Episode 17

Sudden Fury

Joe Wiley ran out into the wide dusty main road of Mercury Wells and quickly determined that the screams were coming from the Paradise. The roar of men’s voices rose to match the volume of a woman’s shrieks.

He arrived at the saloon to find a gang of rough types, crusted with the dirt and funk of many miles on the trail, crushed against the bar. They had a young whore standing up atop the plank. She was naked save for her garters. She had a face that was still pretty though a few more months selling herself would change that. A spray of freckles across a face framed by ginger red hair. She was slim with spindly legs, narrow hips and mere buds for breasts. But she was a sight for sore eyes for men who had been out on the range for months eating dust and staring at the ass-end of a world of beeves.

The space under the canvas was crowded with patrons but it was easy enough to see that the filthy pack of drovers was the center of the chaos. Though the customers were watching with amusement, not a one lifted a hand to help the terrified girl balanced upon the bar top. The roulette table at the back was unoccupied. The man with the shotgun was gone, his high stool empty.

A bartender lay still on the floor, his head bleeding. Another stood backed to the wall, scared out his mind he would end up like his co-worker. The same one who held up a pick handle to Joe earlier. All bluff gone now.

Joe cut the shot caller out of the bunch at first glance. A big bastard in chaps with silver conchos. He was swiping a buck knife at the whore’s ankles, making her dance. Her clothes—dress, slip and bustier—lay in the filthy sand where the cowhands had sliced them from her. She bled freely from a nick over her ribs where some rowdy’s hand slipped in the work of cutting. The big man and his saddle trash comrades crowded the bar to watch.

“Dance sweet for me, you skinny bitch!” the big man shouted.

The girl was terrified and trying her damnedest to dance. She was making a poor show of it, body trembling and feet shuffling like a sleepwalker. Tears streamed down her face turning the lamp black on her lashes into ebon rivulets down her cheeks.

“Let that girl be,” Joe said, parting the men as he neared the bar front.

The big man turned to face Joe, looking him up and down with a sneer. The wicked blade of the knife flashed in his hand.

“And why should I? Who’re you to tell me anythin’?” the big man sneered. His eyes were mean with drink. Probably started out mean. Whiskey only built a fire under his evil nature.

“Because I am the law and I said so,” Joe said.

“Kill that sunvabitch,” the big man said with casual ease and turned his attention back to the girl trembling on the bar.

Two of the saddle tramps went for their guns. Even before they cleared the holsters, they lay on the ground dead from Joe Wiley’s gun. One bullet for each drilled through their chests.

The sudden fury of the violence silenced the celebration. The big man and his gang moved off the bar to circle Joe with wild anger and murderous intent in their eyes. The rest of the bar patrons receded like oil on water, stepping back to observe what promised to be the main entertainment of the evening.

Joe braced, back to the bar, both Colts in his fists. The hammers were drawn back. He picked out the first two who would die. After that he’d play it as it rolled.

“You get down now, girl,” Joe said, voice cool, to the whore still balanced atop the bar. He felt the plank atop the barrels buck against the back of his coat as she climbed down.

The ring of men coiled about him like a serpent prepared to strike but weighing its options. Most mobs would have dissolved by now, what with two of their number lying on the sand bleeding out. Only these drovers had enough liquor in them to get a bulge on and keep it. They had this lawman outnumbered ten to one. Those were good odds. But surely one or more of them would get plugged in the rush before they brought the bastard down. Those odds were not so sweet.

Strong drink has a way of blurring a man’s calculations, making him believe that he won’t be that unlucky. Joe Wiley could see it in the eyes of the men seething around him. They were building to make their move. He could only stand and wait for it.

Behind the phalanx of cowhands Joe saw the onlooking crowd of bar patrons parting like the Red Sea before Moses himself. Murmurs and chatter rose but one distinct voice called out.

“Let me through!”

And a beautiful woman dressed all in white, corn silk hair pinned to the back of her head in a net, emerged through the drunken drovers to stand before them, facing Joe. The woman was like an avenging angel, face severe with a rage that did nothing to mar her lovely features. If anything, to Joe’s estimation, her open emotions made her all the more attractive.

“Stop! Stop this instant!” she commanded.