“You deaf? I said, go to hell!”
Smith’s hard features hardened further. His hand drifted toward the holstered Colt, but he stopped short. “You’ve had too much to drink, friend. Why don’t you just back off and stop asking for trouble.”
Weaving, Gauge slurred, “Trouble? Who’s gonna give it to me... a mangy dog like you?”
By now, the hard face had turned to stone, and a powerful-looking hand hovered above the butt of the holstered Colt.
Smith said, “Time you shut that big mouth, mister. Or I am going to shut it for you.”
Still playing drunk, Gauge said, “Try it, why don’t you? Or maybe you ain’t got the guts?”
Slowly, Smith moved away from the bar about two feet. Gauge, still loose-limbed, mirrored him. They faced each other, three feet apart.
Smith said, “Buddy, you just had one too many. That ain’t worth dyin’ over.”
“So you’re talk. All talk. Just another lily — livered talker!”
Smith went for his gun and Gauge pulled his .44 and blasted three times, shots placed so close they tore a hole in his opponent’s belly from which bloody intestines spilled like snakes fleeing a disturbed nest. The gunman had his gun in hand, but it had only just made it out of the holster, and he wouldn’t be firing it now or ever. Smith, or whatever the hell his name was, was too busy dying a terrible death, setting an example for any other gunhands playing at cowboy who might be looking on.
Somebody grabbed Gauge from behind, by the upper arms, and shouted, “Get the sheriff!”
Gauge glanced back — it was the smaller cowboy who Smith had been talking to at the bar — and shoved his left elbow back into the little man’s ribs. The cowboy yowled and fell back, and the grip on Gauge’s arms popped open into fingers.
Gauge took a step away, facing the bar and the stunned cowboy, with the gasping, bleeding Smith on the floor nearby, curled up as if to guard the gory mess that had poured out of him. Gauge kicked the revolver from the dying man’s hand and got his badge out of his pocket and pinned it back on.
“I am the sheriff,” Gauge said, not shouting it but loud, directing it to the smaller cowboy but wanting everyone to hear.
Gauge sent a bartender to fetch Doc Miller, though Smith would obviously soon be the undertaker’s purview.
Then the sheriff turned to the shocked faces of his patrons — frozen in mid-game or mid-dance, the music having stopped when the gunfire began — and his voice was a preacher’s on Sunday morning.
“This is an example for any shootists who think they can come to Trinidad and pretend to be honest cowhands! Spread the word, gentlemen. I will keep this town... and this saloon... safe!”
There was a rumble of murmured conversation.
Gauge spoke again, just as loud: “The show is over. The house is buying one round, and then get back to your cards and what-have-you!”
A free drink forgave many sins, and the place was soon raucous again, with no pall whatever cast by the dead man with his guts hanging out on the floor near the bar.
Lola appeared at Gauge’s side.
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad we didn’t invest in that Oriental carpet.”
“I detect a tone of disapproval.”
“I asked you to please take it outside.”
“Would not have got my point across as well.”
“You didn’t have to do that at all. That man was creating no disturbance, and I don’t see what threat he gave you.”
“He might be Banion, for all we know.”
“And he might not,” she said, shaking her head. “And without finding that out first, what good did you do?”
“I’ll find out who he was, don’t worry about that.”
She was studying him again, and something strange was in her expression.
“What is it, honey?”
“You just killed a man, Harry. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“No. Should it?”
Lola sighed, rolled her eyes, and began moving through the casino, smiling, friendly with her customers, getting the free-spending mood going again.
Gauge sat at a corner table with a bottle and his back to the wall, keeping an eye on things. Maybe Smith had a friend among the other new cowhands at the Bar-L. Always paid to be careful.
He watched dispassionately as Doc Miller pronounced Smith dead — you needed a doctor’s degree to do that? — and had a couple cowhands dump the corpse in a basket, cover it with a sheet before directing them out with it.
Sawed-off and plump, in a dark gray suit that looked slept in, the white-haired doc trundled over, black bag in hand, though he hadn’t opened it. The operation here required a mop, not a scalpel.
“Doin’ quite a business tonight,” the doc said in his dry, folksy manner.
“Are we? I only remember killing one fool.”
“Well, there’s a live fool who dropped off two of your men at my office. Last half hour, I been tendin’ ’em.”
Gauge sat up. “What live fool?”
“Take a wild guess.”
“Rhomer.”
The doc nodded. “He said to ask you to get over to your office, quick. I’m going to guess it’s not good news.”
Gauge collected Lola and walked her down the chilly moon-swept street to the office, where Rhomer was milling outside, looking like a naughty child awaiting Papa’s punishment.
“What happened?” Gauge asked as he unlocked the door.
They all went in. Nervous, Rhomer sat across from Gauge. Lola stood in back of the desk, looming just behind the sheriff.
The red-bearded hangdog deputy shook his head and said, “They was waitin’ for us, Gauge. They was down in these damn trenches with rifles and they just shot the hell out of us.”
“... We lose any men?”
“Stringer and Bradley.”
“Hell. What about the two at Doc Miller’s?”
“Flesh wounds.”
“Give it to me in detail.”
Rhomer did.
Lola was pacing a small area behind Gauge. She said to Rhomer, “Who knew about this?”
The deputy said, “Just the eight of us in it.”
Gauge glanced back at Lola. “Were any of my bunch at the Victory this afternoon?”
She nodded, and shared the names.
Rhomer frowned. “That’s them. Musta stopped by for some liquid courage.”
Gauge gave her a long, hard look. “Did you hear them talking, Lola?”
Her face reddened. “Don’t you dare say it to me, Harry. I would never...! Don’t even think it.”
Rhomer asked her, “How much drinking did they do?”
She sighed, shrugged, thought. “Not much. A beer or two. A shot. No, they weren’t soused when they left. Like you said, Vint. Liquid courage.”
Gauge was flexing his fists. “Somebody talked. We’re going to find out who. And we’re going to kill them. Just like that shootist tonight, only worse.”
Lola leaned in. “Harry, come on. You don’t know anybody talked. Cullen’s a cunning old coot. Maybe he just outthunk you.”
Teeth bared, he slapped her. Hard.
“Nobody outthinks me, get it? Nobody!”
She reared back against the adobe wall, agape, trembling, with a curled hand against one cheek. “Harry... I told you...”
Gauge, still seated, swung his gaze to Rhomer. “Go back to Doc Miller’s and see about getting our boys back in their bunks.”
Rhomer, obviously glad to be going, almost jumped out of the chair and left quickly without a word.
Gauge sat with his back to Lola. But he could feel her there, trembling, seething. Hear her breathing heavily.