by John Legg
“A man don’t mind bein’ taken down a peg or two of a time,” Coffin said coldly. “But what you did was more than just parade me around for the enjoyment of others. You stripped me of my pride, and that’s often all a man like me has got—pride.”
“Hell, Mr. Coffin—Joe—we didn’t know you’d take this all so poorly,” Lyons said unctuously. “I mean, we figured to march you around the saloon here and kind of get back at you for having embarrassed me that time when...”
“That time you accosted my fiancée, you stupid bastard,” Coffin snarled.
“Well, I expect we were wrong there. Yes indeed,” Lyons said more firmly, “we were wrong that time. And we were wrong today. Yes, sure we were.” He laughed uneasily, “Things just kinda got out of hand, ya know. I mean, we...I didn’t mean to let things get that far, but, ya know, with everybody havin’ a high old time and all...well, it just kind of kept on goin’.”
“You’re a lyin’ sack of shit, Lyons.”
“Hey, that ain’t fair, now.”
“I ain’t fair.” Coffin knew that Lyons was trying to draw his attention to the conversation so that he, Finnegan and Reece could have a chance at getting their guns out and blast him. So he was not taken in by it, but he decided that he didn’t need to let Lyons and his two cronies know that he knew.
“Come on, Coffin,” Lyons said, a plaintive note edging into his voice, “we were just havin’ a good time. Can’t you take a...”
Reece, the most nervous of the three, made his move. His shaking hand had never been far from his pistol that was lying on the bar. He grabbed it and started to turn. “Now, Rupe!” he screeched. “Now!”
But the only other one to move was Coffin, who raised the Remington in his left hand, and fired twice. Reece screamed as one ball hit him in the thigh, breaking the bone. He fell sideways, and Coffin’s second shot missed him, going over his head to thud into the bar.
As Reece struggled to cock his pistol, Coffin shot him in the face.
Lyons’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Neither he nor Finnegan had moved. Finnegan’s face was blank, but Coffin was sure he could see fear—or maybe it was craziness—in the big Irishman’s eyes.
“You still havin’ fun, Rupe?” Coffin asked. There was not a hint of warmth in his voice.
“I...” Lyons squawked. He found that his voice would not work right.
“How about you, Finnegan? You want to laugh at me some more? Make a few more jokes about my manhood? As I seem to recall from when you was pokin’ Gladys up there that you didn’t have much to boast about that way.”
“You smart-ass son of a bitch,” Finnegan hissed. “I ought to...”
“Don’t tell me what you ought to do, chickenshit. Just do it,” Coffin challenged coldly.
Finnegan stood there for a moment looking at Coffin. Then a slow smile began creeping across his face. He had been leaning an elbow on the bar, but now he pushed off it. “Seems like you got yourself a little advantage there, boy,” he said, waving a hand at Coffin’s two pistols.
Coffin shrugged. “You got to take your chances,” he said flatly.
Finnegan nodded. If he were in Coffin’s shoes, he wouldn’t give someone like him a chance either. “Mind?” he asked, pointing to his glass. When Coffin shook his head, Finnegan drained the whiskey and set the glass down. Suddenly he whirled, crouching as his hand darted for his pistol.
Coffin fired the last shot in the Remington in his left hand, and missed. Finnegan had moved far faster than Coffin had expected. He swung the other revolver up, though and fired twice. Again he missed once, but the second bullet hit Finnegan in the throat.
Finnegan’s eyes widened, and he jerked from the ball’s impact. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a strangled, bloodchoked gargle.
Coffin watched Finnegan for a moment, to make sure Finnegan would not be able to do anything. Then he turned his hate-filled gaze on Lyons. “Looks like you’re all alone now, Sonny Boy,” he said sarcastically.
Lyons could not remember having ever been this scared before. He hoped he didn’t show it. “So where does that leave us?” he asked. Even he could tell that his voice was quavering.
Coffin shot Lyons in the right leg, just below the knee. Lyons sucked in a breath at the sharp pain as his tibia broke. He managed to catch himself on the bar, thought Finnegan was moaning and moving a little. He seemed to be trying to get his pistol in hand. Coffin was distracted by it, and did not like it, so he shot Finnegan again before turning his attention back to Lyons.
“You wait till the goddamn marshal hears about this,” Lyons spit. “You’ll goddamn hang.”
Coffin shrugged. “When’s the last time that useless old fart ever stuck his nose into anything?” Coffin asked rhetorically. In the eleven months Coffin had been in Crooked Creek, he had only seen the lawman a few times. He didn’t even know his name. If any laws needed to be enforced in Crooked Creek, either Lyons and his cronies took care of it, or Warren Yarnell did.
Lyons shook his head. “You’ve done more than enough damage here, Coffin. Why don’t you just go on about your business, and we’ll forget all about this. What do you say, huh?”
Coffin laughed hollowly. “Right. And in a couple of months or so, you’ll be mended and hire a new crew of guns to come kill me.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I swear.”
Coffin caught sight of someone behind an overturned table edging a pistol out in his direction. He whirled and fired once. The ball tore a chunk of table out. The man’s head jerked backward. “Toss but the piece, or the next one goes through your head.”
A revolver suddenly flew over the rim of the table and landed with a clatter on the floor. Coffin was relieved it did not go off. “Now stand up and let me see you’re unheeled.”
An elderly man stood up, hands half raised.
“Hold your coat open.” The man did. “Hold the back of your coat up and turn.” When the man had completed that, Coffin asked, “There any others behind there?”
The man nodded timidly.
“You others come on out and do the same.”
Two other aging men stood and went through the routine. Coffin nodded, satisfied, and turned back to face Lyons.
Lyons had gotten a pistol out, but he was having trouble cocking it while trying to keep himself upright with one arm on the bar. He was muttering curses.
Coffin was mentally debating whether to just finish Lyons off right away or make him suffer a little longer, when he heard a frightened shout, “Watch it, Joe!”
Coffin did not worry about who had said it or why. He just knelt where he was and then swung toward the door. He spotted Randy Carstairs next to the door, and Freddie Moore, a low-level gunman in Lyons’ employ, standing in the doorway, a pistol out. He fired three times.
So fast had it all happened, that Moore was shooting at where Coffin had been, not where he was. Coffin popped off the last two shots in the Remington. Moore staggered back outside and fell off the boardwalk.
Coffin looked at Randy and nodded solemnly. “Thanks, boy,” he said as he rose. “You keep watchin’ out.”
Wide-eyed, Randy could only nod.
Standing again, Coffin looked at Lyons, who was grinning. He had managed to get himself balanced on his one good leg and had the broken leg resting lightly on the brass rail near the bottom of the bar. He was still struggling to cock his pistol, but almost had it done.
“Somethin’ funny?” Coffin asked.
“Yes,” Lyons said, laughing almost hysterically. “Yes, you dumb bastard, yes.” The pistol was cocked now, and Lyons was shakily bringing it to bear. “Your pistols are empty, you sorry bastard.” He was gloating, and enjoying it immensely.
“I expect you’re right,” Coffin said evenly. He tossed the pistols down.
“I’m gonna shoot your nuts off first, you son of a bitch, and then I’m...I’m gonna shoot you, you little bastard. Several times and let you die slow, while I watch.”
; “There’s one small problem with that,” Coffin said icily.
“Oh? What’s that?” He was as sarcastic as Coffin had been earlier.
“This.” Coffin reached back and pulled out the Colt that had been stuck in the waistband of his pants. He fired, breaking Lyons’s other leg. Lyons dropped his revolver as he fell to the floor, groaning.
Coffin walked up and stood over Lyons. “Damn fools like you never stop amazing me. You think that because I’m smaller than you are, that it somehow makes you better. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you have to humiliate people.” He shook his head. “It’s a little late now, but you should’ve shot me either upstairs when you started this, or else down at the end of the street there when you left. Stupid, stupid bastard.”
Coffin shot Lyons through the right eye.
Chapter Fourteen
Coffin stood for a few moments, looking around the saloon. No one made a move against him, though one man raced to the door and then out, tripping over Moore’s body. Coffin slowly rose and walked toward the three bodies. He stopped at Reece’s and went through his pockets. He pulled out eighteen dollars and change, a pocket knife and some cigarette fixings. He dropped them and the knife on Reece’s chest.
Methodically Coffin went through Finnegan’s pockets and then Lyons’. Altogether, he had one hundred fifteen dollars and some change. He placed the fifteen dollars and change on the bar, picked up Reece’s knife, opened it and jammed it through the dollar bills and into the bar, holding the money down. He shoved the rest of the money in a pants pocket. He looked at Rudy, who was behind the bar, and who had not moved during the whole altercation. Coffin nodded at the bartender. “That’s for Blackburn to bury this scum,” he said, pointing to the money on the bar.
Rudy nodded. “I’ll have someone fetch him directly.”
Coffin looked straight at him. “Thanks,” he said quietly but firmly. It would have been easy and probably more beneficial for Coffin if the bartender had hauled out one of the several loaded scatterguns stashed behind the bar for when trouble erupted, which in a place like the Twisted Water was fairly commonplace.
“It’s nothin’,” Rudy said.
“Bullshit.” He grinned tightly at the bartender, who returned it. Coffin turned and headed toward the door. As he did, he stuffed the Colt into the waistband of his pants again like before. He paused long enough to grab the two Remingtons from the floor before he stopped in front of Randy.
“You were a big help, boy,” he said gruffly.
“It wasn’t so much,” Randy said, though inside he was so full of pride that he felt like he was going to explode with it.
“Hell, it wasn’t for you, boy, I’d be layin’ dead over there with the rest of those bastards.” He paused, staring at Randy. He could see how proud the boy was, and in a way it made him feel bad. A man should never feel good about killing, he believed, though one should not hesitate to kill an enemy if need be, and do so with swift certainty. Still, Coffin did not like killing as did many men, including Lyons and Finnegan.
What bothered Coffin so much now was that he had presented a very poor image to Randy, who well might think killing four men was an acceptable way to avenge some humiliation. In the cool calm of hindsight, Coffin knew he had overreacted today. On the other hand, he knew with absolute certainty that it would have come down to this sooner or later. He and Lyons were bound to go at each other.
He felt he had to try to explain that to Randy, but he wasn’t sure this was the time for it. He held out the two Remingtons, and noted that Randy’s eyes looked like they would pop out. “Take them over to Mueller,” he said.
Randy looked crushed.
Coffin pulled the money out of his pocket and peeled off forty-five dollars in paper money. He held it out to Randy, who had a little trouble juggling the two big guns while trying to take the money. He finally managed, though.
“The money’s for Mueller, too,” Coffin said. “Tell him I’m obliged for the loan of the guns. The money’s for the display case, the pants and boots.” He paused. “And some to pay for the guns,” he added.
“You want me to bring these guns over to you at Eagan’s?” Randy asked. He was still crestfallen. He had thought that Coffin was going to give him the guns for his very own.
“Nope. Leave ’em with Otto.” He paused. “Then have him pick out a couple smaller ones for you in their place. A couple Colt .36s might be good. Or even some .32s, if he’s got any. Your hands...” He stopped, his words overwhelmed by Randy’s whoop of joy.
Coffin let the boy’s shouts of joy run on for just a bit, then barked at Randy to stop his foolishness. Randy stopped and looked at Coffin with large, suddenly frightened eyes.
“Listen to me, boy, and listen good,” Coffin said harshly, wanting to make sure he cut through Randy’s excitement so that he would be able to digest the words. “You’re to use them guns only if it’s life and death. You don’t go shootin’ anyone—don’t even go shootin’ at someone—unless you’re in danger of dyin’ right there. Or if your pa or some other kin or friends’ll die if you don’t act. You got that?”
“But you...” He cradled the guns against his chest with one hand and arm and pointed with the other hand, in which he still had the money Coffin had given him, toward the bodies.
“I’m a goddamn fool for that,” Coffin said roughly. “A goddamn fool. Don’t heed what I’ve done here today, boy. Heed what I told you. Don’t shoot at no one unless there’s danger of some innocent dyin’. This here isn’t the way to handle affronts to your dignity.”
“How do I know when ...”
“I don’t know, boy, I really don’t,” Coffin said wearily. “But you ought to learn more self-control than I have.” He sighed. “I think a lot of it’s due to the war, boy,” he said, almost speaking to himself. “Most times there it was kill somebody or take a bullet yourself. It just got to a point where all there was in the world was shooting and blood, and gunsmoke and pain. And death. There was always death. It seemed like there was never a day without dyin’.”
He shook away the harsh, blood-soaked memories. “Anyway, boy, just heed what I said. I don’t want you turnin’ into somebody like Lyons or Finnegan, men who like killin’. I don’t want you turnin’ into a man like me neither. I ain’t...”
“Don’t say that, Mr. Coffin,” Randy said as harshly as he could manage. “You ain’t like them others. You ain’t!” he insisted.
“Listen to the boy, Joe,” Schmidt said, walking up. “You hadn’t of killed them boys today, you would’ve had to do it another time.”
Coffin looked at the bartender and nodded. “I know that,” he said sadly. “I didn’t want Randy to know that, though.”
Schmidt shrugged. “Those bastards hurt a lot of folks over the years, Joe. Today they only got what was coming to them for a long time.” He looked at Randy and smiled. “But it’d be a good thing was you to heed Joe’s words. He’s been through it.”
“So’ve you,” Coffin said.
Schmidt nodded a little.
Randy looked from one man to the other and then nodded solemnly. He felt like he had been given a weighty responsibility. “I’ll try’n do good, Mr. Coffin,” he said in a hushed voice.
Coffin nodded. “One other thing—your pa don’t want you to have them guns, you come give ’em to me or give ’em to your pa for keepin’. Don’t you argue with him on this or go sneakin’ about behind his back.”
“I will.” Randy could not believe his good fortune.
“Oh, while you’re at Otto’s, tell him I’ll be in later or tomorrow to settle up over the Colt.”
Randy nodded.
“All right, boy, go on about your business,” Coffin said. When Randy had run off, tightly clutching the guns and money, Coffin turned and looked back across the bar.
Blue Gladys had watched the gunfight and its aftermath from halfway up the stairs. She realized how lucky she had been. Only moments before Coffin had entered the saloon she had
been with Lyons and his men, arguing with them over what they had done to Coffin. They had laughed, as they had all along, and ignored her. Finally tired of being snubbed, she had turned and started up the stairs. The sudden, gasping silence had stopped her halfway up, and she had turned to see Coffin.
She smiled tentatively at Coffin now. “I got business to tend to, Rudy,” Coffin said quietly.
The bartender turned and spotted Blue Gladys. “Reckon you do, boy,” he said with a small laugh. “So do I, but not nearly as pleasant as yours,” he added.
Coffin headed to the stairs and up, stopping on the step just below Blue Gladys’s. “You still of a mind to finish what we started before?” he asked quietly.
Blue Gladys nodded without hesitation.
Coffin silently escorted Blue Gladys up the stairs and then into her room.
“I never touched nothing of yours in here,” Blue Gladys said as they entered the room. “I haven’t even been up here since we...I was down there arguin’ with that son of a bitch.”
Coffin nodded.
Blue Gladys was still wearing nothing but the bed sheet. She dropped it and sat on the edge of the bed. She twisted, bringing her legs up, and then was lying down, legs spread and knees bent. “This about where we left off, sweetheart?” she asked with a smile.
“No, not quite,” Coffin said, grinning. He skinned off his boots, socks and pants and climbed into the bed, positioning himself between her thighs. “I believe this is where we was interrupted.”
It was dark when Coffin finally left Blue Gladys two hours later. He had pulled out the cash taken from Lyons and his men and held out a twenty-dollar gold piece and a ten-dollar bill. “That ought to about cover it,” he said quietly.
“You don’t owe me any money, Joe,” Blue Gladys said, eyes downcast. She looked up at him. “You won’t have to pay for it no more. You come around for me another time.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s mighty nice of you. But this ain’t payin’ for me. I paid you for that last night. This is to pay for Lyons and his cronies.”