the fresh bullet wound the way a man would squash some kind of poisonous spider. That mean-mouthed, bold-as- brass outlaw squealed like a baby piglet, then whimpered in the manner of an injured child.
“Man asked you a question, you dyin’ son of a bitch,” Boz growled. “Best come up with an answer for Ranger Dodge, and be quick about it, or you’ll sure as hell wish you had. Get me to working on you, mister, and you’ll wish you’d stayed the hell away from the Devils River country like it was infested with the black plague.”
From behind a mask of torment and pain, Atwood pawed at the bullet wound and said, “S-S-Screw you, Tatum. I ain’t got nothin’ to say to either of you badge-totin’ turds.”
Boz turned his head slightly sidewise, then snarled, “ ’Fore you leave this world, you skunk-ugly son of a bitch, and meet up with a forgiving Jesus for judgment, I’m gonna make you wish you’d never seen my face. I’m right on the ragged edge of becoming the worst element of your most horrible nightmare.”
Atwood huffed and puffed and groaned again. Bloody slobbers dribbled from both corners of his mouth. He said, “Hell with you, Tatum. You law-bringin’ b-b-bastards ain’t gettin’ nothin’ outta me today. A-A-And you can take that to the nearest Cattleman’s Bank. Put it on deposit and draw interest, by God. I done kilt P-P-Pitt to keep him from tellin’. D-D-Die ’fore I’ll tell you another goddamned thing.”
Boz shook his head as though amazed by Atwood’s brazen comeback. He held his big popper out for me to take. Then he hauled ole Tanner up off the floor by his shirtfront. Didn’t like the look I saw on my friend’s face one little bit. I detected something crazed and dangerous there I’d only seen a few times before. I knew beyond any doubt that something worse than awful might be afoot when he got that look on him. A wildness had crept into the man’s eyes that would’ve given a rabid grizzly pause. Ole Boz didn’t lose control often, but when he did, Katy bar the door.
Glo and I stood aside and watched as Boz dragged the blood-gushing, screeching brigand across fifteen feet of rough-cut pine flooring and then jerked him on top of the saloon’s snooker table. Atwood took on all the aspects of a dead man laid out in a green-felt coffin. He appeared ready for burying when Boz let him loose and then turned toward the half-filled rack of cue sticks hanging on the back wall.
The cowboys who’d been shooting snooker when we arrived scampered from behind the bar. Spurs a-jingling, chaps a-flapping, they hit the saloon’s batwings in a dead run. They came near removing those cafe doors from their squeaky hinges when they rammed their way through them so hard. I could hear that pair of exited brush poppers yelling back and forth to each other as they hoofed it down the street and away from any real or perceived danger.
The hairless, sweaty-scalped bartender eased his way from a hidey-hole beneath his liquor selling counter as well. He waved a damp bar towel at us and yelped, “Now, see here. This is a damned nice establishment. Nicest in town, by God. We ain’t never had anything occur to match this in the Broke Mill before.”
I said, “Might want to follow your customers on outta here, mister. Not sure you want to be a witness to what’s about to happen.”
“You fellers got no right behaving in such a manner, by God,” the drink wrangler said. “Killin’ folks in cold blood and such. Think you should leave this establishment right this minute. Right this very minute, by God.”
“Naw, suh, we didn’t kill nobody,” Glo said. “Man on the pool table, he the one what kilt that feller sittin’ yonder in the chair. Naw, suh, we ain’t kilt nobody—yet.”
Boz snatched a cue stick from the half-filled rack and carefully checked the blue-chalked, leather-padded tip of the polished length of hickory as though about to start a fresh game. Then he whirled around but didn’t even glance at the mouthy drink slinger when he growled, “You don’t want to see somethin’ awful, mister, you’d best beat a hot path away from here like Ranger Dodge suggested. Don’t let them swingin’ doors hit you in your fat ass on the way out.”
The barkeep started backing his way toward the street but couldn’t keep his wagon wheel of a mouth shut. He shook that rag at us one more time before he hit the boardwalk and said, “I’m goin’ for the town marshal. Gonna put a stop this promiscuous behavior, right by-God now. You fellers best be gone when the marshal gets here. Yessiree, bob sir. He’s a dangerous man. Kill all three of you at the drop of a hat.”
Pool stick that Boz grasped in both hands sounded like another pistol shot when he cracked it over one knee. He held up the two freshly rendered pieces as though looking for something special. Compared both halves like a jeweler working on an antique watch. Laid the narrowest and sharpest of the pair on the table next to the side cushion. One handed, he waved the big end over Atwood’s nose.
“You’re gonna answer Ranger Lucius ‘By God’ Dodge’s questions, Tanner, or I’m gonna beat the hell out of you,” Boz said and grinned. “You don’t get to jabberin’ like a trained parrot, swear ’fore a benevolent Jesus, you’re gonna wish your mama’d never given birth to your sorry ass by the time I get finished.”
Atwood rolled his wobbly head Boz’s direction. He let out an overly confident snicker. I’ve always felt the man’s conduct was ill considered at best, but I thought him downright crazy when he hissed between bloody teeth, “Do your worst, Tatum.”
Chest shot, bleeding like hell, well on his way to a certain death, no doubt in my mind the man couldn’t have been thinking straight. This misguided challenge was all the encouragement Randall Bozworth Tatum needed.
Those poorly chosen words had barely died on Atwood’s lips when my friend brought his homemade club up two-handed and whacked that mouthy outlaw a crushing blow across the bridge of his nose. Gristle and bone made a cracking noise like a rotten cottonwood limb breaking. Damn near made me want to puke my spurs up. People out in the street must’ve heard it. And if not that, then they heard the piercing, surprised screech that escaped the man’s twisted lips before he passed slap out and lay on that table in the manner of a dead man for near a minute.
A gusher of blood squirted from the middle of Atwood’s face and bedecked the wall behind the snooker table like red paint delivered from a fire hose. Boz stepped aside to avoid getting doused. Then he examined the bulbous end of the heavy stick and said, “Well, don’t appear as how his nose damaged my club much. Big, ugly honker of his barely put a dent in it.” Then he turned to Glo and said, “Bring me a bucket of beer.”
Glo looked puzzled. He swayed from foot to foot and toed at the boards under his feet. “Bucket of beer, Mistuh Boz?”
Tatum propped his club against the wall and said, “Yeah, Glo. A bucket of beer. A bucket of beer. Gonna take me a much-needed drink, then use what’s left to revive this bastard.”
I could tell our old compadre didn’t care for the direction things had taken. Not sure I did, either, but I knew there was no stopping Boz once he’d started down such a path. Any attempt to bring a halt to his efforts could put a man’s life at risk.
Shaking his head the whole time, Glo shuffled over the beer tap behind the bar. With a metallic click, he laid his heavy shotgun on the drink serving station’s polished marble top. He dragged out a tin bucket from somewhere and proceeded to fill it.
“This ain’t good, Mr. Boz,” Glo said when he handed the froth-covered pail of liquid over to Tatum.
Boz turned the metal container of cold liquor up and took a long swallow. Wiped suds from his drooping moustaches with one arm, then walked over and poured a glass or two into Tanner Atwood’s crushed, gore- spattered face. The pitiless child killer coughed, choked a bit, then revived enough to cough and spit out a fist-sized glob of bloody drool and broken teeth onto his own chest.
Atwood’s eyes swam in their sockets when he tried to sit up. He said, “G-G-God A-A-Almighty, T-Tatum. N- N-Never figured you for anythin’ like this. You done busted my nose. Musta knocked out nigh on half my forkin’ teeth, you vicious son of a bitch.”
Beneath an arched eyebrow, Boz snarled, “You helped murder the most part of an entire family, you scum- sucking bastard. Decent, God fearin’ people, no doubt. You know where the only one of those folks left living is. Best get to coughin’ up her location and right by-God now. Or, I swear ’fore Jesus, Tanner, you’re gonna wish yourself dead a thousand times over ’fore the sun goes down today. Get started and it can take me hours to finish up a project like this.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. Tanner Atwood actually spit a raspy, blood-soaked chuckle into Tatum’s face. He said, “S-S-Screw you and the horse you rode in on, you badge-totin’ son of a b-b-bitch.” Then he hacked again and spit blood onto my friend’s bib-front shirt. Sweet merciful Jesus, but that single act proved a horrendous error in judgment.
Slower than an Arkansas hound dog in August, Boz leaned over and placed the half-full beer bucket on the floor next to one of the snooker table’s thick, wooden legs. Then, quick as blue-tinted, pitchfork lightning, he grabbed up his makeshift cue-stick club and went to whacking on Atwood’s shins.
