Gatling 4 by Jack Slade

Author:Jack Slade [Slade, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action hero, American Frontier, Colt.45, ebook, fiction, Gatling, Gunfighters, Peter McCurtin, Piccadilly cowboys, Pulp fiction writing, the Old West, Western series
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 2023-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dumping the Indians’ bodies in the lake was a mistake. Crocodiles came gliding from all over the lake, drawn by the smell of blood. The noise was hideous. Sleep was impossible.

All night long the crocodiles fought and roared, driven crazy by so much human flesh. Gatling lay in his cot and decided the crocs sounded like politicians at the pork barrel.

During the night he had visitors; they all said they couldn’t sleep. He could have slept if he felt the need of it, but he didn’t. Besides, there were still some hours of darkness left; anything could happen before morning.

O’Sullivan came first, like a man out for a stroll in the cool of the evening. In the tent it was at least a hundred degrees, and O’Sullivan’s cigar didn’t make the muggy air any better. Gatling had a folding stool with a canvas seat, and O’Sullivan sat on it. Nothing about him suggested that he’d just been photographing dead savages.

“Well, it’s not such a bad night,” O’Sullivan started off.

Gatling lay with his hands behind his head. “I’m glad you think so, Tim. You like this kind of climate, do you?”

O’Sullivan smoked his cheap cigar like a banker enjoying an after dinner Romeo Y Julieta. “Heat doesn’t bother me all that much. I’m so thin there’s not a lot to sweat out.” He raised the tent flap and flicked cigar ashes outside. “Lord, but you killed a power of aborigines tonight.”

The Irishman worked every conversation around to his favorite subject—death. Gatling wondered if the Civil War hadn’t made him a little crazy.

“I didn’t see you do any shooting,” Gatling said.

“What good would a gun do me? I couldn’t hit Senator Church at ten paces.” Senator Church was a grossly fat politician. “One time I tried my hand at a shooting gallery in Coney Island. You know what happened?”

“What?”

“I shot the poor feller behind the counter. Oh, he didn’t die or anything like that, but it put me off guns for life.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do say.” O’Sullivan gave Gatling a sly look. He was a born gossip. It was part of his malicious nature. “What do you think of that little dust-up between Wheeler and Mr. Mackenzie? You was dere, as they say in the Five Points.”

Gatling looked at the V roof of the tent. O’Sullivan was like the colonel. You had to take him in small doses.

“Wheeler is a jackass,” Gatling said.

“A jackass with a loud bray. He may be on the skids, but he can slip poor old Mackenzie a mickey any time he chooses.” O’Sullivan had spent a lot of time in McGurk’s Suicide Palace on the Bowery. It got its name from the many down-and-out streetwalkers who killed themselves in the balcony. Most of them drank vitriol. O’Sullivan liked to tell stories about it. He had picked up the lingo.

“He’ll forget about Mackenzie,” Gatling said. “He wouldn’t take the time to nail up a lowly lieutenant.”

“Tabor won’t forget.” O’Sullivan seemed sure of what he was saying. “Tabor is a vicious little turd.

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