Free Stay Away From That City . . . They Call It Cheyenne (Code of the West) by Stephen Bly Page B

filtered across the room.
    Tap whipped around. Most of the crowd were still seated at tables, although several stood at the back wall with their coattails tucked behind their revolvers.
    “I hope one of you five at this front table said that,” he growled.
    “Don’t look at us, Deputy. We’re jist sittin’ here eatin’ our biscuits and eggs.”
    “That’s too bad because if even one shot is fired in this room, you five will be the first I shoot. Don’t figure I could miss from this range. It would be a shame for you to take lead for some lou dmouthed jerk in the back row that doesn’t have the guts to face me one to one.”
    “Who you callin’ a loudmouthed jerk?” A big man with a full beard stood up at the back of the room, his hand on his r evolver. His belly hung over an empty bullet belt.
    “It looks like you’re the one, partner. Now sit down and put your hands above the table before you go do something foolish and prove my words about you.”
    The man sat right down.
    Tap glanced around at the rest in the room. “Let’s get som ethin’ straight, boys. I don’t favor those bummers down at the track. I don’t work for the rich folks in those three-story houses, and I don’t automatically side with driftin’ cowhands who spend only three weeks a year in town. If someone commits a crime, they ought to be fairly punished . . . that’s all. Don’t matter who they are.
    “But you might as well know, I won’t hesitate to draw this gun and shoot any one of you in this room if needs be to u phold the law. I don’t scare. I don’t back down. And there is nothin’ in the world that riles me more than someone threatenin’ me. I haven’t spent my whole life wearin’ a badge. You all understand what I’m sayin’?”
    A man in the front row nodded. "Just one thing, Deputy, we could use a man like you up in Johnson County. You be inte rested in rollin’ out with us?”
    The tension in the room melted. The drovers roared with laughter.
    Even Tap cracked a smile. “If you got a coosie that makes good bear sign, I might just look you up.”
    Simp Merced met Tap on the boardwalk in front of the Drovers’ Cafe. “What were you doin’ in there?” he d emanded.
    Tap walked on by. “Talkin’ to TwoHoots.”
    “Where’s Hager? You got to tell me where you’re keepin’ him. It ain’t right that I’m a deputy and don’t even know what’s goin’ on.”
    “Count it a blessin’. That way no one will threaten you at the Drovers’ Cafe or ambush you on the trail.”
    Merced grabbed Tap’s arm.
    One fiery glare caused Merced to drop his grip and step back. “I’m goin’ to take this up with the city council. This is no way to run the marshal’s office.”
    “Yeah, you talk to ’em.”
    Tap sat at the counter of S. S. Ramsey’s restaurant on 16th Street drinking a cup of coffee and scraping up the last of his eggs.
    A young voice called out from the door, “Hey, mister, you want to buy thirty prime feet of the Lost Gulch Mine?”
    He spun around. Angelita stood giggling at the door.
    “I thought I told—”
    “Mr. Andrews,” she lectured, “must you take everything so seriously? You really should relax and enjoy life more. You are much more handsome when you smile. That continual frown is quite unbecoming.”
    Tap broke into a wide grin and shook his head. “Judge Blair is just about ready to run you out of town, young lady.”
    “It’s a sad world when children are victimized by our own legal system,” she pouted.
    “Children? You haven’t acted like a child in ten years.”
    “Then, a true gentleman wouldn’t leave a beautiful, young woman standing at the door of a restaurant. He’d i nvite her in and offer to buy her a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.”
    “A glass of milk and a sweet roll,” he corrected her.
    “Whatever.” Angelita scampered into the cafe and leaped up on the stool beside him. “I want one of those big cinnamon ones with the sticky stuff and nuts on