Free .45-Caliber Desperado by Peter Brandvold Page A

Wes Leggett, Chris Fancy, and Marvin ‘the Maiden Killer’ Candles—you boys in here, I hope?”
    â€œOh, we’re here all right,” came a raucous, laughing voice from ahead and to Spurr’s right.
    It was followed by four pistol blasts, all four bullets hammering the woodstove and setting up the clanging of cracked bells in Spurr’s ears.
    â€œBehind you, Fancy!” shouted the familiar voice of Spurr’s partner. “Sheriff Dusty Mason! You boys are surrounded, so give yourselves up and live to die another day!”
    â€œFuck!” one of the outlaws cried.
    There was the thumping of boots and the bark of a chair across the crude puncheon floor. A rifle thundered at the back of the room. That’d be Mason, Spurr figured. About time he showed. The older lawman was beginning think his young partner was standing in a back room, dribbling down his leg.
    As a man screamed and another shouted curses and a rapid volley of shots rose, making dust sift from the rafters, Spurr rose to a knee and picked out movement through the gun smoke webbing through the brown air.
    He fired his Winchester and sent another man flying out a window. He fired again and saw another figure in a derby hat spin around and clutch his left shoulder with his right hand that was holding a big LeMat pistol. As the man turned back toward Spurr, loosing a string of German-accented English epithets—that would be Rutger Von Muelssen, Spurr absently considered, recognizing the voice—Spurr drilled him again, causing dust to puff from the dead center of the big German’s chest, slamming him back against the wall.
    The shooting stopped abruptly. Somewhere in the thick shadows and webbing smoke, a man was groaning. Then two more shots sounded from the top of a stairs at the back of the room. A gun flashed from behind a table at the bottom of the staircase, and then boots thumped at the top of the stairs.
    â€œThat was Candles!” Dusty Mason shouted. “I’m goin’ after him!”
    â€œHold on, goddamn—!” Spurr, slowly rising, felt a sudden heavy pain in his chest, and he dropped back down to both knees. His left arm stiffened up. He clutched it hard against his side, set his smoking Winchester onto the floor, and reached into his breast pocket for the little rawhide pouch he kept there. His hands shook.
    Upstairs, boots thumped loudly, making the ceiling above Spurr’s head creak and groan. Dusty Mason shouted, “Hold it, Candles!”
    A girl screamed.
    Candles’s voice thundered in the ceiling. “Drop the gun, lawdog, or this pretty little gal’s gonna look right funny without her head!”
    Shakily, using his teeth, Spurr opened the drawstring on the hide sack. He dribbled a little gold tablet into the palm of his right hand and popped the pill under his tongue. It tasted like iron, but almost instantly he felt a relaxing of the colicky iron crab in his chest that was firing off pain spasms into his left shoulder and into his neck.
    Upstairs, the sheriff and Candles were shouting, and the girl was sobbing.
    â€œMason!” Spurr rasped, unable to raise his voice loudly enough for the young deputy to hear. “Wait for me, goddamnit !”
    Spurr stuffed the hide sack back into his shirt pocket, picked up his rifle, and climbed to his feet.
    â€œI mean it, lawdog!” Candles yelled. “You don’t drop that pistol, I’mma cut this little bitch’s head clear off!”
    â€œI don’t think so, Candles!” the deputy returned though Spurr could hear the slightest hesitation in the man’s voice. “That knife goes any closer to her neck, you’re gonna be the one missin’ his thinker box!”
    Breathing heavily through gritted teeth, Spurr looked around. Smoke webbed. Bodies lay everywhere, some atop overturned tables or chairs.
    A hot breeze blew through the two broken windows. He heard a slight groan behind