Pastor Mabley watched from across the bar as yet another cowboy swaggered into Dry Gulch Inn looking for whiskey, women and gambling.

The place was a pox on this little town, he thought. A worn and dog-eared Bible lay on his lap, open to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He had read it more times than he could count.

Here was a town, the clergyman thought, that is just as bad as Sodom. And yet the Lord had not struck it down. Why not?

He came to realize that God wasn’t going to do the work for him. It was his job to carry out God’s holy anger. Through his own human hands, judgment would be wrought.

No one noticed as the pastor sauntered to the alley behind the busy bar, spattering grease and gunpowder on the bone-dry wood.

“Of thine own do I give thee,” Mabley whispered.

His eyes screwed up heavenward, he lit the match.