Free The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis Page A

secret of what they were hiding in the locked car was something terribly important, important enough to want to keep Ray quiet … permanently?This was irrational, at least Ray hoped, but as Buck drew his pistols, all the worst possibilities erupted in his mind.
    Buck never turned to face Ray. He just gave a quick sniff. Buck drew back the hammer on the pistol, extended his arm out to the side, and fired. The apple exploded into sticky confetti.
    Ray sputtered a few pieces off of his lips and brushed the apple bits from his shoulders. The crowd applauded, and Ray smiled gingerly, feeling proud that he hadn’t flinched in the face of fear. He wished Conker could have seen it. As he reached the spot at the back of the stage, Ray saw that someone had noticed. Buck’s face was turned slightly toward Ray, a curious expression flickering on the cowboy’s brow.
    “I’ll do it!” a man shouted from the front. Nel smiled and motioned for the man to come onto the stage. The man had a stringy beard that extended under his chin, more on his neck than on his face. He was laughing and showing off a gap-toothed grin to the men who were with him.
    “You’re nuts, Lenny,” his friends laughed and goaded from the crowd.
    “Not as batty as him.” Lenny pointed at Buck and sniggered. “Get it? Batty.”
    His friends contorted their faces in confusion.
    “Bats is blind,” Lenny explained.
    His friends howled.
    When Lenny came up on the stage, he strolled right upto Buck, pointing in his face and waving his hands in front of the cowboy’s nose. “Sure you can’t see?” he laughed.
    “Put the apple on your head,” Buck said in his unexpressive gravel voice.
    Lenny danced over to the table and took a pair of apples. Rather than removing the ratty porkpie hat from his head, he placed one of the apples on the top of his hat and slipped the second into his coat pocket as a snack for later.
    “Alrighty, Mister. Don’t miss.” He chuckled. “You sure you don’t want my granny’s spectacles?”
    Buck slowly stepped around, facing the guffawing man. His boots thumped with each step. “You might want to take that hat off,” he said.
    “You betcha, buddy.” Lenny grinned. “I got it off.” He touched a hand to the porkpie but didn’t remove it.
    Buck held the pistols hip level. The audience took a collective breath. All was quiet but the snorts coming from Lenny’s nose. Then the pistols discharged in three ear-shattering blasts. The apple disappeared into a white cloud of particles. Lenny’s face clamped with visible fear as the second bullet formed a smoking hole in his porkpie hat. What were once chuckles now became whimpers when he reached his fingers down to his hip, where a hole was smoking from his coat pocket. Lenny pulled out the other apple, blown into a gooey cream by the third bullet.
    Lenny scuttled from the stage to the heckling of his friends.
    *  *  *
    The afternoon continued with another pitch from Peg Leg Nel and a lilting version of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” from the band. Ray watched Conker emerge on the left-side stage carrying a black lacquered trunk. For a moment he thought this was going to be the giant’s performance, but Conker left the stage after placing the trunk before the wondering audience.
    Ray helped Nel with the tonics and tinctures. As the pitchman heard people’s ailments, he’d call out a name such as
Simpleton’s Memory Salve
or
Gold Brick’s Lassitude Livener
, and Ray looked through the crates to deliver the tonic. As he went back and forth, he kept an eye on the stage, watching the performance and wondering which performer was going to use the trunk.
    The black lacquered trunk was no bigger than an ordinary footlocker and had a gold Oriental dragon encircling the four sides until it met its own tail. The crowd restlessly scratched their heads and whispered to one another, waiting for what would happen.
    The trunk rumbled and shifted; then it was still again. A sharp crack