And then as if to punctuate the grandeur of that fine scream, the idiot youngster compounded it with an involuntary squeeze of both hands … one of which happened to have hold of the little gun that was still in his pocket.
The gun went off with a sharp if somewhat subdued crack—the noise of it wasn’t a patch on the quality of the scream that preceded it—and the kid shifted from a magnificent scream into a terrified wail that shuddered and shifted and ululated like a warbling buzzard gone mad.
Longarm glanced down and saw why. Now, in addition to the harmless flow of blood from the kid’s battered nose, there was another and perhaps more sinister flow from high on his thigh. Damn youngster had gone and shot himself when he jerked off a shot inside his own pocket. Well, Ben hadn’t yet shown cause why he should be awarded any medals for intelligence.
“Look, kid, if you’ll be quiet for a minute we’ll see can we find a doctor to-“
“Murder! Murder! He’s trying to kill me. Help!”
The little fucker was shouting that as loud as his first scream had been.
And as for attention … he sure as hell had it now.
Some of the rowdier elements among the crowd of baseball fans, many of them with the contents of pint bottles already safely stowed away inside their bellies, began to pay attention to the pleas of their beleaguered comrade.
One at a time, then quickly in pairs and trios and whole damn gobs, they came rushing to the rescue of a hometown boy who they saw as being assaulted and perhaps even shot at by some smart-ass out-of-town baseball professional from that team that was humiliating their own fine boys.
No doubt these fine young men thought it their civic duty to defend the honor and the person of this poor innocent who was being so foully abused by the bigger, taller, stronger stranger. And seeing their duty they rushed to do it, fists balled and throats quickly becoming hoarse from the fury of their shouts. Oh, shit! Longarm thought.
He had just about time enough to form that thought.
Then the wave of enraged humanity reached him with all the impact of a storm wave crashing onto a rocky shore. And rolled right over him.
Chapter 16
Didn’t these people ever bathe? Longarm’s face was mashed tight against the belly of some farmer whose shirt smelled—tasted too for that matter—of assorted types of sweat including what Longarm guessed as being human, mule, milk cow, and with maybe a hint of goat thrown in for good measure.
It was uncomfortable as hell. On the other hand it could have been worse. The good thing was that there were so many of them, and they were piled so deep on top of him, that there wasn’t room enough for any of them to get any decent punches landed. The dozen or so who’d swarmed over him just kind of wallowed around and got in each other’s way while Longarm was buried at the bottom of the heap trying to get some breath into his aching lungs.
The guy on top of him shifted to one side and sort of slid off and next thing Longarm knew there was someone’s hairy ear in his face. He bit it.
The aggrieved party howled in pain and raised up enough that Longarm could gulp some fresh air before the pile closed in again.
Above the din of disorganized combat that raged above and about him, Longarm could hear a new chorus of shouts and threats and whatnot.
He thought he recognized some of the voices. Was sure of it when bodies began flying off him. Soon he could see the Capitals, every one of them, including the undersized and presumably more-dignified-than-this manager, laying into the crowd of locals with fists, feet, and whatever else came to hand.
No bats though, Longarm noted as he scrambled to his feet. No bats. That was good. He ducked underneath a roundhouse swing thrown by a burly man in a black suitcoat and batwing collar and reacted to the fancy-dan with a left jab that would leave one proud-looking shiner before the next morning.
“Ouch,” the man protested.
Longarm shrugged. And popped him one on the other eye. Might as well make it a matched pair.
Something slammed into Longarm’s back square between the shoulder blades. He was driven to his knees, and he swiveled to meet his attacker and came up swinging. The blow caught the fellow in the gut and doubled him over, gasping for breath that just wouldn’t come. Meanwhile the other man, the one with the twin soon-to-be black eyes, took careful aim with an entirely too solid right that rattled Longarm’s teeth. Longarm grunted, spit out a little blood, and returned the favor by dropping the Kansas boy with a hard shot that caught him flush on the jaw and blew his lamp out slick as greased snot.
While this was going on, the rest of the Caps were having their own tussles. Men were shouting, bleeding, cursing, kicking, throwing and ducking punches, and in general having a fine old time of it.
The locals outnumbered the visitors from Texas, but as it had been with the now interrupted game, it appeared that it was the visiting team that had the edge in experience and ability if not necessarily in the area of willingness. The local boys were game but the simple truth was that they were outclassed.
Longarm saw the redheaded center fielder—Ted, was it? he thought so—snatch a man twice his size off the back of his outfield companion Nat and cut the big man down to size while Nat was busy breaking the nose of an unlucky Kansan who didn’t duck in time.
Caleb, the catcher, took a vicious-looking punch square in the face and hardly blinked—but then, hell, a mere punch would hardly compare with the punishment of catching a foul ball flush on the puss—before grabbing the offender by the belt and lifting him bodily overhead. With a roar Caleb threw the fellow at a trio of onrushing locals. All four, counting the one Caleb tossed, went down like so many duckpins and rolled around on the ground with arms and legs flying.
Things might’ve gone on like that for some time except some of Marshal Daily’s whistle-blowing coppers came along and stopped the fun.
