City of Widows Read Online Free Page A

had a crowd by then. When a man loses that much that fast it generally draws an audience.”
    â€œNo, it was late. It was just Sid and me and Mike Henry behind the bar. Mike was asleep on his hand at the time. He fell off it and chipped a tooth when I fired.”
    â€œYou’re proficient with that buffalo pistol.”
    â€œI was elected to keep the peace. I don’t play at it.” He blinked. “I’ll have that hip gun.”
    When a man says that, right out of the blue with both hands occupied, you look around. Jubilo, the deputy sheriff with no last name, was standing at the end of the hotel porch with his Creedmoor rifle resting on top of the railing. The bottom half of his face was a desert beneath the shadow of his flat brim. At that range he didn’t need the folding sight.
    I looked back at Baronet. “I’m headed into Apache country.”
    â€œYou should have thought of that before you threatened the life of young Ole here. I’ll have the whole rig. Just hang it over the hitch.”
    I unbuckled the cartridge belt and draped it next to the sorrel’s tie. The sheriff stepped forward and lifted it off. “Hang on to that.” He thrust it at the boy, who seized it eagerly, his head tilted back to watch me. His face was all anticipation.
    â€œYou don’t wear the tin, you don’t abuse a free man.” Baronet jerked the Remington out of his belt and backhanded it in the same motion. A drop of red paint on the front sight caught my eye just before the sun exploded. I missed the fall. I was lying on the porch boards looking at the remains of my steak and eggs.
    â€œAw.” Ole was disgusted. “He got something on my pants.”
    I rolled over quickly. The sole of a boot fastened on my throat.
    â€œCome around here waving a letter from the governor,” Baronet said. “I kill a man, I don’t eat for three days. You can thank Sid Boone for your life, him and the fact I don’t take to starvation. Otherwise you’d be bucking the devil’s tiger right along with him.”
    â€œAw, kill him.”
    â€œShut up, Ole.”
    I was having trouble squeezing wind down my pipe. The sheriff leaned in, shutting off the rest of the supply. I clutched at his boot, but the blow to my head had done something to my connections. I had no feeling in my fingers.
    â€œThere’s one law in Socorro.” His upper body blocked the light. “It isn’t a yellowback former federal named Murdock and it sure isn’t that carpetbagging Wallace in Santa Fe. Let me hear you say its name.”
    I couldn’t talk. He leaned harder. My vision broke up into black-and-white checks.
    â€œSay its name.”
    The white checks shrank to pinholes. I could feel the blood swelling the veins in my eyeballs.
    He leaned back then, relieving some of the pressure. I sucked in air and coughed.
    â€œFrank Baronet.”
    He removed his foot, straightened. His face was an oval blur inside the circle of his hatbrim with sharp blue sky behind it.
    â€œâ€˜Satan’s Sixgun,’” he said. “My ass.”
    *   *   *
    I lay there for a space of time. I knew Baronet had left and probably Ole and the deputy, but I was aware that I was still an object of curiosity for a portion of the local tax base. My hands were starting to tingle when I pushed myself into a sitting position. My cartridge belt slid off my chest and the Deane-Adams clunked against the boards. I hadn’t even felt its weight when it was dumped on me.
    I picked it up along with myself, found my hat, Winchester and canteen, and went back inside to use the basin in my room. The barrel of the sheriff’s pistol hadn’t broken the skin but the entire right side of my head felt like rotten wood. I inspected the loads in the five-shot, gripped the handle hard until I could feel it as far as my elbow. I brushed the sawdust off my corduroys and went out.
    The