patrons with an especially hard look before continuing along.
“Trouble there?” Longarm asked.
“Always,” Kane said. “I don’t like the owner and he doesn’t like me. He gets to talking behind my back and some of his drunks will come hunting me. I’ve had to crack down pretty hard on ‘em a time or two.”
As they continued along, a well-dressed man stepped out of the Can Restaurant and started to walk past, but Kane grabbed his sleeve.
“Mr. Johnson! Why, didn’t I tell you to get out of town last week?”
The man tried to bat Kane’s hand away, but the marshal grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled his face close. Longarm stiffened when Kane hissed, “I know you were trying to get someone to take a shot at my back.”
“No, sir, Marshal!” the man cried. “You got it all wrong!”
In answer, Kane slammed the man up against the wall and grabbed his throat. “I’ll give you just one hour to get your lying ass out of my town. One hour!”
Longarm started to intercede, but Megan blocked his path and shook her head no. Longarm watched as Kane banged Johnson’s head up against the wall so hard that the man’s eyes crossed.
“Now git!” Kane shouted. “You’re just damned lucky we’re in the company of a lady or I’d smear your lying face all over the wall.”
Johnson swayed off down the street. When he started to turn into a small office building where the sign THADDEUS BLAKE, PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON hung over the walk, Kane bellowed, “You better not stop in my town! Go on!”
The dazed man glanced over his shoulder, and Longarm saw the terror as well as the confusion. Then the man staggered on down the street.
Kane wasn’t paying Johnson any more attention. He was glaring at the spectators who had suddenly appeared, and now he shouted, “All of you, get back to your business! Haven’t any of you gawky bastards got anything worthwhile to do!”
Longarm watched as the sullen townspeople turned away and went back into their shops and saloons. He caught Megan’s eye, and he could see shock and concern. Longarm considered having a word with Marshal Kane, but decided this was probably neither the time nor the place.
Kane moved on. As they passed a small group of miners, the men’s conversation fell off and they got interested in their hands and feet, refusing to look up or even acknowledge Kane.
“As you can see,” Kane said drily, “people are not real friendly in Bodie. These men, for example, probably drank and whored away all their wages and are just trying to decide how they can recoup their losses.”
One of the miners looked up suddenly and his eyes were venomous. “Marshal Kane, we ain’t pissed away anything. We’re just here havin’ a little conversation and a few beers until it’s time to go back to work at the mines.”
“You sayin’ I’m wrong?” Kane asked, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. “Your name is Clyde Harding, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but-“
“And aren’t you the fella that I had to put in jail about … oh, three weeks ago for being drunk and disorderly?”
“That’s right,” Harding choked. “And you opened my skull up with the barrel of that hog-leg on your hip.”
“I guess that some men take a little more teaching than others,” Kane said, eyes boring into the group. “So why don’t you men just start on back to work right dammed now? That way, you’ll be completely sober by the time you reach the mines and you won’t make mistakes and get yourselves or anyone else killed or hurt.”
Harding stood up. He was a big man, but stooped from too many years of brutal, backbreaking work in the mines. “You’d think, Marshal, that the merchants here in town wouldn’t be too happy about you runnin’ off their cash-payin’ customers.”
Kane’s mouth drew down into a hard line. “Start walking while you still can.”
The men walked. Kane stared after them, and when he became aware that Megan and Longarm were staring at him, he swung about and said, “That Harding is a mean-tempered sonofabitch. He comes on real nice when he’s sober, but when he’s drinking, he gets vicious. He’d already messed up the faces of two of his drinking buddies when I arrested him. He swore he’d kill me some day.”
“He’s a miner,” Longarm said.
“He’s a snake that can bite you from behind and kill you as dead as anything,” Kane countered.
They continued on up the street and were passing BOONE & WRIGHT—GENERAL MERCHANDISE when a middle-aged man with muttonchop whiskers hailed them.
“Marshal Kane!” Ivan whirled, hand dropping to the butt of his six-gun. Longarm grabbed Megan, shielding her body.
“Marshal Kane?”
“Relax,” the marshal said to Megan and Longarm. “It’s a friend.”
“I’m glad to hear that you have one in Bodie,” Megan said icily.
“I’ve got a lot of friends in this town,” Kane replied. “They just don’t make a big show of it, that’s all.”
Longarm watched as the marshal walked over to have a few words in private with the man who had hailed him. He could not hear the conversation, but there seemed to be some sort of disagreement and probably fearing their words would be overheard, the pair stepped into a side alley.
