her? Would he have sent an innocent man to his death if it hadn’t been for the ennobling power of love?
Not for a Royal Flush in Spades, he wouldn’t! Well, maybe that was pushing it some, but nonetheless...
Well, you never knew with females, that was for sure!
Always have to meddle with what don’t rightly concern
’em, don’t they? Still an’ all, when they do, a man gotta likewise do what a man gotta do.
So, sighing like a distillery, he strapped on his second best gun-belt, tucked a Derringer into his boot, slung a Bowie knife round his neck, and thus loaded for bear, Childe Roland set out for the Dark Tower...
Meanwhile, at the Last Chance Saloon, the stage was already set – as if by an incompetent director. For the last half hour, Miss Dodo Dupont, piano, and Mr Steven Regret, heavy baritone, summoned from their rooms not so much by the lure of the bright lights as by Phin’s buffalo gun, had been entertaining the gathering to a random selection of the songs you’d rather whistle; and everyone was getting a mite tired of it. The audience, in fact, was restive.
Well, to be fair, it ain’t that easy to concentrate on the cabaret when you are at one and the same time watching the door for the Big Entrance of the fastest man who ever shot your brother. But, do them justice now, the Clantons were making a very brave effort.
Seth, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was telling Charlie about how he had gone straight up to Holliday, bold as you please, and told him straight to his face how it would be if’n he didn’t get his carcass down here where the fun was at, right soon...
‘So why ain’t he here?’ asked the cynical bar-keep.
‘Well, maybe I scared him some, at that,’ admitted Seth, laughing down from lazy nostrils. ‘Could be he’s trying to get his dander up.’
Charlie thought this unlikely; but didn’t like to say so in the present company.
‘Sure you got the right man?’ he enquired. ‘Lots of strangers in town fer the hangin’...’
‘Which hangin’?’ asked Seth, apprehensively.
‘Whichever,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s the time of year fer it...’
Whereafter the conversation flagged some.
In point of fact, the wrong man was even now trying to talk himself out of a misunderstanding at Ma Golightly’s Place; where he had incautiously enquired if this was where his young friends were waiting. Well, they certainly were – but not the kind he wanted; and Ma, unused to complaints, had taken a certain amount of umbrage in consequence. And these things take time.
So, when the Big Entrance was made, it was Kate who made it – carrying a brace of pearl-handled shoot-me-downs Doc had given her as an engagement present. She figured she could return them later, along with the ring.
‘Well, well, well!’ she began, blasting the chandelier with a broadside. ‘So Charlie’s got hisself a new Burly-Q
Queen, jest ‘cause I turn my back for five minutes? Move it, sister – and I mean fast!’
‘Bang!’ she went again, so’s Dodo would get the point.
Which she certainly did, of course, quick as anything; but was in something of a quandary. I mean, here she and Steven were performing by urgent request of an armed audience; and here was Little Orphan Annie Oakley, or someone, suggesting, equally forcibly, that they desist.
So she paused in mid-arpeggio – that difficult bit, in the middle of ‘Love, could I only tell thee...’ it was; you probably know it – and glanced round to try and gauge the feeling of the majority.
But the majority was equally disconcerted.
It looks bad to let a dame get the drop on you; especially when you’re the toughest bunch of no-account hombres as ever missed a spitoon; and for the moment they were uncertain how to proceed.
They looked to Ike for guidance; and he presently obliged with ‘Best do as she says, little lady, if n you want to grow old graceful. Kate’s a mean one to get the wrong side of.’
Always difficult to say
Not for a Royal Flush in Spades, he wouldn’t! Well, maybe that was pushing it some, but nonetheless...
Well, you never knew with females, that was for sure!
Always have to meddle with what don’t rightly concern
’em, don’t they? Still an’ all, when they do, a man gotta likewise do what a man gotta do.
So, sighing like a distillery, he strapped on his second best gun-belt, tucked a Derringer into his boot, slung a Bowie knife round his neck, and thus loaded for bear, Childe Roland set out for the Dark Tower...
Meanwhile, at the Last Chance Saloon, the stage was already set – as if by an incompetent director. For the last half hour, Miss Dodo Dupont, piano, and Mr Steven Regret, heavy baritone, summoned from their rooms not so much by the lure of the bright lights as by Phin’s buffalo gun, had been entertaining the gathering to a random selection of the songs you’d rather whistle; and everyone was getting a mite tired of it. The audience, in fact, was restive.
Well, to be fair, it ain’t that easy to concentrate on the cabaret when you are at one and the same time watching the door for the Big Entrance of the fastest man who ever shot your brother. But, do them justice now, the Clantons were making a very brave effort.
Seth, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was telling Charlie about how he had gone straight up to Holliday, bold as you please, and told him straight to his face how it would be if’n he didn’t get his carcass down here where the fun was at, right soon...
‘So why ain’t he here?’ asked the cynical bar-keep.
‘Well, maybe I scared him some, at that,’ admitted Seth, laughing down from lazy nostrils. ‘Could be he’s trying to get his dander up.’
Charlie thought this unlikely; but didn’t like to say so in the present company.
‘Sure you got the right man?’ he enquired. ‘Lots of strangers in town fer the hangin’...’
‘Which hangin’?’ asked Seth, apprehensively.
‘Whichever,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s the time of year fer it...’
Whereafter the conversation flagged some.
In point of fact, the wrong man was even now trying to talk himself out of a misunderstanding at Ma Golightly’s Place; where he had incautiously enquired if this was where his young friends were waiting. Well, they certainly were – but not the kind he wanted; and Ma, unused to complaints, had taken a certain amount of umbrage in consequence. And these things take time.
So, when the Big Entrance was made, it was Kate who made it – carrying a brace of pearl-handled shoot-me-downs Doc had given her as an engagement present. She figured she could return them later, along with the ring.
‘Well, well, well!’ she began, blasting the chandelier with a broadside. ‘So Charlie’s got hisself a new Burly-Q
Queen, jest ‘cause I turn my back for five minutes? Move it, sister – and I mean fast!’
‘Bang!’ she went again, so’s Dodo would get the point.
Which she certainly did, of course, quick as anything; but was in something of a quandary. I mean, here she and Steven were performing by urgent request of an armed audience; and here was Little Orphan Annie Oakley, or someone, suggesting, equally forcibly, that they desist.
So she paused in mid-arpeggio – that difficult bit, in the middle of ‘Love, could I only tell thee...’ it was; you probably know it – and glanced round to try and gauge the feeling of the majority.
But the majority was equally disconcerted.
It looks bad to let a dame get the drop on you; especially when you’re the toughest bunch of no-account hombres as ever missed a spitoon; and for the moment they were uncertain how to proceed.
They looked to Ike for guidance; and he presently obliged with ‘Best do as she says, little lady, if n you want to grow old graceful. Kate’s a mean one to get the wrong side of.’
Always difficult to say
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