Free Wild to the Bone by Peter Brandvold Page A

screaming, “You scum-sucking Union dog!” and brought up his right fist from his knees. He’d moved so quickly—and Bear had been briefly distracted by Dawg opening and closing his own hands at his sides—that the haymaker hammered against Haskell’s left cheekbone.
    The blow sent Haskell reeling back against the bar behind him. Burt Angel yelled, “Ah, shit, fellas!” When Bear had regained his balance, all three card players were on him, swinging or jabbing fists at his head, chest, and belly.
    â€œGet around behind him and hold him, Charlie!” One-Eye shouted as he rammed his left fist into Haskell’s solar plexus.
    One-Eye was damn good with those fists. Too good. Haskell doubled over as the air left his lungs in a loud chuff, but he knew that if Butters got behind him and pinned his arms behind his back, he’d be a human punching bag.
    And when these curly wolves were done punching him, they’d likely slit his throat and throw him from the train.
    Bear slammed his right elbow into Butters’s face, evoking a loud howl, and then he lowered his head and shoulders and threw his two hundred and forty pounds straight forward while raising his fists and forearms like shields. He bowled the other two men, Magnus and Dawg, straight back into the table and the chairs they’d been sitting in.
    The men cursed as Dawg fell over one of the chairs and Magnus fell into the table, overturning it and hitting the floor, with cards, coins, drinks, and an ashtray raining down on top of him. In the corner of his right eye, Haskell saw Butters throw a fist at him. He stepped back, and as Butters’s fist glanced off Bear’s ear, Bear rammed his elbow into Butters’s nose, smashing it flat against the man’s face.
    Blood spurted like red paint clear up to Butters’s hairline.
    As Butters yowled and clamped his hands over his nose, Dawg pushed off the wall near the overturned table and chairs and ran toward Haskell, bellowing like a poleaxed bull. Bear’s left fist met the man’s forehead head-on. As Dawg stopped and rocked back on his heels, Bear smashed his fist two more times against the man’s face— smack! smack! —unhinging his lower jaw.
    As Butters twisted around and fell to his knees, screaming, Magnus again came at Bear. This time, he was holding a chair in both hands above his head. Bear ducked low, and the screaming Magnus hurled the chair over Haskell’s back.
    It clattered onto the bar behind him as Bear rammed his head and shoulders into the tall redhead’s chest and, surging off his boot heels, slammed the man so hard onto his back that the floor leaped on the car’s chassis, dust billowing from the cracks between the floorboards. Haskell landed on top of him and, straddling him, grabbed the collar of the man’s red calico shirt, lifted his head off the floor, and gave him two quick, powerful jabs with his left fist.
    â€œYou fuckin’ devil!” one of the others cried.
    Bear heard the telltale snick of iron on leather and turned to see the bloody-faced, broken-nosed Butters, down on both knees, raising a long-barreled Remington .44 in his bloody right fist and clicking the hammer back. Haskell shucked his Russian from the cross-draw holster on his left hip and fired a half second before Butters did, Butters’s shot sounding like an echo of Bear’s own.
    Butters’s bullet plunked into the car’s wall, over the overturned table. Haskell’s bullet chewed into the man’s right arm, evoking another shrill scream from the desperado , who dropped the Remy and fell back against the bar, groaning and clutching his arm, which was starting to ooze blood in earnest.
    Haskell heard another gun hammer click back. This one came from his left. Magnus chuckled devilishly as he gained his feet and extended one of his own pearl-gripped Colts at Bear’s head.
    â€œI been waitin’ for this moment