“So, you’re the great Brett Stone?  You’re the man who made Peace with Bill Sheppard?”
            Stone looked at the young man who had come to interview him.  Stone didn’t like the fame that came with his part in the Bill Sheppard legend and shunned contact with most of the outside world.  But when he received a telegraph from the young man asking for an interview, he found he couldn’t refuse.  He wasn’t sure why exactly, but he felt that he somehow knew the youngster. 
            However, the sense of familiarity wasn’t the only reason he agreed to the interview.  A few weeks before he received the telegraph, Stone had been diagnosed with cancer.  The doctor gave him a year at the most.  Seeing his own mortality every time he looked in the mirror hastened Stone’s decision to clear the air about a few things relating to the Districts’ most infamous, or famous, depending on your point of view, former Peacemaker, Bill Sheppard.
            “No, son, you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Stone answered, resisting the urge to grin a little, “I didn’t make Peace with . . .  Hell, I didn’t kill Bill Sheppard.”
            The young man remained more or less calm, but his left eyebrow rose up a bit.
            “I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear what you . . .”
            “I appreciate your attempt at being polite, son,” Stone interrupted with a chuckle as he reached for a cup of tea on his end table, “but you heard what I said.”
            “Mr. Stone, I’ve read everything written about Bill Sheppard, everything.  And everything I’ve read says that . . .”
            “I know what’s been said, and I know what’s been written,” Stone said before taking a sip of his tea, “but I’m telling you the truth.  I didn’t kill Bill Sheppard”
            The young man got a little angry at that and rose from his chair.  “Then why the hell did you agree to my interview?” he rubbed the bridge of his nose and controlled himself, “They told me you were going crazy from the isolation, guess they were right.  Sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Stone.”
            The young man turned to leave Stone’s house.  As he opened the door, Stone asked, “Do you want to know what happened to Bill Sheppard, son?”
            “I know what happened to Sheppard, Mr. Stone, I read your report.”
            “That report ain’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
            The young man turned back to face Stone, the frustration evident on his face.  “And why is that, sir?”
            “Because it’s all part of one big lie, son.”
            “And what lie is that?”
            Brett Stone took another sip of tea and placed the cup back on the end table.  He looked into the man’s eyes and answered his question.
            “Like I said, I didn’t kill Bill Sheppard.”
            “Then who did, Mr. Stone?”
            “I don’t think you quite got what I was saying.  Let me try it again.  I didn’t kill Bill Sheppard.”
            Stone picked up his tea and let the man comprehend what he had said.  It took a few seconds, but it finally clicked.
            “You’re not one of those ‘Bill Sheppard Lives’ nuts, are you?  Christ, I can’t believe I came all this way to see someone who believes that crap.  Thanks for your time, Mr. Stone, but I have to be . . .”
            “I didn’t say he was alive, I just said I didn’t kill him.  Well, that’s not entirely accurate.  I may well have, but I’m not sure which of us could take credit for it.”
            Still angry, a bit of curiosity crept into his mind and the young man sat back down.  He had spent the better part of the last five years researching “The Sheppard Problem” as it came to be known throughout the Districts and the Badlands.  There wasn’t a news article, an official report, or a book on Sheppard that he hadn’t read.  He even managed to read a copy of Luke Holloway’s biography despite the fact that only ten copies were printed before the Districts banned it.  While a lot of people argued that Bill Sheppard lived, none of those people had actually been present when Sheppard was gunned down.  Further, their research was spotty and based entirely on the barest threads of circumstance.  Stone, though, Stone was there when Sheppard died, and the young man found he couldn’t bring himself to leave.
            “Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say?” Stone asked while reaching for his tea again.
            “If you’re just one of those conspiracy nuts, then no, I don’t.”
            “I’m not, son, I’m not.  But it’s time I told the truth about what happened that night.  You might not think it’s the truth, that’s up to you, but I’m going to tell you everything I know and do my best to set things straight.  There’s a lot that’s been written about Sheppard, most of it’s false.  I guess we can thank Governor Hodges for that.  You know who he is, right?”
            The young man nodded.  He knew a lot about Hodges, and like most people who bothered to look into his actual record, he didn’t think too highly of the former Governor.
            “I wonder where we should start, son.  Where do you think?”
            “Why don’t you start with what you just said about Sheppard?”
            “No, that ain’t a good place to start, son.  There’s a lot more to the lie of Bill Sheppard than me making Peace with him, a lot.”
            “Where does the lie begin?” the man asked, a bit of impatience creeping into his voice.
            “I suppose it begins with the idea that Sheppard killed over a hundred people.”
            The young man rubbed at his eyes and tried to remain focused.  There had been a great deal of dispute about most everything related to Bill Sheppard, especially the number of murders he was responsible for.  The official estimate was itself a guess and listed Sheppard’s death toll at between 110 and 137 people.  “How many people did Sheppard kill, sir?”
            “I don’t know, but I know it wasn’t anywhere near as high as Art Holden claimed.  Although in fairness to Holden, Hodges had a strong hand in the drafting of the final report.”
            “How is it you know exactly how many people Sheppard killed?”
            “I don’t know the exact number, but I know there’s no way he killed more than a hundred people.  There’s absolutely no way that he killed that many.”
            “What makes you so sure?”
            “Well, as you know, I ran the Sheppard Unit in the Badlands.  Our mission was to keep an eye on Sheppard, figure out his routine, his habits, and plan a strike.  We couldn’t move without approval from Holden, which I think was a mistake, but those were our orders,” Stone took another sip from his tea and put the cup down, “It wasn’t an easy job from the start.  The people of S’Anthony revered Sheppard, thought he was a god or something.  I can’t really blame ‘em, he cleaned up that town, made it safe, they couldn’t help but appreciate it.  Not only that, but Sheppard knew the Badlands, knew how to get in and out, and we didn’t, not at first.  It took us a while, but we caught on and started tracking him.
            “After a time, though, his routine changed completely.  You see,” Stone said as he leaned forward, “three months or so after we got there, he started doing everything differently.  By that point, I think everyone had heard about how Sheppard shot Dick Shelton.  You know who Shelton is, right?”
            “Hard not to,” the young man sort of chuckled, “He makes a good living telling stories about how he got in a gunfight with the great Bill Sheppard.  Seems he’s in the newspapers most every day.”
            “He’s also full of shit,” Stone practically spat, “Like I was saying, after Sheppard had his run-in with Shelton, his work dried up.  Proponents and Opponents who had been willing to take a chance and deal with him weren’t so anxious any more.  With no work, Sheppard focused his energies on the Crosstown.  He was the muscle there, kept things clean for . . .  What was her name?  The woman who ran the place, what was her name?”
            “Audra,” the young man volunteered, finding himself very interested in Stone’s story, “her name was Audra.”
            “That’s right, it was Audra.  Still is, I guess.  I assume she’s still alive.  She never knew how close she came to dying that night.”
            “What?” the young man stiffened as he asked the question.
            “Oh, I guess you don’t know about that, not too many people do,” Stone leaned back in his chair and coughed a few times, “Excuse me, sorry about that.  Like I was saying, the night we went into the Crosstown and had it out with Sheppard, we were supposed to kill Audra, too.  I didn’t really care for that plan much, but Hodges . . . No, no, that’s not right, it wasn’t him.  It was Shaw.  Shaw wanted us to kill Audra.  I probably don’t have to tell you why.”
            “No,” the young man said quietly.
            “So Shaw ordered us to kill Audra, but I didn’t really want to do it.  You know about Luke Holloway working with us, right?” Stone saw the young man nod, “I told Luke about it, I figured he would get her out of there.  A lot of people, especially Badlanders, hate Luke, think he’s scum.  I understand where they’re coming from, but Luke was a good man.  He was only doing what he thought was right, and there aren’t too many people who have the guts to do that, especially with the stakes as high as they were.
            “Luke didn’t disappoint that night.  When we went in, she was nowhere to be found.  I talked to him once after it all went down, and he let me know he got her out and that she was still alive.  But that was a long time ago, she could be dead now for all I know.  I’m just glad I didn’t kill her, and I’m glad none of my men had to kill her, either.”
            “I hadn’t heard about that,” the man said quietly.
            “Not too many have, son, not too many have,” Stone coughed a few times, “But what were we talking about before we got into Audra and all that?  Can’t seem to remember.”
            “We were talking about the number of people Sheppard killed.”
            “Right, right,” Stone said while he focused his thoughts, “It wasn’t easy to keep track of Sheppard, he knew the Badlands better than anyone I’ve ever come across, but we kept up with his comings and goings pretty well.  Now, Hodges got to a point where he was blaming Sheppard for a new murder every week.  You go through the list of murders tied to Sheppard and match that up with our surveillance reports, you’ll see he was in the Badlands or somewhere else in the Districts for most of those.  I ain’t saying Sheppard didn’t kill people, he did, but he didn’t kill anywhere near the hundred or so he got blamed for.”
            “But you signed off on . . .”
            “I know I signed off on the final report blaming Sheppard for all those murders, but I didn’t have a choice.  Holden made clear that Hodges wanted Sheppard responsible for those killings, and if I objected . . . Well, he didn’t have to say anything other than that.  Trust me, son, Sheppard didn’t kill all those people.  My surveillance reports would prove it, if they still existed.”
            “Well,” the young man said a little flustered, “how many people would you say he killed?”
            “I can’t give you an exact figure, of course, but I’d say around thirty.  That doesn’t count any of the people before my unit got sent in.”
            “So your estimate just covers the Firehammer period?” the young man clarified.
            “That’s right.  You see, Sheppard took his role as Firehammer very seriously, and that’s how I know that a lot of those people Hodges blamed Sheppard for killing weren’t killed by him, they were killed by someone else.”
            “What do you mean by that?”
            “Would you mind getting me a glass of water, son?” Stone asked.
            “Sure, sure,” the young man said, desperate to keep the conversation going.
            “Good, the kitchen’s to the right.  I’d get it myself, but I’m a little under the weather.  Must be the flu or something.  There’ll be glass on the counter and a pitcher of water next to it.”
            The young man walked into the kitchen and poured Stone some water.  He walked back to the living room and handed Stone the glass.
            “Thank you, son,” Stone said after taking a sip, “Like I said, Sheppard wasn’t responsible for all those murders.  When he became the Firehammer, he wasn’t just enforcing the Code anymore.  He was going after the corrupt, the powerful, the ones who twisted the Code.  He killed people who found a way to do all sorts of bad things without it being illegal, he went after people who escaped justice because of the technicalities they built into the Code.  Sheppard couldn’t stand that, he hated it.  He didn’t believe that the spirit of the Code should be violated by meaningless points of law, and he aimed to stop it.  Well, at least that’s what Luke told me.
“And that’s how I know Sheppard didn’t kill all those people.  You see, most of the ones Hodges blamed Sheppard for killing weren’t the kind of people I just mentioned.  Sure, they weren’t angels, but they weren’t people who twisted the Code to serve their own purposes, either.  Most of the people whose deaths were linked to Sheppard were political enemies of Governor Hodges, and that’s why those people were killed.”
The young man shot Stone a skeptical glance. 
“Wait, wait.  You’re not saying . . .” the young man trailed off.
“That’s right, son.  Hodges had those people killed, and he used Sheppard as his cover.”
The young man took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  He leaned back in his chair before asking, “Don’t you think that’s a little, I don’t know, insane?  I mean, why would Hodges have his political enemies killed?  If he gets caught, or if word leaks out, it would be disastrous.  The whole thing’s just too risky.”
“Risky, yes, but the upside couldn’t be ignored.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Stone laughed at that.  “I’m not surprised.  You’ve read a lot about Hodges, but only as it relates to Sheppard, right?”
The young man nodded.
“So you aren’t familiar with all the changes he made to the government, are you?”
“I know a little, but not much.”
“If you look at the structure of the Districts before Hodges came along,” Stone explained, “you’ll notice two things.  The first is the amount of corruption, favoritism, and nepotism.  While I’m no fan of Hodges, I’ll admit he did some good things.  He put more oversight into the Peacemaker selection process, opened up sessions of the District Assembly to the public, and required more ethical training for Opponents and Proponents, just to name a few.
“But the second thing you’ll notice explains the first.  The District government was more or less decentralized, unorganized, and suffered from a real lack of oversight.  Everyone had their own little base of power and exploited it.  The system worked well as long as good people were in charge, but you can’t always rely on good people to be around.  The twenty years or so before Hodges was elected were terrible, a period of extreme corruption.  And Hodges took advantage of it.
“He decided that the best way to fix the corruption was to create a more centralized government structure.  You know, oversight and all that.  Again, son, I’m no fan of Hodges, but someone needed to keep the government in line, things had gotten way out of hand.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Hodges was just as bad as the people he railed against.  The power got to him, and the corruption he pledged to end remained.  The only difference was where people had to go to get what they wanted.  Instead of going to four or five different people, depending on what they needed done, all they had to do was call on Hodges.  Like I said, you look at the dead bodies Hodges tied to Sheppard and you’ll find a number of them were fighting against Hodges’ attempt to put control of the Districts in the Governor’s office.”
“And Hodges used those deaths as a way to implement his reform programs?”
“That’s right, son.  Hodges managed to turn Sheppard into a tool that removed obstacles in the way of his power-grab.  Delegate Wilson is the perfect example.  Wilson had been in the Assembly for a long, long time.  He started out young and slowly made a name for himself as a deal-maker, a conciliator, a man who made things happen.  Don’t get me wrong, he could be a real bastard, and would turn on you in a minute if it would help him, but he had the respect of everyone in the government.  The Delegates knew that if you needed something done, you went to Wilson.  So, who would want him dead?  Why kill a deal-maker like Wilson?  Who benefits from the death of a man like Wilson, a man everyone in the government needed?  What’s the advantage?  And why would Sheppard kill Wilson?  Wilson never did anything that could compare to the people Sheppard killed, so why kill him?”
“I don’t know,” the young man answered.
“Well, son, Wilson was a big opponent of Hodges’ reform programs.  He made a lot of speeches in the Assembly against centralizing the power of the Districts in the hands of the Governor, said there was too much chance the Governor would abuse the power.  Rumor was that he was going to run against Hodges next election, but then he turns up dead.
“And it wasn’t just Wilson.  If you look up the political positions of Delegate Clay, Delegate Johnson, and Delegate Bryan, just to name a few, you’ll see that they were either openly against Hodges’ centralization plan, or they were working behind the scenes to derail it.  Trust me, son, the evidence is there.”
Something clicked in the young man’s brain, but he pushed it aside, not wanting to get sidetracked by the truth of Stone’s story.  “Well, beyond whether Hodges actually did that or not, how could he get away with all those killings?  There would be so many people involved that something would have to leak out.”
Stone took another sip of his water and leaned forward again, “Not if all the loose ends are tied up.”
The young man raised his eyebrow again and Stone continued talking.
“It’s not that complicated, you could still do it today, although it would be a little harder thanks to technology and all that.  But back then, son, you didn’t have half the stuff you’ve got today, pulling it off would be, and was, simple.”
“But to pull something like that off, you would have to . . .  Well, you would have to . . .”
“That’s right, son, you’d have to kill the people involved.  Not everyone mind you, but certainly the ones who did the killing.”
“And that’s what you think happened?” the young man asked with some skepticism.
“I know it’s what happened.  Hell, I saw it happen,” Stone replied with a great deal of self-assurance.
“What do you mean?”
“There were five of us in the unit, son, five.  Two got killed by Sheppard when we went into the Crosstown.  That left three,” Stone stopped to take a sip of water, “me, Dean Ross, and Brian Wilkes.”
“Both of whom are dead,” the young man added.
“That’s right, both of them are dead.”
“But that doesn’t prove . . .” the young man stopped midway through his sentence.  He suddenly recalled when the two men died and nodded his understanding.
“That’s right, son,” Stone said, “you’re getting it.  Ross died quick, real quick after we filed that report saying we killed Sheppard.  Just two years later, Wilkes turned up dead in a gunfight out in the Badlands.  Not too many people paid attention to that, though.  It happened at the end of the Second Uprising. 1   And I’m going to level with you, son, I ain’t living out here just to avoid the people who are obsessed with Sheppard.”
“So who exactly are you saying killed the men in your unit?  Holden?  Shaw?  Hodges?  Who?”
“Hodges had ‘em killed, son.  It was Hodges.”
The young man didn’t make any noticeable response to Stone’s assertion.  “Hodges did it because he knew that you falsified the report, isn’t that right?”
“That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“I just told you about how Hodges blamed Sheppard for most every killing in the Districts for a while, didn’t I?  And I also told you about how my reports would prove that Sheppard didn’t have a thing to do with most of those killings, didn’t I?”
The young man thought for a moment.  He wasn’t too sure that he believed all of Stone’s story, but he didn’t get the sense that Stone was lying, either.  He let out another deep breath and decided to listen to the rest of what Stone had to say.
“What happened, Mr. Stone?  What happened when your unit raided the Crosstown and killed Sheppard?” 
Stone took a deep breath of his own.  He hadn’t spoken about the raid on the Crosstown much since it happened twenty-five years ago.  More than that, he had done his best to push it out of his mind completely.  Stone reached deep into his thoughts and tried to remember the last time he’d thought or spoken about it.  Aside from preparing the official report, he recalled a news conference with Governor Hodges, Superintendant Holden, Prefect Bernard Richmond, and a few others, but he couldn’t recall speaking about it after that.  As for thinking about it, aside from the random remembrance here and there, he couldn’t recall a specific time he had thought about it.  I guess it’s time, Stone said to himself, it’s time to let go of this weight.
“Well, son, we went in with guns blazing and caught Sheppard at the bar.  Luke set that up, made sure he’d be there waiting to speak to Audra.  Two of us went through the front, I came in through the side, and the others snuck in the back.  Sheppard got the two at the front, but a bullet winged his left arm.  I took a shot at him when he spun from the impact and I hit him.  I’m not sure where I hit him, but it didn’t really matter.  Sheppard kept his wits about him and didn’t panic.  He jumped behind the bar, and I waited for his next move.”
Stone paused to take a final sip of water before continuing, “Sheppard wasn’t making a noise back there, nothing at all, but I knew he wasn’t dead.  I let my curiosity get the better of me, though, and started moving towards him.  I guess he figured one of us would do that, and he came up like a lightning strike and fired at me.  I managed to dive to the ground and fired back at him.  After that, he crouched down to take a better shot at me.  Somehow, I hit him.  It was really a lucky shot, he was down low and wasn’t much of a target. 
“I scrambled up and tried to find cover, and Sheppard came out to finish me off.  Lucky for me, Ross and Wilkes came in from the back and one of them hit Sheppard in the back.  It only grazed him, though.  Sheppard spun quick after the shot and emptied his gun firing at those two, but they ducked out of the way.  I was a little shell-shocked from everything that had just happened, but I pulled myself together and fired at him.  I got him in the back, right around his right ribcage, and he fell down.  But before we could get another shot off, Sheppard pulled himself back behind the bar.
“I signaled to my men to move slowly towards the bar, but Sheppard came up firing again.  He winged Ross, and then turned to fire at me.  I got him in the left shoulder and he went down,” Stone stopped a moment to look at the young man.  While appearing outwardly calm, Stone could tell he was hanging on every word.  He bit back a smile at the young man’s enthusiasm and continued, “If you’ve been keeping count, Sheppard’s got six bullets in him.  We’re a little stunned, but we’re more or less fine.  I start to signal Ross and Wilkes again, and then all hell breaks lose. 
“Sheppard starts throwing these bottles of liquor at us.  They’ve got rags in the top that he lit on fire.  He throws about five or so at us from behind the bar, just lobbing them up in the air.  After that, he risks it and tries to take a shot at Ross and Wilkes.
“That was the only mistake he’d made, but I’m not sure if I should call it a mistake.  You gotta put yourself in his position.  He’s been all shot up in his own place, he’s surrounded, and he’s trying to burn the place down to escape.  He knows that if he doesn’t kill us, he’s dead.  So Sheppard comes out from behind the bar and starts firing at Ross and Wilkes.  He needed to do it to get a good shot at them, you didn’t have much of angle from behind the bar.  It’s a risk, but he’s gotta take it.  If he kills one of them, things look a little better for him.  Well, he starts shooting at them, and they duck for cover.  The flames are coming up around me, there’s smoke, and it’s hard to see, but I hit him square in the back, right near the spine.”
Stone stopped telling the story and looked at the ground.  He coughed a few times, and then looked at the young man.
“Sheppard fell to the floor when I hit him, and we started to move in.  We had to be careful to get around the flames, but we were getting close.  He wasn’t far away, and we were a little afraid to get near him, even with the seven bullets, so we were being extra careful.  Somehow, Sheppard pulls himself up and starts firing away, slinging his gun from right to left and left to right.  We hit the ground and he keeps shooting while dragging himself behind the bar again.  After a few moments, I hear something that sounds like a window breaking.  Wilkes pointed at the broken window at the end of the bar, and we move over to it very slowly.  We all looked at each other, and since I was in charge of the unit, I looked through it to see what happened.  Sheppard fired a few rounds at me while stumbling and running, and I pulled my head back to look at the other guys.  There’s blood leading from the bar to the window, there’s more on the window, and there’s no shortage of it on the ground where he jumped out and where he’s running away. 
“The Crosstown is catching fire bad at this point, but we just stand around while we try to figure out what to do.  We didn’t particularly want to go after Sheppard, but we didn’t have much choice.  The three of us stared at each other for a little while, and then I jumped through the window.  The other guys followed suit.  It’s pretty dark outside, even with the fire, and I couldn’t see too well.  We followed the blood for a bit, and then Ross put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head ‘no’.  As for Wilkes, he didn’t want to keep hunting Sheppard, either, and holstered his weapon. 
“I looked at the blood, the dirt, and the smudges from the fire on Ross and Wilkes.  We were sent to kill Sheppard, we put seven bullets in him, and all he did was get away from us.  If we couldn’t kill him after catching him by surprise and putting seven rounds of lead in him, how could we get him out there away from the Crosstown?  Son, that part of S’Anthony was at the top of a hill.  There was a sharp drop behind the Crosstown, and then a bunch of ditches, hills, and gullies.  We knew that if we went down there looking for Sheppard, he’d have the advantage.  Sure he was hurt, but he knew the territory better than we did, especially in the dark.  He’d have known if we were coming, too, and we didn’t really want to take that on.”
Stone stopped for minute and closed his eyes.  He’d gone that far, and decided he might as well tell the rest of it.
“Like I said, we were a little afraid, but that wasn’t the only reason we let him alone.  That man had been through so much since he made Peace with Vance Milligan,” the young man was surprised to hear Stone put it that way.  Most Peacemakers and other government officials would say that Sheppard had killed Milligan, refusing to acknowledge that Sheppard had been carrying out the Code, but Stone admitted that Sheppard acted justly.  The man made a mental note of that while Stone continued telling his story.
“There was a time, son, when Sheppard was considered the top Peacemaker in the Districts.  The future was bright for him, real bright, he had nowhere to go but up.  All he ever did was carry out the Code, all he ever did was his job, but in the end, that wasn’t enough.  After making Peace with Milligan, and he was more than right to do that, he gets forced out to the Badlands, living with a lot of scum.  It’s a shame the way he got blacklisted like that, no one bothering to take a stand for him.  And what does he do out there in S’Anthony?  He does what he knows best, tries to help people within the confines of the Code, but the Districts won’t let him be.  Peacemakers keep pushing and pushing him, never letting him alone, never letting him carry out the Code, never letting him do his job.  In the end, he gets shot seven times in the bar he lived in and burns it down trying to escape. 
“In my mind, that man had been pushed enough.  He deserved a little bit of peace, he deserved to die without someone hunting him.  He deserved to be let alone, and that’s what we did.  We walked back to the main drag in S’Anthony and watched the Crosstown burn.  Rain started pouring down something awful a few minutes later, it felt like it was going to flood or something.  It was a good thing, though, because it washed Sheppard’s blood away.  No one was going to find him out there, not after all that rain.  He could finally be alone.
“After that, we went back to the Districts and filed our report.  We said I killed Sheppard and his body burned in the fire.  And, well, you know the rest.  Now.”
Stone didn’t realize it, but he was leaning forward so much that he was close to falling out of the chair.  As soon as he finished speaking, he slumped backwards and felt the weight finally lift from him.  He’d bottled the truth up for years, and he felt the relief that accompanied the telling of it. 
The young man looked at Stone carefully and tried to make sense of what he had just heard.  It took a few moments before he felt comfortable enough to say anything.
“So,” he began slowly, “what happened, I mean, what do you think happened to Bill Sheppard?”
“He died in a ditch somewhere behind the Crosstown that night.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Son, I don’t know what you’ve done for a living or what you know about the human body, but he had seven bullets in him.  Between the blood loss and the rain, there’s no way he survived that night.  Trust me, son, he died out there.”
The young man considered that for a moment.  He couldn’t quite convince himself that what Brett Stone had told him was true.  He had devoted most every day of the last half-decade to reading up on Bill Sheppard, learning every detail about him and his death.  He had heard and read some pretty wild claims, but he had never come across anything remotely comparable to Stone’s story before.  He didn’t know how to handle it or what to do next, so he shook his head a few times.
“Don’t believe me, do you, son?”
“It’s a little hard for me to swallow.  What you just told me means that Sheppard could still be alive.  And I’ve never really put that much stock into that before, but there’s no reason to doubt it now.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, son,” Stone said as he leaned forward in his chair, “He’s not alive, he’s dead.  He died out there alone in a ditch, rain falling all around him.  And don’t ask me how I can be so sure, I already told you that.  None of the people Sheppard is alleged to have killed after he died that night, and he did die that night, are the kind of people Sheppard killed during the Firehammer period.  Am I wrong about that?”
The young man ran that through his mind.  After Sheppard’s run in with Stone’s unit, Sheppard sightings exploded throughout the Badlands and the Districts.  Killings tied to Sheppard were just as plentiful, although none came from the Hodges Administration.  But what Stone said was true, those who were killed were not the type of people Sheppard killed, or was alleged to have killed, prior to the unit’s raid on the Crosstown.
“Accept it, son, he’s dead.”
The young man thought about it for a few moments and then nodded his acceptance.  “I never really doubted it,” the young man said slowly, “but hearing what you said was a shock.”
“I figured it would be, but it’s the truth.  Time I told it,” Stone explained in between a few coughs.
“Letting him alone,” the young man said absentmindedly, “that was a real act of mercy.”
“You can call it what you want,” Stone said, “it was just the right thing to do.  He’d been pushed enough.  Dying alone in a ditch in the dark of night with rain falling all over you isn’t what I’d call mercy, but there wasn’t any need to push him anymore.  People had been picking at him long enough, it was past time to just let him be.”
“Would you call what you did for Audra mercy?”
Stone took a deep breath before answering.  “No, son, I wouldn’t.  All I did was what was right.”
“You may not call it mercy, but I do.  And you showing Sheppard and Audra mercy doesn’t make my job any easier.” 
Stone looked at the young man’s eyes for a few seconds before saying, “You’re right, son, I don’t guess it does.”
“I take it you know why I came here.”
“Yeah, I do.  I had a feeling when I got your telegraph, and when you walked in the door, well, I didn’t have any doubts then.”
“I won’t take up any more of your time, Mr. Stone,” the young man said as he got up from his chair, “I appreciate you talking to me.” 
“Before you do your business here, son, I’d like to tell you something.”
“Go ahead,” the young man said while pulling out a revolver from a shoulder-holster, a little troubled by the calm in Stone’s voice. 
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’d seen you before.  The face, you’ve got the same face.  The eyes, though, I don’t recognize those.”
“She’s still alive, Stone.  Thank you for that.”

Stone nodded and closed his eyes.  The young man pulled the trigger on his revolver, and Brett Stone’s eyes never opened again.

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