They realized before the first blink that they were outnumbered a good two to one. Surprise mixed with irritation was very evident on the faces of the D-H gunfighters. This move on the part of the Circle Double C had not been anticipated, and it was not to their liking. For in a crowded barroom, gunfights usually took a terrible toll due to the close range.
Smoke led the way to the bar, deliberately turning his back to the gunslicks. The barkeep looked as if he really had to go to the outhouse. “Beer for me and the Moab Kid and Mister McCorkle, please. And a bottle of whiskey for the boys and a bottle of tequila for Mister Lujan.”
The barkeep looked at the “boys,” average age about sixtyfive, and nodded his head. “I got ever‘thing’cept the tequila. Them bottles is reserved for my regular customers.”
“Put a bottle of tequila on the bar, partner,” Smoke told him. “If a customer can see it, it’s for sale.”
“Yes, sir,” the barkeep said, knowing he was caught between a rock and a hard place. But who the hell would have ever figured this bunch would come in
Smoke and his men could watch the room of gunfighters in the mirror behind the bar, and they could all see the D-H hired guns were very uncertain. It showed in their furtive glances at one another. Smoke kept a wary eye on Radcliffe and Addison, for they were known to be backshooters and would not hesitate to kill him should Smoke relax his guard for just a moment.
Several D-H guns had been standing at the bar. They had carefully moved away while Smoke was ordering the drinks.
“Diego finds out you been suckin’ at his tequila bottle,” a gunny spoke, “you gonna be dead, Lujan.”
“One day is just as good as the next day to meet the Lord,” Lujan replied, turning to face the man. “But since Diego is not present, perhaps you would like to attempt to fill his boots,
“What’d you call me?” the man stood up.
Lujan smiled, holding his shot glass in his left hand. “A pig!”
Radcliffe and Addison and half a dozen others stood up, their hands dangling close to their guns.
The town’s blacksmith pushed open the batwings, stood for a moment staring at the crowd and feeling the tension in the room. He slowly backed out onto the boardwalk. The sounds of his boots faded as he made his exit.
“No damn greasy Mex is gonna call me a pig!” the gunny shouted the words.
Lujan smiled, half turning as he placed the shot glass on the bar. He expected the D-H gunny to draw as he turned, and the man did. Lujan’s Colt snaked into his hand and the beery air exploded in gunfire. The D-H gunny was down and dying as his hand was still trying to lift his pistol clear of leather.
Radcliffe and Addison grabbed for iron. Smoke’s right hand dipped, drew, cocked, and fired in one smooth cat- quick movement. A second behind his draw, Cord drew and fired. Radcliffe and Addison stumbled backward and fell over chairs on their way to the floor.
The room erupted in gunsmoke, lead, and death as Beans and the old gun-handlers pulled iron, cocked it back, and let it bang,
Two D-H riders, with more sense than the others, jumped right through a saloon window, landing on the boardwalk and rolling to the street. They were cut in a few places, but that beat the hell out of being dead.
The bartender had dropped to the floor at the first shot. He came up with a sawed-off ten gauge shotgun, the hammers eared back, and pointed it at Pistol’s head. Cord turned and shot the man in the neck. The bartender jerked as the bullet took him, the barrels of the shotgun pointed toward the ceiling. The shotgun went off, the stock driving back from the recoil, smashing into the man’s mouth, knocking teeth out.
Cord felt a hammer blow in his left shoulder, a jarring flash of pain that turned him to one side for a painful moment and rendered his left arm useless. Regaining his balance and lifting his pistol, the rancher fired at the man who had shot him, his bullet taking the man in his open mouth and exiting out the man’s neck.
Beans felt a burning sensation on his cheek as a slug grazed him, followed by the warm drip of blood. He jerked out his second pistol and added more gunsmoke and death to the mounting carnage.
Lujan twisted as a slug tore through the fleshy part of his arm. Cursing, he lifted his Colt and drove two fast rounds into the belly of the D-H gunhawk who stood directly in front of him, doubling the man over and dropping him screaming to the floor.
The barroom was thick with gunsmoke, making it almost impossible to see. The roaring of guns was near- deafening, adding to the screaming of the wounded and the vile cursing of those still alive.
Smoke jerked as a bullet burned his leg and another slug clipped the top of his ear, sending blood flowing down his face. He stumbled to one side and picked up a gun that had fallen from the lifeless fingers of a D-H gunslick. It was a short-barreled Colt Peacemaker .45. Smoke eared the hammer back and let it snarl as he knelt on the floor, his wounded leg throbbing.
The old gunfighters seemed invincible as they stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder, hands filled with .44’s and .45’s, all of them belching fire and smoke and lead. This was nothing new to them. They had been doing this since the days a man carried a dozen filled cylinders with him for faster reloading. They had stood in barrooms from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and from Canada to the Mexican border and fought it out, sometimes with a tin star pinned to their chests, sometimes close to the outlaw trail. This was as familiar to them as to a bookkeeper with his figures.
Several D-H hired guns stumbled through the smoke and the blood, trying to make it to the boardwalk, to take the fight into the streets. The first one to step through the batwings was flung back into the fray, his face missing. Hans had blown it off with a sawed-off shotgun. The second D-H gunny had his legs knocked out from under him from the other barrel of Hans s express gun.
Through the thick choking killing haze, Smoke saw a man known to him as Blue, a member of Cat Jennings’s gang of no-goods and trash. Blue was pointing his Smith & Wesson Schofield .45 at Charlie.
He never got to pull the trigger. Smoke’s Peacemaker roared and bucked in his hand and Blue felt, for a few seconds, the hot pain of frontier justice end his days of robbing and murdering.
The gunfire faded into silence, broken only by the moaning of wounded gunslingers.
