behind.  He’d always meant to ask Emma about it.  Before he could ask about Emma, she burst in followed by the preacher and certain members of the bridal party.

“Emma,” Sam said, surprised as all these people filed into the room.  “What’s going on?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Marshal Sam Cain, today is our wedding day.  And if you think your job and a few bullet wounds are gonna put that off, you’ve got another thing coming, buster.”