William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

“But is Hangtown for you? Good luck.” Oxblood smoothed out the tobacco in the paper and started rolling it up, evening it out with his fingertips. He raised it to his mouth to lick the ends of the paper to stick it in down in place.

“Seeing as how you’re giving out advice, Red, I’ll do the same. A couple friends of yours are siding with Damon,” Barton said.

“Who?”

“Johnny Cross and his one-legged pard.”

Oxblood’s face remained unchanged, but the hand-rolled cigarette crumbled, coming apart in his hands. “Dang! What for are they horning in?”

Barton shrugged meaty shoulders. “Who knows why that Cross kid does anything? You tell me.”

“He’s a wild one. Hellacious. As for the gimp, he goes where Johnny goes, simple as that.”

“They’re siding Damon. So’re a couple other fellows. Flint Ryan and Charley Bronco.”

“Bronco I know, not t’other one.”

Barton flashed a tight, nasty grin. “Maybe more fireworks than you expected, huh?”

“Anyone ever tell you you look real mean when you smile, Sheriff?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t go up against friends,” Oxblood said with an air of nonchalance. “As for the others, the only one I’m being paid to tackle is Teece. Him I don’t like him, not even a little bit.”

“Just letting you know the lay of the land,” Barton said.

“And I appreciate it.” Oxblood nodded.

Vince finished talking to Clay and glanced at Oxblood, annoyed. Ever alert to Vince’s moods, Clay said, “What’re you doing, Red? Telling the sheriff your life story?”

“Just jawing,” Oxblood answered. “Man’s a friend of mine.”

“You ain’t being paid for talking, gunfighter,” Clay pointed out.

“I do it for free, seeing as how I’m naturally a sociable type fellow.”

“We’re through talking,” Vince Stafford hissed.

“Fine,” Oxblood said.

Barton circled around to the front of the column, casual-like, standing in the middle of the street facing them.

“That’s the second time you’ve gotten between me and the town,” Vince said, scowling.

“That’s what they pay me for,” Barton stated. “I want to make sure we’re straight on a few things, Vince.”

Clay rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. Quent lost the dreamy-eyed look, becoming aware of his surroundings for the first time in a while. His small round eyes widened, then narrowed. Behind the Staffords, a couple horses pawed the dirt with front hooves.

Sensing resistance, Vince Stafford didn’t like it. “Straighten this out for me. Where were you when Bliss got kilt?”

“It was all over when I got there,” Barton said.

“My boy was shot down like a dog in the streets of your town.”

“He wasn’t no boy. He was a man carrying a gun, and he knew how to use it.”

“The gambler who shot Bliss, he in jail?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Bliss was pushing it. Damon wanted to walk away, but Bliss drew first. You can’t jail a man for defending himself. That’s the law.”

“I don’t rightly care for your kind of law. I follow a higher law. ‘Blood shall have blood,’ like the Good Book says. An eye for an eye.” Vince spat.

“You didn’t bring your whole outfit to town to take Bliss back home. What do you figure on doing?” the sheriff asked.

Vince reached down to one side of the saddle.

Barton almost slapped leather and drew until he realized the man was reaching for a looped circle of hempen rope. The coiled lariat was fixed to a saddle ring.

“I’m gonna hang the man who kilt my boy,” Vince cried, brandishing the rope, shaking its looped length in the air. “But don’t get yourself in an uproar, Sheriff. I’m gonna do everything right and proper, the good old-fashioned Hangtown way. I’m gonna slip the noose around the gambler’s neck by myself and stretch him from a limb of the ol’ Hanging Tree.” Vince’s voice quivered with malice, reveling in it.

Spewing little flecks of spittle, he went on. “That ain’t all I’m gonna do. I’m gonna fix the whore what led my boy astray, too—cut her face up good and proper so that after this day no man’s ever gonna be able to look at her again without puking!”

Clay started. “That’s crazy talk, Pa! The girl had nothing to do with it!”

Vince turned on him. “How do you know? Was you there? Hell, no! So just keep your trap shut.”

“I know Bliss, the way he was around women. Everybody knows! He saw a pretty girl he just had to have her, come hell or high water. If it wasn’t this one, it would have been another,” Clay quipped.

“But it was this one,” Vince pressed. “What’s her name? Francine? Sure, that’s it. Francine. He talked about her enough, back at the ranch. Francine! She’s the gambler’s whore and because of her Bliss is dead and she’s got to pay! They both do, and they will.”

Clay’s face reddened, teeth bared in a half snarl. “I didn’t come out here to fight women, I came to get my brother’s killer and—”

“You came because I told you! And you’ll do like I tell you! And that’s the end of it,” Vince hollered, “unless you feel like bucking me, boy. Do you?”

After a pause, Clay made a visible effort to control himself. “You’re the boss, Pa.”

“Damned right, and don’t you forget it.”

Quent snickered. “Never learn, do you, Clay? There’s no going agin’ Pa once he’s got his mind set—”

“Shut up, Quent. I take it from Pa, but I don’t have to take it from you.”

“Both of you shut up.” Still holding the coiled lariat, Vince rested one hand on top of the saddle horn, put the other hand on it and leaned forward, glaring down at Barton, impassive and unmoved. “Now what do think of that, lawman?”

“I think Clay’s talking sense and you ought to listen to him,” Barton said. “Bracing Damon is one thing, but hurting a woman, cutting her, that’s another. That’s awful raw, even for Hangtown. Folks in these parts don’t cotton to a man putting a bad hurt on a woman.”

“Respectable women, not whores.”

“Whores, too. There ain’t so many of them around here that we can afford to lose one, especially not a pretty one.”

That got a couple chuckles from the men, mostly the top guns who didn’t give a damn and the riders too far in the back for Vince to know it was them laughing.

Vince got more irritated. “I showed my hand. Now it’s time for you to lay your cards faceup on the table, Sheriff. What’s your call? You plan on bucking me?”

“I didn’t get this badge for being dumb,” Barton began.

Some of the tension left Clay’s face. Dan Oxblood smiled knowingly. Some of the men nodded their heads.

“I’m hired to protect Hangtree. I ain’t so much of a fool as to risk the town getting tore up and innocent folks hurt and maybe killed to save Damon Bolt’s neck. ’Sides, Damon’s pretty good at taking care of himself ... and he’s got some friends with him.”

“That’s our lookout,” Clay said.

“The gambler and the whore, I want ’em both,” Vince said. “And I’ll have ’em.”

Clay frowned. “Damn it, Pa, he’s going along! You don’t got to rub his face in it.”

“He’s got to go along all the way.”

“There’s a condition,” Barton drawled.

“I don’t hold with conditions,” Vince said.

“You want to fight a private war with the Golden Spur, that’s your business. I may not like it, but I have to take it. But it’s strictly between your crowd and his. Keep it private and the rest of the folks safely out of it.”

“Nobody’ll get hurt unless they get between me and what I’m after. If they do, God help ’em because I surely won’t.” Vince looked skyward, as if calling on the Lord to witness the truth of his words.