She tossed a nervous glance toward him, then directed her attention back toward the beans. Beside the skillet was a coffeepot, its contents boiling and hissing.
“Something to eat, mister?” the thin man said.
Dusty had to admit, now that his thirst was satisfied, his belly was rumbling with emptiness. “Yessir. I’m downright hungry.”
The thin man, standing behind him now, landed a hand on his shoulder. This set Dusty immediately on edge. Never let a man touch your shoulder, the man who had raised him once said. And this man had known the tricks of survival like none other. Your shoulder is too near your neck and throat, and when a man gets his hands around your throat, you are in trouble.
But the man’s voice was calm, not threatening, his words a little distorted by the grin his mouth was pulled apart in. “Grab a chair then, stranger.”
Dusty slid a chair from under the table and dropped into it. Something was definitely wrong here, he thought. The thin man and the slop-devourer seemed out of place, and the woman almost frightened. And more than that, things felt wrong.
Always trust your gut feelings - another lesson from the man who had raised him. A man’s head is of little use to him, much of the time. You can think yourself out of a right decision and headfirst into a wrong one, but your gut will never lie to you.
“Woman!” the thin man barked. “Bring this here man a plate of beans. And some coffee.”
Without a word, she grabbed a spoon and scooped some beans onto a flat dish, then fetched a napkin from the drawer.
The man at the table was eyeing Dusty. “So, where you from?”
Dusty shrugged. He had never considered himself as being from anywhere in particular. “Here...there...a little bit of everywhere, I reckon.”
The napkin slid from the woman’s hands to the floor in front of the stove, and she knelt to retrieve it.
The thin man said, “Come on, woman. Hurry up.”
The woman set the plate in front of Dusty, and the folded napkin at his side.
Dusty took a fork full of beans. They tasted like the best he had ever eaten, but when you are hungry, your taste buds become less particular.
He could hear the woman pouring a cup of coffee. He also was aware that the thin man was still standing behind him. “Excuse me. I really don’t like anyone standing behind me.”
It was as he spoke that he became aware of black markings on the napkin. Soot from the stove, forming letters. HELP.
Dusty lunged from the table to one side, as the thin man swung the grip of his pistol toward where Dusty’s head had been.
The girl, standing between the stove and table, a mug in her hand, tossed the scalding coffee into the thin man’s face.
The man let out a screech like a wild cat, clawing at his face, taking a step backward.
Dusty rolled away from him and came to a stop sitting with his back against the doorjamb, the Colt from his belt in his right hand.
The fat man was now rising from the table, pulling a pistol from a holster mounted on his hip.
Dusty gripped the trigger tightly, and with the palm of his left hand fanned the gun’s hammer and sent two rapid shots into the man’s chest. The man stumbled backward, his foot catching on the leg of a chair. He went over backward, and his head slammed into the floorboards.
The thin man, still squinting from the hot coffee he had received in the face, snapped off a shot in the direction Dusty had fired from, the bullet tearing into the door jamb not a foot from Dusty’s head.
Dusty fanned two more shots. From his angle on the floor, the bullets cut up and into the man’s chest, lifting him and slamming him backward into a wall. The man’s own gun went off again, firing into a floorboard, and he slid to the floor to lie motionless, his head propped awkwardly against the wall.
Dusty rose to his feet. Only one shot remained in his pistol, so he pushed it back into his belt, and slid his second pistol from its holster. He then checked the men to see if any life remained. There was none.
Dusty looked to the woman, who was standing by the stove. Both hands, slightly trembling, were clasped over her mouth.
“I take it they weren’t friends of yours,” Dusty said.
She shook her head.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. Then with one hand she brushed back the loose of strands of hair, smoothed her apron, and drew a deep breath, composing herself. The trembling was gone. “I’m fine. I want to thank you for what you did.”
“It was more luck than anything, but you’re more than welcome.”
“They rode in not half an hour ago. They didn’t hurt me, at least not yet. They were so hungry they had to put food first. But I would have made them kill me before what they had in mind.”
Odd thing, Dusty thought, as he dragged the two dead men outside. On the frontier, you almost never heard of a woman being abused. Such a thing could get a man lynched before he even went to trial. In a land where men outnumbered women by as much as ten to one in some places, even the most rough-mannered cutthroats treated a woman as though she were almost sacred. Usually. But apparently not this time.
When he returned, she invited him to stay and finish his meal, and she brought over the coffee he had missed the first time.
She said, “My father and I run this place. He’s gone to town for supplies. He stays overnight when he goes, because Baker’s
