Reign of the Gila Monster by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard [Hubbard, L. Ron]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Adventure, Action & Adventure, western
ISBN: 9781592128310
Publisher: Galaxy Press LLC.
Published: 2010-06-01T10:00:00+00:00

Citizens carefully left a wide path between Howdy and the door, and left the space from his back to the wall scrupulously vacant.

Howdy hummed a little song.

Six o’clock.

The last drink went down.

Howdy sat entrenched behind the watch and the empty glasses. He did not bother to listen or keep an eye on the door.

Poison nervously began to put away the bottles.

“No need of that,” said Howdy. “That Slash Bar outfit will be in here before the night’s out.”

The crowd watched him closely as though he were a man of quite a different race, a sideshow freak. They only lacked the purple-gray gloves to be thirty pallbearers.

“He’s late,” whispered Lippy.

Tic-tic-tickety-tic.

Creak, creak, creak came Gilman’s footsteps on the walk. The planks groaned, the porch sagged in terror, the swinging doors volleyed and there stood the Gila Monster.

There are men who will say that a silver-tip grizzly raised upright to the height of eight feet is a terrifying sight, but wiser men know that anyone making that declaration had never seen Gilman.

His boots reared out of the floor like two gigantic redwood stumps. His legs went upward like telegraph poles. His body hulked skyward like Pike’s Peak. His head filled a hat big enough to make half a dozen tents. And his arms hung down like two boa constrictors ready for the kill.

His lantern-globe eyes had caught the full blow of Howdy’s presence. He looked carefully, leaning forward, looked away and stabbed his awful glance again.

A smile opened a gash like the Grand Canyon on the Gila Monster’s face. His arms began to swing and he wet his lips with a tongue as black and long as a muleskinner’s whip.

A sound started way down in the caverns of his belly, rumbled upward, shaking the whole room, and emerged so loud a laugh of glee that it cracked the mirror over the bar.

Leather groaned as his holsters were relieved of the weights of his twin cannon. He spun the guns by the trigger guards.

“You’re getting an even break!” thundered Gilman, centering his sights on Howdy’s heart. “You draw!”

Howdy sat stiffly. It was difficult for him to move.

He snapped out his Colt.

Twin blasts streaked away from the Gila Monster’s muzzles.

Howdy jerked backward and sagged over his table in front.

Gilman chuckled and the room quivered. He blew the smoke from the muzzle and cylinder, lazy and lethal.

Everybody stared at poor Howdy. Two holes were in his vest, just over his heart. His gun lay slackly in his stiff hand upon the table top.

As though in his death agony, Howdy’s fist clenched spasmodically.

A look of stony surprise crept down like a mask over the Gila Monster’s face.

Gilman staggered.

A third eye was blue and blind in his forehead.

Knees buckling, gun falling, shoulders slouching, Gilman dropped. He toppled slowly like a felled tree at first. Then faster.

At full length he hit. The floor crunched beneath his weight. His legs doubled and shot out straight again, making his spurs jangle.

His hands slowly relaxed.

“They’re dead,” whispered Lippy.

The citizens crept fearfully forward and stooped over the collapsed giant.

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