Free The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis

burst into a frenzy of cheers, shrieks, and whistles.
    As Seth bowed over and over and over, Nel tried to draw the audience’s attention back to the center stage. “Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Does your stomach hurt? Feel like knives are poking your esophagus? Gastric discomfort got your bowels speared with distress? Then try
Baron Bayonet’s Bonbons
. … ”
    Ray sold out of the tablets in less than a minute.
    “Friends, you’ve heard of the great gunslingers of Dead-wood and Dodge City,” Nel continued after pitching various other stomach and bowel tonics. “The cold steel of Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, and Wyatt Earp bloodied many a Wild West street. You’ve heard of the amazing Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickok. They were all dead-on shots with a six-shooter. But, friends, they all had two things that our next performer did not.”
    Peg Leg Nel paused, then slowly pointed to each of his eyes in turn. He gave a hard stomp to the wooden stage.
    “Yes, friends, the gift of sight,” the pitchman said. “From the high-plain sagebrush prairies of the Wild West. Don’t be alarmed, folks. He may be an eagle-eye shot, but he’s completely blind. May I present: Montana Hodder.”
    Eustace Buckthorn walked out on the right stage, tapping his way with a worn oak cane that Ray could only assume was to play up Buck’s blindness to the audience.Buck’s outfit was no different than the one he had been wearing an hour earlier when Ray had been caught listening to his conversation with Nel. His slate-gray, wide-brimmed hat contained Buck’s rowdy hair, but long silver-streaked locks fell over his eyes.
    Buck dropped the cane to the floor of the stage. His hands went to the twin holsters slung low across his hips. Ray could hear the whispers from the crowd.
    “Is he really blind?”
    “Sure, look—he ain’t got no eyes.”
    “He’s got eyes. I see them under his hair, but they’s white as milk.”
    Ray felt a rush of awkwardness and irritation at the way the crowd discussed Buck’s blindness with no regard to whether the cowboy could hear them. But to watch Buck’s raised chin and firm stance, he was either used to the treatment or keeping his own anger stoically hidden.
    Nel hopped up to the opposite stage, where a stack of cheap porcelain plates had been placed. “Ready!” he cried, and tossed two of the plates up toward the top of the tent. A pair of sandalwood-handled pistols flashed from Buck’s holsters and fired in rapid succession. The plates splintered into tiny shards raining down on the stage. Several people in the vicinity tucked their hands over their hats and went scurrying for the thick of the crowd.
    Cheers burst out, but Buck’s expression remained placid. Nel began throwing more of the plates, sometimesa high one, sometimes a quick series of plates. Each of Buck’s bullets met its mark.
    “Can we have a volunteer from the crowd?” Nel called.
    There was general murmur but nobody came forward.
    “Come now, brave people,” he cajoled. “Let my assistant demonstrate.”
    Nel waved Ray up to the front of the stage. Peg Leg Nel hadn’t said anything about being a part of the performance! As the eyes of the audience shifted to Ray squatting at the back of the stage, he had little time to let his fear stop him. Ray walked hesitantly to the spot where Nel situated him.
    “Take off your cap,” Nel whispered. “Keep a straight back. Don’t move and you’ll be fine.”
    The pitchman gave him a wink and placed an apple on his curly head. As Nel backed away, Ray kept his shoulders back and stood motionless. He felt certain that Buck had done this hundreds of times. Nel wouldn’t have brought Ray up if there was any danger.
    But a sudden image came to his mind—a flash of Buck’s face when Ray had been caught listening to his conversation with Nel. Although Buck had been trying to assure Nel, the pitchman had seemed scared. They were in some sort of danger. What if the