Episode 32
Cowboys and Irishmen
Despite the fact they weren’t paid yet, a bunch of cowboys were determined to have some fun and made their way into Mercury Wells. Tired of camping rough in the stockyard, and with just enough coins in their pokes to get drunk, they headed for the cheapest drinks in town. The Paradise.
As luck, or the lack of it, would have it, some Irishmen working for Southwest General Railroad were in town as well. And both groups wound up in T.J. Bratt’s bucket of blood.
Details were hazy afterwards, but most could agree it started when a cowboy tried to share a navvy’s bottle uninvited. The Irishman objected. Imprecations and oaths. Accusations of “shite-eating Yankee” and “pig-eyed Mick” flew wild. More bitter words were exchanged and then fists, bottles and chair legs. The barmen pulled pick handles, not to intercede in the riot but to protect the liquor stores behind the bar. T.J. Bratt himself, content to let the fight play out, retreated behind his roulette table. Bear, his bodyman, covered the heaving mob of combatants with his double barrel.
The Dugans arrived at a run. Seth attempted his own brand of reason by discharging both barrels of his shotgun through the canvas ceiling. The cowboys and rail men failed to notice. The fight went on without a second’s pause. Len waded into the melee swinging his shotgun like a club. His brother followed. The two brothers cut a swath through the center of the fight, ending the dustup with brutal expediency. Men fell to the left and right. A drover held an arm with a snapped bone bulging against the fabric of his shirt. A son of Erin knelt on the sawdust floor spitting bloody teeth into his hand. More men dropped and remained where they fell. A cowboy howled and rolled on the floor, clutching a knee shattered by the brass butt of Len’s shotgun.
Eventually a craggy faced cowboy jerked a revolver and invited his compatriots to join along.
“Blow these bastards back to hell!” he shouted, gun hand wavering at the Dugans.
Two of his fellow trail riders, equally as drunk, followed his lead.
Len’s double barrel opened up while Seth reloaded his own.
The cowboys were thrown back as though by a massive scythe. Two lay knocked cold and bleeding out. A third sat on his ass for a moment looking stunned, raising a fingerless hand that had held a Colt a moment before. He collapsed backward and lay still, his chest peppered through with buck shot.
Even the Irish sobered up at the sight of this demonstration of the rule of law as it existed in Mercury Wells.
“Surrender your guns!” Len roared as he broke the shotgun open, two smoking cartridges flying.
“You heard my brother! On the floor. Right this minute!” Seth boomed, swinging his own shotgun around the circle of men while his sibling reloaded.
Cowboys dropped an assortment of pistols to the sand and sawdust. The Irish produced their own pistols hidden on their persons including a pepperbox derringer that looked like it would be as much a danger to the shooter as to any intended victim.
“Pick them up, boy!” Len said to a barman who stooped and gathered the surrendered weapons into a hammock made from his apron front.
“We ain’t arresting anyone tonight so long as you make your way back to where you belong,” Seth said and motioned to the tent opening with his shotgun. The cowboys, navvies and other patrons shuffled out; eyes lowered.
“This place is closed until otherwise determined by Marshal Wiley,” Seth said to T. J. Bratt who only shrugged and nodded.
“Call your hound off,” Len rumbled, eyes on Bear who stood with his own shotgun trained on the room.
“Call it a night, Bear,” Bratt said in a voice of patience one might take with a child. The big man lowered the barrels, eyes still locked on Len Dugan.
“Follow us, boy. We’re taking that iron down to the jail for safekeeping,” Seth said and waved the barkeep forward. The barkeep looked to T.J. Bratt who nodded, giving him pardon to do as the deputy requested. The man departed the Paradise, bent double with the weight of an apron front loaded with pistols.
