ain’t the one that’s provoking this fight.”
“Why do you need us to say that?” Aaron asked.
“Because I’m going to kill both of you,” Houston said, speaking the words as calmly as if he had just ordered a beer. “And I want these witnesses to tell the law that I tried to avoid this fight.”
“You don’t have to worry about tellin’ the law nothin’,” Andy said. “Because unless you walk through that door, right now, you are going to be dead.”
Houston sighed. “I tried,” he said. He held his hands out in front of him, turning his palms up. “I guess it’s all up to you, now.”
“Draw!” Andy shouted, his hand darting toward his pistol. Aaron started his draw as well.
Although the action seemed instantaneous to those who were watching, and even to Andy and Aaron, Kyle Houston had the unique ability to slow everything down in his mind. He analyzed the situation before him. Andy was the one who had called draw, which meant he had already started his draw when he shouted. Aaron, who didn’t start his draw until Andy initiated the sequence of events, was a fraction of a second behind.
That enabled Houston to make his target selection: Andy first, then Aaron. And though Houston fired two times, the shots were so close together that they sounded like one shot.
Andy pulled the trigger on his gun, but by the time he pulled the trigger, he had already been fatally wounded by a bullet to his heart. And though Aaron managed to clear the holster with his pistol, he went down before he was able to get off a shot.
With the two owners of the saloon now lying on the floor, both dead, a stunned silence fell over the saloon patrons. They were awed by the demonstration they had just seen, and spoke, when they did speak, in whispers, lest they say something to anger the little man who was dressed all in black.
Houston looked around the saloon to make certain there were no further challenges, then he put his pistol, which was literally still smoking, back into its holster.
“I think I’ll have a whiskey,” he said to the bartender.
“I—I don’t know,” the bartender said.
“What is it you don’t know?”
“You just killed the two men who owned this saloon. What happens now?”
“How long have you been working here?” Houston asked.
“Four years, ever since they opened it.”
“They got ’ny wives, kids, anything like that?”
“No, neither one of them was married.”
“Then it looks to me like you just inherited a saloon.”
At first the bartender was surprised by the comment, then its possibility sank in, and a broad smile spread across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it does look like that, doesn’t it?” He poured the whiskey, slid it in front of Houston, then addressed the others in the saloon, calling out loudly.
“Step up to the bar, boys! Drinks are on the house, compliments of the new owner!”
As everyone was hurrying to the bar they avoided any contact with Houston, not wanting to do anything that might irritate him. However, one man did step up to him.
“Mr. Houston, my name is Clem Daggett. Sam Logan sent me to fetch you.”
“Yeah?” Houston said. “What does my cousin want?”
“He wants you to do a job for him.”
Chapter Nine
Ten-year-old Winnie Churchill sat between his mother and the window as the train hurtled across the long, empty spaces.
“Mama, have you ever seen a place so large as America?” Winnie asked.
“Of course I have, dear. I was born here, remember?”
“Does that make me half American?”
“It does, indeed.”
“Then if I wanted to be an American cowboy when I grow up, I could be?”
Lady Churchill laughed, and patted her son on the shoulder. “Oh, heavens, darling, I certainly don’t think your father would like for you to be running around out here in the American West as a cowboy,” she said.
“But Uncle Moreton is a cowboy, is he not? And he isn’t even American. I could be an even better cowboy because I am half American.”
“I suppose if you put it that way, you could,” Jennie said. “Although I’m not sure that Moreton considers himself a cowboy. I think he considers himself a rancher.”
She chuckled. “From what I have heard, though, he is not a particularly good one, but please don’t tell him I said so.”
“Well, I am definitely going to be a cowboy when I grow up,” Winnie said. “I am going to ride a horse and carry
