Tough to Kill by Matt Chisholm

guns.
    â€œNo,
please
. Rem,” Evalina said.
    McAllister stood up. Five hands jerked.
    The bartender brought a sawn-off greener into view and said in a bored voice that told of a man who had done the same many times before: “First man ’at touches a gun, I’ll blow his fool head off.”
    A cowhand looked over his shoulder and said: “You’ll pay for this, Nuttall.”
    Nuttall said unperturbed: “Take it out on the street.”
    McAllister said: “No, we’ll take it here. There ain’t no greener to say fair play out on the street.”
    They heaved themselves away from the bar as one man. Foley was grinning wolfishly. Now he was going to pay McAllister for making him back down.
    Still seated, McAllister said: “Evalina, vamoose.”
    She hesitated, then fled.
    McAllister said: “Let’s get at it, boys,”
    They charged.
    McAllister upended the table with his left and stopped two of them. With his right he whisked the chair from under him and swung it unerringly at the head of the right-hand man.It smashed and the man went down without a sound. Foley ran in, aimed a kick at McAllister’s groin and found his ankle caught in an iron grip. He was upended into the man immediately behind him and they both went down in a heap, McAllister jumped in with both feet into Foley’s belly. The wind went out of him noisily. The man Foley had bowled over started getting to his feet and McAllister gave him a knee under the jaw. It didn’t knock him out, but he went down again.
    The two men the table had stopped ran around either side of it and charged in. McAllister scooped the fallen bottle up from the floor, smashed it over the head of one and fell back under the onslaught of the other. He tripped on a fallen chair and the man jumped at him with both feet. McAllister rolled, launched himself in a dive and caught the man with his shoulder at the knees. When the man landed, it sounded as if the whole hotel had been shattered.
    Foley was on his hands and knees coughing and retching.
    McAllister got to his feet and ran for the door.
    Foley staggered to his feet, pale to green and croaked: “After him.”
    Three men were able to get belatedly on the move, pulling guns from their holsters as they went.
    McAllister tipped the first one as he came through the door. He somersaulted, hit the edge of the sidewalk on his head and started wandering through the dust on his hands and knees.
    The second, who was Foley, McAllister hit over the head with the barrel of his Remington. With a faint groan, he collapsed on the sidewalk.
    The third hesitated inside the door, gun in hand.
    McAllister said: “Come out or I’ll kill you.”
    The man tossed his gun onto the sidewalk and walked out on rubber legs.
    â€œI only work for wages,” he said pitifully.
    â€œEarned burning folks’ houses,” McAllister reminded him.
    The man looked a little sick.
    â€œWhat happens now?” he asked.
    McAllister jerked his chin in the direction of the man on his hands and knees.
    â€œGo gather in your lost friend there,” he said.
    The man went and turned the man in the direction of the sidewalk saying: “Mr. McAllister wants you-all.” The manadvanced on hands and knees until he met the edge of the sidewalk and then stretched out on his face in the dust. McAllister leaned up against the wall of the saloon and waited. It wasn’t long before Foley started to come around and the man in the dust was able to pull himself together enough to stand up. It seemed that they found it difficult to focus their eyes.
    Two men walked out of the saloon and stood looking in a dazed kind of a way at the gun in McAllister’s hand. They looked at their three comrades and one said: “Jeesus!”
    George Gibson came slowly along the street flanked by his two deputies. Evalina came out of the saloon and surveyed the scene.
    George halted near the sidewalk and