like that,” he said in Comanche. “I sure wish you
don’t shoot me.”
William Sunday listened to the man speaking gib-
berish, clipping off the end of his words in whatever
tongue he was talking in. He guessed him for some
sort of half-breed.
“Step away from the gun on that bar,” he said.
Big Belly didn’t know what the man was saying.
He did not move.
“I said step away from that gun,” William Sunday
repeated. Still the fellow did not move.
Then there was a sound from the back. The rear
door opened into the room.
Jake standing there, saw the situation immediately.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“Damned if I know,” Sunday said. “But he took
his gun out and put it on the bar.”
Jake held one of the Schofields in his right hand.
“What’s your name, mister?”
Shit, Big Belly thought: now there are two of them
and they both got guns.
“Wiss-key!” he said.
“Whiskey?”
Big Belly nodded vigorously.
“Get the hell out of here,” Jake ordered.
Big Belly didn’t move. He didn’t know what they
were saying but he was afraid if he made a move,
they’d shoot him. White men were that way; they’d
shoot you over nothing. He’d seen it down in Texas
with them Rangers and other white men, too.
“Wiss-key,” he said again. He was damn thirsty.
*
*
*
“Hey,” Zeb said, stopping short of the sidewalk.
“What?” Zack said.
“Those are our guddamn horses.”
All three stopped and saw that he was right. The
horses tied out front of the saloon were theirs.
“Son of a bitch,” Zane said. “They sure are.”
“Looks like we got lucky. Got us two birds inside
need killing.”
They drew their pistols.
“How we gone do this?” Zack asked.
“Just go in and shoot everybody inside. Don’t ask
no fucking questions.”
“Well, what the hell we waiting for,” Zane said,
his head full of voices now telling him do this, do
that. And he stepped quickly through the door, his
brothers right behind him.
Jake was just saying without having taken his gaze
off the Indian, “They’re coming for you, Sunday.”
“Kill that one if he goes for his gun, would you?
I’m going to have my hands full.”
Jake took a step back into the shadows when the
men came through the door.
Zane saw the man at the bar—short little son of a
bitch—and shot him.
Big Belly felt the bullet punch in just above his
navel and it was like that time Cut Nose and him got
into it over a woman one night after they’d been
drinking hard and were tossing bones to see which of
them would get to go into the lodge with Missing His
Moccasins’ woman since the old man couldn’t satisfy
her anymore. When Cut Nose hit him it knocked all
the air out of him, like now. He struggled to keep his
feet but it was like dancing on the wind and instantly
felt his face slamming against the floor.
The other two men came in firing because they
didn’t know why their kid brother had shot or who he
had shot and they weren’t taking any chances.
“I’m over here, you sons a bitches!” William Sun-
day yelled and then shot one of them—the one who
shot the man at the bar, and the bullet knocked him
over a dice table so that the only thing showing of
him once he was down was a boot heel resting on the
edge of the upturned table.
The other two turned quick and fired on him and
he felt the first slug take him high in the shoulder and
another ripping through his knee. Jesus Christ, it hurt
like hell, but he fanned the hammer of his pistol until
it clicked on spent shells, then dropped it and took up
the other one.
Jake stepped out of the shadows and said, “You’re un-
der arrest!” Only he didn’t say it very loud. Then he
shot one of the two men standing and when the other
turned in his direction, William Sunday’s bullets
ripped bloody holes coming out of the front of Zeb
Stone’s shirt and jacket. Zeb Stone had the damnedest
surprised look on his face as he was falling.
The only sound in the yawning silence that came
after the gunfire was moaning.
Jake walked over and kicked the pistols away from
the twitching hands of one of the shooters, and did
the same to another whose hand wasn’t moving at all.
He glanced toward the dice table, the foot sticking
up, and it was obvious that the foot’s owner was
dead. The moaning came from the little man whose
hat had tumbled off letting his long hair spill out.
