Bad Justice by Leslie Frank

Author:Leslie, Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“You mind if we stand up?” asked one of the five bushwhackers—the biggest of the bunch, who was missing the tip of his nose.

“No, go ahead.”

“Shit, I’m barefoot,” said the one with the swollen ankle. “I can’t get into a pistol fight with a sore ankle. Mind if I sit out this one?”

“Yes.”

The man with the swollen ankle—a tall man with sallow cheeks—flushed and glared at Colter from beneath his brows. He grunted, opened his mouth, let his cigarette fall to the floor, where it sparked and rolled.

The others, keeping their drink-rheumy eyes on Colter, slid their chairs back and climbed to their feet, chairs creaking as the weight left them. Colter kept the bartender in the periphery of his vision.

The big man stepped back away from the bar, looking owly and apprehensive. At the same time, every man in the room behind and beyond Colter scrambled out of his chair and hurried to either side of where the potential lead would fly. One forgot his beer and lurched back to his table to retrieve it, but then he fell over a chair and spilled it, anyway. He cursed and scrambled to his feet and joined the man he’d been drinking with, breathing hard.

One of the five men facing Colter sighed.

The one with the swollen ankle kept glaring at Colter, jaw hard. They’d all swept their coats back away from pistols jutting on their hips or from their thighs. These men were well versed in gunmanship. Their pistols were well cared for. Three of the five carried two. They all wore knives in addition to hog legs.

But they were drunk. And they hadn’t counted on a real lead swap this evening. They’d wanted the safe bet tonight. They’d wanted to shoot from a distance and hope they hit their target and collect the fifty dollars so they could keep drinking and whoring for a few more days before they had to look for more legitimate work.

They hadn’t expected that there’d be consequences.

But there were. Just as soon as the man missing the end of his nose dropped his hands toward his pistols, they all found that out as both of Colter’s pistols filled the room with their roars, flames, and billowing smoke. Only one got a shot off—the man to Colter’s far left triggered his own Remington into his own table, shattering a whiskey glass and spraying whiskey in all directions.

Ten seconds after the tooth-gnashing explosions had filled the room, they stopped.

All five men were down.

The man with the bad ankle had sat down on the floor against the bar, blood spewing from the hole in his green-plaid shirt, just left of his heart. Breathing hard, wincing, grinding his teeth, he stared up at Colter.

“D-damn it, you ugly little dog fart.” He lifted his chin toward the top of the bar. Tonelessly, he said, “Pete, you make sure they plant me with both boots—you hear?”

The bartender, Pete, had ducked behind the bar. Now he lifted his bald head and looked around with dark eyes, saying, “Yeah, I hear ya, Karl.

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