Once again, with the rap of a gavel, many of the people touched by Timothy J. McVeigh's bomb got exactly what they demanded from a jury, and once again it was somehow less than what they had hungered for.

The Federal jury in Denver brought back the only verdict that a clear majority of Mr. McVeigh's victims say they can live with, and while there seemed to be no loud celebration of his death sentence here, it did bring relief and a sense of revenge in a heartland city that, before him, had seemed safe and ordered.

''If this didn't fit the death penalty, then we didn't need one,'' said Martin Cash, who lost an eye and was badly scarred in the bombing, which killed 168 people and wounded 850.

Mr. Cash went to the site of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, now a vacant lot, when he heard about the verdict. The death sentence will not change the fact that he has, as he called it, ''a plastic eye,'' or the fact that so many families have gaps. But it is ''satisfaction,'' he said, and ''it'll help some.''