Justice of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

19

Cal and Pearlie, after sleeping most of the afternoon, arose just before sundown and went to a local eatery for dinner. Pearlie, as usual, ate enough for two men, while Cal, who was worried about Smoke, hardly touched his meal.

“You got to put some vittles in your gut, Cal,” Pearlie said as he stuffed a large piece of corn bread in his mouth. “You cain’t do Smoke no good if ’n you’re famished.”

“I’ll eat when we get that statement from Gibbons,” Cal replied sullenly. “I just don’t have no appetite, thinkin’ of Smoke in that jail in Fort Smith.”

“All right then,” Pearlie said, “let’s get to it.”

He paid their bill and they walked out onto Main Street. “Where do you think we ought’a try next?” Cal asked.

“Well, we tried all the highfalutin places last night, an’ didn’t see hide nor hair of the galoot,” Pearlie drawled. “Maybe he’s short of cash an’ cain’t afford the high-stakes games. Tonight, let’s hit the places down by the Mexican quarter. Maybe we’ll find him there.”

They turned left on Main and walked five blocks, then took another left toward the cattle yards where the lower-class part of town was. Its residents were mainly Mexicans, blacks, and working-class whites, and the area had several cantinas and bars that were downright dangerous to enter. According to Johnny Walker, even he didn’t go into the area at night unless backed up by at least two other deputies. As they walked, Cal and Pearlie both loosened the rawhide hammer-guards on their pistols, ready in case of trouble.

In the third place they entered, which had the unlikely name El Gato Negro, The Black Cat, they found their man. The saloon was made of adobe and had a low ceiling and dirt floors. With the few lanterns and hazy, smokey air, it was hard to see more than ten feet in front of your face, but the boys recognized Gibbons’s flashy yellow and black plaid coat from across the room.

“There the sumbitch is,” Pearlie growled, loosening his Colt in its holster. “You sidle on around to get between him an’ the back door, an’ I’ll ease on up to him from the front.”

“Pearlie,” Cal said, staring at the table Gibbons was sitting at.

“Yeah?”

“Watch your back. Those men he’s playin’ with look awful hard to me.”

Pearlie nodded. Cal was right. At the table with Gibbons were two Mexicans with long, handlebar mustaches, both wearing large Colt Army pistols on their belts and knives in scabbards stuck in their pants. A huge, six-foot-tall black man wearing an undershirt and pants held up with a rope was the fourth man at the table.

Cal moved through the crowd of drunken men until he was standing in front of the rear door, the one leading back to the privy in the alley behind the saloon. He leaned back against the wall next to the door and let his hand rest on the butt of his pistol, sweating nervously as he watched the milling crowd in the small room.

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