Free Lucky Billy by John Vernon

watching Mr. Tunstall losing the struggle to adjust his response to the seizure of his store. Billy thought, What next? He could understand Tunstall's jitters, he'd been there himself, he knew what it was like to be bullied by thugs. If a horse won't buck all that's left to it is fussing. Tunstall straightened up, his back seemed to stiffen. Good for him. Across the counter, coolheaded Sheriff Brady clung to a ladder suspended from a rail above the shelves; above
Tunstall's
shelves. Brady'd been dictating to Jim Longwell below him the names and quantities of those items that he plucked from their places and threw back as though he owned them—fourteen boxes of Lamonta hosiery, twenty-three of the Fletcher no. 78 flat white corset laces, ninety spools of black thread, thirty-eight cards of hair ribbons, thirteen bolts of cheap gingham, eight of cotton checks, boxes and boxes of Gauntlet Brand Cream Tartar; the shelves were deep, Billy knew.
    At the door, Fred scowled. The scowl was nothing special. Billy had observed that Fred Waite's scowl was more quizzical than threatening, and he often wore it. Beyond Fred, Mr. Tunstall's darkening face and corrugated hair were still as a silhouette while, dancing around him, pear-shaped Rob Widenmann sputtered and fumed in his distinctly un-American fez. When Brady first ordered Tunstall's property attached, Widenmann had turned into a helter-skelter battle-ax and swore he would have those who did this to his friend dead or alive. Now he swung his arms, stormed back and forth, and tried to act salty, to Billy's chagrin. And Mr. Tunstall standing there straight as a wiping stick; he kept himself uneasily inside himself except his protracted silence betrayed him. Dull of tongue, Widenmann jumped in. "Your court order is against Alexander McSween. This is Mr. Tunstall's store."
    "They're partners, ain't they?" said Brady.
    "How merny times. How many terms—how ... many terms." At the door, Billy caught Fred's eye. Arms flailing, Widenmann spit it out. "How many
times
did I tell you they are not partners! Tell him, Harry."
    John Tunstall looked around at the barrels of nails, spindles of rope, bins of oats and barley, drawers of thread, and Billy followed his gaze. Seventeen iron hoes, twenty-three pails, a dozen axes, more than thirty shovels. Fred had told Billy that these were all commodities their boss had personally bought in St. Louis and arranged to have freighted to Lincoln last year. He lingered near the iron cage with its desk and high stool and account books and ledgers. "You'll hear about this" was all he could say.
    "Tell them, Harry, tell them!"
    "And those horses and mules out back. They are my personal property, exclusively."
    "Then take the damn horses, Englishman. What do I care? I've got work to do."
    "Call your men off, then."
    "Jim, would you please march around back and tell Peppin and Davis that the Englishman and his friends can take them animals away?"
    Jim Longwell strolled toward the Kid and Fred standing on either side of the doorway. Tunstall's store was long and wide, with floors made of wood, three-foot-thick walls, and steel plates inside its shutters. Its entrance was a set of metal doors that opened onto Lincoln's single road. The place was built like a fort; a lot of good that did the Englishman. As Longwell slipped between them, Billy raised the Thunderer so he'd get a good look at it, and opened his mouth and contemptibly hawked, but it sounded too dry. Longwell then paused and they stared at each other while behind him Fred levered his carbine, whose swift collision of sliding metal parts hummed through the wood stock and up any skittish spines within earshot. Longwell spit on the floor and continued. They followed him out.
    Other Dolanites stood outside the door or sprawled on the bench, and behind the store five or six of the Boys lingered by the gate to Tunstall's corral. Facing the gate, Bonney's eyes slid incessantly above, behind, and between