More laughter and another crash drowned the dull thud of the Ovaro's hooves as Fargo rode up to the hitch rail.
Swinging down, he tied off the reins.
As Fargo stepped to the batwings, he loosened his Colt in its holster. He didn't go in. Not yet.
The saloon was a shambles. Most of the tables and many of the chairs had been overturned. Cards and chips were scattered everywhere. Upended bottles and glasses lay the length of the bar, and behind it the big mirror had been busted.
Along the left wall and the far wall stood twenty or so customers. Almost all were cowering in fright.
The cause of all the destruction and fear were three men. It was easy for Fargo to figure out which was which.
Behind the bar, sorting through bottles on a shelf, was a huge hellion who had to be Grizz. He wore homespun that barely fit his giant frame and sported a bristly beard that hung down to his belt. He picked up a bottle, peered at the label for all of half a minute, and said, “Rum? I had this once. It tastes like sugar water.” And with that, he threw the bottle at the mirror.
At the crash, some of the townsfolk cringed.
The two men at the bar cackled.
One had a Sharps cradled in the crook of an elbow and wore a floppy hat. That, Fargo reckoned, would be Rance.
The other was the youngest, with peach fuzz on his chin and an antler-handled knife that had to be a foot and a half long on his right hip. That would be Kyler.
Fargo pushed on the batwings. They didn't creak and the frolickers didn't hear him enter. He took a couple of steps and stopped, his right hand brushing his holster.
Grizz picked up another bottle. “Scotch?” he said. “Ain't they the ones that wear dresses?” He cocked his arm and hurled the bottle at the mirror and more shards of glass rained to the floor.
“You sure are a hoot, brother,” Kyler exclaimed. “Break 'em all.”
“Like hell,” Rance said. “Save some for us to swill.”
“Don't worry,” Grizz rumbled. “I didn't come to town to get sober. I came to town to get drunk.” He snatched yet another bottle and read the label in his slow way. “Rye? Who the hell drinks this stuff.” Grinning, he cocked his arm and glanced at his brothers and happened to gaze past them toward the batwings. “What the hell?” he said, and froze.
Rance and Kyler turned.
Fargo let them take his measure. He could tell a lot by their reactions.
Rance's dark eyes narrowed and he began to lower his Sharps but his eyes flicked to Fargo's Colt and he thought better of it. Rance was the smart one.
Kyler put his hand on his big knife and sneered. He wasn't so smart, and would be rash, besides.
As for Grizz, he slowly set the bottle down and came around the end of the bar. He had a revolver and a bowie tucked under his wide leather belt, one on either side of the buckle. “What have we here?”
“I'm looking for someone,” Fargo said.
“You're what?” Grizz responded. It wasn't that he was drunk. He was just plain dumb.
“He said he's lookin' for someone,” Kyler said, and tittered as if it were funny.
A glimmer of craftiness came into Grizz's dull eyes.
“Whoever you're huntin' ain't here, mister. Go look for him somewhere else.”
“Who is it you're after?” Rance asked.
Fargo noticed that the onlookers appeared to be stupefied, except for two. “I'm looking for a miserable son of a bitch. Maybe you know him.”
“Oh?” Rance said, and his face had hardened.
“Some bastard who hits women and strips them bare-assed and shoves them out in the street.”
There were gasps from some of the men along the walls.
One looked fit to faint.
“You don't say,” Rance said, even colder than before.
“I just did,” Fargo said.
“Stranger,” Kyler growled, “you have your nerve. Do you know who we are?” He didn't wait for Fargo to answer. “We're the Hollisters. We do as we please, when we please, and no one tells us different.”
“That's right,” Grizz said, nodding.
“You'd do best to turn right around and forget about that gal in the street,” Rance said.
A townsman cleared his throat. “Listen to him, mister. Get the hell out while you can. They've killed before.”
“That's right,” Kyler said, grinning. “I have five notches on my knife.”
Fargo had heard of some who notched their pistols but never anyone who notched a knife. “That few?” he said.
“Huh?” Kyler said.
Rance had both hands on his Sharps and was poised to use it. “You can't drop all three of us before we drop you.”
“I won't have to,” Fargo said. “Put all your weapons on the floor.”
“Not hardly,” Kyler said, and laughed.
“Listen to him,” Grizz said, and he laughed, too.
“Is that all you want us to do?” Rance asked sarcastically.
“No,” Fargo said.
“What else?”
“I want you to take off your clothes.”
The Hollister brothers looked at one another as if they couldn't believe their ears.
“Us?” Kyler said in amazement. “You want
us
to take off ours?”
“So Candice won't feel lonely,” Fargo said.
The three of them guffawed mightily, with Grizz doubling over and slapping his tree-trunk thighs in hilarity.
A lot of the townsfolk were looking at Fargo as if he was loco. Once again, there were two exceptions.
Against the rear wall leaned a thin man who wore a buckskin shirt that, unlike Fargo's, didn't have whangs. His pants were ordinary britches, and instead of boots he wore moccasins. High on his right hip was a Tranter revolver, not a common model on the frontier. He wore the kind of high-crowned, short-brimmed hat that Indians liked but he didn't appear to have Indian blood in him. He had folded his arms across his chest and showed no fear whatsoever of the Hollisters.
The other exception was over by the left-hand wall. A black flat-crowned hat that gamblers favored crowned his head but he wasn't dressed like a gambler in a frock coat and high boots. He had on a store-brought shirt and pants, both dark blue, both well worn. He wore two pistols. Oddly, they were mismatched. On his right side was a Remington Beals Navy. On his left hip was a Smith & Wesson. His thumbs were hooked in his gun belt, and he seemed more amused than anything.
Fargo waited for the Hollisters to get the mirth out of their systems, and as Grizz straightened, he said, “We'll start with you.”
Grizz got real serious real quick. Flushing with anger, he snarled, “You are the stupidest jackass I ever came across.”
Fargo smiled. “You must not look in the mirror much.”
Grizz squared his broad shoulders and flexed his thick fingers. “Mister, I am goin' toâ”
“No,” Rance said.
Grizz stopped flexing and looked at his brother in confusion. “What's that?”
“No, I said.”
“You heard him,” Grizz said, gesturing at Fargo. “We don't let anyone talk to us like he's done.”
Rance's eyes had narrowed and he was studying Fargo with new interest. He glanced out the front window at the hitch rail and gave a slight start. “I'll be,” he said.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” Kyler snapped.
“Do you recollect that time we were down to Fort Laramie,” Rance said, not taking his eyes off Fargo, “and we got to jawin' with those fellers about gunmen and man-killers and such?”
“What about it?” Kyler said.
“They talked about a gambler they'd heard of who had shot five men and a marshal who is quick on the shoot and that Captain Davis who kilt those ten or eleven bandits. You remember?”
“So the hell what?” Kyler said.
“So they told us about another feller,” Rance said. “A scout, he was. Big man, hard as nails, who's killed a heap of gents.”
“I sort of remember it,” Kyler said. “So?”
“One of those fellers mentioned you can tell this scout by the horse he rides. A handsome pinto or some such.” Rance bobbed his head at the front window. “Look out yonder and tell me what you see at the hitch rail.”
Kyler and Grizz both looked, and Kyler said, “Well, I'll be.”
“You're him, ain't you?” Rance said to Fargo. “The man-killin' scout?”
Fargo had never been called a man-killer before. Yes, he'd shot more than few, but always in self-defense, or to protect others. He didn't go out and look for men to kill.
Life just kept throwing them at him.
“You don't want to say?” Rance said. “That's fine. We got no quarrel with you, mister. We'll take our leave now.”
“We'll what?” Grizz said.
Rance took a step toward the batwings, saying, “You heard me, brothers. Our frolic is over.”
“No,” Fargo said.
Rance stopped. “Why not?” he uneasily asked.
“Candice.”
“What's she to you? Do you know her personal?”
“Never met her until today.”
“My brother is drunk. He didn't know what he was doin'.”
“Who are you talkin' about?” Grizz asked.
“You,” Kyler said.
“What did I do?”
“You hit that dove.”
“Oh. I forgot.”
Rance had lowered a hand from the Sharps and tilted the muzzle at the ceiling. “You can see how he is, mister. How about if I have him say he's sorry and we call it even?”
“All your weapons on the floor,” Fargo said, “or use them.”
Rance's jaw muscles twitched but he slowly tucked at the knees and held his Sharps out in one hand to show he wasn't going to use it.
Kyler was flabbergasted. “What the hell are you doin'?”
“Keepin' us from bein' killed.” Rance carefully set it down and straightened.
“You're eatin' crow, is what you're doin',” Kyler said in disgust.
Rance glared at him. “Little brother, shut the hell up. That Sharps ain't no feather. He'd put three or four slugs into me before I could point it.”
“Now you, boy,” Fargo said. “The knife.”
Kyler swept his hand to the hilt and took a half step as if he intended to try to use it. But it must have occurred to him that he couldn't cover the fifteen feet that separated them before he was gunned down in his tracks. With an angry oath, he yanked the knife out and let it drop.
That left Grizz.
“Your turn,” Fargo said, “and then we'll get to it.”
“Get to what?” Grizz said. He looked at Rance, his brow furrowed. “What do I do? Do I shoot him or stab him or what?”
“You'd be dead before you cleared your belt. Just do as he says.”
“I don't like this,” Grizz said. “I don't like this at all.” But he jerked his six-shooter and bowie and placed them at his feet. “Now what?”
“Now I beat the hell out of you,” Fargo said.
It had begun to sink in to those along the walls that the worst of the danger was over. Low murmurs broke out and a few drifted toward the overturned tables.
Grizz's face was scrunched up as if he was in the outhouse and couldn't. “
You
are fixin' to beat
me
?”
Fargo pried at his buckle with his left hand, careful to keep his right hand close to his holster.
“With your fists?” Kyler said, and laughed.
Rance appeared perplexed. “I don't savvy you, mister. My brother will break you like a twig. And for what? A gal you don't even know.”
“You two are to stay out of it,” Fargo said.
Rance looked down at his Sharps, and slyly smiled. “Why, sure, mister. Whatever you say.”
Spurs jingled behind Fargo, and the man with the black hat and mismatched revolvers came up on Fargo's right. His thumbs were still hooked in his gun belt. “I'll make sure they do.”
“Who the hell are you?” Rance said.
“Handle's Crown,” the man answered. “Rafer Crown.”
Fargo had heard of him. Crown made his living hunting men for bounty money. He'd also been involved in a few shooting affrays and was considered a bad hombre to trifle with.
“What's this to you that you're stickin' your nose in?” Rance said.
“It interests me,” Crown said.
“You didn't say nothin' when we were havin' our fun with that dove.”
Crown shrugged. “Don't know her. No stake in it.”
The next moment the man in the buckskin shirt was on Fargo's other side. He'd come up so silently, Fargo hadn't heard him. “I'd like to see this be a fair fight, too.”
“What the hell?” Rance said. “And who are you?”
“Dirk Peters. I'm not as famous as Fargo, here, but I've done some scouting and tracking, and now and then, I shoot bastards like you three.”
“You talk big now,” Rance said, “but I didn't hear a peep before.”
“You had that cannon trained on us,” Dirk Peters said. “And my ma didn't raise no simpletons.”
Fargo held out his gun belt to Peters. “I'd be obliged if you'd look after this.”
Rafer Crown finally unhooked a thumb and jabbed it at Rance and Kyler. “You two, over by the window. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“And if we don't?” Kyler snarled.
Crown's hand flicked, and the Remington was in it. Everyone heard the
click
of the hammer. “I'm not this gent next to me. I don't care about fair. Sass me, I'll gun you. Cuss me, I'll gun you. You don't get your asses over by the window, I'll gun you.”
Rance went to say something but closed his mouth and motioned for his younger brother to follow him to the window. “Will this do, youâ” He caught himself before he finished.
Rafer Crown twirled the Remington into his holster as slick as could be. “Stay over there and behave.” He looked at Fargo. “The dumb one is all yours.”
Dirk Peters pointed at a couple of townsmen. “You two, scoot over and put their weapons on the bar.”
“Why us?” one of them replied.
“Because I said so.”
Reluctantly, the pair edged forward. They were scared to death of Grizz, and when they snatched his revolver and bowie, moved quickly to one side to get out of his reach.
Fargo stepped around a table and a chair and planted himself. “You hit that girl for not sitting in your lap?”
Grizz still seemed confused. He was slow to digest what was going on, and he made no move to defend himself. “That was part of it.”
“What was the other part?”
“I hankered after a kiss and she wouldn't give me one.”
“So you beat her and ripped her clothes off?”
“I only hit her once,” Grizz said. “That's all it ever takes.” He bunched his huge fists. “You're thinkin' you should punish me, is that it? That if you hurt me it'll teach me to be nicer?”
“I doubt you know what nice is.”
“My pa used to think like you. When I was little, he'd take me out to the woodshed when I acted up. And I acted up a lot. But do you know what?”
Fargo didn't respond.
“It didn't change me none. And when I was big enough, I took that stick from him and broke it in half and beat him with it.”
Fargo began to suspect that the hulking brute wasn't quite as dumb as he appeared.
“My ma used to say they had a word for me. Vicious, it was. She called me the most vicious boy who was ever born.”
Grizz chuckled. “I broke her nose the last time she called me that.”
“Your own parents,” Dirk Peters said.
Grizz ignored him and glowered at Fargo. “What I did to that bitch in the street is nothin' to what I'm goin' to do to you. I'll break your bones and have you spittin' teeth.”
In the back of Fargo's mind a tiny voice asked why he was doing this. They were right. He didn't know the girl. He had no personal stake, as Rafer Crown put it. But he never had been able to look the other way when an innocent was mistreated. It always stirred an anger in him.
That, and he had a vicious streak of his own. There were few things he liked more than to dose out a taste of their own medicine to sons of bitches like this Grizz.
“Nothin' to say? Cat got your tongue? Or is it you're afraid?”
“Of you?” Fargo snorted.
“Any last words?” Grizz asked.
“Is there a sawbones in this town?”
“Not that I know of,” Grizz said. “Why?”
“You're going to need one.”