by Logan Jacobs
I looked at the guide in surprise, but she smiled with the usual bland tour guide smile before she wandered off toward a couple who leaned on one of the cases.
“These are cool,” John declared as he stepped up next to me. “What kind of gun is that?”
“A Colt Army Revolver,” I replied as I grudgingly handed it over to him. I hated the feeling of loss as the gun left my hand, but I was also curious to see if he would feel the same connection.
“Doesn’t seem like you could do as much with one of these like you could with that rifle,” John observed as he twirled the gun in his hand. He pointed it toward some of the other patrons, then shrugged to show he was unimpressed with the revolver. Clearly, he didn’t have the nice tingly feeling in his hand when he held it.
“The guide said it was very popular in the Old West,” I explained as I watched my friend play with the weapon. I felt a longing to hold it again and fought the urge to snatch it from his hands.
“Well, that was like ages and ages ago,” John scoffed. “I doubt they had very good guns then. They’ve got one in the case over there that would let you kill someone from over a mile away.”
John handed the revolver back to me and took another lap around the room. The other people from our tour group slowly wandered away, and another group arrived. I heard Larry start a discussion about something called calibers with an elderly gentleman, while John followed a pretty young woman into the next room.
And still I stood there with the gun in my hand.
That was just fine with me.
I finally released it when a portly gentleman in a suit and broad brimmed hat cleared his throat and stared pointendly at the revolver. I handed it to him slowly, and I felt a twinge of regret when he clasped the weapon in his meaty palm.
I realized I hadn’t seen John or Larry in some time, so I forced myself to ignore the call of the gun. Then I stepped away from the man and turned toward the exit without a backward glance. I made myself walk through the rest of the galleries though I couldn’t tell you what they held. All I could think about was how empty my palm felt without the revolver.
Yet, in an odd way, it was as if the gun had never left my hand. I looked down, just to make sure my hand was empty, and nearly plowed into John and Larry, who waited for me just outside the last exhibit.
“Took you long enough,” John commented with a cocked brow.
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” I replied. “I thought you’d abandoned me for that pretty woman.”
“He would have, if her boyfriend hadn’t shown up,” Larry laughed.
“Larry and I were just talking about going somewhere to get something to eat,” John sniffed as he tried to ignore Larry’s guffaws. “That is, if we ever found you again.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I gather you two have had time to come up with someplace. Maybe the place that had fifty beers?”
“Larry says he knows a place not too far from here that has good food and good entertainment,” John replied.
“It’s called the Red Stallion,” Larry finally added as he got his laughter under control. “It’s for high-end clients, not the usual trail spots we hit. Trust me, you haven’t seen a pretty girl until you’ve been to the Red Stallion.”
“Sounds expensive,” I protested with a furrowed brow.
“Aw, c’mon Hex,” John encouraged. “What else are you gonna do with your money? Go hang out at the bars near the pens?”
“We smell like we’ve been hanging out near the pens,” I pointed out. “Will they even let us in?”
“They have bathing facilities,” Larry drawled and winked. “Trust me, those girls will scrub you better than you can scrub yourself.”
“The girls will give you a bath?” John’s eyes grew large, and he waggled his eyebrows at me.
“If we get there in time,” Larry snickered.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Of course, they were right. We probably would just end up at one of the bars near the bunkhouse, so why not splurge a little? It might be nice to see just what else the city had to offer, and maybe the bathing beauties of the Red Stallion would have something that would get rid of the itch in my palm.
Larry led us back outside, but rather than pay for another cab, we started winding our way through the streets. We soon left the wide avenues and well-dressed crowds around the museum behind and found ourselves in a less savory neighborhood. It certainly didn’t reek of danger the way some cattle towns did, but I noticed both Larry and John had placed their hands on the hilt of their knives as well.
As we stepped around the corner past a busy bar, I spotted the Red Stallion. It was hard to miss, given its mage-enhanced sign that lit up the front of the building. Then I saw two men in gentlemen’s coats stepping inside and decided Larry might be onto something.
Larry already wore a happy grin on his face, and John licked his lips in excitement. All three of us were so focused on our destination that we nearly plowed into the six men who stepped out of an alley in front of us.
“You boys look like you’re ready for a good time,” one of the men commented as we tried to go around the group.
“No other reason to be here,” Larry replied calmly, but his grin was suddenly gone.
The men lined up squarely in our path. We were halfway between the corner bar and the enticements of the Red Stallion, and despite the fact that the sun was still up, we were lost in the shadows cast by the building. We were in a no man’s land of sorts with no one else around.
Our would-be muggers had picked the perfect spot, and everyone here knew it.
“Shit,” Larry muttered as he took in the array of knives and swords our assailants carried, despite the ban on any blade longer than six inches.
“Hey, you can’t have those swords inside the city,” John declared.
“Well, shucks,” one of the men chuckled. He was a tall blond with a scar along his left cheek and a nasty looking hunting knife in his hand. “Maybe we should just go back to the gates and turn in our weapons. What do you think, boys?”
The other five men laughed at the absurd suggestion. John stepped forward angrily, but Larry placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“We have no interest in fighting you,” Larry said as he looked to the men, “and we don’t have anything you’d be interested in.”
“I have a hard time believing that,” the blond with the scar mused. “You look like men who were hoping to find a little fun at the Red Stallion, which means you have money. And money is something we are very interested in.”
My heart began to race, and I spotted a pair of deputies passing on one of the cross streets further down. John must have noticed them too, and he started to call for the lawmen, but he barely had time to open his mouth when one of the six punched him hard in the stomach and threw him back at our feet.
The deputies walked on without ever glancing our way.
Larry and I moved toward John, but the man with the scar kicked him hard three times before we could get there. John coughed, then gurgled, and finally went still.
“Bastards,” Larry growled and bared his teeth.
“Now, I’m sure you two fine gentlemen don’t want to end up like your friend here, so I would suggest you turn over that money now,” the man with the scar hissed as he gave John one more kick to the groin.
The other five men circled around us and pulled the net tighter. Larry and I were both good in a fight, but there were too many of them, and they had much better weapons. If we tried to resist, I had no doubt we would end up with some pretty nasty injuries at least, though these fellows looked like the type that wouldn’t leave anybody alive to tell the tale.
Adrenaline surged through my body, along with a real fear this was about to be my last night on earth. I tried to scowl and look menacing, but the men surrounding us were not impressed. For the briefest of moments, I flashed back to the revolver, and I thought how perfect it would be in our current predic
ament. Then I could feel a tingling in my hands again, and the itch in my palm disappeared.
Instead, I felt cold, hard metal.
Despite the threat looming in front of me, I risked a glance toward my hand and nearly jumped in surprise.
The museum revolver was in my hand. It looked brand new, though, and almost as sleek as the car. It also glowed just the tiniest bit, like it was the cleaner, better, phantom version of the revolver I’d held earlier, and it fit so snugly in my palm that it seemed like it had been created just for me.
And somehow, I knew it held bullets.
Chapter 2
Miraculously, no one realized a gun had suddenly appeared in my hand.
“What we have here, gentlemen, is a failure to understand how things work in the city,” the man with the scar was saying when I started to pay attention to the world around me again. “You have to pay a small toll if you want to cross into our turf.”
Larry had managed to pull John into a seated position as he kept one eye on the thieves. John was still hunched over, but I saw his eyes flicker toward the nearest thief as he slowly inched his right hand toward his knife. Then he nodded to Larry, though he covered it with a cough.
Everything moved in slow motion after that.
One of the thieves, a broad shouldered man with a ridiculously short jacket, finally squinted at my hand. He started to say something, but John was suddenly back on his feet, and he managed to drive his knife into one man’s sword arm before anyone realized what was happening.
The injured man cried out, and everyone else suddenly sprang to life.
I saw Larry dodge a sword, and then I was face to face with the leader. He swung for my head with his blade, and I just managed to duck to the side. I heard the blade whistle past my ear, and then I lunged forward and drove my shoulder into his gut. I heard him grunt and felt him try to bring his arm toward my side as we crashed into the ground together. I blocked his arm before he could skewer me, then rolled away as he started to kick.
I rolled into the legs of another man, a ferret-faced fellow with a knife in each hand. He swung both blades at Larry with a fury that kept the drover on his heels. Our collision should have bought Larry some breathing room, but the ferret only kicked me out of his way and pressed his attack even harder. Then I heard something clatter to the ground and saw Larry’s familiar knife just outside my reach.
A fury came over me as I saw Larry try to raise his hands to defend himself. I didn’t think about what to do or even how to do it. Something told me I needed to pull back the hammer as I pointed the gun, so I did it with my thumb a split second before my index finger squeezed the trigger.
The revolver sounded like the crack of a whip, sharp and loud, as it sprang to life. The force of it kicked the weapon up in my hand, but I was so close to my target I still managed to shoot him, though a little higher than I’d intended. I looked at the gun in surprise, because for just a moment as the gun fired, I could actually feel the power of the discharge. It was an incredible sensation, one that left vibrations along the nerves in my body.
“Jesus, Hex,” Larry hissed.
I shook my head to clear away the sensations that seemed to reverberate through me. Then I noticed the ferret was still on his feet, but he wore a look of surprise on his face as he stared at his chest. The whole front half of his torso was soaked in blood, and he managed to squint at my hand before he crumbled to the ground.
Larry was splattered in blood, as well, and he looked as surprised as the man I’d just shot.
“What the hell?” one of the thieves called out as everyone else froze.
“Shit!” the leader screamed. “It’s a gun! Get out of here before the mages come hunting!”
The thieves took off without a backward glance and left the body of the ferret-faced man on the pavement.
Larry retrieved his knife, then looked around. The sound from the gun had drawn the attention of people in the bar and the Red Stallion, and quite a few had stepped into the street to investigate.
“What the hell, Hex?” John demanded as he struggled to his feet. “Did you steal that from the museum?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I don’t know what happened. I just thought it would be handy to have right about now, and it appeared.”
John stared at me in disbelief, but Larry grabbed us both by the arm and started to drag us down the sidewalk.
“We need to get out of here,” Larry urged under his breath. “These people will think we used magic, but the mages will know better. And for God’s sakes, Hex, hide that thing.”
I looked down, surprised for some reason to see the gun was still in my hand. Then I tucked the weapon into my waistband, pulled the jacket over it, and hoped no one wondered what the strange lump was.
We ran past the crowd that had started to gather on the corner and turned back toward the museum. A few questions were tossed our way, but we kept going. Larry led us on a winding path through the streets and alleys, sticking to the shadows and less busy sections, and as we finally settled into a fast walk, it started to sink in exactly what I’d done.
I looked at my two companions as I tried to come up with the words to explain what had happened.
Larry’s face and shirt were covered in blood splatter, and John was starting to look like he’d picked a fight with a professional boxer. Throw in a description from the people who had seen us leave the scene, and we had suspects written all over us. There was no way we could make it back to the corrals unless we managed to get cleaned up.
“Here,” I called out as I spotted a line of laundry behind a fence.
We scanned the street, then quickly climbed over the wood posts. Most of the clothes were still damp, but we found a pile of shirts neatly folded in a basket. Larry used a damp tea towel to scrub off as much of the blood as he could, then slipped on one of the shirts. It was about a size too big, but he tucked the extra fabric into his pants as best as he could. John swapped out shirts as well, and we tossed the two bloody ones and the towel into the garbage bin.
Then we paused for a second and just stared at each other.
“Guys, I’m sor--” I started to say, but I didn’t get to finish.
“Let’s get back to the bunkhouse,” Larry ordered. “We can sort this mess out there.”
I nodded, and then we slipped over the fence again and followed Larry back to one of the main avenues, where we managed to hail another horse cab. We rode in silence to a spot near the cowpens, then started back toward the bunkhouse, and we were nearly there when Larry shook his head and pulled us aside.
“There will be a lot of people around there,” he mused, “a lot of people we don’t know. And it won’t take the sheriff long to send someone down here after he talks to those witnesses. We need somewhere else to talk.”
“Like the sheriff’s office?” John suggested as he glared at me. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his chin jutting out.
I couldn’t blame him. I’d just dropped him and Larry into the middle of a very ugly crime, and I couldn’t even explain how it had happened. If the sheriff did find us, the only way John could save his skin was by laying it all on me.
“I swear, I don’t know where the gun came from,” I insisted.
“I can’t believe you stole that,” John continued, and he was clearly unimpressed with my denials. “Do you know how much trouble we’ll all be in because of that thing?”
“I didn’t steal it,” I stated as firmly as I could, but fear made my voice a bit too squeaky to be reassuring. “I just wished for it, and it appeared.”
John started to disagree, but Larry held up his hand.
“He might be telling the truth,” Larry said as he started to walk down the sidewalk. “None of the guns we saw looked that new and shiny, and none of the ones in the museum held any bullets.”
John started to protest, but Larry waved him to silence again. Then the drover opened the door to an establishment, and I finally looked at the
sign.
“A tea room?” I asked in disbelief.
“I happen to know this one is very nice,” Larry shrugged, “and we can talk privately in one of the small rooms at the back.”
The hostess looked at John and I like we’d wandered in from an alien planet, but her flustered expression quickly changed to a smile when she saw Larry.
“Mr. Hunt, you’re back in town,” she declared and batted her eyes.
“Just for a few days,” he agreed. “I wanted to show my young friends here some of the finer things the city had to offer. As you can see, they’ve already found some of the less desirable sections of town.”
The hostess giggled as Larry gave her a wink, and I shot a quick look at John’s face, which had started to swell and turn purple.
“Would one of your private rooms be available?” John asked in an apologetic voice. “I wouldn’t want to distress any of your other guests with our rough appearance.”
“Why, of course,” the hostess assured him. “Just follow me.”
The hostess picked up three menus, then led us past a roomful of women in jewels and silks toward a narrow set of stairs at the back. We went up the short flight of stairs to a hallway with four doors. Two of the doors were closed, but the hostess led us to one at the end that stood open. Then she stood aside so the three of us could slip inside, and I had to admit, if the authorities were now looking for three men fresh from the trail, this was probably not on their list of likely hiding spots.
There was just enough room for the three of us to squeeze around the table without knocking knees, and the window behind us flooded the room with light and provided a pleasant view of a small garden. I could hear songbirds chattering in the shrubs and spotted a squirrel playing near the small fountain. The room itself was painted a pale yellow, four comfortable armchairs covered in a matching fabric offered an inviting place to rest, and a small sideboard held a bowl of lilacs that filled the room with their heady scent.
“Why don’t you bring us the standard service?” Larry suggested as we sat down.