William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

“Dogging somebody, maybe,” Johnny said low voiced. “Keep a close hand by that scattergun.”

“I always do.”

Creed Teece glanced at the newcomers, his gaze hooded. “Something I should know about?”

“Stay loose and ready,” Johnny said.

“Those two clowns?”

“They’ve been making some new friends lately.”

Damon kept turning up the cards and placing them down, slowly and deliberately. Mrs. Frye went into the office, closing the door behind her.

Wyck Joslyn walked softly, carefully putting one foot before the other as he advanced toward the end of the bar nearest the entrance. Stingaree swaggered alongside him, all loose jointed. They stopped more or less on a line with where Damon was sitting.

The saloon owner went on playing cards, seemingly oblivious.

Wyck Joslyn looked around, scanning the scene. His gaze took in Johnny and Luke and he nodded to them. “Looks like you boys had the same idea as us.”

Johnny said, “Oh? What’s that?”

“To have a drink here, what else?” Joslyn rapped his knuckles on the bar. “Whiskey, barkeep.”

“Make it two,” Stingaree said.

Morrissey picked up two glasses and a bottle, carrying them to the end of the bar. He set down the glasses and poured. Wyck Joslyn laid a few coins on the counter. He turned and raised a glass in his left hand. “Nice shooting today, Damon.”

Damon glanced up. A soft slap sounded as he laid down another card. “I’m still here.”

“Couldn’t have done better myself.”

“No?”

“Hell, Wyck’s just being modest,” Stingaree said, scoffing. “He could do better.”

“Could be,” Damon said, shrugging. Turning over the cards.

Wyck Joslyn’s face split in a broad grin. “My young friend here tends to get overly excited. Something about a gunfight does that to him. Don’t mind him.”

“I don’t,” Damon said.

Slap . He laid a card down. Black ten on red jack.

“You’ve got my admiration,” Joslyn went on. “It takes plenty of guts to go against Vince Stafford.”

“You a friend of his?” Creed Teece asked, hard-nosed and unfriendly.

Wyck Joslyn made a throwaway gesture. “I don’t even know the man. I know of him, though. Hard not to. He throws a long shadow, him and that Ramrod outfit of his.”

He spoke not to Teece but to Damon. “Stafford’s not likely to take too kindly to you putting his boy in the graveyard.”

“So? Where do you come in?” Damon said.

Slap . Another card hit the table. Red five on black six.

“Stafford’s got a lot of guns riding for his brand. Maybe you could use a couple good guns on your side, to kind of even up the odds,” Wyck Joslyn said.

Slap . Black eight on red nine.

“You selling?” Damon asked.

“You buying?” Joslyn countered.

Slap .

“Our guns are for hire, Stingaree and me, but we don’t come cheap.” Joslyn indicated Johnny and Luke. “Maybe you’ve already hired on those two.”

Johnny laughed. “Leave us out of it. We came in for a drink.”

“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Luke said solemnly.

“So much the better. That leaves us a clear field of play,” Joslyn said.

“Any gun can play,” said Johnny.

Wyck Joslyn looked around. “Nice place. You must make a lot of money, Damon.”

“Barely breaking even, with all the overhead.” Damon turned up a card. Red queen. He laid it on a black king.

“Bosh. You’re poor-mouthing. I appreciate horse trading but time’s running out,” Joslyn said.

“Oh?”

“Stafford’s liable to ride in anytime.”

“You don’t say.”

Noise sounded at the back of the building, like somebody bumping into a chair.

Slap .

Damon placed a black ace on a red deuce.

Ace of Spades.

Death card.

Three men came rushing out of the rear passageway, out from behind the staircase. Zeb, Tetch, & Jeeter. The Fromes Boys.

Johnny Cross had been looking for the Fromeses from the moment Joslyn and Stingaree entered. The duo had been thick as thieves with the brothers when he’d last seen them in the Dog Star Saloon. He knew they were up to something. Once Joslyn and Stingaree showed themselves at the Golden Spur, Johnny was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The sounds in the back of the building, faint but telling, had given him his cue. In a flash it all came clear to him. Wyck Joslyn was stalling for time, waiting for the brothers to make their play so he and Stingaree could make use of the diversion.

Johnny stepped away from the bar, filling his hands with the twin .44s holstered at his sides. He faced the rear as the brothers came in shooting wildly, throwing lead to screen them while they got in place for the kill.

Zeb leveled his musket hip-high, shouted, “Gambler!” and swung the musket toward Damon. A bullet struck him, knocking him sideways with a crashing thud of flesh being impacted by hot lead. Johnny had struck first, ventilating him.

By reflex, Zeb jerked the trigger, firing a wild round that missed Damon, and dancing sideways to stay on his feet, Johnny fired again, the second slug spinning Zeb around, causing him to drop the musket and topple to the floor.

On either side of him, Tetch and Jeeter, six-guns in hand, blasted away, pumping out bullets, slinging lead. Johnny slung some back at them.

At the first sign of trouble, Damon snatched up the gun on the card table, firing even as Wyck Joslyn and Stingaree slapped leather, hauling out their guns.

Stingaree was fast, his gun clearing leather first. But Joslyn was in his way, blocking the shot, trying to make his own.

Damon and Joslyn fired at the same time. Joslyn missed, his bullet whizzing past the gambler’s head. Damon scored, dropping a .45 round in Joslyn’s middle.

Wyck Joslyn’s face contorted in agony. He seemed to implode, shrinking into himself, falling back against Stingaree.

Gun in hand, Stingaree fought to get clear, angling to open up a line of fire. The top of his head exploded, spewing blood, brains, bone. He’d been felled by the gun in Creed Teece’s hand.

A bullet from Tetch Fromes’s gun punched a hole into the side of the wooden bar near Johnny Cross. Johnny returned fire, tagging Tetch, knocking him down.

A line of fire stabbed from the gun of Jeeter Fromes, missing Johnny and drilling the mirror behind the bar. The looking glass starred, frosting with a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from the bullet hole.

Johnny shot Jeeter Fromes twice, first dropping him to his knees as he tried to bring his gun up. Then Johnny shot him between the eyes.

Tetch was up on one knee, holding his gun in both hands, swinging it toward Johnny.

A thunderclap boomed as Luke opened up with his sawed-off shotgun. He leaned against the bar, propping an elbow on the counter to hold himself up while he cut loose with a blast.

Tetch came apart in mid-center, a raw, red mess spilling loopy gray strands of intestines where his belly had been before being pulped by buckshot.

The gunfire fell silent. A cloud of gray-white gun smoke hung in the air in the middle of the big room. Bodies littered the floor.

Behind the bar, Morrissey straightened up, shotgun in hand. When the shooting started, he’d ducked down and grabbed for the weapon he kept handy in case of trouble. But by the time he brought it up and clear of the bar, he was too late. That’s how fast the action had gone down.

The victors looked around, guns in hand. No more challengers presented themselves.

The bullet-pierced mirror came undone all at once, splintering into what seemed like a thousand glittering crystal shards, clattering down on the wooden plank floorboards behind the bar.