Free .45-Caliber Desperado by Peter Brandvold Page B

him and wheeled, pressing his back against a support post and bringing the Winchester to bear on a fat-faced gent in an apron standing behind the bar. The man raised his pudgy hands in the air. His dark eyes flashed. He had big ears and fleshy, pitted cheeks.
    â€œNo, no!” the man cried, waving his hands. “I own dis place, senor. These men . . . I am no part of, senor!”
    Still hearing the din on the second story and wanting to get up there to help Mason, as Spurr knew Marvin ‘the Maiden Killer’ Candles’s reputation for extreme deviltry, but not wanting to give his back to the main saloon hall until he was sure he wouldn’t take a bullet between the shoulder blades, the old marshal gestured with the Winchester.
    â€œCome out from behind there and keep those hands in the air. Go on outside and stand in the middle of the yard, but you keep those hands high, you hear me? If I look out and you ain’t there grabbing for clouds, I’m gonna be mad!”
    He’d known more than one lawman sent to his reward in bloody pieces by aprons wielding double-barreled shotguns.
    â€œ Si, si, senor!” the barman cried, waddling out from behind the bar and on out the gap where the batwings used to be. “ Si, si, senor!” he yelled, running into the yard, his broad ass jiggling like a croaker sack filled with straw. “Don’t shoot me, por favor !”

8
    WHEN SPURR SAW that the fat Mexican barman was safely out in the yard and holding his arms high above his head, he turned to the stairs. Things had gotten too quiet upstairs, and his weak old ticker was thudding heavily. He still felt the heaviness in his left shoulder and arm, but that fractious crab in his chest had loosened, and he was able to breathe relatively freely.
    Thank god for the nitroglycerin. A doctor had given him the pills up in Buffaloville, Wyoming Territory, and they’d saved his life more than once, sort of setting off a mini-explosion in his heart that kept the old raisin ticking.
    He took the steps one at a time, hauling himself up by his left hand, holding his Winchester’s butt taut against his double shell belts over his right hip, hammer cocked. He heard Mason’s voice in the second story. It was grim with authority. Candles was grunting replies. Meanwhile, the two men were moving around, as the ceiling continued to creak.
    Spurr gained the mouth of the second-story hall. About halfway down, a girl stood there, facing the open door of a room on the hall’s right side. She was naked—a slender blonde with mussed hair and full breasts—and she was aiming a long-barreled, black-handled pistol through the open door with both hands.
    Spurr’s eye widened. “Hold it, girl!” He spread his feet and snugged the Winchester’s stock against his right cheek, lining up the sights on the girl’s head. The gun in her hands roared, the smoke and blue-red flames stabbing into the room on the right side of the hall. Turning toward Spurr, she screamed and raised the pistol once more.
    Spurr held the sights steady on the girl’s head, drew a dreadful breath, and squeezed the Winchester’s trigger. The girl’s head snapped violently back. She jerked the big pistol in her hands straight up, fired a round into the ceiling, flew back several feet, and hit the floor with a slapping thud on her naked back.
    Spurr lowered the Winchester slightly, staring wide-eyed through his own powder smoke. Slowly, he lowered the Winchester’s cocking lever, ejecting the spent casing, which clattered onto the floor around his boots, then slid a fresh shell into the chamber. A head appeared in the open doorway, wearing Mason’s hat. Automatically, Spurr aimed the rifle at the man. The head turned toward the girl lying naked on the floor, a quarter-sized hole in her forehead, then Mason showed his face as he turned to look at Spurr.
    The young marshal’s eyes were