Riding Shotgun

by William W. Johnstone

“Then maybe he just don’t like the way you look, huh?” Buttons said.

  “Could be, but since he followed us from the hotel, that’s a heap of not liking a man’s appearance,” Red said.

  “Ah, maybe he’s just be bored and looking around, huh?” Buttons said.

  That question was answered when the man rose from his chair, slowly, elegantly, unwinding one piece of himself at a time. He stepped across the floor, his spurs chiming, and stood at the bar. Without turning his head, as though he talked directly to the mirror, he said, “Going by the color of your hair, I’d say your name was Red Ryan.”

  “You got my name, mister, so what’s yours?” Red said.

  “Name’s Danny Kline. Mean anything to you?”

  “Not a thing,” Red said. “Are you somebody I should know?”

  Kline ignored that and said, “I’m only going to say this once and I won’t repeat it . . . I’ll stay for the next thirty minutes. Bring back the carpetbag before I leave or you’re a dead man.”

  “What carpetbag?” Red said.

  “You got thirty minutes and time is a-wasting. You get back here a minute late, I’ll kill you. Don’t come back at all and I’ll kill you. Mister, you got a decision to make.”

  Danny Kline had scored too many easy kills, gunned too many scared or unskilled men, and his overconfidence was his undoing. He’d measured Red Ryan all wrong. Red would not be pushed, browbeaten, or threatened, and above all he was good with a gun and had sand.

  “I’ve made my decision, Kline,” he said. “And now it’s time for you to make yours . . . walk out of here while you still can or draw your pistol and get to your work.”

  The bartender leaned across the bar and said, “Here, that won’t do. I run a respectable place here.”

  An elderly man with a fashionable imperial beard and mustache sat in an easy chair by the far wall. He looked over his newspaper, said loudly, “Tut-tut-tut,” and went back to reading again.

  “You heard the bartender, Kline, this is a respectable place. Now get the hell out of here and tell Stella Morgan to come for the bag herself.” Red stood loose, ready, his hand by his holstered Colt. “Other wise, I can accommodate you at your earliest convenience,” he said.

  Kline didn’t like the taste of his own medicine, he didn’t like it one bit. But he’d been fairly called and his pride would not let an uppity stagecoach messenger put the crawl on him.

  “Well, mister, it seems like I got to kill you,” he said. “Pity, because that’s not how I planned it.”

  Kline went for his gun and cleared leather faster than Red. A gunfight is measured in fractions of a second, and Kline drew with blinding speed and fired first. It is said that in later years Bat Masterson penned a newspaper account of the Silver Slipper draw-fight and wrote that the noted shootist Danny Kline should have taken an extra half-second to place his shot against such an inferior opponent. And he was right. Kline’s bullet went wide to the left by a couple of inches and splintered into the bar. But Red’s first shot, slower but accurate, was on target and hit the gunman’s right bicep, tearing through muscle and shattering bone. Again, referring to Masterson’s account, Danny may have been attempting a border shift, tossing his Colt into his left hand, when Red steadied, placed his second shot on the money, and hit Kline’s breastbone dead center. The gunman staggered back, stared at his bloody chest in horror for long seconds, and then collapsed onto the wood floor and died.

  Masterson wrote, “Danny Kline passed away secure in the knowledge that he’d been bested by a less-speedy opponent. And so it was with many fast-draw gunfighters who fell to lesser, but coolheaded men who took their time and placed their shots where they would do the most damage.”

  His ears ringing, Red Ryan stared at Kline’s body as he reloaded his revolver, and he was vaguely aware of Buttons Muldoon saying, “Hell, Red, you cut that too close.”

  It took a while before Red answered, and when he did he said, “He was good, fast on the draw and shoot, and I reckon there will be more where he came from.”

  “Then it’s high time we quit this burg,” Buttons said. “What do you say we hitch up the team right now and head for Fort Concho and pick up that Limey coward feller?”

  “No, I’ve been wronged, and I’ll see this through to the end, no matter what that end may be,” Red said. He glanced at the dead man again. “Danny Kline, you tried to scare me, and all you did was make me angry. The mistake was yours, not mine.”

  The old man with the imperial stepped to Red’s side, bringing along his newspaper. “Suh, my name is Major Augustus Bennett, late of the 8th Virginia Infantry, and I saw this whole sorry affair as it happened. You defended your honor as a true Southern gentleman should and you were not to blame, suh, not to blame.”

  “Thank you, Major,” Red said.

  “Hey, Major, tell that to the sheriff,” Buttons said.

  Ten minutes later T. C. Lyons stalked through the open door, a Colt at his waist and a scowl on his face. “What’s all the shooting about?” he said. His eyes went to the dead man on the floor and then to Red. “I might have known. Ryan, did you have a hand in this?”

  “He drew on me, and I killed him,” Red said. Then, with a mind to Major Bennett, “I was defending my honor.”

  “And I can attest to that, Sheriff,” the major said. “Fair fight, suh, fair fight.”

  “Hell, that’s Danny Kline, runs with Skull Jackson and them,” Lyons said. He looked at Red. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

  Red nodded. “He was good, real good.”

  The bartender said, “Sheriff, I run a respectable place here. There hasn’t been a gunfight in the Silver Slipper in three-month.”

  “Seems to me there was a shooting not so long ago,” Lyons said.

  “A dispute between Southern gentlemen over a game of cards,” Bennett said. “I saw that too, Sheriff.”

  Lyons nodded. “Major, one of those Southern gentlemen died of a bullet in the heart and I hung the other one.”

  The bartender turned surly. “When it’s only one man doing the shooting, it don’t count as a gunfight,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

  Lyons ignored the man and turned his attention to Red. “Ryan, what happened here?”

  Red decided not to mention the carpetbag, and implied that Kline picked a fight because he was in the mood to kill a man. The major, well gone in brandy, didn’t contradict that account, nor did the bartender, who wanted the whole matter forgotten as quickly as possible, and for once Buttons kept his mouth shut.

  “All right, so it was self-defense,” Lyons said. “But you’re in a heap of trouble, Ryan. You said Danny Kline was fast, and he was, but Skull Jackson is a sight faster. He set store by Kline. They drank together, whored together, and killed together, and he won’t let this stand.” The sheriff shook his head. “I thought Pip Ogden would keep you out of trouble, but obviously that hasn’t happened.”

  “We’re still investigating Stella Morgan,” Red said.

  “Forget it, Ryan. Do as I do and leave it for the county sheriff when we get one. Climb on your stage and head west, east, north, south, anywhere but El Paso. Ogden is a trained police detective. Let him investigate Stella Morgan.”

  “I’ll see it through, Lyons,” Red said. “There’s a train headed north the day after tomorrow, and Stella Morgan will be on it unless I stop her.”

  “I told you, let Ogden stop her.” Lyons studied Red’s face. “I can see you won’t take my advice, so on your head be it. In the meantime, steer clear of Skull Jackson. I won’t describe him for you, Ryan, because you’ll know him when you see him . . . and he may be the last thing you’ll ever see.” He turned to the bartender. “I’ll send the undertaker to clean up this mess.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  “Danny Kline dead. It’s hard to believe,” Seth Roper said.

  “The word I hear is that Ryan shot him in the back,” Skull Jackson said. “He couldn’t shade Danny in a fair fight, and
he knew it.”

  Roper smiled. “I never thought Danny Kline was much of a one for a fair fight either.”

  “Danny was my friend, Roper. With a face like mine, he was my only friend. Don’t talk bad about him. I don’t like it.” He tossed his fork on the plate and said, “I can’t eat this garbage.”

  “I can tell the bartender to scramble you some eggs, Henry,” Roper said. “Or maybe some cheese. You like cheese?”

  “I won’t have any appetite until I kill Ryan,” Jackson said. He looked around at the expectant faces in the Platte River saloon and said, “Yeah, you all heard me right. Go spread that word that I aim to shoot Red Ryan on sight.”

  Roper shook his head. “Henry, listen, that won’t do. We need to get the carpetbag. It’s likely Ryan has stashed it someplace, and he has to tell us where it is before you gun him.”

  “Probably in his hotel room,” Jackson said. “Damn it, Roper, I told Danny not to go it alone.”

  “Don’t underestimate Ryan. He’s a hard man to kill,” Roper said.

  “I can kill him,” Jackson said. “I’ll kill him tonight.”

  “We must get the bag first, Henry. Please, understand that. Killing Ryan is way less important than the carpetbag.”

  “Killing Ryan is important to me,” Jackson said. He and Roper locked eyes, a pair of pitiless, vicious predators with very different priorities. Finally, Skull looked away. “All right, Roper, here’s how it will go down, and I don’t want to hear any objections.” He reached into the inside pocket of his frock coat and produced a straight razor with a yellowed, ivory handle. “Roper, you ever worked over a man with one of these?”

  “No, I never have,” Roper said. “I save razors for my chin.”

  Jackson opened the blade and it glinted in the saloon’s gaslight. “The razor is so sharp, so keen, the cut is subtle. At first there is no feeling, but after a few heartbeats the pain hits and burns like fire. A strong man, Red Ryan for instance, will take many, many cuts before he screams in his torment and begs for the final slash . . . the merciful one across the throat.” The man’s face was a grinning skull. “Set your mind at rest, Roper. I’ll find out where the bag is hidden.” He closed the razor. “Ryan will tell me.”

  Roper, a hard-edged man not lacking in a self-serving brand of courage, swallowed with difficulty and then because he could think of nothing else, he said, “There will be blood.”

  Jackson nodded. “Much blood, rivers of blood. When I am done with my butchering, Ryan’s hotel room will look like a slaughterhouse.”

  Roper drained his whiskey and then said, “Henry, tonight I wouldn’t want to be in Ryan’s shoes.”

  Jackson’s smile was grotesque. “Tell me, who in his right mind would?”

  * * *

  “Red Ryan will breathe his last tonight, Stella,” Seth Roper said. “Skull Jackson has it all planned.”

  “The carpetbag, Seth,” Stella Morgan said. “We must get the bag.”

  “Jackson will get it.” Roper smiled. “Ryan has had close shaves before, but the one he’ll get tonight with Jackson’s razor will be his last.”

  “Seth, who is this Skull Jackson?” Stella said. “Can we trust him?”

  “As to who he is, or what he is, you don’t want to know. And yeah, we can trust him. Skull always earns his wages.”

  “Lucian told me that Ryan killed a man last night,” Stella said. “Is it true?”

  “Yeah, in the Silver Slipper saloon, a draw fighter by the name of Danny Kline,” Roper said. “Kline worked with Skull Jackson and he was warned not to go after Ryan by himself, but he did, and got himself shot.”

  “I hope Jackson is faster on the draw than Kline was,” Stella said.

  “He is, don’t worry about that. Kline was told that Ryan is no bargain, but he went ahead and braced him anyway. The word coming down was that Ryan shot Danny in the back, but I talked to the Silver Slipper bartender, and he said it was a fair fight. Ryan didn’t shoot first. But he shot straighter.”

  “Well, hopefully after tonight Red Ryan won’t be around to trouble us,” Stella said.

  Seth shook his head. “There’s no hopefully, Stella. When Jackson puts his mind to killing a man, he sees it through.”

  Stella rose from her chair by the hotel-room window and sat on the bed. She picked up a hairbrush from the table and then said, pointing it at Roper for emphasis, “Seth, what about Lucian?”

  “Carter? What do you want to know?”

  “Do we take him with us to Washington?”

  “I guess he has the manners of a gentleman, when he wants to.”

  “And so?”

  “He could come in handy as a front when you meet your future rich husbands. Introduce him as your brother and let him help you talk your way into high society.” Roper saw the question on Stella’s face and grinned. “I can’t play that role, Stella. I’m too rough around the edges. Let me stay in the background, like we planned.”

  Stella began to brush her luxuriant hair. “Just so you know, Lucian will want to be rewarded, and I don’t mean with money.”

  Roper laughed. “Hell, woman, you’re a whore, a beautiful, desirable whore, but a whore nonetheless. In Washington, you’ll use your body to lure rich men to your bed, so giving Carter a taste now and then won’t hurt a bit.” Roper shrugged. “If that arrangement becomes distasteful, I’ll kill him for you.” He rose to his feet and sat beside Stella on the bed. He took the brush from her hand and said, “Here, let me do that for you.”

  As Roper brushed, Stella said, “Am I that, Seth? Am I really a whore?”

  “You plan on selling your body to the highest bidders,” Roper said.

  “So that makes me a whore,” Stella said.

  Roper kissed Stella’s naked shoulder. “Yes, but you’re more than that, Stella. You’re a beautiful spider . . . a black widow spider that kills with a bite a dozen times deadlier than any rattlesnake.”

  Stella smiled. “I like being a black widow better than a whore.”

  “You’re both, my love,” Roper said. “You’re both.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “I’m a whore, Mr. Ryan,” the girl said.

  Red Ryan was puzzled. “Then, I think you have the wrong room, lady.”

  “No, number fourteen. It says so right here on the door.”

  Red shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why are you here?”

  The girl smiled. She was small, brunette, and pretty.

  “I’m a present, a present for you.” She held up a bottle. “And look, I brought some wine.”

  “Who sent you?” Red said.

  “All I can say is that he’s a gentleman admirer. Now, can I come in?”

  Red looked out in the hallway. It was deserted, shadowed by the pale blue light of the gas lamps. “I’d guess you’d better,” he said.

  The girl’s silk dress rustled as she stepped into the room. She smelled of lavender water. “My name is Trudy,” she said. “Trudy True, and I’m all yours for the night.”

  The girl sat on the bed and bounced. “Comfy mattress,” she said.

  “Who is this gentlemen admirer?” Red said.

  “I can’t tell you. But I know he’s rich.” She smiled. “I don’t come cheap, and neither does this wine.” Trudy patted the bed. “Come sit beside me, Mr. Ryan.”

  There was nothing about this girl that Red didn’t like. She had the kind of pert, poised prettiness that would make any man cut a dash in her presence, and Red was no exception.

  “Well,” Trudy said, “how do you want me? Do you want to undress me or should I do it myself ?”

  Red opened his mouth to speak, but the girl said, “No, not yet. We’ve got the whole night to get better acquainted. Let’s have a glass of wine first.”

  Trudy rose and stepped to a side table where there was a carafe of water and two glasses. She took a small corkscrew from her purse, opened the wine bottle with practiced ease, and poured. She returned to the bed and handed
a glass to Red. “I declare,” the girl said, “it’s a trifle warm in here.” She turned her back and said, “Please unbutton me, Mr. Ryan. I’ll be much cooler without my dress.”

  Red grinned, downed his wine in a gulp, let his glass drop to the floor, and began to fumble with tiny buttons and eyelets. “Damn, you’re right, it is hot in here,” he said. He fumbled . . . blinked . . . fumbled . . . blinked again . . . he couldn’t feel his fingertips . . . fumbled . . . the girl giggled . . .

  “Damn it’s . . . hot . . .” Red said. He couldn’t speak properly, as though his tongue was too large for his mouth.

  The girl rose, laid her untouched wineglass on the table, and collected her purse from the bed. She smiled sympathetically at Red and said, “Poor boy, you just can’t handle your liquor, can you?”

  “Wha . . .” Red said. The room grew darker and his head spun. He tried to get to his feet, failed, tried again and finally stood upright . . . but not for long. He was vaguely aware of Trudy True stepping back from him, smiling, and he tried to reach her, but he staggered and then fell on his hands and knees. The walls of the room closed in on him, and he found himself crawling across the floor in darkness . . . and then he fell heavily on his side. He tried to rise, but could not move his arms or legs. He was fully conscious now . . . but paralyzed.

  * * *

  Red Ryan woke to dim gaslight. He opened his eyes and tried to focus his hazy brain. At some point he’d fallen asleep, but slowly the events of the evening returned to him . . . the girl . . . the wine . . . his paralysis . . .

  Damn, the wine had been drugged! He’d been taken in by a whore’s false smile like a teenage rube just off the farm.

  Red attempted to move his arms and realized he was no longer immobile, but his wrists were tightly bound to the brass bed as were his ankles. Then it dawned on him, he was stark naked, spread-eagled on the bed like a human sacrifice in some lurid dime novel.

  He raised his head . . . and saw death.

  Then from the lipless skull, a thin whisper. “Ah, the sleeper awakes. The potion from my little Celestial friends did everything they said it would. Oh, I see you frown, Mr. Ryan. Did you hope you were dead? How unlucky for you that you are not.”