Halfway through his sermon, Brother Lewis lifted from beside his Bible an old hog-leg cap-and-ball pistol fully eighteen inches long, and with a single shot, killed two of the three hounds whose fight had spilled out from below the bench closest to his pulpit.

It wasn't his shooting the dogs that caused me the most concern.

If circuit preachers don't know how to handle distractions, they find other work. I've seen one excuse himself from the pulpit, take a troublemaking drunk outside from the back pew, thrash the drunk into submission, and return minutes later to finish his sermon. Dogfights too are common enough. Some Sundays you'll find a dozen or so hounds have followed their owners inside, and a preacher learns to raise his voice above the growling and barking that often ends in a dogfight as glorious as the threats of hell from the pulpit.

No, it was how this revivalist shot the dogs that got my attention. After all, these were not the perfect circumstances for a shooting. Brother Lewis had raised folks to a frenzy of holy ecstasy. The darkness in the tent shifted with the flickering of oil lamps, and as the dim yellow light moved, it revealed faces that glowed with agonized joy and rows of arms raised in waving fervor. The sawdust and dirt floor had dampened with the sweat of their heated bodies trapped beneath the low tent roof, and that smell of wet wood mingled with the ripe odor of flushed and long unwashed skin. Some of the women had already begun to babble in low moans. Others wept. Men raised shouts of hallelujah or cried for forgiveness.

And above it all, Brother Lewis preached and worked them like a gasping trout at the end of a tight line.

"Have you been saved, brothers? Have you been saved? When the angel of vengeance appears, can you look him straight in the eyes and declare that his sword of fire is meant for another? Can you? Can you now? Can you? Are you saaaaved?"

His voice rose as he lifted his hands to point at the crowd, so his final words were barely short of a hoarse yell.

"Amen! Amen to that, Brother Lewis!"

"Bring me salvation, Brother Lewis!"

"Oh Brother Lewis! I feel it! I feel it now! The Spirit is upon me!"

Brother Lewis dropped his voice. And his chin. The lamp beside him cast his entire face into shadow, and his next words were a whisper from the mouth of the avenging angel himself.

"Have you cast aside the lust of your youth?"

Brother Lewis pushed aside the flaps of his long black jacket. He rested his hands on his hips and bored his black eyes into the crowd. Two women in the front row fell to their knees, adoring eyes cast upward at the lean, tall figure at the makeshift pulpit.

"Yes! Yes!" Brother Lewis continued that penetrating whisper. I have learned from the sins of my past, sins of the flesh so terrible I can only shudder"--he shuddered on cue--"to recall. Sins that would cause you to weep in sorrow. Sin upon sin with Satan at my side and lust in my soul. Time and again, until the day I approached the Cross and bared my heart."

His white shirt beneath that black jacket was divided by a black string tie. I saw hair slicked back on a narrow skull, a long, strong nose-almost a hook-and clean shaven, furrowed skin. His frown promised hell as he shouted. And smiled like the devil as he whispered.

And when the hush fell, he paused, then roared as he raised his arms. I ask again! Are ... you ... saved? Will you too approach the Cross and bare your soul?"

The wails of torment and rapture that answered him almost drowned the snarling of the three dogs as they chose that moment to boil into action between the two kneeling women.

It was then, cool as the midnight air outside the meeting tent, not even pausing as his words rolled thunder, that Brother Lewis lifted the pistol, held it steady-it had to weigh a good ten pounds-and sighted briefly down the barrel to pull the trigger.

I sat among chairs at the front of the tent, and saw clearly, even in the dim light, the mushroom of blood that exploded from the shoulder of the largest hound stopped mid-howl, and its dance of death joined with the hound below it. That casual accuracy in the midst of his passionate plea and the poor fight was my first indication of what to expect from any confrontation with Brother Lewis.

Worse for me, still talking--his voice still rising in a wave that pulled the crowd with him--Brother Lewis smoothly loaded the pistol and set it down beside the Bible on his makeshift pulpit. These were the slick, efficient movements of a man accustomed to more worldly ways. One accustomed to challenges.

Add to it the crowd's reaction to the shooting of the dogs. Rather, lack of reaction. The people were so bound by his words and so bound for glory that they were deaf to his gunshot they continued their frenzy as if the shot had been just another hallelujah and the drift of gunsmoke a whiff of the brimstone they were so determined to escape in their cries against the devil. Not even the owners of the dog had risen in rage, a bad sign when hounds were sometimes loved more than a wife and generally considered easier on upkeep.

Bad enough I'd arrived here to confront the man. It now appeared I'd find no friends in the mob.

I could only take comfort that his action had dismissed any doubts about the reason for my presence here. Were this truly a holy man wrapped in bliss, I would have been troubled at my need to be here. There is more to a man's life than what he can see or touch-something I'd recently begun to understand -and I would have been glad to learn more in this tent. But spiritual help wouldn't come from this man. His cold, calculated shot to kill the dogs only proved to me how much of this was an act and that I should feel no shame for sitting as I did, waiting for when I would no longer be able to wait.

"Brothers and sisters," he shouted. "Is it enough to say you've been forgiven? Is it enough to walk away without proving the Spirit of the Lord rests upon you? Or will you approach the Cross tonight?"

As he spoke, his eyes flicked down to the dead hounds and to the surviving dog beside, them as it lapped up the blood that soaked into the sand.

His eyes flicked to me.

No surprise.

I could not fake involvement in what was happening around me. To be sitting without moaning, or shouting praise, or clutching the nearest person was to make me as obvious as a cactus in a dance girl's bed. Even if Brother Lewis did not know I was the law here in Laramie--and I'd bet he'd have made quiet inquiries upon arrival--even the most unobservant fool would have known I wasn't part of the crowd. This, judging by his method of pulling folks in to set them loose and pull them in again, definitely was not an unobservant fool--not the type of preacher who shoveled the whole load regardless of how much feed the congregation wanted.

Instead, I'd guess Brother Lewis had marked every single person in the crowd and were he to step down from the pulpit, could continue to wave his arms and point his accusing finger, all the while informing me how much each would leave at the basket for collection, which woman was the ripest to stray with him away from the salvation he preached, and who would be the first to accept his call for the test of faith.

What he could not expect was that I would be the first to answer that call.

Or maybe he did. Maybe his shooting the dogs had been just another part of his calculations, a deliberately bloody way to tell me whatever the reason for my presence, he would not be deterred from the fattened collection baskets that would be gained at the height of the crowd's frenzy.

Brother Lewis lifted both his hands high and tilted his head back, way back, as if watching the heavens open to pour down glory.

The hush of response was instant.

"Lord, Lord, Lord, do they have it?" He spoke softly with his head still tilted back.

Several moans rose from the center of the crowd.

Brother Lewis brought his head down, staring into the people with his arms still high and widespread.

"Do you have it?" He voice remained soft, and he stared until the moaning got louder.

"Do you have it!" He roared now. "Do you have it in you to show the Lord your love?"

"Amen, brother!" came a shout.

"We do!" came several more.

"Weep with joy!" Brother Lewis exhorted. He dropped his hands and shook fists of victory at the crowd. "Weep with joy at the redemption that is within your reach!"

He stepped away from the pulpit, paused to tuck the hogleg pistol in the belt of his pants and, with the briefest glance in my direction to see if I understood the significance of that action, walked to a wooden crate.

The hush fell again.

I knew why the slats of that crate had no gaps. I knew what was inside, as did every person in the tent.

Snakes. Rattlers. Caught that day from the dry hills outside of town.

Brother Lewis rested a hand on the outside edge of the crate and began to speak. "Living witness, brothers and sisters. Tonight we give living witness to the power of the Spirit."

I wanted to look away. Indirectly, I'd once killed a man because of snakes. They were rattlesnakes as thick as clubs which had struck with enough force to drive the man backward in his chair. Snakes with jaws open so wide it appeared they were clamped onto the skin of his neck and arm. I had to search my mind no farther than that image to find a waking nightmare.

But I don't think that memory accounted for the anger and revulsion I felt to see Brother Lewis as he shouted. "The Lord says if you believe, you may take up snakes and cast them aside!"

Brother Lewis smiled. Stepped away from the crate. They all knew he would reach inside. Why not play them longer?

He launched into a tirade against the devil and sin and the evils of the flesh with such detail that if folks were too ignorant to know which ways they could find pleasure, they'd sure have one or two ideas to take home with them later. Spittle flew from his mouth and his voice grew hoarse.

Moans and screams of joy rose accordingly from the fainthearted.

It bothered me greatly, that Brother Lewis--so powerful in acting, so skillful in oration, and so charismatic in presence-- would abuse his gifts to twist these people.

Unfortunately, my badge did not give me the right to act upon my anger. While indeed Brother Lewis preyed upon people so hurt in spirit each begged to be swept along in a rush of emotion, in the end, a man can blame none other than himself for the spiritual choices he makes, and, as well, he had a right to those choices. For me to interfere simply because I did not believe in the cult of the snakes would be stooping to the preacher's level, the only difference that my show of power would consist of a drawn Colt .44-40.

No, I was here on business, not personal anger.

Brother Lewis had moved back to the side of the crate. His eyes burned as he pumped himself up on the emotion of the crowd. His voice rose and fell and he cried to the people. "We shall show that the Spirit is among us!"

He rolled back his sleeves and, with several loud hallelujahs, plunged his forearms deep inside the crate. When he pulled them free, he held, clenched in each hand, a coiling, writhing snake-rattles shaking in fury, jaws spread wide in rage.

Brother Lewis held the snakes high-careful, I noted, to keep his grips just below the triangle heads of the massive snakes -where he would be safe from a strike. "I have reached into the lair of the devil and stand unharmed! Proof, brothers and sisters! Proof that the Spirit of the Lord has descended into this tent!"

This brought renewed wailing and moaning.

"Brothers and sisters," he shouted and shook the rattlesnakes, "who shall give further glory to the Word? Who shall make testimony? Who shall come forward to cast snakes aside and give living witness to their faith?"

I took a deep breath. Already a trembling woman, her petticoats dragging in the dirt and sawdust, was moving up the aisle from the back of the tent. I could no longer wait.

I judged, for the twentieth or thirtieth time, the space between my guns and Brother Lewis. I confirmed yet again that were I forced to draw and fire from my position, any shots that missed Brother Lewis would hit none of his flock.

And I started to rise.

Before I could complete the movement, cool air reached me and I looked to the rear, as did a few others, to see the tent flap now swinging back into place. A tall, stooped man carried a torch as he marched forward to Brother Lewis. His manner was direct, the anger in his face so obvious, that each row he passed fell into expectant silence, and when he reached the front to stand within five paces of Brother Lewis, no person in the tent was able to ignore his low words.

"She died, preacher man. A half hour ago she died. Five children left behind."

I knew the man. Cornelius Harper. Doctor Cornelius Harper. Dressed in the same dull brown suit he wore in his office, at funerals, as he set out in his horse and buggy -a dull-brown suit well short of his wrists and his ankles, which gave him the appearance of an awkward school boy. Except Cornelius Harper was at least forty years beyond school age-obvious from the thatched hair almost white, eyes deeply sunk in a worn face, and in his crooked carriage, as if bone rubbed against bone with each of his slow movements.

"You Sir, have interrupted a man of God," Brother Lewis intoned. "'I request that you depart and leave this host of believers in peace."

"Did you hear me, you miserable excuse of a cur? She died." There were traces of accent in Doc Harper's voice. New England, I'd heard. A successful practice abandoned some time back.

"A woman in your care dies. What concern is that of mine? Unless you are here to ask me to pray for her soul. Or perhaps to ask forgiveness for your mistake in doctoring." Brother Lewis continued to hold the snakes high. Their tails wrapped and unwrapped around his forearms. He spoke, indeed kept his arms aloft effortlessly, as if the snakes did not exist. "Perhaps God in His infinite mercy shall-"

"The concern is that she died because of you." Doctor Harper spit out the words. "She accepted your call last night. And reached into hell."

"Ah, the young lady of little faith."

The young lady of little faith was my reason too for enduring the revivalist. Dorothy Kilpatrick. A downtrodden woman married to a shiftless stablehand. Mother of five. Barely twenty years old. Looking for any hope at all in her bleak world. Before they dragged her out of the tent last night, her arms had swollen to the size of melons, her face and neck looked as if she had been pumped full of water. Someone had counted ten sets of puncture wounds on her arms.

"Dismiss these people," Doc Harper said between clenched teeth. "No one else shall die."

"Brother, brother, brother," the revivalist said in soothing tones. His eyes glittered. The snakes in his grasp appeared to be staring at the doctor as well. "Your arrival, instead, dictates I must ask all to remain."

Brother Lewis spoke past Cornelius. "Last night sadly proved that the young lady did not believe in the protection of God. She was of little faith and did not have the Spirit upon her. Brothers and sisters, we must bow our heads and pray that her lack of faith will not lead to punishment in the afterlife."

The rolling cadence had begun to return to the revivalist's voice and a few Amens greeted his words.

"No." Doc Harper raised his torch in threat. "You'll bundle this tent and leave town."

"I think not," Brother Lewis said.

I admired Doc Harper. He showed plenty sand in his craw to refuse to back down from a man easily two decades younger, sixty pounds heavier, and armed with the gun so obvious beneath his belt and, more importantly, armed with the righteous support of a crowd in full passion.

Doc Harper took a step toward Brother Lewis.

I stood. Only the blind would not know this was a show down. The expectant silence of the crowd became a pressing blanket.

Doc Harper took another step.

What he intended to do, I could not guess. Nor did I have a chance to find out. Brother Lewis had intentions of his own, intentions signaled by the slight movement of his arms as he pulled them back.

Without thinking--because when it happens like this, the luxury of thinking will paralyze a man--I reached for my Colt as Brother Lewis began to fling his arms forward to cast the raging snakes at Doc Harper's upper body. Six shots, a Colt will hold. Five because I carried mine the hammer down on an empty cylinder. My right hand was full of iron as I pulled loose from my holster, while my left hand, fingers spread, was raking across my body to fan the top of the hammer with my thumb.

That shot clicked dry and advanced the next bullet into position.

The snakes were already in the air as the meat of my index finger hit the hammer. Done right, a man can fan three shots in one pass. Thumb and two fingers -so fast the three shots sound like one.

I didn't have the time to worry myself into panic, and the next two shots fell into place like rapid blinks of the eye. Which shot got the first snake I don't know. Firing from the hip demands that you point the index finger of your gun hand at your target and trust in instinct and luck and prayer and whatever else you believe it will take.

One of the shots ripped the head off the first snake so that it landed like a chunk of heavy rope across Doc Harper's chest Another shot caught the second snake somewhere near its tail, enough to slam it off course, and it landed in a frenzy and turned on itself to slash at the source of its pain.

Impossible shooting? If a man was using bullets. But when I carried in town, I'd taken to the habit of loading with cartridges that sprayed chunks of lead no bigger than unground pepper, a trick that guaranteed accuracy at close range and, as the lead lost all power more than a stone's throw away, cut down on the number of innocent bystanders who might take a stray bullet. Here, all I'd needed was fast shooting and to place those shots within a foot of the snakes.

No one else knew that, though, and in the shocked silence that followed those blasts, I earned my own share of hallelujahs from the crowd behind me.

Brother Lewis spent no time in praise. He swung a hand downward to his belt.

"Nope," I said as I spun to level my Colt at his chest. "I've got two shots left. You're a bigger target than those snakes. Slower too. Unless you're anxious to shake hands with Saint Peter, I'd advise against anything stupid."

Less than twenty minutes later, Brother Lewis was in Laramie's one-cell jail, the back portion of the marshal's office.

Early the next morning, when I returned to make coffee and check on my latest prisoner, I immediately began to feel sorry for myself and the problem I'd put upon my shoulders. Not only was I subject to Brother Lewis' considerable talents of verbal abuse, I was still searching for an appropriate charge to lay.

Has any man ever faced a judge for throwing snakes?

Unfortunately, those problems became minor in a big hurry.

Before my coffee had finished brewing, Laramie's newly elected mayor burst through the doors of my office to inform me that two men had been found dead in the vaults of Laramie's most prosperous bank.

His bank.