CAVE CREEK, Ariz.  Arizona is a modern place, among the fastest-growing states and home to Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city, with gleaming office towers and a just-opened light rail system.

But now and then, the state’s Western heritage comes storming through the saloon doors to remind one and all just what this place was like not so long ago.

It happened here Monday in the shadow of the Phoenix sprawl, when it came to settling a draw in a local election.

Adam Trenk and Thomas McGuire, both in blue jeans and open-collar shirts, strode nervously into Town Hall with their posses. There stood the town judge. He selected a deck of cards from a Stetson hat and shuffled it  having removed the jokers  six times.