“Sure thing.” Byron came around the end of the bar. “I hope no one gets hurt.”
“Why would they? We’re only havin’ fun.” Bull took the bottles and said, “Keep things like that to yourself from here on out. You’ll last longer.”
Byron watched the man-mountain stride off, then hurried to the hall to the storeroom.
Tandy was still on the stool in the corner, looking as glum as a human being could look. “You’re running out of whiskey again?”
“They’re fixing to rouse the town,” Byron said. “Figured you’d want to know.”
“Oh God.” Tandy came off the stool as if shot from it. “You have to stop them. All kinds of things can happen.”
“Not me by myself I can’t,” Byron said. “I have to stick to the plan.”
Tandy nervously rubbed his hands together and bit his bottom lip. “You can see why we sent for him, can’t you? You can see how it is?”
“So far I haven’t seen much,” Byron said. “Some prodding and tempers, but no blood has been spilled. I’d hate to think I came all this way for nothing.”
“Just you wait,” Tandy said. “You don’t know them like I do. They’re animals. They fooled you by acting tame but it won’t last. Their true natures will come out and innocent people will suffer.”
“Do you always expect the worst?”
“I know them, I tell you,” Tandy declared. “There have been seven killings in two years, one of them our last marshal, plus the stage robberies and that drummer who was found dead. They’re bad men, the whole bunch.”
“The man you sent for is worse,” Byron said.
4
At the second house they came to, Crusty pounded on the door and hollered, “Open up in there. We’re invitin’ you to a town social.”
The windows were dark. No life showed within until Crusty pounded harder. A glow lit an upstairs window, and a few moments later it slid open and a head poked out.
“What in tarnation is going on down there?”
“Open up, Ed,” Crusty said.
“What are you loco cowpokes up to now?” Ed demanded. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Come on down and bring the missus.”
Other punchers were pounding on other doors and other lamps and candles were being lit, other windows brightening.
Crusty stepped back from the door and looked up. “Didn’t you hear me, Ed?”
Ed was gaping at the state of events in amazement. “You can’t do this. We’re decent, law-abiding folk.”
“There hasn’t been any law since Bull shot that tin star,” Crusty said. “And drinkin’ and dancin’ is only a little bit indecent.”
“You’re loco, the whole bunch of you,” Ed said.
Crusty and Tyree Lucas swapped scowls.
“Ed,” Crusty said, “I like you. I’ve been in your store more times then I have fingers and toes and you’ve always treated me kindly.”
“You and everyone else,” Ed said.
“But we want a frolic. And what we want, we will by-God have.”
“My wife and I aren’t coming out for no silly frolic, and that’s final.”
“You’re a poor excuse for a friend,” Crusty said.
Tyree Lucas moved to a patch of flowers ringed by rocks and hefted a big rock. “This will do,” he said, and let it fly at the nearest ground-floor window. The glass shattered with a tremendous crash.
“No!” Ed cried. “What are you doing?”
Tyree bent and picked up another rock.
“He’ll stop chuckin’ when you open this door,” Crusty said.
Ed’s head disappeared.
“That did the trick,” Crusty said, and he and Tyree chuckled.
It wasn’t twenty seconds more that the busted window glowed and they heard the rasp of a bolt and the front door was flung open.
In the doorway stood Ed in his nightshirt. He was short and portly—and holding a doubled-barreled shotgun.
“Well, hell,” Crusty said.
Ed was so mad, his whole body shook as he pointed the shotgun at them and placed his thumb on a hammer. “You broke my window, damn you. You’ll pay for it, you hear? For the glass and the cost of putting it in.”
“Lower that cannon,” Tyree Lucas said.
“I will not.”
“Where’s that missus of yours?” Crusty said. “She always struck me as havin’ more sense than you.”
“Leave Myrtle out of this,” Ed said.
“I was hopin’ to have a dance with her.”
“Over my dead body.”
Bull Cumberland appeared out of the darkness with his Smith & Wesson in his hand. He fired, and the impact of the slug when it smashed into Ed’s chest staggered Ed back against the jamb.
Ed stared in disbelief at a spreading scarlet stain on his nightshirt and then at Bull Cumberland. “You’ve done killed me.”
“You shouldn’t ought to point shotguns at Circle K riders,” Bull said, and shot him a second time.
A hole blossomed in Ed’s temple, and his legs melted out from under him.
“Well, hell,” Crusty said a second time. “Did you have to?”
“What’s the rule?” Bull asked as he calmly set to reloading.
“We stand up for each other,” Crusty said.
“We ride for the brand above all else,” Tyree Lucas threw in.
“That we do,” Bull said. “Anyone points a gun at us, they die. Doesn’t matter who they are, they die. Male, female, young, old, they die.”
Crusty sadly shook his head. “We’ve all of us known Ed Sykes for years. He always treated us decent at the general store. I doubt he’d have shot me.”
“You can’t ever take anything for granted,” Bull Cumberland said.
As if to prove him right, Myrtle Sykes stepped out the front door. She had on a bulky blue robe and blue slippers, and her hair was in a bun. She also held a pocket pistol.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” Bull demanded.
“Killing you,” Myrtle said, and trained her pocket pistol on him.
5
Crusty was nearest to her, and he thrust out both hands and said, “Just you hold on there, Mrs. Sykes.”
“You murdered my man,” Myrtle said, her cheeks flushed with fury. She closed one eye and squinted down the short barrel with the other eye at Bull Cumberland’s broad face. “Someone should have done this a long time ago.”
“Why, Myrtle,” Bull said. “I never knew you didn’t like me.”
“No one does, you dumb ox. You act like you’re God Almighty, doing as you please and the rest of the world be damned. You’ve shot how many people? Robbed how many?” Myrtle glanced at her husband’s body, and a tear trickled from her eye. “Now my poor Ed.”
Bull hadn’t finished reloading. He was holding his pistol with the barrel pointed at the ground and had a cartridge in his other hand. “Maybe we should talk this out.”
“Talk?” Myrtle said, and more tears flowed. “You want to talk when you’ve just done murdered my man? The only talk you deserve is this.” She stopped shaking and curled her finger around the trigger.
“Ma’am—” Crusty tried to intervene.
“Shut up, you jug head.”
That was when Tyree Lucas threw the rock he still held. It hit Myrtle on the shoulder, and she swung toward him just as Jake Bass appeared out of nowhere, his six-shooter in front of him, fanning three swift shots.
The slugs smashed into her chest and jolted her onto her heels. Her teary eyes widened, and she fell across her husband, convulsed a few times, and was still.
“Damn,” Crusty said. “Now I won’t get that dance.”
Jake Bass stood over Myrtle and nudged her with his boot. “She had spunk. She and her rooster, both. Ain’t
many folks will stand up to us like that.”
“You saw the whole thing?” Bull asked.
“I did.”
“You took your sweet time shootin’ her.”
“I wanted to be sure,” Jake Bass said. “I needed to be in close.” He chuckled. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Bull inserted the cartridge into the cylinder of his Smith & Wesson, stepped over to the bodies, pressed his revolver to the back of Myrtle’s head, and shot her again.
“What in hell was that for?” Crusty said. “She was already dead.”
“She pointed a gun at me.”
People were gathering. A woman wailed. A man quietly swore. A little girl was among them, and she pressed against her mother’s nightgown and set to sobbing.
“So much for a frolic,” Crusty said.
Bull glared at the half ring of scared and hateful faces. “I have half a mind to burn this town down.”
“Where would we drink?” Old Tom asked.
“There’s not another town for a hundred miles,” Crusty said.
Bull Cumberland slid his Smith & Wesson into his holster and put his big hands on his hips. “Listen, you folks. They shouldn’t have done what they did. All we wanted was to have some fun, and they came out loaded for bear.”
From among the crowd a woman timidly said, “You shot them both down like dogs.”
“It was me shot the old hen,” Jake Bass said.
Bull scowled and motioned. “All of you might as well go back to bed. No one’s in the mood now.”
“I am,” Crusty said.
Bull pushed him aside and made for the saloon but had only taken a couple of steps when he saw the new bartender in the shadows, staring at the bodies. “You have somethin’ to say?”
“No,” Byron said.
“You don’t look like you like it.”
“Who would?” Byron replied.
“Things happen. They lost their heads and did what they shouldn’t.”
Byron lifted his gaze from the sprawled forms. “You want me to set up a round for your outfit?”
“No,” Bull said. “We’re headin’ back to the Circle K.”
“We are?” Old Tom said.
“Mr. Knox will want to know,” Bull said, with a nod at the Sykeses. “In case anyone gets the notion to go skulkin’ to the law.”
“Who would?” Crusty said. “They’d be as good as dead and know it.”
Bull walked on with the rest of the Circle K riders trailing after him. They mounted their horses, reined from the hitch rails, and rode off with the air of men whom life had treated unfairly by spoiling their frolic.
“Scum,” a townswoman said.
“Someone fetch Sam,” a man said, referring to the undertaker. “He’ll see to the bodies.”
Tandy emerged from the saloon and walked over to stand next to Byron. “I told you.”
“You did,” Byron said.
“You’ve seen this before, I take it?”
“Too many times.”
“You’ll get word to him?”
“Don’t need to. He’ll be here in three days.”
“That soon?”
“Once he takes a job, he doesn’t waste time,” Byron said.
“Does he always send you on ahead?”
“Usually. I scout the lay of the land, so to speak.” Byron looked around them. “‘And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth, and empty the goblet, and dreary the hearth.’”
“What was that? More of that poet fellow?”
“Lord Byron.”
“How many poets do you know?”
“A few, but I know the most about him.”
“I don’t know any.” Tandy let out a loud sigh. “I can’t believe I’m talking poets with those bodies lying there. They were good, sweet people.”
Byron didn’t say anything.
“Once he’s here, how long, do you reckon, before he gets the job done?”
“Before he kills everybody?” Byron let out a sigh of his own. “Not long at all.”
Part Two
6
Asa Delaware winced when the wheels hit a rut. His back didn’t take long stagecoach rides well anymore. A cloud of dust swirled in, and he breathed shallow and pulled his derby lower against the glare of the afternoon sun.
“Let me guess, friend,” said the passenger across from him who had been trying to engage Asa in conversation. “You’re a drummer, like me.”
“No,” Asa said.
“We dress the same.”
Asa looked at him. The man was heavyset with sagging jowls and a suit that had seen better days, worn slovenly. Asa’s was new and had been freshly pressed before he got on the stage in Austin. The other man’s derby was dirty. Asa’s was spotless save for the dust. On the seat beside Asa was his slicker, neatly folded, while propped against his leg was a custom-made soft leather case with ties at both ends.
“Yes, sir,” the slovenly drummer said. “You sure look like a drummer, even if you’re not.”
“We all look like something,” Asa said.
“If you don’t mind my saying,” the drummer said, “you also look part Injun.”
“Do I?” Asa said coldly.
The drummer blinked and sat up. “I didn’t mean any insult, friend. Your face. Your skin. That black hair, even with the gray streaks.”
“I know what I look like.”
For a while the drummer was silent, and Asa was grateful.
The only other passenger was a woman in her twenties who sat with her hands folded in her lap and must have gnawed on her lip a hundred times. Brown curls poked from under her bonnet. Her eyes were brown, too. She hadn’t uttered a word in hours, but now she cleared her throat.
“Both of you gentlemen are bound for Ludlow, I take it?”
The drummer brightened and smoothed his jacket, as if that would help his appearance. “Why, yes, my dear. I am. I believe I told you earlier that I sell ladies’ corsets.”
“You did, Mr. Finch.”
“And your name is Sykes, wasn’t it?”
“Madeline Sykes. I’m on my way home to visit my mother and father.”
“Ah, well.” Finch did more smoothing and somehow contrived to slide closer to her. “Perhaps you’ll permit me to interest you in one? They’re made of the finest cotton, and the busk is ivory. Two-piece, not one, for the comfort of the wearer. When we reach Ludlow, if you’d like, you can try one on and—”
Madeline Sykes held up a hand. “I don’t wear corsets, Mr. Finch.”
“Why not? They’re all the fashion.”
“For some,” Madeline said.
Finch winked at her. “A small waist, my dear, draws the male eye. It accents the bosom and the thighs, and—”
“That’s enough about thighs,” Asa said.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” Finch said.
“You heard me.”
Finch coughed, opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and finally said, “I’m only trying to make a living. If you were knowledgeable about the fine art of salesmanship, you’d know that a product’s selling points are important.”
“Make all the points you want,” Asa said, “without talking about her thighs.”
Madeline gave him a warm smile. “I thank you for your kindness.”
“All I was saying—” Finch began, and was again interrupted when Madeline raised her hand a second time.
“Mr. Finch, I’ll be frank. I hate corsets. I hate what they do to women. I hate that women think they must wear them to be attractive. I hate that men use them as a way to control us.”
Finch’s expression was almost comical. “Just hold on, young lady. This is my livelihood we’re talking about.”
“Are you aware that your livelih
ood has caused a lot of women to lose their babies? That those ivory busks you boast about can cause internal bleeding?”
“So some claim,” Finch said defensively.
“Are you also aware that a woman’s normal blood pressure in pounds per square inch without a corset is 3.5 but that with a corset the pressure is reduced to only 1.65?”
“How in the world would you know that?”
“And that in many instances, the pressure your corsets apply to internal organs has been measured at over seventy pounds.”
“I ask you again, madam,” Finch said, “how do you know all that?”
“I’m studying to be a physician.”
“Excuse me?”
“A doctor, Mr. Finch. You have heard of them?”
“A lady doctor?” Finch said incredulously.
“It surprises you?”
“A woman’s place is in the home. Everyone knows that.”
Madeline Sykes had her dander up, and jabbed a finger at him. “Your corsets, sir, are an abomination. Women have been fed the lie that if they wear them, men will fall over themselves to woo them. No mention is ever made of the potential harm to a woman’s health. Were it up to me, I would have a law passed to ban them.”
“Now see here, young lady,” Finch said.
That was when he placed his hand on her knee.
7
Asa Delaware snapped his right arm up, and a black-handled Remington derringer filled his hand. With lightning speed he pressed it to the drummer’s forehead. “Take your hand off her, or die.”
Finch’s eyes nearly crossed as he gawked at the derringer, and then he jerked his fleshy hand off Madeline Sykes’s leg. “Here, now,” he bleated. “There’s no call for that.”
Asa sat back. He slid the derringer up his sleeve and deftly fitted it into the wrist rig he’d had made to his specifications.
“Thank you,” Madeline said.
Finch had turned pale. “I resent your behavior, sir. I resent it very much.”
“Don’t take liberties, then,” Asa said.
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