William Johnstone - Butchery of the Mountain Man

“What do you mean, don’t worry about it? It’s clear to see that someone just hit you.”

“Please, don’t say nothin’ about it,” Millie said. “He wants a bottle of whiskey.” Millie put some money on the table.

“The hell he does. Did Colby hit you?” The bartender tried to touch her eye, but Millie pulled away from him.

“Please, Don, just drop it,” Millie said. “It’s no big thing and I don’t want to . . .”

“You don’t want to what?”

“I don’t want to make him mad at me.”

“Honey, looks to me like he’s already mad at you. And if he isn’t already mad, looks like it makes no difference to him one way or the other.”

“It’s all right, please, don’t make any trouble.”

“No trouble. I’ll just go up there and tell him his time is up.” Don started from around behind the bar.

“No, don’t, please!” Millie said. “I told you, nothing is going on.” She reached out to grab him. “Don, I’m afraid he’ll kill you. You know how good he is with that gun, and how he’s always lookin’ to use it. He’ll use it on you.”

Don hesitated. “All right,” he said. “I won’t go up ’n say anything to him, but you don’t go back up there neither.”

“We ain’t . . . done nothin’ yet,” Millie said. “He’ll just say he ain’t got what he’s paid for.”

“Then I’ll give him his money back. But you don’t have to go back up there. Not if he’s beating you.”

As the two were talking, Colby, bare-chested, and wearing only his trousers and gun belt, appeared at the railing on the upper balcony.

“Hey, you! Bitch!” he shouted down at the girl. “What the hell’s keeping you? You’ve been down there long enough. Get back up here!”

“Colby, she’s not coming back up there,” Don said. “You’ve had her long enough.”

“What do you mean, I’ve had her long enough? I’ll by damn have her as long as I want her. Do you understand? How long I have her ain’t none of your business.”

“No, now, your time is up. There’s another gent wantin’ her.”

“Yeah? Just who would that be?” Colby looked down over the floor of the saloon. “Who else is wantin’ her?” he asked. “Who wants her bad enough to come through me to get her?”

Millie looked out over the rest of the saloon patrons, the expression in her eyes showing her fear of Colby, and her desperate bid for someone to help her.

There was absolute silence as all the other men in the saloon found something on the floor, or the back wall, or the front window to examine. Not one man would meet Millie’s eyes.

“Well, now, turns out you was lyin’, doesn’t it?” Colby said. The smile that spread across his face was totally devoid of all humor.

“Why don’t you leave her alone, Colby?” The other bar girl said. This was the same one who had made a tentative advance toward Smoke and John when they first came into the saloon.

“There ain’t nobody asked for your opinion,” Colby replied with a snarl. “Besides, if she don’t come with me, who would she go with? You done seen that nobody else wants her. Hell, she’s nothin’ but a whore, same as you. Now, you, Millie, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your ass back up here, now!”

Millie clinched her hands into fists and shook her head resolutely. “No,” she said, her voice so quiet that Smoke could barely hear it. “No, I’m not coming back up.”

“What do you mean you ain’t comin’ back up? I paid for you. You hear me, girl? I paid for you! You belong to me.”

“Your time is up,” Millie said.

“My time is up when I say my time is up.”

Millie put her hand down in a dress pocket, then pulled out two pieces of silver.

“Here is your money,” she said. “I’ll give it back to you.”

Colby pulled his pistol and pointed it toward Millie.

“I don’t want my money, bitch. I want you. Now you get back up here or I’ll shoot you dead where you stand.”

“Like the lady said, your time is up,” Smoke said. “I believe I’m next, miss, if you don’t mind.” If the girl had actually gone back upstairs, then he wasn’t going to try and stop her. But she was showing courage enough to refuse, and Smoke felt that her courage should be rewarded. He intended to see to it that she didn’t have to go up if she didn’t want to.

Millie looked at Smoke with an expression of hope, but when she saw how young he was, the expression of hope died.

“No,” she said quietly. She held her hand out and shook her head. “No, honey, I appreciate it, but you don’t need to get involved.”

“Ha!” Colby said. “I say let him get involved. You want to take me on, do you, sonny?”

“If I have to,” Smoke said.

Colby chuckled. “Oh, you don’t have to, sonny. You can just tell me you’re sorry, then tell the bitch there to get on back up here where she belongs.”

“Well, I don’t plan to apologize, and I don’t plan to tell her to go back up there. It seems pretty obvious to everyone here that she doesn’t want to.”

“Now, do you want to tell me why the hell I should care what she wants? She’s got no choice,” Colby said. “Neither do you, mister. Or haven’t you noticed that I happen to be holding a gun in my hand.”

“Oh, yeah, I see the gun,” Smoke said. “And I’m asking you, nicely, to put it away.”

Colby laughed out loud. “Do you people hear this young punk? He’s asking me, nicely, to put the gun away.”

“Or drop it,” Smoke said.

“And if I don’t do either?”

“I’ll kill you,” Smoke said easily.

“You,” Colby said to John. “You’re a dumb son of a bitch to be standin’ there next to him like that. When I start shootin’, I ain’t goin’ to be all that particular about where I’m shootin’.”

John leaned back against the bar and took a swallow of his beer before he replied.

“I’m in no danger,” John said.

“You’re in no danger, huh? And what gives you that idea?”

“I’m in no danger because you won’t be shooting,” he said.

“What do you mean, I won’t be shooting?”

“I mean if you don’t do what my friend says, if you don’t put your pistol away, or drop it, he’ll kill you before you can even get a shot off.”

It was the calm and very understated way John made his comment that made everyone’s hair stand on end.

With a shout of rage, Colby swung his gun toward Smoke, but in one smooth and incredibly fast motion, Smoke drew and fired. Colby dropped his gun over the rail and it fell with a clatter to the bar floor, twelve feet below. He grabbed his chest, then turned his hand out and looked down in surprise and disbelief as his palm began filling with his own blood. His eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward, crashing through the railing, then turning over once in midair before he landed heavily on his back alongside his dropped gun.

Colby lay motionless on the floor with open, but sightless eyes staring toward the ceiling. It had all happened so fast that no one else in the saloon had made so much as one move . . . it was as if they had all been frozen in position, an eerie tableau, watching the action take place around them.

The gun smoke from the single shot formed a cloud which drifted slowly toward the door. Beams of sunlight became visible as they stabbed through the cloud. There were rapid and heavy footfalls on the wooden sidewalk outside as more people began coming in through the swinging doors. One of them was wearing a badge.

“What happened here?”

Everybody began talking at once.

“Hold, hold it!” the lawman said, holding up his hands. He walked over and looked down at Colby’s body.