The Accomplice (2 page)

That was too much for Mike to bear. Hearing those words come at him was like having a punch land squarely on his nose. He glared about with disgust and still seemed to miss the fact that most everyone else in the bar had already lost interest. “You talk to me like that in front of my friends?”

The gambler shrugged.

“You gonna put up with this bullshit?” Mike asked the barkeep. “After all, he did cheat me in your place!”

“You got proof?” the barkeep asked.

Mike gritted his teeth and said, “Fetch the asshole in that office. I want to have a word with him. Or maybe the law ought to know what goes on in here.”

“No need for that,” the gambler said. “You have a problem with me, you can take it up with me.”

When Mike wheeled around to get another look at the well-dressed man, he found the gambler was already on his feet and walking toward him. Mike’s lips curled into a humorless grin, baring a yellowed set of crooked teeth. “I do got a problem with you. And I think I can settle it right here. Right now.”

Mike’s arms dropped to his side, making a jerky wave toward his guns as if the weapons weren’t already on display well enough. “You wanna know why I’m called Loco?” Mike asked, patting the pistol on his right hip. “You’re about to find out.”

The gambler stood his ground. With a flip of a wrist, his coat was opened just enough to reveal the Colt housed in a finely tooled leather holster at his side. “You lost at cards, friend. See that you don’t lose a whole lot more.”

Mike wasn’t the only one to feel the impact of those words. All the others at the bar had taken notice and were backing away from the pair, getting ready to either run for the door or jump for cover. The barkeep had stepped a few paces back and was reaching for something with a twitching, desperate hand.

Words swirled around inside Mike’s head like whiskey at the bottom of a shaking glass. Before any of those words could be spoken, they were swallowed up by the nervous breaths leaping back and forth at the top of his throat. The corner of one eye twitched, flaring the nostril on that same side.

The gambler read Mike’s expressions as though he was reading a book. Sensing approaching danger, he let his smile fade as the muscles in his gun arm tensed beneath his skin. “Tell you what, Mike,” the gambler said evenly. “We can play again tonight. Bring your own cards for all I care. I’ll front you the money I won last night as half your stake. That way, if the fates are on your side, you can double what you risk tonight.”

“Double it?” Mike snarled. “You mean I’d win back what you cheated from me as well as what you put up tonight?”

Nodding, the gambler said, “Either way you want to think about it, that’s the only way you’re getting your money back. That is, unless you want to try your luck right here and now.”

When he’d said those last few words, the gambler’s voice dropped to a dangerous pitch. It wasn’t a dramatic change, but it was like the shift in a wolf’s eye. When another man spotted a change like that, he tended to think twice before taking his next step.

Mike’s jaw clenched, and the muscles in his arm relaxed a bit. Finally, he nodded. “All right then. But if’n I see the first sign that you’re cheating, I’ll blow you straight to hell.”

“Fair enough. I’ll see you back here tonight, and we’ll have our game. In the meantime, I think I’ll seek my refreshment elsewhere.” The gambler tipped his hat and started to leave.

Only then did the barkeep finally get a response to the insistent rapping of his knuckles against the narrow door behind the bar.

When that door swung open, it revealed a small back office as well as a man that nearly filled out the entire frame. He was of slightly better than average build and carried himself with a quiet confidence. Dark brown eyes darted back and forth, quickly taking in the situation within the saloon.

“Hold on here,” the man said as he stepped through the door. Addressing the gambler more than Mike, he asked, “Is there a problem?”

The gambler shook his head and continued out the door. “Not at all. I’ll be back later.”

Seeing that it was too late to say anything to the well-dressed man, the bigger fellow behind the bar shifted his attention to the barkeep. “What’s so urgent?”

The barkeep nodded toward Mike with a pained expression.

“Ain’t no problem here, Caleb,” Mike grunted. “Just get your ass back into that office like a good little bookkeeper.”

Annoyed, the taller of the two men behind the bar stepped forward, pushing the door shut behind him. “If you’re chasing off my customers again, Mike, I’ll have you run out of here for good.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s what you always say.” The more Mike talked, the more steam he put into his words. And when he saw that nobody around him was heeled, he found even more courage. “If you think I’m taking orders from some goddamn Injun, then you’ve got another think coming.”

Those words dropped through the air like dead flies. Everyone else in the saloon who’d just been starting to relax now once again backed away. As Caleb stepped up closer to the bar, his boots knocked against the floorboards like hammers. When he got close enough, he placed his hands upon the bar and leaned forward.

What little sunlight that could make it through the smoked glass of the windows fell upon his face in a grimy wave. His skin was darker than most, carrying the underlying tint of desert clay. Coal-black hair sprouted from his scalp in irregular clumps, not one of which was longer than a brush’s bristles. The intensity in his eyes was powerful enough to light a campfire.

“What did you say to me?” Caleb asked.

Mike leaned forward. At this point, he was either too cocksure to care about the glint in Caleb’s eyes or too stupid to notice it. Slapping a coin onto the bar, he said, “You heard me, Injun. Now shut yer hole and give me some firewater.”

As Caleb reached out to accept the coin, he felt a calming hand on his shoulder. The barkeep eased him away from the bar and sidled in front of him.

“With all the heat we’ve been getting,” the barkeep said, “it’s no wonder tempers are flaring. Here’s your whiskey, Mike, and how about a round for the rest of you?” Glancing back at Caleb, he asked. “That all right?”

“Sure,” Caleb said. “I think I could use a drink.”

Caleb stepped away from the bar so Mike could get to his bottle and spout off to someone else. After filling up a mug of beer for himself, Caleb didn’t even get a chance to raise it to his lips before he heard Mike’s voice booming out yet again.

“This ain’t whiskey!” Mike shouted after spraying the liquor out at both men behind the bar. “It tastes more like piss to me! What’s the deal, Caleb? Did your squaw momma squat down on top of this here bottle and piss in it, or do you just need a lesson in how to run a goddamn saloon?”

Stopping just short of the narrow door leading to his office, Caleb pulled in a measured breath and let it out. He wasn’t at all surprised to hear the taunt coming from an asshole like Mike Abel. Unfortunately, the bottle thrown at him by that same asshole was a bit more of a surprise.

The bottle knocked against Caleb’s left shoulder blade and rolled down his back before hitting the floor. Although the impact wasn’t enough to do any damage, it was the spark that had landed too close to a powder keg.

The bottle hadn’t even come to a stop on the floor before it was snatched up again by Caleb’s hand. Shoving past the barkeep, Caleb glared straight into Mike’s eyes and slammed the bottle back onto the bar in front of him. The impact was hard enough to send a series of cracks through the glass.

“You’d best calm down, Mike,” Caleb snarled. “Or so help me . . .”

Mike’s smile was deceptively calm as he reached out to grab the bottle one more time by its neck. “Or you’ll what?” Mike taunted. “I’ve had enough grief for one day, so I sure as hell won’t take no more from some Injun bartender.” Without another word and before Caleb could say anything else, Mike brought the bottle up and around in a quick arc that was aimed directly at Caleb’s head.

Caleb’s first thought was to reach for the shotgun beneath the bar. He could also have picked up a thick length of timber that sported plenty of dents from cracking against the skulls of men like Mike Abel. Instead, Caleb stepped back after too much deliberation and almost tripped over the barkeep behind him.

The bottle slammed into Caleb’s jaw with enough force to snap his head to one side and rattle his brain. Caleb could feel the bottle folding around his jaw as the cracks deepened and eventually shattered it completely. When the bottle exploded, Caleb’s world became alight with intense, throbbing pain.

“How’d you like that, Injun?” Mike taunted with a grunting laugh.

Before he knew what was happening, Caleb felt the floor teeter beneath him. His arms reached out for support, but his backside found the closed office door instead. As he bounced off the door, Caleb pulled in a breath while trying to right himself before he gave Mike the satisfaction of seeing him fall over.

That breath felt like his jaw was being sawed off, but at least it kept him upright.

“Get the hell out of here, Mike,” the barkeep said while bringing up the thick piece of lumber that was dented and bloodied at one end. “Or I’ll knock you into tomorrow.”

Mike held up his hands and backed away from the bar. “I’ll be back tonight for my game. And I expect to have my whiskey replaced with some proper liquor.” Before anyone could say or do anything else, Mike turned his back on the bar and walked out of the saloon.

“Jesus Christ,” the barkeep said as he rushed over to lend a hand to Caleb. “Are you all right?” While he was genuinely concerned with Caleb’s well-being, he was also raising his voice in the hope that he could drown out the sound of Mike’s laughter. Judging by the look on Caleb’s face, the effort wasn’t exactly successful.

“I’m all right.” With each syllable, Caleb felt more pain stabbing through his face. At first he thought his jaw had been broken. Then he reached up to feel the spot with one hand and realized the pain was coming from a different source.

The barkeep was examining him as well. Although he wanted to help, he pulled his hands back before he did any more damage. “You need to see a doctor. It looks like you got some glass stuck in you.”

Caleb had already figured that much out for himself. While the barkeep was being cautious, Caleb was touching his fingertips against various points along his cheek and jaw. Every touch was slick with a mixture of blood and whiskey. The blood trickled out from the numerous places he’d been cut, and the whiskey trickled into those same wounds to make it feel like fire was being pumped straight beneath his skin.

“Watch you don’t pass out now,” the barkeep said. “I’m not sure I can catch you. Carrying you to the doctor is right out of the question.”

Seeing the genuine concern on the barkeep’s face brought a bit of a smirk to Caleb’s. The smaller man seemed just as concerned that Caleb might be hurt as he was concerned for himself if Caleb happened to fall on top of him. While they were close in height, Caleb outweighed the barkeep by at least sixty pounds of muscle.

“Don’t worry, Hank,” Caleb said to the barkeep. “I should be able to stay awake long enough to keep from crushing you.”

“That’s not what I meant. Well, not entirely. I just figured that you should—”

“I know. I was just kidding.”

The relief on Hank’s face was just as evident to Caleb as it was to the few customers who’d made their way back to the bar in Mike’s wake. One of those customers was the old miner who’d only moved to make certain his drink didn’t get knocked over.

The miner grinned wide enough to display a set of teeth that looked like a crooked row of tombstones. His skin was weathered as an old saddle and sat just as comfortably over the frame of his face. “Take a lickin’ like that and still got it in ya to kid? That’s a hell of a thing.” Lifting his drink, he said, “Here’s to ya, boy!”

Caleb lowered his eyes and started to smile but found it too painful. His hands were busy picking pieces of the bottle out of his face. The pieces that were just stuck to his skin came off easily enough. Some of the others were wedged in like splinters, and the remaining chunks of glass were stuck in much deeper.

Even though Caleb was the actual owner of the Busted Flush, it was times like these that he truly felt like the kid everyone said he was. Fresh out of his teens, Caleb had been living a workingman’s life for so long that he felt twice his age.

“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” the miner asked. “You need to get to the doctor for that. You’re just makin’ it worse.”

Caleb rolled his eyes. Not only did doctors cost money that he didn’t have, but he saw it as a way of admitting that Mike Abel had won the fight.

“You ain’t any less of a man for going to a doctor,” the miner said as if reading Caleb’s mind. “Of course, if you want to put on a show, I’ll sure as hell watch. I ain’t never seen nobody tear their own face off before.”

Settling in against the bar, the miner took hold of his drink and fixed his gaze upon Caleb as though he was watching a song and dance revue.

Caleb looked back at him with his hand poised over the damaged side of his face until the old man’s words finally sank in.

“Can you watch the place for a while, Hank?” Caleb asked. “I guess I’ll be going to the doctor.”

Hank nodded and looked more than a little relieved. “Sure I can. If Mike comes anywhere near here, I’ll crack his head open like an egg.”

While the barkeep patted the club that still lay in arm’s reach, Caleb found himself glancing more toward the shotgun, which was a little farther under the bar. As if to pull his thoughts from where they were headed, Caleb felt a stab of pain from the side of his face.

“You able to walk, boy?” the miner asked.

Caleb nodded. “I can make it, Orville. Thanks.”