LITMIR.BIZ

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with sturdy trimmings that wouldn’t bust up so easy every time a fracas broke out. Looks like it paid off once again. I don’t see nothing that suffered much damage.”

      He paused in what he was doing to glance upward. “Except for the ceiling, that is. Doggone it, Firestick, does Moosejaw have to fire off a blast into the ceiling every time he shows up to tame down a spot of trouble? Lookit up there. That’s three times in the past six months, and last time it was with a doggone shotgun!”

      “Moosejaw don’t like wastin’ words,” McQueen said.

      “Well, he oughta try not liking to waste bullets for a change. He’s gonna have that ceiling peppered with so many doggone holes that the next time we get a frog-strangler of a rain, it’ll leak in here like one of those Swedish shower baths I’ve heard tell about.”

      “Art,” McQueen said, “when’s the last time we had a frog-strangler of a rain around these parts?”

      Farrelly frowned. “Well . . . I don’t know exactly.”

      “You don’t know because you can’t remember. Nobody can remember. Because it never happens.”

      “We get some doozies now and then,” Farrelly said stubbornly. “But that ain’t the point. The point is, if Moosejaw keeps shooting holes in the ceiling, it’s just a matter of time before it’ll start to leak from even only—”

      “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to him about it.”

      “I mean, it ain’t like he ain’t big enough to just march in and give a loud snort if he wants to—”

      “You made your point. I said I’ll talk to him about it,” the marshal interrupted for a second time, his tone growing a mite testy.

      While McQueen and Farrelly were talking, the stranger had quietly gathered up the cards and money scattered across the floor. He placed the deck of cards on top of the table Farrelly had pushed back into place, and alongside it a thin stack of bills—minus a thicker bundle, his winnings, that he kept for himself. Brandishing the latter, he announced, “Gentlemen. Since I was a participant—albeit a reluctant one—in the disturbance that disrupted everyone’s afternoon, I’d like to make amends by offering to step over to the bar and buy a round of drinks.”

      One of the onlookers already at the bar responded by saying, “Heck, mister, that wasn’t no disturbance to us. It was a right entertainin’ show you put on.”

      One of the other patrons leaning on the bar next to the speaker gave him a quick elbow to the ribs, then was equally quick to add, “But that don’t mean we won’t still accept your offer to stand a round of drinks.”

      “Reckon I’d better get back in place to do some pouring, then,” said Farrelly as he headed once again for the bar.

      The stranger pointed to the money he’d placed on the table and said to McQueen, “That rightfully belongs to those other players. I presume you’ll see that it’s returned to them?”

      The marshal hesitated for a moment, making a sour face, before finally reaching for the bills. “I ain’t done bein’ mad at those boobs yet, so I hate to do anything in their favor,” he said. “But, yeah, I’ll see to it this gets back to ’em.”

      The stranger smiled. “I trust also that you will be accepting my drink offer? Or are you not allowed to imbibe since you’re on duty?”

      McQueen’s sour expression suddenly turned into a wide grin, accompanied by a hearty chuckle. “Mister, I wouldn’t have a job that didn’t allow for a little im-bibin’. Which ain’t to say I go around half-pickled or anything like that. But I do enjoy a few nips on occasion, and I reckon this measures up as one of those occasions. So lead on, I surely do accept your offer.”

      By the time they took their places at the bar, Farrelly had already served the other men farther down the line. Moving back to stand before McQueen and the stranger, the first thing he did was place a couple of damp bar towels in front of them. “The laundry lady will likely raise hell with me about the bloodstains, but here, you fellas might want to take a swipe at some of your cuts and scrapes before you get down to drinking.”

      The long mirror behind the bar was the pride of the otherwise rather austere establishment. The Silver Spur’s owner, Irish Dan Coswick, liked to boast how he’d had it shipped special all the way from New Orleans, and he took great offense at any mention of the few distortions and blurry spots to be found across its surface. It nevertheless did give the place a nice added touch and proved quite helpful at the moment for the marshal and the stranger to see their reflections in order to take some “swipes” at their wounds. The latter, upon closer examination, proved numerous though mostly superficial.

      “I guess,” said the stranger as he dabbed at the raw, reddened swelling under one eye, “we can take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that those men your deputy took out of here looked considerably worse than us.”

      Wiping his chin clean of the partially dried blood smeared across it, McQueen grinned. “Like the old joke that goes, ‘You oughta see the other fella, eh?” Then his grin stretched even wider. “Of course, when you take into account those ugly-assed Dunlaps and stack ’em up against a couple of handsome gents like us, you’d be quick to conclude they looked considerably worse even before we did any poundin’ on ’em.”

      Now it was the stranger’s turn to chuckle. “If you say so.”

      As he continued to utilize the mirror’s reflection to dab at the damage done his face, the stranger also used it to discreetly make a closer appraisal of the man standing next to him. He saw a solid six-footer in his middle fifties with a full head of gray-flecked hair, a broad face anchored by a strong jaw, ice-blue eyes separated by a blunt, moderately large nose. His attire was simple—homespun shirt and denim trousers, the latter tucked into a pair of high-topped buckskin boots with fringes around the top cuffs. He wore a walnut-handled Frontier Colt in a well-worn holster on his right hip, and moved like he knew how to use it. And although the stranger had seen the marshal’s wide grin and the laugh crinkles at the corners of his ice-blue eyes, he’d also noted those eyes narrowing and deepening to a much darker blue during flashes of anger. In summation, the stranger made McQueen for a self-assured, generally easygoing individual, but one with a dangerous edge that marked him as no one to be trifled with.

      Setting aside his bar towel and raising the shot of red-eye Farrelly had placed before him, the marshal said, “I thank you for this, mister. Could thank you more properly if I knew your name, which, it occurs to me, I never got around to hearin’.”

      The stranger raised his own glass. “It’s Lofton. Henry Lofton.”

      “And I’m Elwood McQueen . . . Here’s to you.”

      Both men tossed down their shots.

      Returning his glass to the bar top, Lofton said, “Now you’ve got me curious. You say your name is McQueen. But your deputy—the big fellow you referred to as Moosejaw—kept calling you ‘Firestick.’ It may not be polite to probe too much since we’ve only just met, but I’m thinking there’s got to be an interesting story or two behind such colorful names. Care to enlighten me?”

      CHAPTER 3

      Without waiting to be asked, Farrelly had already begun pouring refills. As he did so, one side of his mouth pulled into a wry smile. “Oh, there’s stories behind those names right enough,” he said. “Don’t keep the poor fella in suspense, Firestick. Go ahead and tell him.”

      “Now, Art. Don’t go makin’ more of it than there is.”

      “Aw, come on,” the barkeep protested. “I’ve heard you tell plenty of tales about your mountain-man days. No need to be shy about it now.”

      “Mountain-man days?” echoed Lofton. “Now I’m really intrigued. You must tell me more.”

      McQueen tossed back his second shot, then pushed the emptied glass toward

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