“Within reason,” Broken Nose echoed, a lopsided grin spreading across his face. Then, raising his glass, he added, “You heard her, boys. Here’s to keepin’ our hootin’ and hollerin’ within reason.”
In unison, three elbows bent and the shots of red-eye were tossed down. The emptied glasses had scarcely clapped back onto the bartop before Broken Nose was calling for more. “Do another round, darlin’. Just like that one.”
“Be happy to, cowboy,” Maudie told him with a smile. “But the way it works is, in order to keep my whiskey-pouring hand busy, my payment-taking hand needs to get in on some of the action, too.”
Again the lopsided grin from Broken Nose. “What? We look like lowlifes who can’t make good on our tab?”
“You could have a halo shining above your head,” Maudie explained, “but the policy remains the same when it comes to drinking in here. You pay as you go.”
“I’ll cover that first round, Jax,” said the Mexican as he dug into his pocket.
Broken Nose—Jax, as he’d now been identified—waved him off, saying, “No, I got it. Next one, too. On account of, once I get my money dug out, I’ll also have me some further negotiatin’ to do.”
From his pants pocket, Jax produced a handful of coins and wadded bills. These he slapped onto the bartop. “There now, darlin’. Take what you need for two rounds of drinks. And then, after you’ve poured, tell me how much more you’ll need out of that pile in order to arrange for me and you slippin’ off somewhere private-like where we can make some music together.”
Maudie hesitated in her pouring for just a fraction of a second. Then, after resuming the task and refilling the final glass, she set down the bottle of whiskey and said to Jax, “Unless I’m misunderstanding what you just suggested, I think you got a seriously wrong impression. We have gals on premises, some right pretty ones, who do the kind of ‘slipping off’ you seem interested in. They’re still up in their rooms since they don’t usually come down until more toward evening. But, if you don’t want to wait, I can send word for a couple of them—ones I’m sure would meet your approval—to get ready and come on down now.”
“Ain’t none of that necessary,” said Jax. “I’ve already seen what meets my approval. You. No need to do no more window-shoppin’, not where I’m concerned.”
“But that’s where your wrong impression comes in,” Maudie told him. “You see, I’m not one of the upstairs gals. I serve drinks, make friendly conversation with customers, and so forth, but that’s as far as it goes.”
Jax shook his head. “I ain’t buyin’ it. You work in a saloon, you parade around showin’ yourself off that way”—he waved a hand indicating the manner in which Maudie’s low-cut dress accentuated her fine bosom—“so the message is plain enough for me. You can be had—it’s just a matter of agreein’ on the right price.”
“You’re wrong, mister. To the point of being obnoxious and insulting. Much more of it,” Maudie warned him, “will only get you an invitation to leave and not be welcome back.”
Again seeming to want to mollify things, Sideburns spoke up, saying, “Why don’t we just find somewhere else to spend our money and do our drinkin’, Jax? This joint is pretty dead, anyway.”
“No way,” Jax was quick to respond. “Be a cold day in hell when I let some saloon floozy put the run on me and tell me not to come back!”
Up to that point, Bob and Bullock had been listening and looking on from where they still sat at the back table. Because of Maudie’s proven capability for handling pushy customers all on her own, they hadn’t seen any need to get involved in her exchanges with Broken Nose Jax. Until now. The threatening tone of Jax’s last remark, however, made it a different matter. One that Bullock did decide to take a hand in.
As the stout saloon owner got to his feet and started toward the bar, Bob remained seated. Despite Jax’s attitude raising the hackles on the back of the marshal’s neck, the situation was hardly a legal matter warranting him sticking his nose in. In fact, he and his badge might only aggravate things more. Best just to leave Bullock and Maudie handle it, he told himself.
Marching up and coming to a halt beside Jax, Bullock got right to it. “You have some kind of problem with the way we run things around here, bub?” he wanted to know.
Jax turned his head and frowned down at the saloon owner. Bullock was three or four inches shorter than Jax, but he was broader through the shoulders by an equal amount, and the defiant thrust of his chin made it clear he wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the taller man.
Nor did Jax show any sign of taking a step back from the demanding question put to him. “What’s it to you, whether I do or not?” he asked in turn.
“My name’s Bullock. Mike Bullock. If you paid any attention to the sign out front of this establishment on your way in, that oughta give you your answer.”
“So you’re the big he-goose around here. Is that it?”
“However you want to say it,” Bullock answered. “What it boils down to is that a problem in my place is my business to take care of. So I’ll repeat my question: Do you have a problem?”
“Damn right I do. A big one,” said Jax. “I don’t like havin’ the ol’ bait and switch game pulled on me.”
“You’ll have to spell it out plainer. I don’t follow you.”
“How much plainer does it have to be? You’ve got this little teaser behind the bar here”—Jax once again swept an arm to indicate Maudie—“paradin’ around with her mams practically hangin’ out, gettin’ a fella all stoked up, and then, when I try to set a price for samplin’ the whole package, she tells me it’s no deal. Claims she ain’t no ‘upstairs girl.’ What kind of shit is that?”
“It’s called telling the truth. Maudie leveled with you. I heard her explain it clear as could be. We’ve got gals—hostesses, we prefer to call ’em—who are available for the kind of thing you’re interested in. But Maudie ain’t one of them. She don’t do that kind of work.” Bullock’s thick shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “You’re just gonna have to accept it.”
“Like hell I will!” Jax’s expression turned ugly and a bright flush of anger flooded his face. “I ain’t ready to take that for an answer out of her nor you, either one. I say any woman who sashays around half-dressed in a joint like this is a saloon slut who deserves nothing more than to be treated like one. Now all I want to know is how much money I have to lay down to be the one to give her what her flauntin’ ways are askin’ for!”
“There ain’t no price, you foul-mouthed, thickheaded fool,” Bullock snarled. “And you’ll be layin’ down no more of your money in my place for anything. Down the drinks already poured for you and then hit the door. Get out of here and don’t bother coming back.”
“Supposin’ I ain’t ready to go?”
“You’ll be leaving. Either by walking of your own accord, or being dragged out. The choice is yours.”
The angry flush continued to color Jax’s face as his mouth twisted into a sneer. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you grizzled old scrapper? I can see by your flattened nose and the scar tissue around your eyes how you enjoy escortin’ customers out the hard way. But if you think I’m gonna butt heads or bust knuckles with the likes of you, mister, you got another think comin’ . . . What I will do, though, is bust a cap on your double-dealin’ damn hide if you keep pushin’ me!”
With those words, Jax reached down and drew his six-gun in a swift, unexpected move. It took only a split second before its muzzle was shoved square in Bullock’s face and held steady mere inches from the tip of his nose.
“For God’s sake!” Maudie exclaimed.
From where he sat, Bob saw Bullock’s back go rigid and his hands ball into melon-sized fists. It was obvious the tough saloon owner was coiled tight, wanting badly to tear into Jax. But he didn’t dare, not with a gun jammed practically up his nostrils. Not even Bullock’s notorious quick temper was enough to make him that reckless.
As far as being reckless,
Bob couldn’t afford to be, either. Not for the sake of his friend. But, by the same token, neither could he just continue to sit and watch. The tableau had suddenly escalated into a life-threatening situation that the marshal not only had a right but an obligation to get involved in.
Slowly, measuredly, Bob stood up and edged toward those grouped in front of the bar. Out of the corner of his eye, Jax took note of his approach. The Mexican and Sideburns were positioned in such a way as to be more or less facing him. Their hands hovered close to the guns on their hips, but so far neither had drawn iron.
Ever the cautious one, Sideburns muttered, “You seein’ this, Jax? We got a law dog in the mix.”
“So what? That don’t change the point of this, not a damn bit,” Jax replied through clenched teeth.
“Might not be the best idea to keep wavin’ a hogleg around, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
Never taking either his eyes or his gun off Bullock, Jax said, “I always had a hunch there might be a trace of yella runnin’ up your spine, Reeves. Now’s your chance to prove it one way or the other. Either stand your ground and back my play, or crawfish the hell out of here and never let me lay eyes on you again.”
Continuing to move forward, his own hand clawed close above the .44 holstered at his side, Bob said, “Your man is giving you some smart advice, mister. You ought to be listening to him, not running him off.”
“Ain’t nobody runnin’ nobody off, law dog,” Sideburns was quick to say. Then, directing his voice back to Jax, he said with a scowl, “I’m backin’ your play, Jax. I don’t like it, but I’ll back it.”
Without bothering to acknowledge this and still without taking his focus off Bullock, Jax said to Bob, “If you want to talk smarts, badge-toter, you ain’t exactly showin’ many of your own. You’re outgunned and outnumbered and I’m already primed to blow Mr. He-Goose’s beak clean off if you crowd me too much. What the hell you lookin’ to accomplish? You’d best back off and maybe, just maybe, this can work out with nobody gettin’ serious hurt.”
“Can’t do that,” Bob said flatly. “You’re the one who needs to back off. Then maybe—just maybe—I won’t have to blast you to hell and gone.”
“You tell him, Marshal,” Bullock growled. “Don’t let this piece of trail trash buffalo you.”
All of a sudden Jax’s expression seemed to change. The double dose of Bob’s counterthreat and Bullock’s defiant bravado appeared to rattle him some, perhaps causing him to question the brashness of what he’d set in motion. Given this moment of hesitation on his part and the fact that Sideburns and the Mexican still had their own guns holstered, it could have been a good chance for Bob to make a decisive move—except for the problem of Maudie, whose position where she stood on the back side of the bar placed her directly behind Jax from the marshal’s angle and thereby potentially in the line of fire. Bob wasn’t ready to take such a risk.
But, at almost the same moment, Maudie realized for herself what a bad spot she was in. What was more, she also sensed the faint hesitation in Jax’s aggression and recognized the opportunity it presented. Abruptly, she wrapped her hand around the whiskey bottle she’d used to pour the second round of drinks and thrust it out at arm’s length, releasing it in a short toss that sent it across the width of the bar to thump against the shoulder of an unsuspecting Sideburns on the other side. The bottle didn’t hit with much force but it was still enough to cause Sideburns to jerk away reflexively and bump against the Mexican beside him. As the bottle bounced off the jostled pair and fell crashing to the floor, Maudie dropped down low behind the bar.
The overall maneuver now gave Sundown Bob all the opening he needed.
If the speed of Jax’s earlier draw had seemed impressive, it paled sadly compared to the lightning sweep of Bob’s hand as it skinned his .44 and triggered it into action. Flame and lead spat from the barrel, the roar of the shot shattering the tense silence that had previously gripped the room. Jax’s gun hand was swatted away as if by an invisible blow, and the weapon once gripped in it, torn from his grasp by Bob’s bullet, went skimming down the length of the bar until it smashed into a pyramid of clean glasses stacked at the far end.
Jax’s knees sagged and his free hand reached frantically to clutch stinging, empty, still-clawed fingers. An instant later, his knees had cause to sag even more and then buckle completely when Bullock immediately uncorked a sizzling right hook that sent him crumpling to the floor.
As Jax was going down, Bob swung his .44 in a short horizontal arc and centered it on the other two men as they finally, foolishly, decided to grab for their guns. “Don’t even think it!” he warned them.
Predictably, Sideburns halted his attempt and jerked both hands, palms open, to shoulder height instead. But the Mexican insisted on following through. Or trying to. His hand closed on the grips of his gun but managed to do little more than loosen it in its holster before Bob’s Colt roared again. The bullet it discharged this time smashed into the Mexican’s shoulder, spinning him around and pitching him onto the edge of a nearby empty table. He hissed in pain and filled the air with Spanish curses, clawing the tabletop with his good hand, trying to hold himself upright, but failing and then collapsing to the floor.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
William W. Johnstone is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over three hundred books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen: The Mountain Man, Preacher: The First Mountain Man, Flintlock, MacCallister and Will Tanner: Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers Black Friday, Tyranny, and Stand Your Ground.
Visit his website at www.williamjohnstone.net.
Notes
1 Others say Cullen Baker was, but Cullen was nothing but a two-bit killer and thief, who was conscripted into the Confederate Army, deserted, then joined the Union army. He deserted them and returned to a life of killing and looting poor farmers. After he hanged a crippled schoolteacher whose wife Cullen coveted, a posse tracked him down and killed him.
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