A Good Day to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  On the other side of the bar stood Creed Teece, the house’s resident hired gun. He was loading cartridges into a Henry’s repeating rifle. A brown hat with the brim turned up at the sides sat on top of his head. He had a spade-shaped face, big ears that stuck out, long narrow eyes and a bushy mustache. He wore a six-gun on his right hip.

  He looked like what he was, a working cowboy, one who worked at the Way of the Gun.

  The stillness was shattered by the exodus of whores. Mrs. Frye had rounded them up in their rooms upstairs and herded them down to the ground floor. Some of the youngest, freshest whores in the territory—Cherokee, Nicole, Penny, Vangie, Daryah, and Kate—they had on their traveling clothes. They were covered up and looked “respectable” enough. Their bags were packed, carpetbags and suitcases, a hatbox or two.

  Mrs. Frye had burnt-orange hair and wore a green satin dress. She was thirty, with a long horse face, pinpoint green eyes, thin sharp nose, and a full-lipped, generous mouth. She was bony, angular, with high pointy breasts, and lean hips. Her long legs, what could be seen of them under her ankle-length dress, were her best feature.

  She stood at the bar, the whores gathered around her. A few showed grim, white-lipped faces. One or two had moist eyes and quivering chins. They would have taken it a lot harder if Mrs. Frye hadn’t already paid them off for their work up to date. That was Damon’s idea; he always paid his debts, for good or ill.

  At Mrs. Frye’s prompting, Morrissey poured out shots for all. She raised her glass. “Drink up, gals, time’s a-wasting.” Her voice had a harsh Midwest twang. “It ain’t often the house is buying, so get it while you can.”

  At the table, Damon filled a shot glass. He rose, holding it up. “Your very good health, ladies. Until we meet again. May it be soon.”

  Mrs. Frye nodded. “The sooner we get back to business, the better.” She raised her glass a little higher. “Luck!”

  She tossed her drink back like a man, unflinching. The others drained their glasses fast or slow, according to their tolerance for strong drink.

  Having emptied his glass, Damon threw it against the wall, where it shattered, causing some of the girls to jump. He sat down, picked up the deck of cards, and resumed playing his game of Solitaire where he had left off.

  Mrs. Frye set her glass on the bar. “On your way, girls.” Turning around, she called out, “Swamper!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” The man came shuffling to the fore. He was a cheerful derelict, an old drunk who was kept around to do various scut work and chores in return for room and board. His lodgings consisted of a bedroll in the corner of the kitchen and his board was made up mainly of whiskey.

  He had long, stringy gray hair, bloodshot eyes, and a face full of broken, spidery blue veins where it was not covered by a straggly beard. He wore a red-and-black flannel shirt, bib denim overalls and hobnailed boots. An oversized horse pistol was stuck into a hip pocket, gun butt jutting out.

  “Take the girls over to Honey Bailey’s,” Mrs. Frye said. Honey was a brothel keeper, a friendly rival. Her “house” was a few streets north of the Spur. Mrs. Frye turned to the girls. “You girls can stay at Honey’s until the trouble’s blown over. Worse comes to worse, you’ll all find work there. With what you’ve got to sell, none of you will have to worry about starving.”

  She turned back to Swamper. “Take them out the back way. Wait until Monk gives you the word.”

  “Yes, ma’am. C’mon, ladies.”

  The women picked up their bags. Swamper started toward the rear of the building, weaving slightly. The women followed.

  “Good luck, Damon,” one said.

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  “Get on with you and don’t bother the man,” Mrs. Frye said, shooing the whores on their way.

  Swamper led them through a passageway behind the staircase to the back door that opened onto Commerce Street. He opened the door and stuck his head outside. The street was quiet. Only a handful of people were scattered along its length, none showing evidence of any hostile intent.

  Exiting, Swamper staggered a few paces away from the back of the building. He tilted his head back, looking up at the roof. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he bawled, “Hey Monk, what d’you say?”

  The bouncer, up on the roof keeping watch for Ramrod riders, shouted, “All clear!”

  Mrs. Frye hurried the whores out of the building into the street. “There’s only five of you—one’s missing. Wait up, Swamper.” Cursing under her breath, she went back to the main floor.

  The sixth whore, Nicole, stood lingering by the staircase. She was plain faced, with a sensational figure. Her eyes were downcast, her expression sullen, a stubborn set to her chin.

  “What’re you waiting for, a special invitation? Git!” Mrs. Frye exclaimed.

  Nicole stayed in place. “What about Francine?”

  “Never you mind,” Mrs. Frye snapped. “Other arrangements are being made for her.”

  “What arrangements?”

  “That’s none of your business. On your way!”

  Nicole squared her shoulders. “I’m making it my business. Francine’s my friend.”

  “Why, you little—” Ruling her female charges with a free hand, Mrs. Frye was quick to lash out if anyone got out of line. She raised a hand to slap Nicole’s face.

  “Mrs. Frye! Kindly desist, if you please,” Damon called.

  Mrs. Frye restrained herself with some difficulty. “I don’t take sass from tarts!”

  “Your disciplinary zeal is well known, but in this case we might make an exception. Loyalty is such a rare virtue that I hate to discourage it.”

  Damon rose, crossing to the rear of the building. He went to his office, opened the door, and stuck his head inside. “Francine, if you’d be good enough to step out here for a moment.”

  Francine Hayes exited the office, stepping into view. White-blond hair framed a fine-featured, heart-shaped face. Dark blue eyes contrasted with her light hair and fair skin, making the orbs seem deeper and more alluring. She wore no face powder, lipstick or rouge; her clearcut features were vivid without cosmetics. A demure, blue-and-white checked gingham dress covered her from neck to ankles, though not concealing a high-breasted, slim-waisted physique.

  “What is it, Damon?” she asked.

  “Nicole’s worried about you.”

  Francine went to Nicole, putting her hands on Nicole’s upper arms. “You’re sweet.”

  “Ain’t you comin’ with the rest of us?” Nicole asked.

  “No, I’m staying here.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to bring any trouble down on Miz Bailey or you girls. You won’t be bothered if I’m not with you.”

  “Why should we be bothered?”

  Francine smiled sadly. “Staffords are hard and unforgiving. They might take it out on anybody giving me shelter. I’ll be safer here and the rest of you will be safer without me.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Nicole declared.

  “You’d just put yourself in danger. I don’t want that.”

  Nicole’s agitation grew. “You’re the only friend I got. I ain’t gonna run out on you.”

  “We’ll take care of Francine,” Damon said. “You’d just be one more distraction, Nicole.”

  “Please.”

  “The longer you wait, the more danger you’re putting all of us in. Francine most of all,” Mrs. Frye insisted.

  “Please, Nicole, for my sake,” Francine urged.

  Nicole nodded and blinked rapidly, her chin quivering. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Francine hugged her and kissed her cheek, then she and Mrs. Frye escorted Nicole through the passageway and out the back door.

  Nicole joined the others. Swamper led them across the street, north up a side street, around a corner, and out of sight.

  Francine and Mrs. Frye returned to the main floor. Mrs. Frye studied the other. “You all right, Francine?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Frye. I’ll be in my room.” Francine climbed
the stairs to the second floor, crossing the balcony to a door, opening it and going inside.

  Mrs. Frye cut a glance at Damon. He poured her a drink. She drank it. He went to the table, sat down, and resumed his card game.

  Johnny Cross and Luke Pettigrew entered the Golden Spur.

  “We’re closed, gents,” Mrs. Frye said.

  Luke gave her a big grin. “Aw, Miz Frye, after I done humped my way over here on my one good leg, you ain’t gone send me away without one measly little old drink?”

  “Save the blarney. You walked in, you can walk out,” she said.

  Damon cleared his throat. “I think we can make an exception, Mrs. Frye. Belly up, gentlemen, and have one on the Spur.”

  Luke beamed. “That’s a go!”

  “You’re a gentleman, Damon,” Johnny said.

  “Am I? How nice it would be to think so,” Damon said, returning to his card game.

  Johnny and Luke made their way to the bar. “Howdy, Creed,” Luke said.

  “Creed.” Johnny nodded to the other.

  “Hey, y’all,” Creed Teece mumbled.

  “How’s it goin’?” Johnny asked.

  “Can’t complain,” Teece said. “You?”

  “I’m getting along.”

  Morrissey poured drinks for Johnny and Luke. They downed them, setting empty glasses on the countertop. Johnny slapped a coin down. “How about letting me buy one?”

  “Why not?” Teece said. Morrissey poured three shots.

  “Pour one for yourself,” Johnny said.

  “Thankee,” the barkeep said, filling a fourth glass.

  “How about you, Miz Frye?”

  “I’ll pass, cowboy. But I’ll take the money.”

  “Now, Mrs. Frye,” Damon chided.

  “The way things are going today, we could use it. Well, all right, I can’t say no.”

  “I heard that about you,” Luke joked.

  “No to a drink.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  She gave Luke a hard look. “Don’t push your luck, hayseed.”

  “What’ll you have, Damon?” Johnny asked.

  “This’ll do me fine, thanks,” Damon said, reaching for the bottle on the table and refilling his glass.

  “Mud in your eye,” Johnny toasted.

  They drank.

  “Enjoy yourself while you can,” Mrs. Frye said, “the climate here’s liable to turn distinctly unhealthy anytime now.”

  “That so?” Luke said.

  “Too much lead in the air.”

  “Maybe sooner than you think.” Johnny’s tone was sharp, pointed.

  Wyck Joslyn and Stingaree came in through the front door.

  Luke whistled through his teeth. “They dogging us, Johnny?”

  “Dogging somebody, maybe,” Johnny said low voiced. “Keep a close hand by that scattergun.”

  “I always do.”

  Creed Teece glanced at the newcomers, his gaze hooded. “Something I should know about?”

  “Stay loose and ready,” Johnny said.

  “Those two clowns?”

  “They’ve been making some new friends lately.”

  Damon kept turning up the cards and placing them down, slowly and deliberately. Mrs. Frye went into the office, closing the door behind her.

  Wyck Joslyn walked softly, carefully putting one foot before the other as he advanced toward the end of the bar nearest the entrance. Stingaree swaggered alongside him, all loose jointed. They stopped more or less on a line with where Damon was sitting.

  The saloon owner went on playing cards, seemingly oblivious.

  Wyck Joslyn looked around, scanning the scene. His gaze took in Johnny and Luke and he nodded to them. “Looks like you boys had the same idea as us.”

  Johnny said, “Oh? What’s that?”

  “To have a drink here, what else?” Joslyn rapped his knuckles on the bar. “Whiskey, barkeep.”

  “Make it two,” Stingaree said.

  Morrissey picked up two glasses and a bottle, carrying them to the end of the bar. He set down the glasses and poured. Wyck Joslyn laid a few coins on the counter. He turned and raised a glass in his left hand. “Nice shooting today, Damon.”

  Damon glanced up. A soft slap sounded as he laid down another card. “I’m still here.”

  “Couldn’t have done better myself.”

  “No?”

  “Hell, Wyck’s just being modest,” Stingaree said, scoffing. “He could do better.”

  “Could be,” Damon said, shrugging. Turning over the cards.

  Wyck Joslyn’s face split in a broad grin. “My young friend here tends to get overly excited. Something about a gunfight does that to him. Don’t mind him.”

  “I don’t,” Damon said.

  Slap. He laid a card down. Black ten on red jack.

  “You’ve got my admiration,” Joslyn went on. “It takes plenty of guts to go against Vince Stafford.”

  “You a friend of his?” Creed Teece asked, hard-nosed and unfriendly.

  Wyck Joslyn made a throwaway gesture. “I don’t even know the man. I know of him, though. Hard not to. He throws a long shadow, him and that Ramrod outfit of his.”

  He spoke not to Teece but to Damon. “Stafford’s not likely to take too kindly to you putting his boy in the graveyard.”

  “So? Where do you come in?” Damon said.

  Slap. Another card hit the table. Red five on black six.

  “Stafford’s got a lot of guns riding for his brand. Maybe you could use a couple good guns on your side, to kind of even up the odds,” Wyck Joslyn said.

  Slap. Black eight on red nine.

  “You selling?” Damon asked.

  “You buying?” Joslyn countered.

  Slap.

  “Our guns are for hire, Stingaree and me, but we don’t come cheap.” Joslyn indicated Johnny and Luke. “Maybe you’ve already hired on those two.”

  Johnny laughed. “Leave us out of it. We came in for a drink.”

  “I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Luke said solemnly.

  “So much the better. That leaves us a clear field of play,” Joslyn said.

  “Any gun can play,” said Johnny.

  Wyck Joslyn looked around. “Nice place. You must make a lot of money, Damon.”

  “Barely breaking even, with all the overhead.” Damon turned up a card. Red queen. He laid it on a black king.

  “Bosh. You’re poor-mouthing. I appreciate horse trading but time’s running out,” Joslyn said.

  “Oh?”

  “Stafford’s liable to ride in anytime.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Noise sounded at the back of the building, like somebody bumping into a chair.

  Slap.

  Damon placed a black ace on a red deuce.

  Ace of Spades.

  Death card.

  Three men came rushing out of the rear passageway, out from behind the staircase. Zeb, Tetch, & Jeeter. The Fromes Boys.

  Johnny Cross had been looking for the Fromeses from the moment Joslyn and Stingaree entered. The duo had been thick as thieves with the brothers when he’d last seen them in the Dog Star Saloon. He knew they were up to something. Once Joslyn and Stingaree showed themselves at the Golden Spur, Johnny was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  The sounds in the back of the building, faint but telling, had given him his cue. In a flash it all came clear to him. Wyck Joslyn was stalling for time, waiting for the brothers to make their play so he and Stingaree could make use of the diversion.

  Johnny stepped away from the bar, filling his hands with the twin .44s holstered at his sides. He faced the rear as the brothers came in shooting wildly, throwing lead to screen them while they got in place for the kill.

  Zeb leveled his musket hip-high, shouted, “Gambler!” and swung the musket toward Damon. A bullet struck him, knocking him sideways with a crashing thud of flesh being impacted by hot lead. Johnny had struck first, ventilating him.

  By reflex, Zeb jer
ked the trigger, firing a wild round that missed Damon, and dancing sideways to stay on his feet, Johnny fired again, the second slug spinning Zeb around, causing him to drop the musket and topple to the floor.

  On either side of him, Tetch and Jeeter, six-guns in hand, blasted away, pumping out bullets, slinging lead. Johnny slung some back at them.

  At the first sign of trouble, Damon snatched up the gun on the card table, firing even as Wyck Joslyn and Stingaree slapped leather, hauling out their guns.

  Stingaree was fast, his gun clearing leather first. But Joslyn was in his way, blocking the shot, trying to make his own.

  Damon and Joslyn fired at the same time. Joslyn missed, his bullet whizzing past the gambler’s head. Damon scored, dropping a .45 round in Joslyn’s middle.

  Wyck Joslyn’s face contorted in agony. He seemed to implode, shrinking into himself, falling back against Stingaree.

  Gun in hand, Stingaree fought to get clear, angling to open up a line of fire. The top of his head exploded, spewing blood, brains, bone. He’d been felled by the gun in Creed Teece’s hand.

  A bullet from Tetch Fromes’s gun punched a hole into the side of the wooden bar near Johnny Cross. Johnny returned fire, tagging Tetch, knocking him down.

  A line of fire stabbed from the gun of Jeeter Fromes, missing Johnny and drilling the mirror behind the bar. The looking glass starred, frosting with a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from the bullet hole.

  Johnny shot Jeeter Fromes twice, first dropping him to his knees as he tried to bring his gun up. Then Johnny shot him between the eyes.

  Tetch was up on one knee, holding his gun in both hands, swinging it toward Johnny.

  A thunderclap boomed as Luke opened up with his sawed-off shotgun. He leaned against the bar, propping an elbow on the counter to hold himself up while he cut loose with a blast.

  Tetch came apart in mid-center, a raw, red mess spilling loopy gray strands of intestines where his belly had been before being pulped by buckshot.

  The gunfire fell silent. A cloud of gray-white gun smoke hung in the air in the middle of the big room. Bodies littered the floor.

  Behind the bar, Morrissey straightened up, shotgun in hand. When the shooting started, he’d ducked down and grabbed for the weapon he kept handy in case of trouble. But by the time he brought it up and clear of the bar, he was too late. That’s how fast the action had gone down.