“Who are you?” Eric asked when he got close enough. He had sharp features and a look of wildness in his gray eyes. His face bore the weathered lines of hard living and perhaps the hard travels of many roads that led to regret.
“Your father’s emissaries,” Lawson said. “We’re getting you out of here.” Lawson’s eyes went to the young man’s gunbelt. “You do want to get home in one piece, don’t you?”
“Home? My father?” Eric sounded genuinely stunned. “He…sent you?”
“Train leaves for Helena in forty minutes. We intend to be on it. Are you with us?”
“I…I…can’t…they won’t…”
“Eric?” The voice was as silky as the man’s ruffled shirt. “Who are your friends?”
“My name is Trevor Lawson and this is Ann Kingsley.” Lawson kept his voice light and easy. Ann had stepped to one side where she had a clear shot if need be. She was aware of the two others coming in from different directions. “Your name, sir?” Lawson prodded.
“I may be called the man who wishes you to leave this establishment,” came the softspoken answer. His eyes were deep-set, icy blue pools that Lawson was sure had frozen many a victim. “You have no business here.”
“Then we seem to be of different minds.”
“Yours may be a bit afflicted. Easy, Johnny,” he said to the young man who was showing a glimpse of a hogleg Navy revolver from underneath his gray jacket. “Let’s give these two a chance to see another sunrise.”
“Hm,” said Lawson, with as much of a friendly smile as he could summon. He was well aware that his friendly smiles could frighten small children. “I don’t really care for sunrises.”
“I’m m…m…movin’,” Blue said, and with the silver dollars in her fist she started to go past Mathias, but he reached out quick as a snake and grabbed her wrist. Her hand opened and there was the shine of the coins.
“I believe,” said Mathias, “that there has been some shit going on here behind my back. Our backs.” He twisted Blue’s wrist enough to bring a wince of pain. “Nealsen, go about your business please,” he told the bartender, who had paused in his pouring to take in the scene. Several other men at the bar were watching, and now they realized where the line of fire was and that they ought to be somewhere else. The black piano-player was still pounding the cracked ivories; he was unaware of the confrontation because his eyes were closed.
Mathias took the coins from Blue’s hand and shoved her back toward Lawson and Ann. The girl’s face showed red even under all the makeup. She shouted in a ragged and desperate voice, “That’s m…my money! Give it back, damn you!”
Which brought an end to the piano-playing. With it the hollerings and cursings of the gamblers diminished as all realized a drama was being played out in their midst. In another moment there was only the ticking of the big spinner going around and around and a hiss as an oil lamp’s wick sparked overhead.
“Mr. Cantrell don’t like no trouble!” the piano-player spoke up, indicating a soul who was either very brave or ready to be shot.
“Mr. Cantrell is not here right now,” Mathias answered. His gaze never left Lawson’s. “No trouble is intended. These strangers are on their way out.”
Johnny Rebinaux had pulled his revolver. It hung in a loose grip at his right side. About ten feet to Rebinaux’s left, Keene Presco had placed a hand on the buckle of his gunbelt but no weapon was showing yet. To emphasize the threat, Deuce Mathias pulled his coat back to reveal two Colts with black grips in their holsters. He pushed the five silvers into a pocket and then casually rested his hands on his hips.
“Now,” he said, “before either you two walk out or are carried out…tell me the why of things. Eric, do you know them?”
“No.”
“But they know you?”
“I…don’t…”
“His father has sent us to bring the boy home,” said the vampire. “Eric, he told us about the letters.”
“Letters?” Mathias frowned, and now he was not nearly so handsome. He looked like a cunning predator on the hunt for fresh meat. “I am all at sea about this. What letters might those be?”
“He sent his—”
“I can speak for myself, Mr. Lawson.” Eric had found his courage, for the moment of decision had come. He was helped knowing gunfighters were standing behind him, even if one did happen to be a woman and the other looked to be as bloodless as a white stone. “I’m done with this life, Deuce. I want out of it. Yes, I wrote a couple of letters to my father asking for help, and I passed them to the post clerk. I want to go home. Can’t you understand that?”
“Eric wants to go home,” Mathias said to his compatriots, in a mocking tone. “Says he’s done with this life. Been sneaking around behind our backs, and us taking him in like family. Now that’s a fine plate of bad hash, isn’t it?” He turned his gaze again upon Trevor Lawson. “We’ll send the boy home, if that’s what he pleases. Seems to me his father must love his son very much, to send a couple of guns after him.” Mathias put one hand on the grip of a Colt. “Seems also,” he said, “that dear Father must have some money in his pockets. You two take back word to him…we’ll send his boy home, in due time.”
“Deuce, I’m leavin’,” Eric said. There was grit in his voice, but also a quaver. “I’m done with all this.”
“Leaving, he says.” Mathias was still speaking to the others. “After all we’ve been through together. No, I don’t think so.”
“Eric, walk out of here,” said Lawson. His voice was quiet but commanding. “Blue, step aside.”
“I want m..my m…money!” And with that she lunged at Deuce Mathias, going for the pocket in which the silvers resided.
What happened next was a blur to everyone but Lawson, and though Ann was fast she had not expected Johnny Rebinaux’s speed and recklessness. His Navy revolver flashed up, catching yellow lamplight. Presco’s gun was out, the hammer being cocked. Mathias was drawing both guns at once, and an instant before Rebinaux’s pistol went off Mathias knocked Blue away from him with a wicked elbow. She staggered back as a haze of gunsmoke bloomed around her. Ann’s pistol cracked and the gun in Rebinaux’s hand blew to pieces, the bullet having hit the cylinder. He yowled with pain and danced a madman’s jig, his gunhand torn open by jagged metal.
And then Presco and Mathias saw that Trevor Lawson was leaning against the bar, his Colt with its rosewood grip and load of deadly lead aimed somewhere between the two thugs as if he’d been standing that way for half-an-hour, yet neither one of them had seen him move from where he’d been half-a-heartbeat before. He was just there.
Their guns were still aimed at the floorboards, ready to shoot some sawdust.
Lawson blew a little O of smoke toward the ceiling.
“Drop them,” he said.
Presco’s pistol hit the floor. Mathias was thinking of gambling.
Ann said, “Damn! I was going for the third button on that little bastard’s shirt!”
But Lawson knew she’d decided not to kill him, as death seemed such a constant these troubled days. Two more pistols fell.
The smell of fresh blood flooded Lawson’s senses. It hit him like the need for whiskey would hit an alcoholic three days in the gutter. Rebinaux’s hand was dripping red and he was sitting on the floor mewling like a hurt kitten, but the bloodsmell was stronger than that.
Then he knew.
“Oh…my God!” Ann said. She was already bending down to where Blue lay crumpled on her right side and the crimson was spreading around her.
The bartender started to reach for something under the bar. Without looking at him, Lawson said, “Don’t do that,” and Nealsen raised his hands and backed away.