“Stupid. Didn’t they realize what kind of a dangerous game they were playing?”
“No, Frank. They didn’t. None of them have ever been west of Pennsylvania. They grew up and have lived their lives in a society that had police officers on call and strictly enforced laws. They didn’t know what they were getting into.”
“They still don’t,” Bob added. “With them damn crazy Olsen boys within spittin’ distance, they’re in a hell of a lot more danger than they would have been stayin’ right here in town.”
“Well, where the hell did they go?” a bounty hunter yelled.
“I don’t know, Max,” Dolan told the man. “All I know is they pulled out. Left them fancy wagons and hauled their ashes out of here.”
The saloon was suddenly filled with cussing and vile threats. A burly man called Nick stood up and said, “By God, we can all read sign. Let’s go find ’em.”
“I got things to do first,” Dolan said. “They’ll be travelin’ slow. We got plenty of time to find them and collect our due.”
“What things?” Lonesome Howard asked.
“Dealin’ with Morgan yonder.”
“You ain’t gonna get paid for it,” Moses Gunther called from a table.
“That don’t make no nevermind to me,” Dolan said. “I can take him, and that’s what I aim to do.”
“Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves.” The sounds of the hymn drifted to those in the saloon.
“What the hell is that?” a hired gun named Ballard asked.
“That’s a very beautiful hymn, you damned heathen!” Lonesome Howard told him.
“We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
The singing was getting closer and louder. The band began playing: drums, tuba, trombone, and trumpet. The sound of many footsteps marching in unison on the boardwalk rattled the windows of the saloon.
“Onward, Christian Soldiers, marching as to war . . .”
“I think them women and the band is gonna come in here!” a gunslick standing close to the front door said.
“I hope to hell not,” another said. “My head is hurtin’ some fierce.”
“Your time has come, Morgan,” Dolan said. “I’m gonna kill you just for the hell of it.”
“Don’t be a fool, Dolan,” Frank told him, still sitting at the table. “I don’t have any quarrel with you.”
“I got a bone to pick clean with you, Morgan. You’re alive and that bothers me. I aim to bury that bone this day. Now stand up and face me.”
“You better give that some serious thought, Dolan. ’Cause if I stand up, I’m going to kill you.”
“Big talk, Morgan. You talk mighty big. Stand up, you bastard.”
Frank had started to push back his chair when the door banged open and Sister Clarabelle marched in, the band and the singers right behind her.
“Sing, ladies!” Clarabelle bellowed. “Lips that taste whiskey will never touch mine.”
“Lips that taste whiskey will never touch mine.”
“Oh, for a Christian man my heart pines.”
“Oh, for a Christian man my heart pines. ”
“Them gals ain’t half bad,” Bob said. “As long as Clarabelle don’t start tryin’ to sing.”
“I’m not familiar with that song,” Doc Raven said.
“Me neither,” Frank said as the marchers got between Frank and Dolan.
“Git out of the way, goddamnit!” Dolan yelled.
“You watch that filthy mouth!” Lonesome Howard hollered. “Them’s good Christian ladies, you damn scum!”
“Beer and whiskey are tools of the devil,” Clarabelle shouted.
“Beer and whiskey are tools of the devil.”
“Imbibing in either is the path to evil.”
“Imbibing in either is the path to evil.”
“Kinda hard to pat your foot to that song, though,” Bob opined.
“Stand up, Morgan!” Dolan shouted over the singing and chanting and band-playing. “You son of a bitch!”
Clarabelle pushed her considerable bulk through a knot of gunfighters who were trying, unsuccessfully, to get out of her way. One man who was slower than his compadres got a hard shove from Clarabelle that sent him reeling into Dolan.
“Get out of my way, you drunken oaf!” Clarabelle yelled.
Dolan and the man went down on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, both men losing their hats.
Dolan really let the obscenities rip and roar as he hit the floor, coloring the air with violent expletives.
“How dare you talk to me using such filth!” Clarabelle shouted.
“Stand up, stand up, for Jesus, ” the singers sang.
Omp-pa-pa went the tuba. Rat-a-tat-tat replied the snare drummer.
“Goddamnit!” Dolan yelled.
“This day, the noise of battle.”
Clarabelle grabbed the mallet from the bass drum player’s hand and conked Dolan on the head.
“Rock of ages, cleft for me,” the singers solemnly harmonized.
“You lard-assed heifer!” Dolan yelled, trying to get to his feet. “Stop hittin’ me on the head with that damn club!”
“Lard-assed!” Clarabelle yelled.
“Let me hide myself in thee.”
Dolan got to his feet just as Clarabelle swung the mallet again. This time it impacted solidly on Dolan’s nose. Dolan went down again, the blood dripping from his busted beak.
“That woman’s dangerous,” a gunslick said. “I’m gettin’ the hell outta here.”
“I think she’s wonderful,” Lonesome Howard said, his eyes shining as he was caught up in the moment. “Magnificent.”
“I think you’re crazy as a road lizard eatin’ loco weed,” the gunslick told him.
Frank, Doc, and Bob were laughing so hard, tears were welling up in their eyes.
“My nose is busted!” Dolan hollered.
“I’ll break your head,” Clarabelle hollered as she swung the mallet again, conking Dolan on the top of his head.
“Somebody get this ton of lard away from me!” Dolan yelled.
“Ton of lard!” Clarabelle screamed, her voice rattling the beer mugs behind the bar. She grabbed up a bottle of whiskey from a table and swung it with all her might. The bottle smashed against Dolan’s head. His eyes rolled back and he hit the floor, out like a candle at dawn.
“Praise the Lord!” the singers yelled.
“Amen!” Lonesome Howard shouted, his Bible in one hand and a shot glass of rye whiskey in the other.
“Hallelujah, brother!” one of the band members shouted, while the snare drummer beat a tattoo and the bass drummer pounded away.
“Who are you?” Sister Clarabelle demanded.
“They call me Lonesome Howard, Sister.”
“How quaint. Are you a gunfighter?”
“Well, yes, sort of. But I’m a good Christian man who reads the Good Book every day.”
“How can you be a Christian and be a gunfighter?”
“I kill for the Lord.”
“Nonsense. Get down on your knees and pray for His wonderful forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness for what?”
“For being a killer and for consorting with trash.”
“I got one more man to kill, Sister. Then I’ll drop on my knees onto a pile of sharp stones and pray all day.”
“Who are you going to kill, Howard?”
Lonesome Howard turned to look at Frank. He pointed a finger. “That godless heathen right over there, Sister?”
“Don’t be absurd! That man is a United States marshal. He put his hand on a Bible and took a oath.”
Lonesome Howard shook his head. “Don’t make no difference if he did. He’s evil, Sister. And he’s got to be killed.”
Jack Miller stood up, his hands hovering near his guns. “That’s so, Lonesome. But you ain’t gonna be the one who does the killin’. That job is mine.”
“The hell you say!” Lonesome cut his eyes to Clarabelle. �
��Kindly excuse my language, Sister. I backslid for a moment.”
“Shet your blowhole, Lonesome,” Jack told him. “And git outta my way. I got me a job to do.”
“Here, now!” Clarabelle shouted. “Stop this.”
“Shet up, Lard ass,” Jack told her.
“Lard ass!” Clarabelle shrieked. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner?”
“That’s easy,” Jack told her. “ ’Cause you draggin’ a hell of a big caboose, that’s why.”
“I think he means to kill you, Frank,” Doc Raven whispered.
Frank didn’t reply, just nodded his head.
“Don’t you insult that fine woman!” Lonesome said, his hand dropping to the butt of his six-gun. “You’ll answer to me for that.”
“Then hook and draw, you Bible-readin’ son of a bitch!” Jack yelled.
Frank slowly stood up, shoving his chair back, and stepping away from the table. “Get out of the way, Howard.”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles, Morgan,” Lonesome replied without taking his eyes from Miller. “I’ll deal with this loudmouth and then we’ll settle our business.”
“You’re both fools,” Frank told them. “I have no quarrel with either of you. This is what those damn Easterners wanted. Can’t you see that?”
“What are you talkin’ ’bout, Morgan?” Miller asked, his eyes never leaving Lonesome. “Them dudes is gone.”
“And you’re still playing their stupid game,” Frank insisted. “With no chance of ever collecting any money. Personally, I don’t think they ever intended to pay any money. It was all a cruel joke.”
“On who?” a gunhawk called Lucky Luke asked.
“On all of you,” Doc Raven said, pushing back his chair and standing up. “I think they wanted to see a bloody show—a number of killings until the last man was standing.”
“And then they’d have to pay that man,” Red Henson said.
“No,” Doc Raven replied. “Then they’d just ride out under the protection of their bodyguards. They would have seen a so-called Wild West drama played out to their satisfaction. It was a joke, and the joke was on you men.”
“I don’t believe that,” Nils Finley said. “No one would do somethin’ that stupid. None of it makes any sense.”
“Shore as hell don’t,” Vic Pressman said. “That there is a story, that’s all. You make it all up, Doc. To try an’ protect your friend Morgan.”
“I give up,” the doctor said. “I can’t get through to these men.” He shook his head and sat down.
Clarabelle was unusually quiet, standing in the midst of the West’s most dangerous gunfighters, listening. The band was silent, as were the singers.
“It’s over, boys,” Bob said. “The dudes is gone. Pulled out. The show is over ’fore it ever got started good.”
“He’s right,” Phil the bartender said. “Any gunplay now would be for naught.”
Jack Miller shook his head. “Maybe so, maybe not. But I still aim to kill Frank Morgan. So get out of the way, Lonesome.”
Frank tensed. He felt Miller was all through talking. The man was ready to kill. There was nothing to do now except kill or be killed.
“Make your play, Miller,” Frank said.
Jack Miller moved his hand closer to the butt of his gun.
Fourteen
Miller was either so angry, nervous, or hungover that he was shaking as Frank faced him. Clarabelle and her group had backed up against a far wall. They all stood silent, mesmerized by the scene. Lonesome Howard had stepped back, carefully moving his hand away from the butt of his pistol. Those men who had lined the bar had backed away, dragging Dolan with them. Dolan was conscious, but still addled from the blow on the head.
“Pull, Morgan!” Miller yelled.
“After you, Miller,” Frank calmly told him. “I won’t draw first.”
“I knowed it all along. You done lost your stomach for a fight. You’ve turned yeller, Morgan. You’re a damn coward.”
“There’s one way to prove that, Miller. And you know what it is. So why don’t you stop running your mouth and pull iron?”
“I will!” Miller yelled.
“I’m waiting,” Frank replied.
Miller suddenly yelled like a deranged person and grabbed for his gun. Frank cleared leather as fast as a rattler’s strike and fired, the bullet hitting Miller in the chest and knocking him stumbling backward. He held onto his pistol and managed to cock it and bring it level. He was grinning as Frank’s .45 boomed again, the heavy slug taking Miller in the side and turning him around, the bullet blowing out the man’s back. Miller dropped his six-gun and it went off as it hit the floor, the bullet slamming into the side of the bar. Jack Miller sank to his knees and stayed there.
“Fast as he ever was,” Red Henson said in a low tone.
“Too damn fast for me,” another bounty hunter said. “I just quit this game.”
“Me too,” another said.
“Help me,” Miller said. “I can’t get up.”
“Ain’t no point in you doin’ that, Jack,” Lonesome Howard said. “You best just stay where you is and go on and ex-pire.”
“Hell with you, Lonesome!” Miller gasped.
“You want me to say some words over you?” Lonesome asked. “I can read from the Good Book. That might make your passin’ a tad easier.”
“Take your words and the Good Book and stick ’em up your . . .”
“Oh, my heavens!” Clarabelle said, as Jack finished his suggestion.
“You ain’t no fittin’ man for no words of the Lord,” Lonesome said. “Your soul is on the way to the hellfires.”
“I’ll see you there too, you bastard!” Miller told him. “Doc! Come over here and patch me up.”
“I can tell from here no amount of patching will do you any good, Jack,” Doc Raven told the man.
Miller suddenly fell forward on his face. “I can’t . . .” Whatever it was he couldn’t do was left unsaid as Miller lapsed into unconsciousness.
Clarabelle and her followers began quietly exiting the saloon. Few of the hardened gunslicks even took note of their departing.
Frank sat back down at the table. “Bring me some coffee, will you, Phil?”
“Comin’ right up, Frank.”
“What the hell is goin’ on?” Dolan asked, sitting up on the floor. He shook his head. “Where am I?”
He was ignored.
“I smell gun smoke,” Dolan said. “Have I been shot?”
“No, you ain’t been shot,” a gunny named Nick Bell told him. “But Jack Miller damn shore was.”
“Who shot him?”
“Morgan.”
Dolan’s eyes cleared and he looked at Miller, lying on the barroom floor a few feet away. “Damn, boy, you look bad,” Dolan said.
Miller did not reply. His soul was reaching out to shake hands with the Grim Reaper. The Reaper is always a heartbeat away from all of us.
Frank sipped his coffee.
“You want some of us to tote Miller over to your office, Doc?” a gunhawk known only as Stoner asked.
“No point in that,” Doc Raven replied. “He’s about dead.”
“How in the hell can you tell that from where you’re sittin’?” Red Henson asked.
“From years of experience.” The doctor pushed away his empty glass. “Phil? Bring me a cup of that coffee, will you?”
“You got to be the sorriest doctor I ever had the misfortune to run into,” Red said. “You didn’t even git up to look at Miller.”
Miller jerked once and would never move again . . . at least not on this earth and not under his own power.
“I believe Miller just passed,” Lonesome said. “Praise the Lord. Barkeep, bring me a fresh bottle, will you?”
“Let’s some of us get him out of here and over to the undertaker,” Fargo suggested. “He smelt bad enough livin’. He’ll really be stinkin’ in a little while.”
“That there is a natural fact,” a gun
slinger said. “Come on, boys. Let’s tote him out of here.”
Several men got up and carried Miller outside.
Lonesome Howard turned slowly to stare at Frank. “Someday, Morgan, it’ll be me and you. Then we’ll settle this thing.”
“Nothing between us to settle, Howard. Nothing at all.”
“I think there is, Morgan.”
“What?”
“You’re an evil man and you got to be stopped.”
“That’ll be my job, Lonesome,” Dolan said, straightening up and setting his hat gingerly on his head.
“Why don’t you men stop this?” Doc Raven questioned. “My God! What has Frank done to either of you?”
“He don’t have to have done nothin’, Doc,” Lonesome said.
“Then I don’t understand.”
“He’s who he is, and we’re who we are,” Dolan said. “That’s ’bout the onliest way I know to say it.”
“You men really want this . . . foolishness to happen, don’t you?” Doc Raven questioned. “This last man standing nonsense?”
“It’s somethin’ to do,” Red Henson said.
“Now that is no reason for killing!”
Red shrugged that off and signaled for Phil to bring him another beer.
Frank finished his coffee and pushed back his chair. “I think I’ll turn the prisoner loose and tell him to get out of town. The money men are gone; he can’t get paid now for shooting me.”
“He might decide to shoot you just for the hell of it,” Bob said.
“I don’t think so. Anyway, I’m going to cut him loose. See you men later.” Frank walked out of the saloon, conscious of a lot of hostile eyes on him. But he was accustomed to that sensation and ignored the hot glares.
Frank turned the prisoner loose and told him to get his horse and head out of town.
“I’m gone, Marshal,” the man said. “You’ll not see me again.”
“Good.”
Frank emptied the chamber pot and cleaned up the man’s cell. Then he washed up a bit and headed for the cafe to get Dog some scraps to eat. That done, he walked back to the saloon and leaned against the bar, drinking coffee and listening to the low murmur of voices around him. He covertly counted heads and realized that about half a dozen of the men were gone. Most of those gunslicks that he knew, or at least whose names he knew, were all present in the saloon. He motioned to Phil.
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