Читать книгу Sidewinders - William W. Johnstone - Страница 11

The Texans pushed through the batwings and entered a saloon much like scores of others they had visited during their long years of wandering the frontier. A long bar of polished hardwood ran down the right-hand wall of the place. Behind it were shelves filled with liquor bottles, and above the bottles, displayed prominently, was a long, somewhat amateurishly executed painting of a nude woman whose endowments went beyond generous. She wore a coy smile on her face as she artfully concealed the most vital areas of her anatomy with her arms.

Scratch did some studying on the painting for a few moments. He’d always had a great appreciation for art, as he would be glad to tell you. Bo turned his attention to the rest of the room, which included a dozen or so tables where the customers could sit and drink, a couple of felt-covered tables for poker and other card games, a faro layout, and a roulette wheel. Stairs on the left led up to a balcony and several rooms where the girls who worked here delivering drinks could ply the other part of their trade, and below the balcony was a tiny raised stage with a piano on it and an open area where folks could dance if they were of a mind to. Potbellied stoves stood in three corners of the room, but at this time of year no fires burned in their bellies. In fact, the air in the big room was already hot and still and laden with tobacco smoke and a mixture of unwholesome smells.

“Ah,” Scratch said, “always feels like comin’ home again when you walk into a place like this.”

“Your home maybe,” Bo said. “Not mine.”

Scratch grinned. “You ain’t foolin’ me, Bo Creel. You miss the night life just as much as I do when we been out on the trail for a while.”

Bo didn’t argue the point. He was busy looking for Dave Sutherland and the two bullies, Angus and Culley.

He spotted them sitting at one of the tables. Angus’s face was dotted with red, puffy places where cactus needles had stuck him. Culley wore a dull frown, probably not that much different from his usual expression. Both of them glared at Bo and Scratch. Dave just glanced at the drifters, then tossed off the drink he had in front of him.

None of the three at the table seemed to be in any mood to resume hostilities. They just passed around a bottle and refilled their glasses.

Bo and Scratch angled toward the bar. They didn’t much like turning their backs to the trio they’d clashed with earlier, but they were relying on their battle-honed instincts to warn them if any trouble cropped up. It would have been handy if there’d been a mirror above the backbar instead of that painting of a naked woman, but you couldn’t have everything.

“Couple of beers,” Scratch said to the aproned, slick-haired drink juggler behind the hardwood. He dropped a coin on the bar to pay for the drinks. He and Bo were running a mite low on funds, and since they wouldn’t be drawing any wages from Abigail Sutherland, at least not right away, they would have to be careful with their drinking money and make it last as long as possible.

The bartender drew the beers, filling a couple of mugs and placing them in front of Bo and Scratch. The coin disappeared into a cash box. “You gents are new in town, ain’t you?” the man asked.

Bo nodded. “That’s right.” He took a sip of the beer. It was barely cool, but at least it was wet.

Bo would have left his answer to the bartender’s question at that, but Scratch was more talkative. “We’re gonna be workin’ for Miz Sutherland over at the stage line,” he said.

The bartender’s bushy eyebrows went up. “Is that so? I heard that the stage got held up between here and Chino Valley again. Say, are you boys the fellas who came along and ran off Rance Judson and his gang?”

“That’s right,” Scratch replied, and he didn’t bother trying to keep the pride out of his voice. “Those owlhoots took off with their tails betwixt their legs when they saw us comin’ with all guns blazin’.”

“It wasn’t quite that dramatic,” Bo said, but Scratch was getting wound up and just talked right over his words.

“Yes, sir, the air was plumb filled with bullets for a while, but we didn’t get even a nick! When them bandits saw what they was up against, they thought better o’ tryin’ to stop that stage.”

“I hear that ol’ Ponderosa Pine got himself shot during the robbery. Is that old pelican gonna live?”

“He’s just got a flesh wound in his shoulder,” Bo said. “He’ll be all right.”

“But he won’t be able to work as no shotgun guard for a while,” Scratch added. “That’s why Miz Sutherland asked us to give her a hand. We said yes, o’course. We got us a downright hate for owlhoots, don’t we, Bo? That’s why we’re gonna clean up that Judson hombre and his gang.”

Bo just sipped his beer and didn’t say anything. Scratch didn’t need any help spouting off.

The boisterous discussion was drawing some attention from the other men in the room. Several of them turned to listen to Scratch talk. Bo glanced over his shoulder, saw that Dave, Angus, and Culley were still seated at the table. They were watching the scene at the bar, too, but not making any move to get up.

One of the drinkers took a step away from the bar and then sidled along it toward Bo and Scratch. He wore a dark red shirt, a black vest, and a black hat pushed back on his head. A grin was on what appeared to be a freshly shaven face. The faint smell of bay rum confirmed that he had come from the barbershop not long before.

“Say,” he said, interrupting Scratch’s boasts about what was going to happen to any outlaws foolish enough to try to hold up a Sutherland stagecoach, “you fellas are from Texas, ain’t you?”

Scratch turned toward him. “That’s right. You recognize the accent, friend? Or maybe you hail from the great Lone Star State, too?”

“Hell, no!” the man said. “If I was from that shithole, I wouldn’t go around braggin’ about it. I just know that Texas turns out more old windbags than anything else, even longhorned cattle.”

Scratch blinked as if he couldn’t believe what his ears told him he’d just heard. “Sorry, mister,” he growled. “I must’a misunderstood you—”

“No, I know Texans are dumb as rocks, but you understood me all right, you blowhard. You may dress fancy, but I know me a saddle tramp when I see one!”

From across the hardwood, the bartender said, “Take it easy, Langdon. Nobody wants any trouble in here.”

The man’s grin widened. “Won’t be any trouble, not from these two. You see, as well as bein’ dumb and smellin’ like cowshit, Texans are gutless, too.”

Bo had already taken note of the tied-down holster on the stranger’s hip and the fancy nickel-plated revolver that rode in it. This man was a gunslinger, or at least believed himself to be one. And it was certainly possible that he was fast and slick on the draw. Plenty of men on the frontier were.

He wasn’t alone either. A couple of other men had also stepped out from the bar and were watching what was going on with keen interest. They had the hard-eyed look and low-slung guns of killers, too, just like their friend.

The man called Langdon was grinning at Scratch. “Well, saddle tramp,” he prodded. “You got anything to say for yourself?”

Scratch’s eyes blazed with anger, but he was making a visible effort to control himself. “You got no call to talk about Texas or Texans that way, mister,” he said, “but I reckon you’ve never been there, so I’ll just chalk it up to ignorance.”

“Oh, I been there, all right. And I was about sick at my stomach the whole time just from the stink o’ the place. I tell you what really made me want to puke, though—the ugly women! I never saw an uglier bunch o’ females in all my borned days!”

“That does it!” Scratch said. His muscles tensed as he readied himself to draw.

Bo was watching the other two men, and saw them reaching for their guns before Scratch had even made a move. He knew exactly what they figured was going to happen. Langdon would get out of the way, and his two partners would fill Scratch full of lead. Then they would claim they’d just been protecting their friend from an unprovoked attack by a stranger in town. It was an old trick.

Bo wasn’t going to let it happen.

He still had a mostly full mug of beer in his hand. He let fly with it, flinging it mug and all into the face of one of the other gunmen as hard as he could. The man never saw it coming and went over backward as the heavy mug smashed into his nose. The beer from the mug splashed over the other man, distracting him long enough for Bo to lunge at him with surprising swiftness. The long black parson’s coat swirled out as Bo pivoted and slashed down with the gun that had appeared almost as if by magic in his right hand. The barrel slammed against the skull of the second gunnie, right above the ear. The man went down hard, just like his companion.

Scratch’s common sense and battle savvy won out over the fury caused by the insults Langdon had leveled at Texas—and its women. At the same time as Bo was making his move against the other two men, Scratch’s left hand moved with flashing speed, not toward the gun he wore on that side but toward Langdon’s gun hand. Scratch’s fingers clamped around the man’s wrist and kept him from drawing his gun. Scratch’s right hand came up in a sizzling punch that crashed flush against Langdon’s jaw. The impact of the cleanly delivered blow drove Langdon to the side, against the bar. Scratch grabbed the back of his head, getting a good hold on the hair, and bounced Langdon’s face off the hardwood. The gunman’s knees unhinged. Scratch let go of him and allowed him to fall to the floor. He landed in the sawdust about the same time as his two partners.

Scratch looked across the bar and saw the bartender gaping at him and Bo. “Just because a couple of fellas are gettin’ a mite long in the tooth don’t mean they can’t handle themselves in a ruckus anymore,” he said with a smile. “That’s worth rememberin’.”

The bartender swallowed and then nodded, saying, “Yes, sir, I sure will.”

Langdon and the man Bo had buffaloed with his gun were both out cold. The hombre who had caught the thrown beer mug in the face was still conscious but not interested in fighting. His nose was leaking blood and not exactly the right shape anymore. He groaned as he cupped his hands over his face.

Bo still had his gun drawn. He wasn’t just watching the man with the broken nose. He had an eye on the rest of the men in the saloon as well, especially Dave, Angus, and Culley. Those three hadn’t moved during the brief fight, which surprised Bo a little. He had thought that they might try to take advantage of the situation and attack him and Scratch again.

The batwings were slapped open and a beefy, middle-aged man with gray hair and a mustache came into Sharkey’s carrying a shotgun. A tin star was pinned to his leather vest. His eyes spotted the gun in Bo’s hand right away. As the Greener swung in that direction, the star packer said, “All right, mister, just put that gun on the bar easy-like and step away from it.”

“Sure, Marshal,” Bo replied in a calm voice, although he didn’t make a move to comply with the order just yet. “Since you’re here, I reckon you’ll make sure nobody else in this place tries to ventilate my partner and me.”

“Nobody’s gonna ventilate anybody,” the lawman snapped. “Unless it’s me doin’ the ventilating. Now put that gun down.”

Bo shrugged and placed the Colt on the bar. He moved away from it a little…but stayed within arm’s reach.

That seemed to be enough to mollify the marshal. He said, “Claremont, what the hell’s goin’ on here? Somebody came runnin’ down to my office sayin’ that a war was about to break out in here!”

Claremont turned out to be the bartender. He said, “There was, uh, a disagreement between Langdon and this fella here in the buckskin jacket. I told both of ’em that I didn’t want any trouble in here, but they were bound and determined to start something.”

Scratch glared at the drink juggler, who wasn’t telling things exactly the way they had happened. Chances were, the man was a little worried about making enemies out of Langdon and the other two gunnies. That was understandable, but Scratch didn’t have to like it.

“Who are you?” the marshal demanded of Bo and Scratch. “I don’t think I’ve seen the two of you in Red Butte before.”

“That’s because we just rode in earlier this afternoon,” Bo said, keeping his voice calm and level. “We’d never been here before.”

“What’re you doin’ here now?”

“We came in with the stagecoach,” Scratch said. “It was us who kept it from bein’ robbed.”

The marshal’s frown deepened. “Yeah, I heard about that. You two are the fellas who had that shoot-out with Rance Judson’s gang?”

“That’s right,” Bo said. “We’re working for Mrs. Sutherland now, so I guess she can vouch for us—”

The batwings were shoved aside violently again, and the man who strode in, followed by several more gun-hung hombres, heard Bo’s statement and thrust out an arm, pointing accusingly at Bo and Scratch.

“I should have known when I heard that some of my men were in trouble down here!” this man said. “Those two are hardcases hired by that woman. And look what they’ve done to Langdon, Simms, and Bartlett. Marshal, I demand that you throw them in jail, where their kind belong!”