The Last Shootist (37 page)

“Like Hell.” The proprietor ran an index finger across his hand-painted silk vest. “Which flowers are your favorites, fellas?”

The inside of Gillom's lower lip was beginning to bleed, he had chewed it so hard. He could taste his own mortality. “Those two there … over your heart.”

Sunny Jim couldn't take the tension. Luther's lieutenant drew his double-action Colt and fired awkwardly from his hip, but he was close enough to Ease to hit him in the left arm, tipping him down to one knee.

Gillom Rogers reacted instinctively to the other gunman's motion, pulling both his .44's in a second and getting them cocked and working. Dan the Duck fumbled his long-barreled .45 Colt up to aim when a lead bullet exploded in his stomach, paralyzing him in shock as he fell back onto his rear. His teenaged antagonist was into the moment, calling upon his hand speed, coordination, and sharp vision to work his thumbs and trigger fingers without flinching or considering. Crouched, Gillom took out Sunny Jim with two shots from his extended left hand, rolling the gun over after each, the first bullet hitting the henchman's groin and another piercing his breastbone, cracking it. Sunny Jim was smiling no longer as he let out a squawk like a kicked chicken!

Whores began bailing out in all directions amidst this mayhem, squalling in fright. Irish Mary's temper matched her flame-colored dress. Yanking one side of her skirt up, the spitfire pulled a small dagger from a garter tied round her thigh and with a sharp cry leapt toward Gillom, burying its sharp point in the first part she contacted, his raised knee and thigh. Gillom yelped at this wound and at this woman yelling bloody murder and clawing at him. Luckily she knocked the kid backward as Luther thrust the .41 derringer he'd stolen from the crooked faro dealer from inside his coatsleeve, firing at Gillom just as he was being knocked to the floor. The brothel owner's errant shot hit Ethyl, his madam, in the breast instead, spraying blood across her ample bosom and staining her yellow dress.

Irish Mary was on her knees trying to straddle Gillom in her petticoats, raising her dagger to plunge into the gunslinger again, but Ease turned to blast the shrill prostitute right in the gut from the gun in his good hand, knocking her off his friend with a .41 caliber bullet.

“Wood” Hite was working himself into a frenzy, shooting into the death pit from behind the wood partition, barely able to see over it to aim. The gunman's shots from his horse pistol drilled the combative prostitute, nailing Irish Mary right above her ear, killing her instantly. The cacophony of yells and screams and gunfire at close range was earsplitting and unwounded whores trying to run or crawl out the one entrance left behind false teeth, false curls, and false palpitators in their panicked rush from this parlor of death.

Luther dived behind the overstuffed couch and extricated his smaller .38 Colt from his rear waistband, but he was still aiming his over-and-under hideout gun at his skilled foe when Gillom lurched to his feet and took two big strides on his bloody leg to leap atop the sofa's red cushions with his good front leg hitting the top of the backrest, toppling the sofa over with his momentum. The toppling couch jolted Luther out of its way and as he flung his arm up, his second bullet from his little Remington derringer banged upward, missing Gillom but blasting crystal fobs on the small ceiling chandelier into smithereens.

Glass showered down as Gillom ducked, but so intent was he on his prey his aim didn't stray. His first shot took Mr. Goose in his closest upper leg, but then the Remington in Gillom's right hand jammed and a .44 cartridge misfired in the cylinder. His move was instinctive, dropping the useless, pearl-handled revolver and tossing the other with its black gutta-percha grip from his left hand to his right. Instantly Gillom was cocking and triggering the second of J. B. Books's custom pistols as Luther Goose heaved up, throwing his empty derringer at Gillom as he tried to get away. Another bullet into his belly had the brothel owner squealing in pain.

“You want that, don't you!”
yelled Gillom.

A third bullet into his chest was all the truth Luther Goose ever deserved. It jerked him backward onto his bootheels, crashing him into one of the coal oil lamps hung from the partition to cast the parlor girls in seductive lighting. Luther smashed the oil lamp to bits, spraying ignited fuel from the glass container all over his bare neck, the wallpaper, and the Spanish carpet.

“Nooooo!”
Their boss's scream stopped the bloodbath cold for a long moment as everybody still moving paused to comprehend the carnage that had just occured. Taking advantage of the terrible stillness, the Professor jerked up from beside the small piano and picked his way quickly over the sprawled bodies, the slippery pools of blood, walking through the entryway straight for the front door. Like a black-suited phantom drifting through a deadly fray, the pianist didn't seem bothered at all.

Driven out by all the gunfire, Sam Graham suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs. He recognized the blonde, Kitty, whimpering in fright, crawling out the parlor entrance on hands and knees to seek safety between wooden chairs under one of the main saloon's tables. After reloading, Hite was again trying to aim over the parlor's wall, so Sam bent to cock and sight his Bisley target pistol atop the balcony railing, listened to his heartbeat, and touched off a bullet, straight into the gunman's kidney. “Wood” went down like a poled ox, flopping on his belly in agony until Graham paused and finished him off with two more long-range shots, lead slugs thudding into Hite's long body stretched out on the barroom floor.

Atop the stairs the outlaw grabbed the girl's hand, but Anel pulled back, disoriented and reluctant to enter the fray. Sam yanked her arm hard, dragging her down the stairs.

“C'mon, girl, you're hopped up! This bloody mess is all about
you
!”

Gillom surveyed the death and destruction in the parlor—two whores killed and Sunny Jim shot dead. Dan the Duck had managed to prop himself against an armchair where he rested with his index finger stuck into a bullet hole not far from his belly button. Dan's fat lips opened and closed with labored breathing as he fought to keep himself from bleeding to death. Luther Goose was dead, blood trickling from his Roman nose and the hair on the back of his head smoking from lamp oil. The brothel owner's eyes were popped wide open as if he had just sighted Hell itself. Smoke rose from the burning rug and flame crawling from the broken oil lamp was beginning to eat into the stuffed furniture.

Gillom bent to pick up his jammed pistol and reholster, but his stabbed leg was bleeding and he felt the gash now as his excited energy dissipated.

“C'mon, Ease.” He pulled his best friend to his feet. Bixler's wounded left arm hung limply at his side, but he carried his newly purchased Colt in his right hand.

Ease was in shock. “Godalmighty. Look what we did.”

Both young men were too exhausted and wounded to do anything about the fire licking fitfully around the parlor. As they limped out the parlor entrance past the dead and dying, there was a scuffle at the front door as the piano-playing Professor and Lady Jane Grey and Sweet Annie all yelled and pushed at Cripes to unbolt the door to get out of the damned whorehouse. After they'd fled, the street vagrant took one scared look back at the two young toughs limping toward him and took his hurried leave, too.

Satisfied with his gun work, Sam Graham jumped quickly to Gillom and Ease in the saloon, his eyes shining with success.

“Nice shootin', boys! We
did
it!” His glee was snuffed immediately by a shotgun blast from a slide-action Winchester, blowing Graham forward as 12-gauge lead pellets ripped into his back, shredding his shirt. Gillom caught Sam falling into his arms as Sofus, the old Swede retained by Mr. Goose to spy on them, stepped from the doorway to the back storerooms and pumped his shotgun once more.

Gillom cradled his dying friend, so Ease was forced to do their fighting, raising his Thunderer in his good hand and shooting the angry old Swede once in the shoulder, spinning him as he exploded a second round of buckshot into the floor. These lead pellets ricocheted upward, catching Graham in the legs as he slumped in Gillom's arms.

“You sonofabitch!”
Ease blasted one more .41 slug into this Charon's back and then another into his chest as Sofus rolled over on the hard wood, crying in pain. Anel yelled now, too, finally awake to all this mayhem she had caused.

“Stop eet! Stop eet!
No mas!
”

Sofus was dead and Sam was quickly heading across the river Styx to join him, as Gillom laid the gunman down and turned him over onto his bloody back, his shredded skin hanging in strips. Ease noticed the black bartender standing behind the counter with his only weapon raised, a flat-headed bung mallet, but too frightened by this shoot-out to move.

“You want some unshirted Hell, too?” screeched Mr. Bixler, aiming his nearly empty Colt at the bartender. The black man shook his head, lowered his cudgel.

“Sam,
Sam
! You gonna pull through for me?” There were tears in the teenager's green eyes as he knelt on his good leg beside his dying friend.

“No … I'm not,” groaned the robber chief. “Get gone, Gillom, before the Laws come.”

“We'll get you doctored.”

“Too late,” the older Texan burbled. “You ain't cut out … for the outlaw trail, kid. Get back to Texas, where you belong.”

“We had a fine time with Mister Rhodes up in those pretty San Andres Mountains, didn't we, Sam?”

Sam Graham nodded as he choked on his own blood, his pale blue eyes starting to fade. But he reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out two small diamond earrings entangled in a golden neck chain.

“Wedding … gift.” The gunman did his best to grin through teeth-grinding pain. A charming thief to his bitter end.

Ease menaced the bartender with his pistol. “
Gillom!
Got to git!”

“Okay.” The kid put his arm around his anguished girlfriend's shoulder, gathering her in. No time for affection; the parlor behind them was starting to burn fiercely. His leg still bleeding, Gillom Rogers pulled his sweetheart toward the front door, with Ease covering their rear in case any more backshooters appeared.

A few gawkers attracted by the gunfire were on the boardwalk as they stumbled out into the night. Smoke curled from the opened door to the Blue Goose, for the wallpaper inside the brothel's back parlor had caught fire.

Someone yelled,
“Fire!”
This warning caused other patrons to step outside a nearby saloon to see what was going on.

“Somebody needs to help the wounded inside, before they burn up!” shouted Ease, the last one out.

“How about you?” replied some wiseacre.

“We've been shot ourselves,” said Ease, following his friends around the corner and up the dark alley. “On our way to the doctor's!”

Three young escapees limped and coughed along the dirt track behind the buildings of Conglomerate Avenue toward its northernmost saloon.

“Don't have time to find a doctor, Ease, unless you want to see one in jail,” panted Gillom.

“I know that. Just tryin' to throw them off the chase. Can you make it to Silver City?”

“There's no bullet inside to poison me. I can ride.” Gillom noticed Ease was holding his bloody coatsleeve with his gun hand over his limp left arm. “Your arm?”

“Think the bullet went through again. Feels like it anyway. Hope she still works. Ain't acquainted with any one-armed bartenders.”

They reached their horses, still hitched.

“I take whis-key, clean your blood,” offered Anel.

“How are
you,
honey?” her boyfriend finally asked. “Can you ride tonight?”

“
Sí
. That smoke, stoo-pid make
mi
. Like drink too much, not know where I am? That Goose, that
culero,
tie me up in wagon, meeny days. Where am I?”

“That's why we came up to Clifton. Did he … did he rape you?”

“No sex. I say vir-gin, he like. Give me needle, make me sleepy.”

Gillom liked it. “You're a peach.” Then Gillom remembered his manners.

“Thanks for savin' my life, Ease, shootin' that crazy whore offa me.”

“Shootin' women. My folks didn't raise me for that.”

“Well, she wanted my heart's blood.”

Gillom helped his girlfriend into the smaller paint's saddle. He decided to use Sam's stallion as their spare. He wasn't ready to handle that much horse in the dark.

“We lost Sam Graham back there. Tom Graham's older brother.”

“The notorious
Blackjack
? Sam was his
older brothe
r?” Ease was amazed to learn who their companion really was.

“Train robbers from Texas. Some vulture will surely turn his body in for the reward.”

Gillom got his edgy buckskin to let him mount from the right, so he could hoist his good right leg in the stirrup and drag his bloody left leg over the saddle without too much pain. He reached down to unhitch Sam's anxious black racer.

They were quiet as they fast-walked four horses behind the Blue Goose, heading south, out of town. Flickers of flame could be seen inside a lower window to Luther's back office as smoke enveloped the back alley next to the saloon. Up the alley on the main street they could see the volunteer fire department running up pulling a pumper carriage. Spectators were yelling, several men struggled outside coughing with bodies draped over their backs, male and female.

Hope they're too late,
Gillom thought.
Luther's Goose's legacy, burned to the damned ground. So if he's remembered here at all, it'll be badly.

Anel crossed herself as they passed.
“Gracias a Dios.”
(Thanks be to God.)