Killing Longarm, ostensibly on behalf of Clete Terry, even though both he and Longarm would know Terry was only an excuse for violence here and no part of the real reason, would be something a man like this could savor and brag on for the rest of his days. If, that is, he had any more days in which to brag.
He wore a gun that was long out of date—more evidence, as if any were needed, that he’d been out of circulation for a very long time—a .36 Colt Navy that had been converted to cartridge use. The loading ram had been removed and an ejector rod brazed in place beneath the slim barrel, and a loading gate had been attached behind the revamped cylinder. The gun would have been converted to a .38-caliber cartridge, either centerfire or rimfire depending on how long ago the conversion was done. The more powerful centerfire .38s hadn’t been available when gunsmiths first started getting around patent restrictions by making the cartridge revolvers that the factories weren’t allowed to produce.
Not that it mattered. Longarm was only postponing the inevitable by thinking over inconsequential details like that. Better, he supposed, to go ahead and get this over with.
“They say you’re a troublemaker,” the ex-con accused.
“An’ they’d be damn sure right about that,” Longarm agreed.
“They say you eat shit for breakfast, dried and sliced with milk and sugar on it.”
Longarm laughed. “Mister, I could claim you’re the queen of England too. That wouldn’t make it so. Or does that come close to home, huh? Were you inside that long? So tell me, which was you, the boy or the girl?”
The man clouded up and looked like he was fixing to rain all over himself. Which was just exactly what Longarm was wanting. Cold deliberation can be hard to deal with. But fury makes nearly any man easy prey, for it takes his judgment away and replaces it with unthinking reaction.
A deep flush turned the man’s cheeks and neck dark, dark red, and his eyes bulged alarmingly. His mouth opened and soundlessly gawped like a beached trout sucking air. His right hand swept the Navy Colt out of the leather and on line with Longarm’s belly. At least, that was where the slender, lethal muzzle was heading and would have gone had it completed the ex-con’s intentions.
Longarm wasn’t much interested in allowing the fellow to shoot, though. And for that matter wasn’t really very keen on the notion of shooting him either. Once the ex-con moved, so did Longarm.
Longarm was seated in his chair as usual, at the side of the table, the chair tipped back against the wall at a comfortable angle. The position was a natural one from which Longarm’s boot snapped straight up at the same time the ex-con was dragging iron. The toe of Longarm’s boot slammed into the ex-con’s knuckles just below the protection of the trigger guard on the old Colt. There was the muted, faintly brittle sound of bone breaking, and the ex-con cried out in sudden pain as his revolver went spinning end over end across the room. It landed in fresh sawdust and skittered to a halt.
By then Longarm was out of his chair with the ex-con’s good hand pulled tight behind the man’s back. Longarm pulled up on the arm, and the fellow had the choice of coming onto his tiptoes or standing firm and letting his elbow break. Sobbing, although probably more in rage and frustration than in pain, he gave in to the pressure.
“Y’know, old son, what I prob’ly ought to do here is give you a lesson in manners the old-fashioned way. You know how I mean. Take my handcuffs and whip your face an’ head with them until I’m too worn out to whip on you anymore. That’s the sort of lesson you an’ your kind understand. But I reckon I’m too soft for my own good. So I’ll do this by the book an’ hope you learn something from it anyhow. Mind, though. if you go an’ disappoint me I won’t have much choice but to Put a bullet in your belly. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir.”
It was what they taught them when they were inside. The Man was always Sir. Every con knew that.
“Yes, sir,” this con docilely repeated.
“That’s fine then. Bring your other hand behind you. That’s right. Now hold it there. That’s fine, thank you.” Longarm cuffed the stupid SOB’s hands behind his back and told the bartender, “Don’t let anything happen till I get back, hear.”
Then he led his prisoner out of the saloon and up the canyon toward Harry Bolt’s Cargyle jail. Not that Longarm wanted to owe Harry any favors, but his was the only jail around. He had no choice but to lodge his man there until he could make arrangements to have the poor sonuvabitch hauled up to Denver so he could be charged and tried for assault on a federal officer.
Chapter 24
If the crowd Longarm drew had been willing to drink while they watched, Clete Terry would forever have been in Longarm’s debt. But for some unspoken yet almost inviolable reason the men who gathered in the saloon were somber, quiet, and nearly completely dry.
Longarm doubted the place sold two dollars worth of beer and liquor that evening, and the gambling tables were empty. The whores stayed out of sight too, and presumably had the night off to spend with their families. Or off somewhere sulking about the lack of income if they had no families in town.
The night bartender—there was no sign of Terry himself—tried to limit the free dinner spread to those who bought and paid for at least one beer. Even that was not enough to promote the sale of any beer. Nor, for that matter, to curb the appetites of those who wanted to help themselves to the free food. The bartender eventually solved his problem by taking the free dinner away and posting a hand-lettered sign offering a beer and sandwich for ten cents. Longarm didn’t see any takers for that deal, which everyone was used to getting anyway for the nickel price of the beer.
“You know, mister, things sure were better around here before you came along,” the bartender told Longarm at one point, a note of exasperation plain in his voice.
“I got no problem with you, friend. You go right ahead an’ do whatever you generally do.”
“Mister, I’m generally busy selling beer.”
“I wish I could help you. I truly do.”
“You could go away.”
