LITMIR.BIZ

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no river named Lobo flowed anywhere in the great state of Texas, and certainly not one in the vicinity of Purgatory City. The saloon had been open seven years and had not closed its doors once. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week—no matter how much the Baptists raised holy hell—serving liquor that would either put hair on a man’s chest or burn off the hair he had on his chest. Potent, by-gawd, forty-rod whiskey that would make Taos Lightning seem like potable water. Even that fire that had swept across the bar two and a half years back had not shut down the Rio Lobo, and Sean Keegan had done his best, starting the fire and the fistfight that landed him in jail for thirty days and got him busted, briefly, back down to mere trooper.

      Keegan had arrived the previous afternoon, ate the sandwiches the bartender set out for free to patrons paying for their drinks, did a couple of dances with the prettiest chirpies, put a good-sized dent in the keg of porter, arm-wrestled the blacksmith Winiewski, and lost, that was fine. Nobody had bested the Polish behemoth in four hundred and eighty-three tries, but it took the smithy seven minutes before he damned near broke Keegan’s wrist and forearm.

      Finally Keegan found a seat in a friendly poker game at about two-thirty that morning, and set down with a bottle of Irish and seventeen dollars and fifteen cents.

      When the game broke up while the Catholic church bells were ringing eight times, and folks were opening their shops on Front Street, Keegan tossed the empty bottle toward the trash bin, missed, and smiled at the sound of breaking glass and the curses of Clark, the barkeep.

      “It’s been a fine game,” Keegan said, grinning at the dealer, and sliding him a double eagle. “But I suppose all good things must come to an end.”

      “Thank Queen Victoria for that,” said the weasel in the bowler hat.

      The railroad hand with the ruddy face leaned back in his chair and waited for Sean Keegan to react.

      “The hell did you say?” Keegan asked, though he wasn’t sure if he was looking at the right pipsqueak, since for the moment he saw two, and both of them were fuzzy.

      “I said thank Queen Victoria that you’re leaving. You took me for better than two hundred dollars.”

      “Queen”—Keegan closed his eyes tightly—“Victoria?”

      “Yes.”

      When his eyes opened, Keegan saw only one runt of a weasel.

      “She’s your queen.”

      “The bloody hell she is. She’s the queen of England. I’m Irish,” said Keegan.

      “She’s the queen of England and Ireland, and, if I remember correctly, Empress of India.”

      “She’s a piece of dung like every other English pig, sow, and hog.”

      The runt rose and brought up his fists. “You shall not insult Queen Victoria in front of me, you drunken, Irish pig.”

      What confused Keegan was that he didn’t detect one bit of an English accent rolling off the weasel’s tongue, and while he was trying to figure out why a drummer in a bowler hat who didn’t sound like a Brit would bring up Queen Victoria in West Texas, the little weasel punched Keegan and split both of his lips.

      He had been leaning back in his chair, trying to clear his head, and wound up on the floor, tasting blood and seeing the punched-tin ceiling of the saloon spin around like a dying centipede.

      Chair legs scraped as the bartender said, “Oh, hell.”

      Keegan rolled over and came to his knees, just as the weasel brought his right boot up. The boot, Keegan later recalled, appeared to be a Wellington, which didn’t make the runt an Englishman but hurt like hell, and sent Keegan rolling toward the nearest table.

      “I’ll teach you to libel Queen Victoria and servants of Her Majesty.”

      The Wellingtons crunched peanut shells and a few stray poker chips as the weasel rushed to give Keegan another solid kicking, but Keegan came up with one of the chairs from the nearest poker table, and the chair became little more than kindling after he slammed it into the charging, puny devil.

      “Keegan!” the bartender roared.

      Out of the corner of his eye, Keegan saw the bartender lifting a bung starter and removing his apron.

      Keegan figured that would give him enough time to pick up the bleeding, muttering, sobbing fellow and throw him through the window, which he did. As the glass rained across the boardwalk, hitching rail, Front Street, and the now quiet weasel, Keegan turned to meet the morning-shift barkeep and saw something else.

      The railroad worker was helping himself to some of Keegan’s winnings.

      “You damned sneak thief.” To his surprise, he realized he still held the broken chair leg in his right hand. The railroad thug swore, tried to stuff some more coins and cash into his trousers pocket, then grabbed the pipsqueak’s chair and came after Keegan.

      “You men stop this!” the bartender yelled. “You’ll wreck this place!”

      Like that had never happened before, Keegan thought with a smile and a few fond memories about previous times when he had tried to shut down the Rio Lobo Saloon. He’d never been able to manage it, but he had done his best, bless his Irish heart.

      The railroad man was used to swinging sixteen-pound sledgehammers, and lacked the savvy needed for surviving saloon brawls. He brought the entire chair over his head, likely intending to slam it hard over Keegan’s head, but as he swung that chair back toward Keegan, the old army sergeant jammed the broken chair leg in the man’s solid gut.

      Not the broken, jagged end. This wasn’t one of those kinds of fights. That would have likely proved to be a mortal wound, and the way Keegan had it figured, this fight was on the friendly side. He was surprised, though, at how hard that man’s belly was. The big man grunted and his eyes bulged, but the chair kept right on coming, and the next thing Keegan knew he was rolling on the floor again, bleeding from his scalp and nose, and his shoulders and back hurt like blazes.

      But he came up quickly, saw the railroad man shaking his head to regain his faculties, saw the barkeep slipping on a pair of brass knuckle-dusters, and saw the house dealer, still at the table, rolling a cigarette and counting his chips.

      Keegan grunted, spit out blood—but no teeth—and lowered his shoulder as he charged. He caught the railroad man in the side, just above the hip, and drove him all the way to the wall. The impact caused both men to grunt, two pictures to fall to the floor, and the bartender to curse and scream that he would kill the both of them if they didn’t stop right this minute.

      The railroad man’s head faced the wall. He had lost his railroad cap, but had a fine head of red hair. Hell, maybe he was Irish, too, but it didn’t matter. Keegan latched on to the hair, jerked it hard, and then slammed the man’s forehead against the wall of pine planks. Another painting hit the floor. Keegan pulled back the man’s head and let it feel pine again. The pine had to be expensive to get all the way from wherever you could find pine trees to the middle of nowhere that was Purgatory City.

      He pulled the head back and was going to see if he could punch a hole in the wall and give the Rio Lobo Saloon a new door, but the railroad worker’s eyes had rolled back into the head, so Keegan let the man drop to the floor.

      Besides, the bartender was bringing back his arm to lay Keegan out with those hard brass knuckles. Keegan ducked, felt the man’s right sail over his head, and heard the crunch as the barkeep’s fist slammed into the wall where there was no painting—actually a cut-out from some old calendar that had been stuck into the frame—to soften the blow.

      The barkeep screamed in pain and grasped his right hand with his left. Tears poured like he was some little baby, and Keegan figured those broken fingers must hurt like hell. They’d likely swell up, too, so that fool would have the dickens of a time getting those knuckle-dusters off. Hell, the doc might have to amputate his hand.

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