“Well then, maybe I will head there,” Butler said, “but right now I think I’ll head to bed.”
“So early?”
“Gonna get an early start in the morning,” Butler said. He drained his beer and set the empty mug down on the bar. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Thanks for the game,” Jack said. “You made it more interestin’ than usual. Less profitable, but more interestin’.”
“Why don’t you leave Wichita, Jack?” Butler asked.
“Naw, not me,” Jack said. “I’m close to fifty now. Time for me to stay in one place.”
Butler was surprised. Three-Eyed Jack did not look fifty to him.
“Fifty ain’t so old.”
“My bones feel older,” Jack said. “They won’t let me get on a horse for any period of time. Nah, Wichita’s good enough for me, right now.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Butler said.
“Good luck headin’ west,” Jack said. “You got some big games ahead of you. I can see it.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Butler said, “and good night.”
Butler hit the dark, quiet street and headed for his hotel. He left the lights and sounds of the Main Street saloons behind him. When the shot rang out it was as if he’d anticipated it. He was already rolling in the street when the bullet struck the dirt where he’d been standing. Fact was, Butler was always expecting a shot, and his reflexes had saved his life more than once.
He came to a stop on one knee, Colt in hand. He was waiting for a second shot so the muzzle flash would give him a target, but it didn’t come. Nobody came out to see what was happening, either. One shot on the streets of Wichita did not rate investigation. He remained stock-still, watching the doorways and alleys for movement, or shadows.
His hotel was two blocks away. In his experience a man willing to fire one shot is more than willing to fire a few more. He didn’t think he was going to make the two blocks without another try.
He knew the shooter was not young Sam Troy. For one thing Jack had his gun, and though Troy could have gotten himself another one, Butler was pretty sure they’d convinced him of the error of his ways, at least for tonight.
He didn’t holster his gun. If the shooter was who he thought it was, he was going to need it. Not that he knew the exact identity of the shooter. It would be just another in a long line of men trying to collect on a bounty. This was no law-appointed bounty, but one that had followed him from back East. It had been years since his family had been killed in Philadelphia, and as the only one left, Ty Butler still had a price on his head, put there by… somebody.
His father, a wealthy investor from Philadelphia, had sent him west to keep him safe. He had only been gone a month or so when word reached him that his father, uncles, and other family members had all been murdered. Luckily, his mother had died of natural causes years before, and so escaped the slaughter.
Eager to return home to seek vengeance, his father’s lawyer and long-time friend had convinced him to remain in the West.
“You’ll be dead before you get both feet off the train,” the man told him in a letter. “Just keep heading west. They will come after you, and one day you’ll take one of them alive. Don’t come back here, Ty, unless you are armed with information.”
So whoever it was out there in the dark, gunning for him, his goal was to take him alive and squeeze the information out of him about who had hired him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to defend himself. He’d already dispatched nine such assassins over the years, not one had allowed themselves to be taken alive.
Sometimes, when months would go by without an attempt, he’d think that maybe they’d given up. Maybe the price had been taken off his head. But allowing himself to be lulled into a false sense of security would have cost him his life, because, eventually, there was always
Like tonight.
CHAPTER 3
The two men at the bar in the Gold Room watched as Tyler Butler faced off against the young kid, with the older gambler backing his play—or the other way around. Either way, the two men had managed to disarm the kid and send him packing.
“Damn,” the first man said.
“What?”
“I wanted to see his move.”
“What does it matter?” the second man asked. “We’re gonna bushwack him, anyway. I’m just glad the kid didn’t kill ’im, because then our bounty woulda went up in smoke.”
“Still,” the first man said, “after hearin’ so much about this guy, I kinda wanted to see his move.”
Dutch Miller stared at his partner, Ben Johnson, and said, “I tell you what, Ben. You call him out. This way you’ll get to see his move. And if he kills you, I’ll gun him.”
“Sure, you’d like that,” Dutch said. “Get to keep the reward for yerself, that way.”
“Okay,” Dutch said, “so if yer not gonna face ’im, stop your jabberin’. Let’s get outside and get ready.”
As they headed for the door Ben asked, “What if the other gambler comes out with ’im?”
“If he gets in the way,” Dutch said, “we’ll do for him, too. Now let’s go.”
Butler stepped up onto the boardwalk and melted into the shadows. His hotel was on this side of the street, a couple of blocks up. He wondered if the shooter would run ahead to wait for him, or if there’d be a second one there?
In Cleveland a guy had tried for him from a rooftop with a rifle in broad daylight. His mistake. There was a policeman nearby who got to him even before Butler could.
In Chicago one single man had tried for him, but he’d tried it out in the open and Butler had beaten him to the draw.
In St. Jo, Missouri they’d sent two shooters after him. He’d gotten both of them, but not before a lot of running and ducking and taking a bullet in the left arm.
In Abilene, just a month or so ago, three men had tracked him for miles, but they waited too long. By the time they tried for him he’d met up with his friend Mickey O’Day. Between the two of them they’d dispatched the three gunmen, unable to take any of them alive.
Now he was wondering to himself, what was it this time, one or two?
There was a time in Wichita when, on any given night, you wouldn’t hear a shotgun blast in the middle of the street because of the noise coming from all the saloons. Even now the patrons in the Gold Room were too busy to hear a single gunshot—all of them except Three-Eyed Jack. His ears were attuned to all sorts of sounds, and he was able to differentiate them from one another. He could hear the piano, the cooing of the saloon girls to the customers, trying to get them to buy another drink or go upstairs. He could hear money or chips hitting the faro table, and the sound of the ball bouncing around on the roulette wheel, looking for a place to rest.
And he knew a single gunshot when he heard one.
Butler made his way along the street toward his hotel, gun in hand. It didn’t sound like he was being followed, but as experienced as he got year after year at handling himself in these situations, the assassins were also becoming more and more adept. Sooner or later he was going to run into one who had developed a little more quickly than him, and he’d meet his match and maker on the same night.
But hopefully, not tonight.
“You missed, didn’t you?” Dutch asked Ben.
“Yeah, I did,” Ben admitted, “but why’d you tell me not to take a second shot if I did?”
“Because I knew you’d miss.”
“What? You sayin’ you’re a better shot than I am?” Ben demanded.
