Rio Kid Justice by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504025416
Publisher: Open Road Media

13

It was mid-morning when the Rio Kid awoke from a deep sleep. He lay on his back looking up at the white-washed ceiling. It was very quiet in the rear bedroom, and he could hear the regular sound of Kitty’s breathing from the big bed.

He pushed the blankets off his body and sat up, fully clothed except for his boots. He reached for one cautiously, muffled the jingle of the spur rowel with his hand, and pulled it on as silently as he could.

He stood up in his boots and strapped on his gunbelts, settling the holsters down snugly and tying the ends tightly to his thighs with buckskin thongs. He tiptoed toward the door with his jacket hung loosely over his arm, lifted the heavy wooden bar, and slid it back.

He turned to look back at the bed and the sleeping girl before going out. Kitty had the covers pulled up snugly to her chin and she breathed through parted lips with a faint smile doing away with the look of haggard despair he had seen last night.

The Kid went out quietly and closed the door behind him. The hallway was empty. He strode back over the route Kitty had brought him last night, made a turn and went through the curtained archway into the main saloon and dining room.

The musty odor of stale alcohol and tobacco smoke was thick in the big room. One man sat at a table across the floor with his back toward the Kid. There was no one behind the bar, but a Mexican servant glided out of a door from the kitchen when the Kid’s boot heels resounded loudly on the bare floor.

The man at the table across the room turned his head to see who it was, then jerked it around quickly, but not so soon that the Kid didn’t recognize Hips McGee.

He went on to the bar and asked for whiskey, and when the servant set out a bottle and glass, he asked, “Any chance to get breakfast this time of day?”

“Si, Señor. Theese time and all time of day. You seet at table for eat, no?”

The Kid said, “Shore. I reckon I’ll join Mr. McGee since we seem to be the only customers.” He downed a slug of red liquor, then lounged across the room to the occupied table.

There was a platter of ham and eggs and a cup of coffee on the table in front of McGee. The knife-killer had a scrawny upper body that spread out widely just below the waist, giving him his descriptive nickname. His complexion was very swarthy and he had extremely high cheekbones and small, regular features which indicated a pre-natal Mexican or Indian encroachment in his blood-stream—about a quarter breed, the Kid guessed as he stopped beside his chair and said, “Good mawnin’.”

“What the hell’s good about it?” Hips McGee snarled without looking up from his plate.

The Rio Kid grinned cheerfully and encircled the table to pull out a chair opposite Hips.

“The sun’s shinin’ outside … an’ we’re both alive to see it shining.

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