Free Town Tamers by David Robbins Page A

this one the most. “The lights, George.”
    “Right away. I only wish you’d reconsider. Next to Ed Sykes, I was most responsible for sending for you. I wouldn’t want your death on my conscience.”
    “Be sure to tell the folks who live along Main to stay away from their front windows,” Asa instructed him. “Better yet, have them move to the back of their houses.” Bystanders were notorious for taking stray lead.
    Tandy surprised Asa by holding out his hand. “Since you refuse to listen to reason, I wish you the best.”
    Asa shook, and lowered his voice. “If something should happen to me, see to it that my son and my daughter make it out safe.”
    “I have children of my own,” Tandy said. “I couldn’t do what you do and involve them in something like this.”
    “The lights,” Asa said again.
    “Certainly.” Tandy hurried off.
    Asa hoped there was time. He gazed at the stars and thought of Mary. “Maybe I’ll get to join you at last.” It wasn’t in his nature, though, to just let it happen. She’d clung to life for as long as she could, and he was the same. “Damn me, anyhow,” he said.

22

    M y own little army.
    That was how Bull Cumberland thought of the twelve men at his back as he galloped the last mile to town. Sure, they were Weldon Knox’s men, but he was Knox’s right hand—Knox’s lieutenant, some might say—and that made them his little army.
    Bull was the one who always gave them their orders. Bull was the one who rustled with them, robbed stages with them, killed with them. Some days, he wondered why they needed Weldon Knox at all.
    The answer was obvious. Knox had something Bull didn’t have, not to any excess, anyway. Weldon Knox had brains. Knox was as clever as a fox and always knew the right thing to do to keep them from ending up behind bars or at the hemp end of a strangulation jig.
    Bull didn’t mind so much that he had to do as Knox told him. After years of riding the high-lines, of sleeping countless nights on the hard ground and eating countless meals of nothing but beans and coffee, it was nice to have a roof over his head, a bunk of his own to bed down in, and three squares a day if he wanted them.
    No, Bull didn’t miss the owlhoot trail. He did miss not being able to bust people up as often as he used to. He missed bucking them out in gore on a whim. Nowadays, he only ever killed when he had to.
    Holding back was a nuisance. But as Knox liked to say, why draw tin stars when he didn’t really have to?
    Bull thought of the Town Tamer and smiled. He wouldn’t have to hold back with him. They were going to shoot Asa Delaware to ribbons.
    Lights appeared in the distance, and Bull slowed his sorrel to a walk. Jake Bass promptly came up on one side and Crusty on the other.
    “Can’t wait to do him,” Jake Bass said, expressing Bull’s own sentiments.
    “He has to pay for Old Tom and Tyree,” Crusty said.
    They were a quarter mile out when Jake Bass remarked, “That’s peculiar.”
    Bull didn’t like Bass much. Jake was quick on the shoot, but he was also quick with his temper and that made for a troublesome combination. But Jake did have good instincts about other things, so Bull asked, “What is?”
    “The lights.”
    Bull looked and couldn’t see anything strange about them. “The town always has lights at night.”
    “Only on Main Street?”
    Bull drew rein. Damned if Jake Bass wasn’t right. Main was lit from end to end except for a space in the middle. None of the other streets showed a lick of light anywhere.
    “Say, that is strange,” Crusty chimed in. “What do you reckon it means?”
    Bull wasn’t about to admit he didn’t know. “Ride ahead and find out.”
    “Me?” Crusty said.
    “Take Charley and Slim.”
    “And if we see Asa Delaware? Do we put windows in his noggin or save him for you?”
    Bull would like to do in the Town Tamer personally, but he replied, “Bed him down permanent if you have to, but otherwise go