The Last Good Day, стр. 50
B.W. smiled back at Fannie and blew her a kiss. “Got to come back now,” he said. “You ready, major?”
“Yes,” Rance said. “Lock the doors, Riley.”
Riley nodded, they walked out on the street and Riley closed the doors behind them.
“You know there’s a very good chance we won’t come back,” B.W. said.
“I do,” Rance said, “but you have to do what you have to do. We got the boy into this, we have to get him out.”
“We do. It might change Travers mind some, too.”
“B.W., I think you had the right idea to start with. Let’s go kill that sonofabitch.”
30
A door with Travers Southern Railway painted on it across the street from Big Sally’s Saloon opened and Church walked out, fancy guns, boots and all. Then Robert Travers, with his white Stetson on and a black string tie around the collar of his starched white shirt.
Rance nudged B.W. in the alley and they watched Church and Travers cross the street and go in Big Sally’s Saloon. Rance and B.W. stepped back out on the street and Tommy suddenly appeared and ran into Big Sally’s, the Colt in his hand, before they could call out to him.
“Looks like it’s goin’ to be now or never,” Rance said and they followed in after him.
Church and Travers were at the bar, their backs to Tommy, who was standing in the middle of the floor with the Colt pointed at Church. Church and Travers looked at them in the mirror behind the bar, Big Sally looking puzzled by it all. The men and whores in the saloon began to ease away toward the swinging doors except for a little whore not much bigger than Tommy that crouched down behind the piano.
“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Big Sally asked.
“Church murdered the boy’s mama,” Rance said. “Used to work here, Alice Woodson.”
“Did You kill his mama, Church?” Big Sally said.
“She was a no-good, money-stealin’ whore,” Church said to Big Sally.
Tommy cocked the hammer on the Colt.
Travers turned around slowly. “You a back-shooter boy?” he said. “That what you taught him, Allison?”
Tommy looked at B.W. and Rance in the mirror. “Ya’ll go away, this is my fight,” he said.
“You don’t want to do this,” Rance said. “Give me the gun.”
“I’m goin’ to kill that weasel.”
“Put the gun down, boy, ‘fore it’s too late,” Travers said.
Church hadn’t moved, was staring at them in the mirror.
“That’s what it’ll be if’n he don’t drop that gun,” Church said to the mirror and picked up his whiskey glass, took a slow swallow and sat it gently back down on the bar.
“What do you care? She was a whore,” Travers said and two men got up from their chairs at a table and walked over beside Travers, both big and ugly. They looked like they could chew nails and shit horseshoes.
“Get out of here, boy,” Big Sally said. “He’ll kill you.” Church nodded yes, looking at Tommy in the mirror.
Big Sally reached down behind the bar and raised a shotgun up over the bar and pointed it at Church.
“You shoot that boy, you’re dead too,” Big Sally said. “Get out of my saloon and don’t ever come back, all of you.”
In one swift motion, Church wheeled, drew his left pearl-handled pistol and put a bullet between Big Sally’s eyes before he knew what was happening. Sally fell backwards, pulling the triggers of the shotgun in a death grip, blowing a hole in the ceiling as he fell. Ricocheting buckshot and debris crashed against the big long mirror, smashing it to pieces. Tommy fired, hitting Church in his left shoulder and he dropped his pistol.
Travers crouched down in front of the bar with his hands over his head. The two men beside him reached for their guns and B.W. turned the shotgun loose on them and the buckshot went through them like a screen door, blowing the windows of the saloon out behind them. Church went for his right pistol. Rance put two holes in his left shirt pocket, about an inch apart, with his double action Colt before Church could clear leather. Church stared at Rance in disbelief, belched up his whiskey and slid down the bar to the floor, the longhorn steers on the side of his boots in full view.
The sheriff came running in, guns blazing, bullets buzzing by B.W.‘s head like bumblebees. B.W. hurled the tomahawk across the room at the sheriff, planting it deep into his skull and blood squirted up like a fountain as he fell to his knees, the pistol spinning off his limp fingers and hitting the floor the same time he did.
Travers tossed his gun out on the floor and yelled, “I’m unarmed! Don’t shoot!” and stood up next to the two disemboweled men on the floor with his hands over his head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rance saw someone move and turned, ready to fire. A middle-aged man wearing a floppy straw hat, overalls and clodhopper boots was standing against the wall, his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “Got nothing to do with this, couldn’t get out.”
B.W. reloaded the shotgun and Rance walked up beside Tommy. “Give me the gun,” he said and Tommy handed him the Colt.
“The Yankees goin’ to hang you for this,” Travers said.
“You’re the one needs hangin’ you chicken-livered bastard.” B.W. sat the shotgun on the bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey, picked up the glass, looked at it and sat it back down hard on the bar. “Enough,” he said.
Travers yelled something incoherent, reached inside his coat and pulled a two-barrel derringer and fired at B.W., hitting him in the head and side. B.W. staggered to the floor, the Colt falling out of his belt as he hit the floor.
Tommy reached down and picked