LITMIR.BIZ

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warmth of the stove felt hotter, and the smells seemed stronger. With everyone rooted in position, the scene could have been a Matthew Brady photograph taken from real life—a piece of time snatched from the present and eternally frozen in sepia tone.

      What was different from just a heartbeat earlier was the sound, or more accurately, the lack of it. All music, all conversation, the clinking of glasses, and the scrape of boots on the floor were gone. Only the steady ticktock of the great regulator grandfather clock standing at the wall just under the stairs, interrupted the deadly quiet. More than one person in the room, sensing fortune had chosen them to witness an event that, one day they would speak of with their grandchildren, glanced at the clock in order to have it well memorized. In their telling of the day they saw the famous Falcon MacCallister killed, they wanted to be accurate in every detail, down to the exact time.

      There was not the slightest doubt in anyone’s mind as to what would be the outcome of the dance of death they were about to witness. Falcon MacCallister was facing four armed and desperate men, and though MacCallister was wearing a pistol, it was still in his holster.

      Outside a sudden, brilliant flash of lightning struck so close it was concurrent with an explosively loud peal of thunder. A couple of men shouted out in alarm, and one of the bar girls screamed.

      Perceiving it provided him with the best opportunity to make his play, Mueller jumped up, his gun in his hand.

      “Now boys!” he shouted, as the chair he had been sitting in tumbled over behind him.

      The other three matched Mueller, jumping up and pulling their guns.

      Falcon fired four times, the shots coming so close together it sounded like one sustained roar. Mueller got off one shot, but it was wide of its mark, crashing into the mirror behind the bar. Two of Mueller’s compatriots also managed to get off shots, one going into the floor, the other into the ceiling. All four men fell with fatal gunshot wounds.

      “Did you see that?”

      “I seen it, but I ain’t a’ believin’ it.”

      “Ain’t no man alive can do that!”

      “They sure as hell is, and we just seen it done!”

      Falcon held his pistol at the ready, a little stream of smoke still curling up from the end of the barrel. Added to the other smells in the room, was the distinctive odor of burnt gunpowder.

      One of the saloon patrons started toward the four bodies, lying where they fell. He stopped and held his hand out toward Falcon. “I just aim to check ’em is all, to see if they’re all dead.”

      “They are dead,” Falcon answered as he put his pistol back in his holster.

      “How do you know they’re all dead?”

      “Because I didn’t have time not to kill them,” Falcon replied.

      Everyone’s attention was drawn to the four dead men, so nobody noticed the piano player go up the stairs. Once upstairs, he tapped lightly on the door of one of the rooms. The door opened and a woman’s face appeared in the crack.

      “What is it, Arnie? This feller paid me for the whole night.”

      “Let me in, Patsy. I got somethin’ to say that he’s goin’ to want to hear,” Arnie said.

      “I just heard somethin’ sounded like gunshots. Does it have somethin’ to do with that?”

      Arnie nodded his head.

      “All right, come on in.”

      Patsy was naked from the waist up, but she had no sense of modesty toward Arnie with whom she had often shared her favors. Her breasts were large and flabby, laced with blue veins. On one of her breasts was a lump of scar tissue—the result of having had her nipple bitten off by a drunken customer. She led him over to the bed where slept the little man who had paid almost twice her normal fee.

      “You say you heard the gunshots?”

      “Yes. They woke me up.”

      “Don’t know how they didn’t wake him up,” Arnie said, nodding toward the figure on the bed.

      “He’s been drinkin’ all day,” Patsy said. “He was so drunk he couldn’t even do nothin’.”

      Arnie chuckled. “You ain’t goin’ to give him his money back, are you?”

      “No, are you crazy? I’ll just tell him how wonderful he was. He’ll never know the difference.”

      Arnie started over to wake him up, then, remembering the incident downstairs when Luke had drawn his pistol against one of his own friends, Arnie hesitated. He pointed toward the bed.

      “Maybe you had better wake him up,” he suggested.

      Patsy smiled. “Are you afraid of him?”

      “Yeah, a little,” Arnie admitted.

      Patsy put her hand on the sleeper’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “Wake up, mister. Wake up.”

      Chapter Four

      When Luke Mueller opened his eyes he saw Patsy sitting on the side of the bed looking down at him. At least she had told him her name was Patsy, though he knew whores seldom gave their right name. He was surprised to see a man standing over the bed.

      “Who the hell are you?” he asked, sitting up quickly. Almost as quickly, a gun appeared in his hand.

      The man gasped, and held his hands out before him. “Easy, mister, easy. My name is Arnie Cates. I’m the piano player here.”

      “Oh, yeah, I remember you. What are you wakin’ me up for? I ain’t had me a bed sleep in a week of Sundays.”

      “Them four men you come in with?”

      Luke lay back down and scrunched up his pillow. “Yeah,” he replied, sleepily. “What about ’em?”

      “They just got themselves kilt.”

      Luke’s eyes popped open, and he sat up again.

      “What did you say?”

      “They just got themselves kilt. All four of ’em,” Cates said.

      “What the hell? What happened?”

      “They was a feller come in here by the name of Falcon MacCallister,” Cates said. “You ever heard tell of him?”

      “Yeah, I’ve heard of him.”

      “Well, he come in, said somethin’ about goin’ to take ’em all in for bank robbin’ and murder. Next thing you know they was all a’ shootin’ at each other and this man MacCallister, he kilt ’em all.”

      “All of ’em? My brother too?”

      Cates nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he was the first one to get hisself kilt.”

      “Are you saying that Falcon MacCallister, one man, kilt them all?”

      “Yes, by himself. I tell you, I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

      “If you was there watchin’ it, how come you didn’t you come up here and get me?”

      “I come up here as soon as I could, but it all happened too fast for me to come get you,” Cates said. “Besides which, if you had been there, you would more’n likely have been kilt too.”

      “Is MacCallister still here?”

      “Yes, he’s still here. He’s downstairs now with the sheriff and a couple deputies.”

      “That’s good to know,” Luke said. He reached for his pants and began to pull them on. “I’m going to go down and take care of this right now.”

      “Mister, I don’t think you really want to

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