The Lawmen Read Free Page A

the messenger said.
    “That’s our red-light district,” McCarty explained to Clay.
    Another shot sounded as the three men reached the Triangle, an area formed where Apache Street angled off for the silver mine. A crowd gathered around them, and Clay’s gut tightened. He knew they were all watching the new marshal, waiting to see how he would handle his first test. Clay was determined to do his best. He had run this far from his past, and he would run no farther.
    Tom Anderson’s Place was a small adobe building with a sign over the door advertising Border Beer. More people were gathered outside. As Clay arrived, there was a pistol shot from inside, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a coyote-like howl.
    Men saw the badge on Clay’s chest and made way for him. He paused outside the swinging doors, thumbing his shotgun hammers onto half cock. Peter McCarty saw Judge Saxon and Miles Dunleavy in the crowd, and he joined them.
    “Here it comes,” the fork-bearded Saxon told Dunleavy confidently. “Your new marshal won’t even make it through his first day. You owe me fifty dollars, Miles.”
    Another shot, more breaking glass, another wild yell. Clay took a deep breath, pushed aside the doors, and walked into the saloon.
    It was dark inside and surprisingly cool. It took Clay’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light. On one side of the room was a bar with a five-gallon keg of whiskey on it. Behind the bar were crude shelves with bottles. There was a scattering of tables and chairs. The bull whacker stood on one of the tables—big, bearded, and dirty, his long bullwhip coiled around his neck. There were two pistols in his hands and two more in his belt. The saloon keeper had taken cover behind the bar. Those customers who had not been able to escape were behind the bar, too, or under the tables. One of them peeked up, and the bull whacker snapped a shot at him, crowing, “I’m half horse, half alligator. I can lick my weight in wildcats, and I eat a bear for breakfast.”
    This was followed by a shot that shattered yet another of the bottles, with glass and liquor showering the bar. The gap-toothed bull whacker put back his head and howled. Then he saw Clay. His bloodshot eyes focused with difficulty. “Who are you?”
    “I’m the marshal,” Clay replied calmly.
    The bull whacker howled again. “Marshal! I have a marshal for breakfast. I use him to wash down the bear. I ain’t scared of no badge-toter that ever lived, and I ain’t scared of you.”
    Clay edged closer. “I’ll have to arrest you for disturbing the peace.”
    “Well, you just go ahead and try,” the bull whacker raised his pistol.
    “Wait!” Clay said.
    The bull whacker regarded him suspiciously. “What’s wrong—trying to yellow out? You son of a bitch, I’m gonna shoot you so full of holes you’ll look like one of them furrin cheeses.” He cocked the pistol.
    “Wait now,” Clay said calmly, moving closer. “Wait. We can shoot it out if that’s what you want, but innocent people might get hurt, especially if I open up with this scattergun. Why don’t you come off that table, and we’ll settle this with our fists—man-to-man.”
    The bull whacker waved his pistol. “Hell, no, I want to--”
    “Scared?” Clay asked.
    “Scared? I’m scared of no man. I’m half horse, half alliga—”
    Clay moved closer still, lowering the hammers of his shotgun. “Then come on down and prove it, loudmouth.”
    The bull whacker’s thick brows knit. Behind his beard he flushed with anger. He stumbled off the table. “Barkeep! Take these. Hold ’em for me.”
    The terrified saloon keeper rose while the bull whacker handed him all of his pistols, then lifted the coiled whip from around his neck and handed him that, too. “I’m gonna teach this marshal a lesson. I’m gonna turn that face of his into mush.”
    He turned, fists raised. As he did, Clay swung his shotgun as hard as he could by the barrels, hitting the bull