by Jake Logan
The source of the delectable scents that had caught their attention seemed to be a small place called Bullseye Saloon and Steaks. Slocum nodded toward it and asked, “Meet you inside when you’re through?”
“Sounds good.”
“Jesus,” Milt groaned. “Get me behind bars before you two start swappin’ spit.”
Daniel was all too happy to oblige and he snapped his reins to keep riding farther into town while Slocum tied his horse to a post near a water trough. The dun lapped gratefully as Slocum stepped into the Bullseye. Almost immediately, he was struck by a wave of smoky scents mixed liberally with something else that made it even better. A young woman with straight red hair approached him and smiled while asking, “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me that’s cornbread I’m smelling.”
“Sure is. A fresh batch just came from the oven.”
“Then you just made my day.”
“Like a seat at a table?” she asked.
“And a feed bag. Speaking of which, where might I be able to put my horse up for the night?”
“Depends on where you’re staying,” the redhead told him as she scooped up some utensils and led Slocum to a table by the window. “If you intend on getting a room at the Whispering Hill, they’ll take good care of your horse. There’s a livery down on Third that charges a fair price, but if you’re just passing through for something to eat, I can have someone fetch some oats for you.”
“It’s been a long day, so see to them oats. Just tack it on to my bill.”
Her smile was wide, and her lips were a dark shade of red. Both of those things competed for Slocum’s attention as she set a menu down onto the table and started to walk away.
“Mind if I take that seat right over there?” he asked while pointing to a smaller table situated against the back wall.
She looked at it, shrugged, and then gathered up all the things she’d set down. “Most folks prefer a view.”
“I just came off of a two-day ride. I’ve had all the view I can stomach.”
“Fair enough. Our special is pork chops and creamed corn.”
“Does that come with cornbread?” Slocum asked.
“If you like.”
“I like. Bring me that and some water.”
“And I like a man who knows what he wants,” she said while cradling the menu in one arm and walking away amid the bustle of swaying hips and swirling skirts.
So far, Slocum was glad to be in Culbertson.
It was a bit past supper time, which meant the Bullseye was down to its customers who preferred to be served from a bottle. A short bar ran along the back of the place, and a set of tall, narrow doors led into the kitchen. A few lonely souls stood at the bar nursing their drinks, and there seemed to be a poker game being played in one of the rear corners of the room. Since that was about all of the life in there besides Slocum and the employees, he guessed there must have been a rowdier saloon somewhere else in town. The pork chop special came promptly and was devoured in short order. The plate of cornbread that had been brought to his table lasted about as long as a tall glass of water split between a dozen riders crossing the Mojave Desert. Although the redhead had checked on him a few times throughout his meal, she eventually kept her distance as though Slocum were a ravenous dog that didn’t want its bone taken away before it had been stripped it of every last scrap of meat.
“Where’s the law around here?” he asked when she passed nearby.
“Why?” she asked. “Do you have a complaint?”
“No, a friend of mine was supposed to be meeting me here after paying a visit to your town’s law.”
Relieved that she or her workplace wasn’t in the crosshairs, she told him, “That’d be Sheriff Teaghan. His office is at the corner of Main and Virginia.”
Slocum approached the window and looked outside. Instinct more than anything else caused him to peek through the edge of the curtains without placing too much of his body in sight of anyone keeping watch on that pane of glass. “Which direction is Virginia?” he asked.
“It’s one street down that way,” she replied while pointing toward the west end of town. “You should be able to see it from here. It’s the one with all the horses tied out front.”
“Got it,” Slocum said, having already spotted Daniel’s horse. He watched for a few more seconds before the redhead tentatively approached him.
“Are you expecting trouble?” she asked.
“No, my friend is just late.” As a way to steer her away from what may or may not be a problem, Slocum added, “How about you round up another basket of the cornbread for when he arrives?”
“You already ate your share,” said another woman from the back of the saloon. She wore a rumpled apron that covered her from a few inches below her neck to a few inches above her feet and was spattered with enough flour, grease, and other stains to mark her as the Bullseye’s cook. Curly blond hair was held back in a tail, but many strands had come loose to hang against her cheeks or bounce along her forehead. Judging by the expression on her softly rounded face, she wasn’t as happy to cook more cornbread as Slocum was to eat it.
“I’ll pay my bill if that’s what you’re worried about,” Slocum said. “This is for a friend of mine.”
“The bill’s not my concern. It’s his,” the blonde said while waving a hand toward the bar.
A tall scarecrow of a man behind the bar waved both hands in the air above his balding head and hollered, “For Pete’s sake, let the man alone, Bethany!”
“Pete’s sake and mine,” Slocum chided.
Although the redhead giggled under her breath, Bethany wasn’t so easily appeased. “Dinner’s over, mister,” she said. “Either take what we got left or go somewhere else. If you don’t like it, you should’ve come at a more reasonable hour.”
“Bethany!” the bartender barked.
“Fine,” she said while turning back toward the kitchen. “I suppose nobody else gets to carry on with their lives if some cowboy rides in and has to have a home-cooked meal.”
“If this food wasn’t the best I’d tasted in three months, I’d tell you to stick it all where the sun don’t shine,” Slocum said. “But since it is, I’d be grateful for you to fix another plate of it for my friend.”
At first, Bethany was put off by the backhanded compliment. Once it settled in, however, a flicker of a smile drifted across her face. She didn’t have any more cross words for him while she quickly got to work on another daily special. When she emerged from the kitchen again, she carried a dinner plate covered by a tin lid and ready to go. “One more serving of pork chops,” she announced while approaching Slocum.
He stood by the window, having spent his time watching the street in front of the sheriff’s office while the food had been prepared. Turning toward the clatter of the plate being set down onto the closest table, he drew a breath to speak but didn’t need to ask his next question.
“And,” Bethany cut in, “here’s your cornbread.”
Slocum was still holding the curtain as he looked toward the table that had been the redhead’s first choice when seating him. On top of the covered plate was a bundle wrapped in napkins held in place with a piece of string. “Much obliged,” he said.
“Just don’t think you’ll get special treatment again,” Bethany said as she waggled a finger at him. “You’ve been warned. Once my kitchen is closed, it’s—”
A gunshot blasted from the street to shatter the glass.
The bullet that had been fired chipped a jagged hole through the pane and passed so close between Slocum and Bethany that he could hear it hiss by as it entered the saloon, shattered a glass on one table, and became lodged in a wall. Slocum dropped the food he’d been holding and threw himself at Bethany since she was the only other one standing with him at the window.
The redhead screamed and covered her head with her hands. Customers at the bar hunkered down as if to protect their drinks as the men playing cards in the back
of the room dove for the floor. Slocum saw this in bits and pieces as he brought Bethany down. When he hit the floor on his shoulder, the closest thing to his face was the covered plate, which had somehow survived the fall. He twisted around to find Bethany lying nearby after having dropped and rolled a bit to one side.
“You all right?” he asked.
“My arm hurts. I think I landed on it.”
“No! Are you hit?”
She wriggled, but didn’t act like someone who’d taken a bullet. “No,” she said to confirm Slocum’s suspicions. “I don’t think so.”
“Then—”
More shots blasted through the window, punching holes through it while sending a rain of chipped glass down onto Slocum’s head, back, and shoulders.
At the back of the room, the balding barkeep stuck his head up like a prairie dog that had chosen the worst possible time to emerge from its hole. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted. “Do you know how expensive that window was?”
“Wanna tell it to the man outside or get your head back down?” Slocum replied.
Even though the barkeep seemed to take a moment to ponder which choice he preferred, he rushed to a conclusion when another barrage of gunshots blasted through the saloon.
“Stay here,” Slocum said to Bethany.
“Where else would I go? Wait a second!” she cried. “You should stay here, too!”
But Slocum wasn’t listening. He’d already kicked open the door and charged into the fray.
10
Slocum was no stranger to carrying a pistol in each hand, and he sure as hell knew better than to discharge both weapons at the same time. On special occasions, however, unleashing a torrent of noise and smoke was preferable to taking the time to place his rounds correctly. Since all he wanted was to draw fire away from the front of the Bullseye, he gripped the .38 and .44 he’d taken from Milt and announced his presence with an eruption of blazing fury.
There were two men standing in the street. One carried a rifle and the other had a smoking pistol, which they’d used to shatter the expensive front window. A spattering of rain had started to fall, which turned the street into a shallow river of mud. Slocum’s first shot surprised them and the ones that followed had come so quickly that both men could only scatter for cover before one of the wild rounds could find its mark. One dove behind a water trough and the other made it to one of the thick posts that formed a dotted line through the middle of town.
“Only two of you?” Slocum yelled after he’d emptied three rounds from each pistol. “Usually when a bunch of cowards fire into a room full of unarmed people, there’s at least three or four in the pack.”
Having placed his back to a pole, the man with the rifle swung around to fire at Slocum. That prompted the man behind the trough to ditch his pistol in favor of a shotgun that he’d either tossed ahead of him or kept stashed nearby. However he’d carried it, the double barrels made a hell of a noise when they belched their smoky payload.
Slocum ducked back into the saloon, but just far enough to find some cover in the doorway. The rifle round knocked into the wall a foot or two away from him, but the scattergun’s pellets came from too far away to do more than smack against the front of the place like hard rain. As soon as Slocum started to poke his nose out to return fire, another shot was fired from across the street that hadn’t been sent by either of the two men he’d spotted.
“There you are!” Slocum hollered.
Whoever the third man was, he remained hidden as he shouted, “You’re not welcome here! Get on your horse and leave town now or there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Do you speak for the town’s welcoming committee?”
That joke was met with another volley of gunfire, some of which found its way through the broken window of the Bullseye. Since his intention had been to keep anyone inside from getting killed, Slocum grit his teeth, tightened his grip on both pistols, and ran for the pole that was closest to him. One or two of the shots got a bit too close for his comfort, but the men outside were more concerned with making noise than spilling blood. As soon as they ran dry, Slocum stepped out and fired the proper way.
Rather than send as much lead as possible toward the attackers, he sighted along the top of the .44 and fired at the man who’d sought shelter behind the next pole down the street. The wooden column was thick enough to keep the head-level shot from penetrating all the way through, so Slocum lowered his aim to the edge of the pole where the man wasn’t able to benefit from the most solid portion of his cover. The side of the pole splintered into bits as Slocum’s round punched through it as well as the meaty portion of the man’s thigh. The gunman swore to high heaven and lost interest in the fight.
Then, Slocum fired at the water trough, but was thrown off his aim when the man behind it, who’d switched away from his shotgun to a pistol, fired at him. Since the .44 was empty, Slocum holstered it and made a border shift by tossing the .38 from his left hand to his right. As soon as his finger touched the trigger, he fired his rounds in quick succession. Each hit the trough to form a series of holes that started at the upper edge of the large wooden container and ended with a hole that punched through the trough as well as the man lying behind it.
Although seeing the man roll away from the trough while grabbing his upper arm was a welcome sight, Slocum knew there was still at least one more gunman to deal with and he hadn’t been able to pin down exactly where that one was hiding.
“Your ammo is spent,” the hidden man shouted. “That is, unless you’re carrying a third pistol.”
“Wanna gamble your life that I’m not?” Slocum asked.
“He don’t need one,” Daniel shouted from the street. He carried his rifle with the stock against his shoulder and ready to fire. “I’ve got a line on these two in front of me, and the moment you show your face, I’ll have a line on you, too. Reckon that’ll give you enough time to reload, John?”
“More than enough,” Slocum replied as his hands went through the motions of replacing the spent rounds in the ..44 with fresh ones he’d purchased in Dodge City.
After a heavy pause, the hidden shooter said, “This was just a warning. Next time you won’t be allowed to walk away.”
“You delivered your message and we heard it just fine,” Slocum said. “Whether or not you live to see tomorrow is up to you.”
Each of Slocum’s senses was heightened by the blood surging through his veins and the excitement that had been packed into the last few minutes. His eyes were trained on the darkened shadows across the street in front of him, and his ears strained for any hint that another volley of gunfire might be on its way. When he saw a glint near the top of one of the buildings across from the Bullseye, he fired reflexively.
“Hold your fire!” a man shouted from Daniel’s end of the street. He was several inches shorter than Daniel, but carried himself like the cock of the walk. The tin star pinned to his chest only furthered that claim.
Both of the wounded men struggled to get away, but neither could get more than a few steps before Slocum and Daniel had them covered. “Sheriff Teaghan,” Daniel announced. “Best bring the rest of your men out to deal with this.”
Although Teaghan had his gun drawn, he seemed just as ready to fire at Slocum or Daniel as he was to take a shot at anyone else. “You don’t tell me what to do, son. I only just met you. Who the hell are you?”
Since the sheriff’s eyes were pointed at him, Slocum shouted his name, followed by, “These other two shot the hell out of this saloon and could have killed any number of folks inside. For all I know, someone is hit in there.”
“Then we’d best go in and have a look.”
“What about that other man across the street?”
“What other man is that?”
Although he couldn’t see any more now as compared to a few moments ago, Slocum’s gut told him that the third shooter was gone. That didn’t stop him from saying, “He’s somewhere on the second floor of that building!”
Teaghan walked down the street as if he couldn’t smell the burnt gunpowder still hanging in the air. Standing between Slocum and the building in question, he squinted up at the second floor and said, “Don’t look like anyone’s there now.”
“That’s because he got away!”
“From where I stand, you men need to worry more about explaining yourselves and less about the one that got away.” When Daniel stepped onto the boardwalk and headed toward the Bullseye, Teaghan asked, “Where the hell are you going?”
“I had a long ride, Sheriff. I planned on getting something to eat.”
“What about this mess?”
“You need me to explain myself for the couple of seconds I wasn’t with you helping to toss that piece of shit I dragged all the way from Dodge City behind bars? Here’s my explanation. I heard the same gunshots you did, came out to see what was happening, and found my partner in the middle of a shooting gallery. You showed up and…that’s about it.”
Teaghan sputtered as Daniel continued to step past Slocum and into the saloon, but wasn’t about to try and impede his progress. Instead, he shifted his ire toward the next available target. “What about you?”
“My story’s pretty much the same except I was inside minding my own business when the shooting started. I came out to investigate and found those two standing out here, pretty as you please.” Slocum actually got his hopes up when the lawman glanced over to the two shooters as if he’d only just realized they were there.
“Wes?” Teaghan asked. “Benjamin? Explain yourselves.”
“We heard someone was coming to bust out them killers you got in the jail, Sheriff,” the man behind the water trough said as he struggled to get to his feet while grasping the bloody wound in his upper arm.
“What about you, Ben?”
“I heard the same thing.”
“Well, that one there brought one of those killers in from Dodge,” the sheriff explained while waving toward the door that Daniel had just used. “Tossed him into a cell like the prettiest Christmas present I ever saw. Said he was riding with another man by the name of John Slocum. That seems to be him, which means we got ourselves a real bad case of crossed lines of communication.”
