“Remember how we brought in the Lowell gang up in Oregon a few years back?”
A smile crept onto Nate’s face. “Ahh, yes. I see where you’re headed.”
“You go take care of those robbers and I’ll set things up here. Grey is already making himself comfortable inside, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“If I’m not back in a few minutes, you and Grey get out of town as fast as you can. I don’t meet up with you in an hour . . . you’ll ride on without me.”
“Things would be a lot simpler if I’d found a nice quiet congregation somewhere,” Frank grumbled.
“Yeah, but you’d be bored out of your skull in a matter of days.”
The preacher may have stalked away wringing his hands, but he didn’t deny a word of what his partner had said.
7
As a testament to truth in advertising, the Wagon Rut was built in a large ditch. Despite the number of horses tied outside, Nate only found two men drinking inside the saloon when he stepped through the batwing doors.
“What can I get for ya?” the scrawny bartender asked.
There were three card tables in the place and enough dust caked on them to choke a buffalo. When he spotted the unmarked door at the back of the room, Nate strode past the bar and said, “I can help myself just fine, thanks.”
“Hey! You’re not allowed back there!”
Nate ignored the bartender’s protests. Before he got to the back door, however, he heard heavy footsteps approaching him from behind. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, Nate waited just long enough to read the harmful intent on the faces of the two men who’d been sitting with their drinks just a few moments ago. He snapped a straight punch to the closest one’s nose, sending a spray of blood and a stream of obscenities from that one’s face. The second reached for a pistol at his side, but wasn’t quick enough to clear leather before Nate brought his Remington to bear. Even though the man in front of him knew better than to make another move, Nate smirked and took his shot anyway.
All three men flinched reflexively when the gunshot exploded through the saloon. The man standing in Nate’s line of fire paled considerably. It wasn’t until he felt the patter of wood splinters and grit from the ceiling against his face that he realized Nate had shifted his aim to send his bullet into the rafters overhead.
Nate stepped to one side while drawing the pistol he’d taken from Avery from under his belt. A heartbeat later, the door at the back of the saloon was pulled open so a small group of men could spill into the main room.
“What the hell?” bellowed a man with a round face and a mustache that had been waxed into a straight line below his nose. Upon seeing Nate, he said, “You’d best have a damn good explanation, mister.”
“These men are here to rob you,” Nate said while glaring intently at the group that was still inside the back room. The group stood gathered around two card tables that were piled high with chips, cash, a few gold coins and several other trinkets that had been tossed in to cover some major bets.
“Which men?” asked the fellow who’d been first to step through the door.
Staring into the next room as though he could see into the soul of every last one of its inhabitants, Nate said, “Jim sent them. The tracker hired by the barkeep at the Three Dog found out that him, Wilson and Owen all threw in together to clean out the lot of you.”
The round-faced fellow wheeled around to get a look at the group behind him. “I know it ain’t the two of you, since you’re my kin and . . .”
Nate didn’t need to worry about figuring out who Round Face was talking to. A surprise visit from a stranger combined with the gunshot, some already highly strung nerves and guilty consciences were more than enough to flush out the ones he was after. Three of the gamblers who’d remained in the room separated from the group and drew their pistols.
Round Face turned his back on Nate so he could look directly at those three when he said, “You sons of bitches.”
One of the other men who’d stepped out of the back room with Round Face hadn’t forgotten about Nate. He carried a shotgun in both hands, which he kept aimed at Nate’s belly. Since it seemed he’d done more than enough already, Nate was willing to drop his guns and keep both hands held high.
“My cousin Jerry recommended you,” Round Face snarled. “I knew he needed money, but . . . robbing me?”
“It was Jim’s idea,” one of the three bandits said. “This don’t have to get bloody.”
“Jim means to see to it that you’re run out of town with your tail between your legs!” Nate said.
After glancing over his shoulder at Nate, Round Face looked back at the bandits and asked, “That true, McNabb?”
Although McNabb had been the spokesman for the bandits until now, he suddenly seemed to be at a loss for words. “I don’t—that’s not—we ain’t even seen that man before!”
“Bullshit!” Nate hollered. The plan was to stir things up at this saloon and all he had to do to make that happen was twitch just enough to be noticed, but not so much that it caused the fellow with the shotgun to pull his triggers.
Whether McNabb and the other two were responding to that movement or working on a schedule of their own would remain unknown. McNabb reached for his pistol and the other two bandits were quick to follow. After that, Round Face and everyone else who’d been inside that back room pulled their pistols and unleashed four kinds of hell.
Nate kept his hands where they could be seen and waited for the man with the shotgun to shift his aim toward the back room. By the time Round Face dropped, two of the bandits and half of the remaining gamblers were down as well. McNabb fired a shot a split second before the shotgunner could defend himself. Lead burned through the air to clip the shotgunner’s upper arm and send him staggering back. Another shot came soon after, but didn’t finish the shotgunner off. Instead, Nate had picked up his Remington and drilled a fresh hole through McNabb’s head just above his left eye.
The shotgunner brought his weapon around while blinking in confusion. Although he could have been shot several times over by then, he was only worried about the deep gouge in his arm. Nate was still on one knee after scooping up his gun. He holstered the Remington and raised his hands once again.
“Goddamn it, Goddamn it!” Round Face hollered.
One of the surviving gamblers helped him to his feet. “You all right, Daniel?”
“Caught a bullet through a rib, but I suspect I’ll live.” Looking around until he spotted Nate, he pointed his pistol at him and snarled, “You!”
“He’s the one that finished McNabb,” the shotgunner quickly said.
“I know that! I just . . .” Suddenly realizing he wasn’t just pointing a finger at Nate, Daniel holstered his pistol and asked, “How the hell did you know about this?”
“I’m a friend of the tracker that was sent to sniff out Jim and his men,” Nate explained.
“Well give him my thanks. If he wants to point me in the direction of the bastard who tried to steal from me, there’ll be a payment coming.”
“That,” Nate replied, “will be no trouble at all.”
8
Four men stormed through the front doors of the Three Dog saloon. Since all of them already had their guns drawn, they attracted plenty of attention from the men hired to keep the peace among the drunks and gamblers. When one of the saloon gun hands approached him, Daniel spoke to him in a voice that couldn’t quite be heard. Whatever Daniel said was enough to get the other man to quickly back away.
Nate, Daniel, the shotgunner with the bleeding upper arm and one more of Daniel’s men walked past the bar on their way to the card tables.
Frank watched all of this from his spot at the far end of the bar. Upon making eye contact with Nate, he waited for the signal before doing anything more. He got the nod right away and eased his hand down to one of the .38s holster
ed under his black coat.
“I see you back there, Jim Harrold!” Daniel shouted.
Still sitting at the table that was now in Daniel’s sights, Pete turned to get a look at what was going on. There were still two of Jim’s boys sitting behind him. When one of those gunmen made a move toward Pete, he was stopped by a short, narrow blade that suddenly poked him between two ribs. “Not another move, friend,” Deaugrey whispered as he tightened his grip on the knife in his hand. With a motion that was almost too quick to see, he reached over to snatch the pistol from the gunman’s holster. Pointing the gun at the next closest of Jim’s men, Deaugrey added, “You neither. Just sit back and keep still. Real, real still.”
A good portion of the customers within the saloon had stopped what they were doing. After getting a look at what was going on, many of them found somewhere else to be so they wouldn’t be caught in an untenable position if things went from bad to worse. Frank navigated through the milling crowd to get closer to the poker table at the eye of the storm.
Jim leaned back in his chair with his hands flat on the table. The expression on his face made it seem as if he were simply enjoying a show instead of looking down the wrong end of several guns. “That you, Daniel?” he asked.
“You know damn well who it is,” Daniel replied. “I’m the man you meant to rob.”
“I’ve been here all night long. The only men I can rob are the ones who try to bluff me in this here game.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” the barkeep said. When Nate walked over to her, she began to reach beneath the bar.
“Whatever weapon you mean to retrieve,” Nate said as he placed his Remington on the bar so it was pointed at her, “just leave it where it is while this plays out.”
She held her trembling hands where he could see them.
“What did you tell these men, Sathow?” Jim asked.
“Don’t worry about him,” Daniel said. “Worry about me! Is it true that you sent those boys to rob me?”
“Get the hell out of my sight before I have my men burn you down.” When he didn’t get a response from any of those men, Jim stood up and turned around to look behind him. Avery’s seat was still empty, and one other sat with a shotgun across his lap. “Wake up, damn it,” Jim snapped as he swatted the shotgunner with the back of his hand.
Nate could already feel the tension in the air, and when the shotgunner behind Jim started to get out of his seat, one of Daniel’s men didn’t take too kindly to it and fired at the poker table, which sent everyone in the saloon scattering for cover. The gunmen sitting with Deaugrey tried getting up and turning to face the skinny man between them. Deaugrey was no stranger to using a blade, and he stuck it deep between one man’s ribs to skewer his heart. He then grabbed the dying man’s arm to swing him around and catch a bullet fired from a holdout pistol that had been kept in the second gunman’s pocket.
Owen stood up and overturned the card table so it could be used as a barrier. Unfortunately, Wilson wound up on the wrong side of that barrier and caught the lion’s share of a barrage of lead sent by Daniel and his men.
“Pssst,” came a voice from over Owen’s shoulder.
When Owen turned to look, he was greeted by the sight of a madman crawling toward him like an animal. He squeezed off a shot, but was too rushed to hit its skinny target. Letting out a shrieking laugh that could barely be heard over the general insanity filling the saloon, Deaugrey grabbed a handful of Owen’s hair, yanked his head back and slit his throat.
“Holy Lord!” Jim said when he caught sight of all that blood. “What the hell is happening?”
The shooting was over. The air inside the saloon was heavy with smoke that churned slowly around the heads of the men who were still on their feet. Everyone else was either huddled beneath something solid or would never stand again.
Nate was still at the bar with his gun resting on the polished wooden surface pointed in the general direction of the lady barkeep. He’d been ready to defend himself, but hadn’t needed to move a muscle. “You happy with what you started?” he asked.
The woman behind the bar stood frozen with her hands stretched toward whatever weapon was stashed nearby. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t give me that. I just rode into town, but I can see clear as day that you’re the one who put all of this into motion. Your place was probably the only one that wasn’t robbed. That means not only do you get a cut of the haul from the robberies, but this saloon becomes the place where everyone wants to spend their money.”
“It . . . wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Daniel had stepped up to the bar as well, announcing his presence by slamming down his still-smoking gun. “McNabb is dead.”
Those words shattered her spirit just as surely as a brick shatters a plate-glass window. The expression on the bartender’s face shifted from sadness all the way into fury as she said, “You shouldn’t have started your own games, Daniel! I warned you not to draw so many gamblers away from the Three Dog and look what happened!”
“The gamblers go where they go, Rita. It’s always been that way.” Daniel walked around behind the bar and helped himself to some whiskey. “That’s why you sent Jim after me and mine?”
She didn’t say anything to that, but the way she hung her head spoke volumes.
“And I suppose you were intending on backing any story Jim gave as to his innocence when it came time to hand someone over to the law?”
The barkeep hung her head so low that it seemed she would never find the strength to lift it again.
Jim was shoved forward by Pete who had the other man’s arm locked behind his back. “I’ve been sitting here playing cards all night!” Jim said. “I’ve got witnesses!”
“Shut your mouth, Jim,” Daniel sighed. Looking past him to Pete, he asked, “Ain’t I seen you around here the last week or two?”
“Probably,” Pete replied.
Waving a tired hand at the barkeep, Daniel asked, “Is this the woman who hired you?”
“That’s right. After the second robbery in town, she put me on the trail of Cal Worsham. Took me just a day or two to find him holed up outside of town in a shed that could barely stop a passing breeze.”
“What did Cal do to anyone?”
“Not a damn thing,” Pete replied. “Near as I could tell, he didn’t even drink, but Rita swore he was the man behind all of them robberies as well as the ones that happened later on. The only use Cal had for a saloon was to buy himself some company of the feminine persuasion, but he went to a cathouse out near the train station a few miles from here when the urge struck, and that place was never even robbed.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I tracked him there,” Pete replied simply. “It’s what I do. Didn’t take much to realize that was about the only place he ever went. After looking a bit closer at some things, it wasn’t too hard to find out Jim was the man committing them robberies and someone from this saloon was setting them up.”
Keeping her head low, the barkeep turned so she didn’t have to look at any of the men in front of her. Daniel wasn’t having any of that and lunged over the bar to grab her chin and pull her around. “There was plenty of business to go around, you greedy bitch!” Daniel roared. “We all had a good thing going and you had to get greedy!”
“Here,” Pete said as he shoved Jim toward one of Daniel’s men. “I was hired to find the ones responsible for robbing those saloons, and there’s one of them. She’s the other. I’m done.”
Daniel surveyed the saloon with careful eyes. “Where’s the rest of your boys, Jim?”
“Forget about them,” Frank said while emerging from the crowd of customers that were leaving their various hiding spots. “If there’s any more, they’re too yellow to be a concern to us.” He held one of the men who’d been guarding Jim’s table at the other end of his .38. Not
only did the hired gun have no more fight in him but he seemed ready to face whatever indignity fate had in store for him next.
“Leave him,” Daniel said. “Is he the last one, Rita?”
“Does it matter?” she sighed.
Staring at her with cruel satisfaction, Daniel replied, “No. I suppose it doesn’t.”
Slowly, Nate and Pete stepped away from the bar and headed for the front door.
Slowly, the rest of the customers in the saloon resumed whatever it was they’d been doing before the interruption.
Not so slowly, Frank handed his prisoner off to Daniel’s man and snagged Deaugrey by the collar.
“What are you doing?” Deaugrey asked. “I’m about to get dealt back into my game!”
“We’re leaving.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve sat down to a decent game?”
“If we don’t go right now I suspect we won’t be able to go for quite a while,” Frank told him. “Men were killed here and questions tend to follow a thing like that. Unless you fancy being in yet another cage, settle up and come with me.”
Covered in blood and looking every bit like someone who’d elbowed his way through a brawl, Deaugrey looked at each of the gamblers at his table one by one. “Sorry, but I suppose I should leave. Are these my winnings here?”
“Yep!” one of the men said as he shoved some of the scattered coins and bills toward him. “That about does it.”
After scooping up the money, Deaugrey allowed himself to be led away from the table. Leaning over to Frank, he whispered, “I think I got more than my share.”
“I don’t think they mind,” the preacher said while taking back the .38 he’d lent him.
Indeed, like many folks who found themselves suddenly not having to deal with Deaugrey Scott, the remaining gamblers at that table seemed much happier than they’d been before.
As the general commotion inside the saloon rose back to a normal roar, Nate and the rest of his group drifted toward the front door. Once outside, they wasted no time getting to their horses and getting the hell out of Marlonn.
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