The weeks passed quickly after my encounter with the four Native American riders on Main Street.

I often thought about the man who had stopped his horse and looked directly into my eyes. There was something about that moment I could not explain.

But life has a way of moving along, whether a man understands what is happening around him or not.

After considerable thought, I finally decided it was time to leave Montana and reenlist in the Army.

The day before my departure, I walked down to the Dove Tree saloon for a final drink or two.

I figured I might as well enjoy one last afternoon before trading the comforts of civilian life for another Army uniform.

The saloon was as lively as ever.

Men shouted over one another, whiskey flowed freely, and the old piano player was doing his best to murder a perfectly good tune.

One drunken fellow had climbed onto a table near the piano and was attempting to sing.

He had barely finished his first verse when he lost his balance and came crashing to the floor.

The whole place erupted in laughter.

I shook my head and smiled.

Some things never changed at the Dove Tree.

Then I noticed the gentleman sitting alone in the far corner.

It was the same man I had watched for weeks. The one whose young son came every afternoon to fetch him home.

But this time something was different.

He was holding a beautiful hand-engraved Colt .44 revolver.

During the war, I had handled just about every kind of firearm a soldier might encounter. But I had never seen anything quite like this one.

The polished metal gleamed beneath the saloon lamps, and the engraving was the work of a master craftsman.

It must have cost a small fortune.

Certainly, it was not the sort of weapon an ordinary cowhand or farmer could afford.

I wondered how a man who appeared to have lost everything could possess such a magnificent firearm.

Then, without warning, he raised the revolver toward his chest.

Before I could move, he pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out.

The man slumped forward, his face striking the table.

For a moment, I stood frozen.

I had witnessed terrible things during the war. I had seen men fall beneath cannon fire and watched friends die in the mud.

But there was something about watching a man deliberately take his own life that struck me differently.

Perhaps it was the suddenness.

Perhaps it was the terrible loneliness of it.

Or perhaps it was what happened next.

Nobody seemed to notice.

The piano continued playing.

Men kept drinking, smoking, laughing, and dancing.

A human life had just ended in the corner of that room, and the world carried on as though nothing had happened.

I could scarcely believe what I was witnessing.

Then the saloon doors swung open.

A young boy entered.

It was the man's son.

As he had done so many afternoons before, the boy walked directly toward his father's table.

"Pa," he said, gently tapping his shoulder. "It's time to go. Ma's waiting outside."

His father did not move.

The boy tapped him again.

"Come on, Pa. Ma says we have to get home."

I saw blood beginning to spread across the table.

I knew I had to act before the child saw what had happened.

I hurried over and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"What's your name, son?"

He looked down at the floor.

"Ben, mister. Just like my Pa."

"Well, Ben, my name's Luke. Why don't you come outside with me? Your Pa might be taking himself a little nap."

The boy hesitated.

Then he looked toward the old piano player, who was pounding away at the remaining keys.

I pointed in his direction.

"That fellow sure makes a racket, doesn't he?"

Ben smiled faintly.

I guided him toward the door.

Outside, a young woman sat waiting in a small buckboard wagon.

She wore a simple dress and shawl, and her expression suggested a woman who had endured more than her share of disappointment.

Ben hurried toward her.

"Ma! Pa won't get up. I think he's sleeping."

Then he pointed toward me.

"This here's Mr. Luke. I think he's a friend of Pa's."

The woman offered a polite smile.

"Much obliged, mister."

She turned toward her son.

"Come along, Ben. We'll fetch your father later."

She gathered the reins.

I stepped forward.

"Ma'am, there's something you ought to know."

She looked at me.

"Your husband had a bad accident inside."

Her expression barely changed.

I searched for the proper words.

There are things a man can say easily enough on a battlefield. But standing before a woman and her young son, I discovered that some words are almost impossible to speak.

Finally, I said it.

"Ma'am, your husband is dead."

For a moment, she stared straight ahead.

Then she turned toward me.

"Mister, my husband died a long time ago, thanks to you Yankees."

I was stunned.

Before I could answer, she tapped the horse with the reins.

The wagon rolled away, leaving me standing alone in the dusty street.

I watched until they disappeared.

Her words troubled me deeply.

I had gone to war believing I was fighting for what was right.

Yet here was another family whose life had been destroyed by that same war.

I returned to the Dove Tree.

To my amazement, the man was still sitting exactly where I had left him.

His head rested on the table, surrounded by a pool of blood.

The laughter and drinking continued.

I decided to fetch the sheriff.

But as I turned toward the door, something caught my attention.

The engraved Colt .44 was still beneath the man's jacket, its polished barrel partly visible.

I knew a weapon that valuable would likely disappear before the sheriff arrived.

Perhaps I ought to take it for safekeeping, I told myself.

But another thought entered my mind.

I remembered the First Battle of Bull Run.

I remembered watching Confederate soldiers search the bodies of fallen Union men, taking whatever possessions they could find.

The sight had filled me with anger.

How could men rob the dead?

Yet there I stood, contemplating the very same thing.

I glanced around the saloon.

Nobody was watching.

Pretending to speak quietly into the dead man's ear, I leaned over and slipped my hand beneath his jacket.

My fingers closed around the Colt.

I carefully removed it and tucked it into my belt.

The handle was wet with blood.

I wiped my hand against my trousers and walked toward the door.

It was a shameful act, and one I would regret for the rest of my life.

I had survived years of war believing that I knew the difference between right and wrong.

Yet in one quiet moment, without an enemy in sight, I had betrayed my own conscience.

I hurried to the sheriff's office.

The sheriff listened to my account and accompanied me back to the saloon.

He looked at the dead man, then turned toward me.

"Did you shoot him?"

"Of course not, Sheriff! Why would I shoot a man and then come looking for you?"

He studied me for a moment.

"Well then, where's his gun?"

My heart sank.

Before I could answer, he glanced at my hand.

"And why've you got blood on your fingers?"

I felt my face grow warm.

"Reckon somebody must've taken the gun while I was outside speaking with his wife."

The sheriff said nothing.

He simply shook his head, reached into his coat, and produced a cigar.

After lighting it, he took a long puff.

"There's a whole lot of this sort of misery going around these days," he muttered.

Then he looked toward the dead man.

"Just another casualty of war, I reckon."

We stood in silence.

Finally, the sheriff extended his hand.

"Name's Dan Hockshaw. But you can just call me Sheriff."

I shook his hand.

He looked me up and down, taking particular notice of my old Union uniform.

"Well now, Yankee boy, you reckon you could help me get this poor fellow down to the undertaker?"

I agreed.

"Much obliged, Yankee boy. I'm sure he'd thank you himself if he could."

I could not tell whether the sheriff was trying to be funny.

We moved toward the table and began lifting the man's lifeless body from the chair.

As I bent forward, I felt the engraved Colt slipping from my belt.

Before I could catch it, the revolver struck the wooden floor.

The sound seemed louder than the gunshot that had ended the man's life.

I froze.

Sheriff Hockshaw looked down.

Then he slowly raised his eyes toward mine.

He had already asked me where the dead man's gun had gone.

And now it lay on the floor between us.

For the first time since leaving the battlefield, I wondered whether my greatest enemy might be the man I had become.

Don't miss the next installment of The Life and Times of Montana Marshal Luke Johnson.

Coming in Part 3: A Soldier No More

Luke discovers the tragic history of Benjamin Randall, comes face-to-face with Sheriff Hockshaw's troubled frontier town, and finds himself facing a decision that could change the course of his life forever.

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