LITMIR.BIZ

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you know who I am?”

      That was a stupid question, given the fact that Strittmayer had just called the cattleman by name. But Churchill was too angry to be thinking straight, Bo decided.

      “Most certainly I do.”

      “You’ll lose a hell of a lot of business if I tell my ranch hands to stay away from this place.”

      “Then I suppose I shall have to make up that business some other way,” Strittmayer said.

      Churchill got to his feet. “You’ll be sorry about this,” he said. “And you can keep your damned twenty-year-old brandy. In fact, you can take the bottle and shove it right up your—”

      Strittmayer’s hamlike hand closed around Churchill’s arm and propelled the rancher toward the door. “I think you have said enough, nicht wahr? Good evening, Herr Churchill.”

      The whole saloon had gone silent now. Everybody in the Birdcage watched as Strittmayer marched Churchill to the door. Even the girl in the cage wasn’t swinging back and forth anymore.

      Churchill cursed loudly at the humiliation as Strittmayer forced him through the batwings. When the rancher had stalked off, Strittmayer stepped back inside, dusted his hands off as if they had gotten dirty, and beamed around at the crowd. “No more trouble, ja? The next round of drinks, it is on the house!”

      Cheers rang out from the customers as most of them bellied up to the bar for that free drink. Bo had a feeling that the bartenders would be reaching for special bottles full of booze they had watered down especially for such occasional demonstrations of generosity on Strittmayer’s part.

      “Sorry about that, gents,” Three-Toed Johnny Fontana told the other cardplayers at the table. “Poker should be a game of more subtle pleasures.”

      “I don’t know,” Davidson said with a smile. “I enjoyed watching that blowhard get thrown out of the place. A man like that gets a little money and power and thinks he owns everything and everybody.”

      Bo nodded toward the big, affable German who had gone back to the bar and asked Johnny, “Can Churchill really make trouble for Strittmayer?”

      Johnny shrugged. “That depends on how badly his pride is wounded. August does enough business so that it won’t hurt him much if Churchill orders his men to stay away from the place.”

      “What if he tries something a little more drastic than that?”

      “You mean like coming back here with a bunch of those hardcases who ride for him and trying to wreck the place?” Johnny shook his head. “That seems like a little bit much for a dispute over a few hands of poker.”

      For once, Johnny’s ability to judge other men, which was so important in his profession, seemed to be letting him down a mite, Bo thought. He had seen something bordering on madness in Little Ed Churchill’s eyes as he was forced out of the saloon. As Davidson had said, some men got that way when most people didn’t dare to stand up to them. It enraged them whenever they ran into an hombre who didn’t have any back up in his nature.

      But maybe Churchill would show some sense and go back to his ranch to sleep off that rage. Bo hoped that would turn out to be the case. When Johnny said, “Shall we resume the game?” Bo nodded.

      Davidson’s luck was still the best of anyone’s around the table, but Bo won a few hands and was careful to cut his losses in the ones he couldn’t win. He had increased their stake enough so that he and Scratch could afford a couple of hotel rooms and some supplies. He was about to call it a night when he heard a lot of hoofbeats in the street outside.

      “Strittmayer!” a harsh voice bellowed as the horses came to a stop. “I told you you’d be sorry, you damned Dutchman!”

      Bo dropped his cards and started to his feet, but Scratch grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down. “Everybody hit the dirt!” Scratch shouted, his deep voice filling the room.

      Even as Scratch called out the warning, the glass in the two big front windows exploded inward as a volley of shots shattered them. The saloon girls screamed and men yelled curses as more shots blasted from the street. Muzzle flashes lit up the night like a lightning storm.

      As Bo dived out of his chair he rammed a shoulder into Davidson, knocking the man to the floor out of the line of fire. Bo palmed out his Colt as Scratch overturned the poker table to give them some cover. Scratch crouched behind the table with Bo and drew his long-barreled Remingtons. Everybody in the saloon had either hit the floor or leaped over the bar to hide behind the thick hardwood, so the two of them had a clear field to return the fire of Little Ed Churchill and his men.

      Churchill must have gathered up a dozen or more of his ranch hands in some of El Paso’s other saloons and gambling dens and brothels and led them back here to Strittmayer’s place. Bo didn’t know if the cattlemen had spun some wild yarn for his men about how he’d been cheated at cards and then run out of the Birdcage or if Churchill had simply ordered his men to attack. A lot of cowboys rode for the brand above all, and if the boss man said sic’em, they skinned their irons and got to work, no questions asked.

      Either way, lead now filled the air inside the Birdcage. The mirrors behind the bar shattered, and bottles of liquor arranged along the backbar exploded in sprays of booze and glass as bullets struck them.

      Davidson crawled along the floor and got behind the same table where Bo and Scratch had taken cover. He pulled his gun from the shoulder holster Bo had seen earlier and started firing toward the street. He glanced over at Bo and Scratch and said, “I knew Churchill was a little loco, but I didn’t think he was crazy enough to come back and lay siege to the place.”

      From behind the bar, Strittmayer called, “Everyone stay down, ja?” The next moment, several shotguns poked over the bar. Each of the weapons let go with a double load of buckshot. That barrage blew out what little glass remained in the windows and ripped into the cowboys in the street. Men and horses went down, screaming in pain.

      Anger flooded through Bo. Not only was Churchill trying to kill everybody in the saloon, but now he had led some of his own men to their deaths, all because Churchill was a stubborn, prideful bastard who couldn’t admit that he wasn’t a very good poker player. What a damned waste, Bo thought.

      He could only hope that some of that buckshot had found Churchill as well, so that maybe this fight could come to an end.

      That didn’t prove to be the case. With an incoherent, furious shout, the rancher leaped his horse onto the boardwalk and then viciously spurred the animal on into the saloon. The horse was terrified, anybody could see that, but Churchill forced the wild-eyed beast on. Men rolled and jumped desperately to avoid the slashing, steel-shod hooves.

      Three-Toed Johnny leaped up from somewhere and shouted, “Stop it! For God’s sake, stop it!” He had a derringer in his hand that Bo knew had come from a concealed sheath up the gambler’s sleeve. Johnny swung it up toward Churchill, but the cattleman was faster. He had a six-gun in his right hand, and as he brought it down with a chopping motion, powder smoke geysered from the muzzle. The slug punched into Johnny’s body and threw him backward.

      Bo and Scratch fired at the same time, but Churchill was already jerking his horse around. Their bullets whistled harmlessly past his head. Churchill sent his horse crashing into the overturned table. Bo and Scratch threw themselves to the side to get out of the way, but the table rammed into Davidson and knocked him down. His gun flew out of his hand.

      “Now I’ll get you, you damned four-flusher!” Churchill yelled as he brought his revolver to bear on the helpless Davidson, who lay sprawled on the floor under the rearing horse.

      Bo and Scratch fired again, and this time they didn’t miss. Their bullets tore through Churchill’s body on an upward-angling path, causing him to lean so far back that he toppled out of the saddle. Suddenly riderless, the panic-stricken horse whirled around a couple of times, and then leaped out through the one of the already broken front windows.

      The shooting from outside had stopped.

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