Читать книгу North of Laramie - William W. Johnstone - Страница 6

CHAPTER 1

“Hagen!” one of the Bowman boys yelled. “You are a drunk, a cheat, and a liar!”

From his perch in the lookout chair, Buck Trammel watched the unfolding argument between the gambler Adam Hagen and two boys from the Bowman Ranch. All of the men were still seated around the poker table, which Trammel took as a good sign. A man on his backside was often less likely to cause trouble, at least without some warning. And since all of them had checked their guns with the barman, a fistfight was the worst he could expect. Given his size, Trammel found those much easier to break up than gunfights.

Experience had taught Trammel that he was better off staying in the lookout chair and allowing the matter to unfold on its own. He looked out at the rest of the room just to make sure none of the other patrons of The Gilded Lilly saloon were preparing to take sides in the argument. A glare from him usually discouraged such decisions. The double-barreled shotgun lying across his lap helped, too. Trammel’s size and reputation for violence were usually enough to keep amateurs and brawlers at bay, but the sight of a coach gun never hurt the prospects for peace.

The drunken Hagen held his cards as he laughed at William Bowman’s growing rage.

The cowhand only grew that much angrier. “I called you a cheat and a liar and all you can do is giggle like an idiot?”

“No,” Hagen slurred. “I giggle because I’m dumb enough to gamble with an idiot.” He slapped his hands at the cards laid out in front of him. Aces and eights. A handful of nothing. “I laugh because it’s the first hand I’ve won in an hour. I laugh because I bluffed you into building up the pot before you folded. I didn’t cheat you, Billy Boy. I didn’t have to. You cheated yourself by losing your nerve.”

Both Bowman boys stood at the same time as the other players scrambled away from the table. Armed or not, Trammel knew every member of the Bowman clan was a brawler and not to be trifled with, especially after being called stupid.

“Get up, you drunken sot,” Tyler Bowman said. “Get on your feet and repeat what you just said to Billy and me.”

The sound of chair legs scraping against wood broke the silence as gamblers and drinkers moved out of the way. Some stood on chairs to get a better look at the action.

A nervous look from Lilly, the owner of the Gilded Lilly, told Trammel what he had to do. He left the shotgun in the slot on the lookout chair as he quietly climbed down. No one was paying attention to him anyway. They were waiting to see what Hagen and the Bowman boys did next.

Hagen swayed in his chair as he pulled the pile of cash toward him, but made no effort to stand.

Trammel, a full head taller than any man standing and twice as wide, eased his way through the customers craning their necks to see what would happen. It had been too quiet for too long in Wichita—nearly three days since the last killing—and the patrons were anxious for a fight.

Will Bowman shoved aside the chair he had been sitting in. “Damn you, Hagen. We’re calling you out. Are you going to be a man and stand on your own, or am I going to have to rip you out of that chair?”

Trammel pushed his way through the crowd and came out behind the Bowman boys. “That’s enough. You’ve all made your point. The game’s over. Collect your guns and head on home.”

Both of them turned and had to look up to face him. He knew they didn’t like that. No one in the Bowman clan liked looking up at anyone. The family had enjoyed a free hand in Wichita for as long as anyone could remember, certainly long before Trammel had come to town a year before.

But Miss Lilly hadn’t hired him as the bouncer at The Gilded Lilly to be popular. She had hired him to keep the peace in her place, and that’s what he planned to do.

Tyler, the younger of the two, took a step toward Trammel. “This here is a private matter, boy. Best if you just climb back up in your perch and let us be.”

Trammel looked at the chair that had been thrown aside. “Your private matter’s hard on our furniture and I can’t have that. Game’s over anyway. Take whatever money you’ve got left, collect your guns, and try your luck somewhere else.”

But Will Bowman hadn’t budged. He continued to glower down at Hagen. “Damn you, I said get up.”

Hagen waved him off with a boozy hand as though he were a fly. “Mr. Trammel, I would appreciate it if you would remove these men at your earliest convenience. They are interfering with the effects of my whiskey, which I’m afraid may soon cause me to become sober.”

Tyler Bowman remained between Trammel and the table. “What’s it going to be, big man? You taking orders from a drunk, now?”

“I only take orders from her.” Trammel nodded at Lilly, who’d been anxiously watching things from the bar at the left side of the room. “She doesn’t want any trouble in here. She wants you gone, so out you go.” He looked down at Tyler. “And that means all of you. Hagen included.”

“We’ll kill him the second we hit the street.” Tyler had said it like it was supposed to be an insult to Trammel. “We’ll kill him right in front of you.”

“What happens outside is between you and the town sheriff.” Trammel took one step closer to Tyler, making him crane his neck even more to try to maintain eye contact. “And I’m getting damned tired of repeating myself, boy. Everyone leaves. Right now.”

“We ain’t going anywhere ’til this is done.” Will Bowman reached for something tucked in the back of his britches.

Trammel shoved Tyler out of the way, sending him crashing into the poker table behind him, before grabbing Will’s wrist just as it came around to the small of his back.

Will tried to break free from the bigger man’s grip, but Trammel pulled up hard on his wrist until he heard the unmistakable sound of cartilage popping.

Trammel ignored Bowman’s screams as he searched for what he had been grabbing for. He found a knife handle sticking out of the back of Bowman’s britches. He pulled the blade free and threw it aside. He hated knives.

Still holding on to the broken arm, Trammel grabbed the screaming Bowman by the back of his shirt collar and steered him toward the door. “Out you go, boy. Best head over to Doc Freeman’s. Get that arm tended to.”

But Trammel stumbled when a glass bottle shattered across the back of his head.

Everything slowed. Sight and sound blurred and, for a fraction of a second, Trammel couldn’t feel anything at all. Not pain. Not surprise. Not even anger.

All he could feel was rage.

He yanked Will Bowman off his feet and threw him aside as he turned around to face his assailant. Tyler. The younger man was scrambling for another whiskey bottle at another table, but Trammel launched a roundhouse right that caught Tyler square in the jaw.

From his slowed perspective, Trammel could see the jaw was as broken as the dam that had once held back his temper.

Bowman was falling, but not before a left hook from Trammel connected with Tyler’s temple. The cattleman landed in a crooked heap on the floor between two card tables as men scrambled to get out of the way.

Somewhere in his mind, he could hear Lilly calling his name as he picked up a chair and brought it down hard on the fallen Bowman’s back. The chair splintered into pieces. A leg landed nearby.

Trammel picked up the leg and dropped to his knees, straddling the prone man. He brought the chair leg over his head like a club, intending on bringing it down on Tyler again and again until Lilly’s kind face filled his vision. The same face that graced the sign that hung over the front door, though this one bore more lines and was not as soft.

“No, Buck!” He felt her hands on his shoulders. “That’s enough. Stop, please!”

Trammel let the chair leg fall behind him as his senses returned and time began to become normal. He remembered the other Bowman boy. William.

Trammel rocked back and got to his feet in one motion, remembering he had thrown him aside right after Tyler had hit him with the bottle.

Some of the patrons had gathered around the place where Will had landed, trading glances amongst themselves. They knew what Trammel could see just by looking at Bowman’s neck. The twisted, unnatural angle against a broken chair only meant one thing.

“He’s dead,” one of the customers said. “His neck broke when he hit the chair.”

“Did you see how he flew?” another said. “Hell, I only ever saw a man fly like that when he was bucked off a horse.”

A cry from Lilly made Trammel look down. Her delicate fingers were pressed against Tyler’s neck, as if the Bowman boy’s vacant stare wasn’t proof enough for her. “He’s dead, too, Buck. You’ve killed both of them.”

“And with his bare hands, too,” said someone in the saloon. “Not a hog leg or a blade on him. Killed ’em both by touch alone. Lord have mercy.”

Trammel looked up when he heard the sound of clapping. It was coming from the poker table. It was Adam Hagen applauding him from behind his pile of money. “Bravo, Mr. Trammel. The citizens of Wichita salute you for the public service you’ve done here tonight, for the world is a far better place with two fewer Bowman boys slithering around in it.”

Trammel’s knuckles popped as he felt his fists ball up. Two dead men was nothing to clap about, even if it was two Bowman boys. “Someone get him out of here.”

Hagen tried to sit upright in his chair. “But I live here, sir, and my luck has changed for the better.” He gestured grandly at the empty chairs at the table. “Anyone care to play? We appear to have two vacancies at the moment.”

Trammel started for him, but Lilly scrambled to block his way. “Someone get him up to his room before Buck kills him, too.”

Three customers pulled Hagen to his feet, but not before the drunkard stuffed his winnings into his pockets. Gold and greenbacks bulged from the pockets of his coat and pants and vest.

Two men threw his arms over their shoulders as another cleared a path for them to the stairs and the rooms above. “Such service!” Hagen laughed. “Will one of you be so kind as to draw me a bath, as well?”

The man who had his right arm said, “The only thing you’ll be drawing is blood if you don’t keep that damned drunken mouth of yours shut.”

Trammel’s rage ebbed once more as he watched the men take Hagen upstairs and he realized Lilly was still holding on to him. He placed his large hands on her slender shoulders and gently eased her away. “I’m okay now, Lilly. I promise.”

Lilly didn’t take her eyes off him as she yelled, “Show’s over, boys. Sorry for the trouble. Drinks are on the house, courtesy of your Aunt Lilly.”

The patrons cheered and quickly went back to their respective games. The trouble and the dead men on the floor seemingly forgot by everyone except Trammel and Lilly.

“You’re hurt, Buck.” Lilly popped up on her toes to reach the wound on his head. “You’re bleeding.”

Trammel had nearly forgotten about the whiskey bottle that Tyler had broken over his head. He felt at the back of his head and found a shard of glass just behind his ear. He winced as he pulled it out and let it drop to the floor. He flicked other bits of glass from the wound, too, some of them falling down his collar. “It’s not the first time someone’s busted a bottle over my head. Doubt it’ll be the last.”

Lilly stepped away from him and looked at destruction all around her. “This is bad, Buck.”

“No, it isn’t. I’ll live.” He checked his hand and was surprised there wasn’t more blood. “I’ve been through worse.”

“I don’t just mean you. I mean the Bowman boys. Their people won’t take kindly to you killing two of their kin, even if they had it coming.”

Trammel looked down at the men on the floor. The two men he had just killed. He waited to feel something. He waited to feel anything at all. All he felt was tired. “Like I said. I’ve been through worse.”