“Kelly, I’m surprised nobody ever shot you for being so damned cheerful in the morning,” Clayton said.
“Just my sunshiny good nature coming up with the dawn.”
“Go to hell,” Clayton said.
“Hinton said Mom’s Kitchen is the best place for breakfast,” Clayton said.
“Yeah, he would, since he’s sparking the old gal.”
Kelly neatly avoided a pile of horse dung on the street, then said, “The Windy Hall serves a good breakfast and the coffee is the best in the Oklahoma Territory.”
Kelly constantly touched his hat brim to the respectable ladies of Bighorn Point, and prosperous businessmen called out to him by name.
“No whores in this town, huh?” Clayton said.
“Who told you that?”
“A ferryman back a ways.”
“Ferrymen talk, but they don’t know squat,” Kelly said. “The Windy Hall has what it calls hostesses. As to whether they’re in the business or not, you’d have to ask when you run up on one.”
“I’m just curious, is all.”
“Or looking for trouble.”
“No, just curious.”
Clayton stopped at the door to the saloon.
“Kelly, why are you doing this, buying me breakfast like we were kissin’ kin?”
The marshal smiled. “Because you’re where the action’s at, Mr. Clayton. Bighorn Point had lost its snap before you arrived. I think that’s all about to change.”
“Can’t you call me Cage?”
“No, I can’t.”
“I’m a big eater,” Clayton said. “Your bill will run high.”
“Then let’s eat, shall we?”
The Windy Hall was narrow, dark, and dingy, cringing in on itself as though apologizing for being in such a God-fearing town in the first place. The reason for its name became quickly apparent to anyone entering—owing to some peculiarity in its construction, the prairie wind sighed around its roof constantly, a low, soft moaning, like a widow mourning a husband.
As Kelly had promised, the food was good, the coffee better. When he finished eating, Clayton pushed himself back from the table, burped, and built a cigarette.
“That was good,” he said to Kelly.
“Figured that. You ate enough for three grown men.”
“You’re paying, so I figured, what the hell?”
“Did you like the waitress?”
“Yeah. She’s right pretty.”
“Then don’t like her. Her boyfriend is sitting over yonder and the look he’s giving you ain’t exactly social.”
Clayton let his eyes drift to a table set against the far wall of the saloon. Two men sat there, one picking his teeth with a fork.
“The one on the left,” Kelly said, “giving you the hard eye.”
“I see him.”
“Name’s Charlie Mitchell. He claims he killed a man in El Paso and another in Wichita. Fancies himself a fast gun and wants to be known as a hard case.”
“He’s too young to be the feller I’m looking for,” Clayton said, dismissing the man.
“Yeah, but he’s not too young to kill you,” Kelly said.
Chapter 8
Nook Kelly, more experienced in the ways of the wannabe gunfighter, saw it coming down before Clayton.
Mitchell leaned across the table and said something to the man picking his teeth. That man, small and mean with the face of a ferret, looked over at Clayton and laughed.
Mitchell said something else and the ferret shrugged and said, his voice loud, “Hell, he wants your woman, Charlie. He made that clear.”
The ferret said it and Kelly heard it.
He turned to Clayton. “Bad stuff coming down.”
“Looks like,” Clayton said. “But I have no quarrel with that man.”
“He has a quarrel with you, though.”
“Can you make it go away?”
“Yeah, I can kill him. You want that?”
“I can’t step away from this, can I?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Charlie is no bargain. Some fellers would.”
“Some fellers can’t hold up their heads in the company of men either.”
“I can stop it. Just say the word.”
Clayton shook his head. “If it comes, it’s my play. I’ll go it alone.”
“Suit yourself. But I’ve seen Charlie shoot. He’s good.”
“You ever seen me shoot?”
Kelly made no answer and Clayton said, smiling, “I’m not good. At least, that’s what I think.”
“Your gun’s back at the livery.”
“Didn’t think I’d need it this early in the morning. Anyhow, you were here to protect me.”
“Trusting man, ain’t you?” Kelly said
Mitchell was on his feet. He was a tall, muscular man, somewhere in his midtwenties. Back along the line, he’d decided to affect the dress and manner of the frontier gambler. He wore a black frock coat, boiled white shirt with a string tie, black-and-white-checkered pants and a low-crowned flat-brimmed hat.
“Charlie keeps his gun in the right pocket of his coat,” Kelly whispered. “And he’ll probably have a hideout in a shoulder holster.”
“Ready for war, ain’t he?” Clayton said.
“Only with you,” Kelly said. The marshal grinned. “Damn it, Mr. Clayton, even without trying, you make things happen. You surely do.”
Mitchell walked to Clayton’s table, his boots thudding on the wood floor. There were a dozen men and a few women in the saloon, and now Mitchell addressed them.
“You’ve all heard about this man.” He pointed at Clayton. “He says he won’t leave Bighorn Point until he’s killed one of our citizens, man, woman, or child.”
“Shame,” a woman said. She looked at Clayton. “For shame.”
“Well, I’m giving him his chance,” Mitchell said. He looked down at Clayton. “I’m a citizen of this town. Let’s see you try to kill me.”
“You tell him, Charlie,” a man said, a giggle in his voice.
Kelly rose to his feet. “Charlie, this man is unarmed,” he said. “Draw down on him and I’ll hang you before sundown.”
“You in on this, Nook?” Mitchell said.
“Keeping it fair, is all.”
Mitchell turned and called out to the ferret, “Wilson, give him a gun.”
The man called Wilson strode to the table. He wore two Colts, slung low in crossed belts.
Clayton grimaced. Another damned tinhorn.
Wilson laid a short-barreled Colt on the table and Mitchell sneered, “You got a gun now, mister. You bragged you’d kill a woman or child. Well, let’s see how you stack up against men.”
The bartender and pretty waitress had moved out of the line of fire and a silence, taut as a fiddle string, stretched across the sun-slanted saloon.
Mitchell had a hand in his coat pocket. “Pick up the iron and get to your work,” he said. “And damn you fer a yellow-bellied coward.”
Clayton said nothing, his head bent, staring at the oiled blue steel of the revolver on the table.
Seconds ticked past....
Beside him, Clayton heard Kelly groan, a lost, disappointed sound. Sensing faintheartedness, he’d stop it soon.
But Mitchell would not let it go so easily. He took a step toward Clayton, right leg forward, and readied himself to cut loose a backhanded slap across the older man’s face.
Mitchell knew what would happen. He could see it, almost taste it.
He’d slap the stranger around, make him bloody, then run him out of Bighorn Point. He’d be a hero, a fearless gunfighter who stood up for his town. Hell, they might even erect a stat—
Clayton’s right boot found its target.
The two-inch leather heel, hardened into the consistency of iron by years of sun, snow, wind, and rain, slammed hard into Mitchell’s right kneecap.
The man screamed, staggered back. But Clayton was on his feet, crowding him. As Mitchell’s gun came out of his pocket, Clayton drove a work-hardened right fist into the man’s chin.