The rifle held steady on the heart
of Sim Satterlee, who killed Lars Swensen
and walked free from the courthouse not a day before.
Below the rock where Olaf lay in wait,
his brother's murderer stood frozen on the trail,
one hand creeping toward the pistol in his overalls.
"Say your prayers, murderer, for now you die!"
But the silence stretched, and the trigger held.
Olaf staggered to his feet, arms flung skyward,
the rifle clattering down the slope.
"Ay can't do it! Lars, you hear me?
Ay tried, but Ay can't!"
In the great pine above, the starving cougar leapt.
Sim's hand flashed to his breast
and the forty-five roared twice, but the beast
struck square, and the two killers, man and cat,
went down together in a snarl of claws and blood.
Olaf crawled to his stricken enemy,
gibbering thanks to the man who saved his life.
Sim raised himself on one elbow,
reached for the fallen gun, and sank back.
"Hell," he muttered. "Missed ya with my last shot."
And as he had lived, so Sim died,
spurning all grace, denying that even for one moment
he had been a man.