starting to be pocked with bullet holes. If the old-timer had walked into Red Mike’s looking for a drink and recognized Hopkins as Frank had, his anger over being cleaned out by Smith’s gang might have prompted him to slap leather before he really thought about what he was doing.
All the saloon’s other customers must have fled when the shooting started. The place was empty except for the four combatants—and Frank and Handlesman in the back room.
Frank couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He pulled the door open wider and stepped out into the saloon’s main room, leveling the Colt as he bellowed, “Hold your fire! Drop those guns!”
All three men jerked toward him. The bartender and the other man brought their guns up. Hopkins turned and fled toward the end of the bar.
The would-be killers had called the tune, although they almost certainly didn’t realize that they were about to dance with the Drifter, one of the deadliest gunfighters around. Flame spouted from the Colt’s gun muzzle as Frank put a slug in the bartender’s chest.
The bald man went over backward, crashing into the bottles on a shelf attached to the wall and upsetting them. The bottles fell and shattered, and the reek of spilled rotgut suddenly mingled with the stench of gunsmoke.
The other man got a shot off, but it went wild, whipping harmlessly past Frank, who fired again. His bullet shattered the man’s right shoulder and knocked him to the floor, where he dropped his gun, clutched at the wound, and howled in pain.
Meanwhile, Yeah Mow Hopkins tried to escape out the saloon’s front door, but he stumbled as the old Remington roared again. Hopkins threw a shot toward the table. The man hidden there fired yet again. Blood sprayed from Hopkins’s hip as the slug clipped him and sent him spinning off his feet.
Frank lunged behind the bar and kicked away the gun that the second man had dropped. The bartender stared up out of lifeless eyes. He wasn’t a threat anymore.
Handlesman had emerged from the back room, gun in hand. Frank told the second mate, “Keep an eye on this one,” as he nodded toward the man with the busted shoulder. He stepped out from behind the bar.
“Frank? Is that you?”
The slightly mush-mouthed voice came from behind the overturned table. Frank recognized it, just as he had expected to.
“Yeah, it’s me, Salty,” he replied. He trained his gun on the fallen Yeah Mow Hopkins as he added, “You can come out from behind there now. Are you all right?”
The old-timer stood up with the Remington in his hand. His battered hat had fallen off during the fracas, and his white hair was tangled.
“I got a few nicks and scratches from all the splinters flyin’ around, but I ain’t hurt bad,” Salty said. “Them varmints threw a whole heap o’ lead, but none of it found me.”
“That’s good.” Frank approached Hopkins cautiously. The man seemed to be in shock as he lay there on the sawdust-littered floor and bled from wounds in his hip and thigh, but Frank knew better than to take unnecessary chances. The barrel of his gun didn’t waver.
Salty bent and picked up his hat. As he crammed it back on his head, he said, “You know who that fella is?”
“Yeah, I recognize him,” Frank said.
“That’s Yeah Mow Hopkins,” Salty said excitedly, as if he hadn’t heard Frank’s answer. “He worked for that bastard Soapy Smith!”
“I remember. It looks like he recognized you, too.”
“Naw, neither him nor Palmer knew me when I first come in,” Salty said as he joined Frank. He sounded a little sheepish as he went on. “I should’a turned right around and gone back to the ship to get you. But I got so mad when I thought about how that bunch stole all my money, so mad I reckon I wasn’t thinkin’ straight when I grabbed my hogleg and went to cussin’ ’em.”
“I reckon not,” Frank said drily.
“They knowed who I was after that and started shootin’. I didn’t figure I was gonna get out of here alive.”
“You probably wouldn’t have if Meg hadn’t missed you and got me started looking for you,” Frank told him. “We heard the shooting going on in here, and I had a hunch I’d find you right in the middle of the festivities.”
“I’m sure obliged for the help.” Salty toed Hopkins’s shoulder. “I just wish Palmer hadn’t gotten away when the shootin’ started.”
“Joe Palmer was here, too, eh?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Didn’t see any more of them bastards who worked for Smith, though.”
Hopkins opened his eyes and looked up at Frank and Salty. Pain twisted his face. “You … you crazy old son of a bitch!” he gasped.
Salty hunkered next to the wounded man and put the Remington’s muzzle against Hopkins’s jaw.
“I wouldn’t be mouthin’ off if I was you,” the old-timer warned as he pressed hard enough with the gun barrel to bring a groan of pain from Hopkins’s mouth.
“I need … a doc,” he said. “You gotta patch me up … before I bleed to death.”
“After all the hell you and the rest o’ your bunch raised, I reckon I could stay right here and watch you bleed to death without it botherin’ me all that much.”
Frank didn’t blame Salty for feeling that way, but he couldn’t stand by and watch an injured man die. He was about to say as much when Hopkins stammered, “If … if you’ll help me … I’ll tell you where Joe went.”
“I wouldn’t mind settlin’ the score with Palmer,” Salty said, “but I ain’t sure it’s worth—”
