.44 Caliber Man by J.T. Edson Page A

Kenny and Colin, Moore sat looking dazed.
Sam hung against a table, shaking his head in an attempt to control
its tendency to spin. From all appearances, it would be some time
before Eric felt like resuming hostilities. Sucking in a breath,
Branch tried to put on an indignant front.
    ‘ There was no cause for that,’ he growled. The boys were only
funning.’
    ‘ They’re not laughing any,’ Kenny replied. ‘You taking it up
for them?’
    Before Branch
could reply, Sam moved from the table. Straightening up, he rubbed
the back of his hand across his mouth, looked at the blood smeared
on it and spat out a curse.
    ‘ You stinking swish! vi ’ Sam snarled, spreading his
fingers over the butt of his Colt. ‘Fill you hand!’
    ‘ He’s not wearing a gun,’ Kenny put in, watching Eric lurch
erect and Moore stand then move to Sam’s side.
    ‘ Then he’s going to hoist up that skirt and show us what’s
under it!’ Eric gritted, joining his brother.
    ‘ How’s about it, Branch?’ Kenny asked, not taking his eyes from
the trio. ‘Are you letting them take this through?’
    ‘ You know how it is now you’re one, Kenny,’ Branch answered as
he ranged himself alongside Eric. ‘A boss has to stand by his
men.’
    ‘ So that’s the way it is, huh?’ Kenny said quietly. ‘If it’s me
you’re after, say so and let Colin go.’
    ‘ We’re not after anybody, Kenny,’ Branch stated, raising his
voice to carry around the room. ‘Only that feller jumped my boys
and we don’t reckon it’s right. So we aim to do what we started out
to do.’
    Colin listened,
only partly understanding what was going on. Inexperienced though
he was, he read the menace in the four men’s attitude. Suddenly he
realized that the affair had gone beyond mere horse-play. Yet no
Scot would tamely submit to the indignity the quartet tried to
force on him. Colin knew that if he stayed on, there would be bad
trouble.
    ‘ I think we’d better leave,’ he said to Kenny.
    ‘ Not without doing what we said,’ Eric growled.
    ‘ We’re coming through,’ Kenny announced and the listening crowd
prepared to take cover.
    ‘ The hell you are!’ Sam snarled.
    ‘ Through or over,’ Kenny warned. ‘Let’s go, Colin.’

Chapter Five
    With a sigh of
relief, Jeanie Schell fastened the buckle of her waist belt and
wriggled her body in near ecstasy. On the bed lay her dress and the
sun bonnet, discarded along with the high-button shoes at the first
opportunity. Her short, curly hair was no longer hidden and she
wore the kind of clothes the Kid remembered as her normal outfit: a
boy’s tartan shirt and levis pants with their cuffs hanging cowhand
style outside high heeled riding boots. Giving another sigh of
satisfaction, she walked out of the bedroom.
    Following their
custom where possible, the Schell family were living in a cabin
left deserted by its previous owner. Long used to such temporary
homes, Ma had settled them in comfortably. In the two days since
she and Kenny arrived, she had cleaned up the cabin and augmented
the furniture left by the departed owner with items of her own
carried in their wagon. The result was that they had a house for
their stay in Fort Sawyer, furnished adequately if not luxuriously.
Ma had lived all her married life under similar conditions and
accepted them as payment for a very happy marriage.
    Of middle
height, Ma might easily have been taken for Jeanie’s elder sister.
She had married young and carried her thirty-nine years well.
Blonde hair as short and curly as her daughter’s framed a merry,
pretty face. Ma’s buxom figure was squeezed into unaccustomed
corsets and a sober black dress suitable for going town-visiting.
Like Jeanie, she did not care for such clothing; which accounted,
more than any other reason, for the disapproving manner in which
she eyed her daughter.
    Sensing an
attack on her choice of clothes was imminent, and aware of what
caused it, Jeanie tried to divert it.
    ‘ We’ve enough