Episode 54
A Figure in Black
Eyes watering from smoke, Billy Carruthers slashed through the canvas with a buck knife to make a new exit at the rear of a tented whorehouse. He exited with an arm about the throat of a mulatto whore and a long-barreled Colt in his hand. He was jay naked except for his boots but more concerned with flight than modesty. He was halfway to the cover of a copse of dogwoods when a pair of riders caught up with him. The Twisted Tree cowboy spun, raising the Buntline too late. A .44-40 punched through the chest of the girl to rip sideways deep into Billy’s ribcage. The cowboy fell with the whore atop him and squirmed in a fight to regain his feet. The riders reined in to ride about him in a circle, laughing as they took turns putting rounds through the skinny whore and thus into Billy Carruthers. Both lay still under a gray haze of gun smoke. The riders whooped and spurred away to fresher butchery.
Other cowboys, from the Twisted Tree, Three Rivers and smaller outfits, died all over town either where they lay drunk or in vain efforts to make it to their horses. They died in the dust of the street and atop the stained sheets on the cots of fallen women. They died standing on their feet defiant. They died on their knees pleading for mercy from man and Jesus.
Bob Miller, the acting chief constable of Mercury Wells, crept down the stairs from his room at the Grand Prairie. He was in stocking feet and britches, his boots under one arm and a big Harrington Richardson revolver in his trembling fist. He made it to the foot of the stairs and turned toward the registrar’s counter. His immediate design was to make it through the door to the rear of the hotel and from there out into the night where he would find a place to hide until the raiders had spent their wrath on the town.
After all, he was no real lawman. His position was more political in nature. The citizens understood that. It was important that he preserve himself in order to provide leadership in the aftermath of this debacle.
Miller wheeled at a crash of glass. The front doors of the hotel banged open. The high glow of flames at his back, a figure in black strode in to fire a pistol from either hand. Bob Miller stumbled back against the marble-topped registrar desk with twin burning sensations in his chest and belly. The revolver dropped from his nerveless hand.
Joe Wiley stepped across the carpet; pistols trained on the gasping constable. With the toe of a boot, he turned Bob Miller’s face to the light. In the wavering glare he could see four parallel furrows in the face of the fallen man, ragged scars still raised even after two weeks of healing.
The pain was closing like a fist deep inside Bob Miller’s gut. His breathing was coming hard as one lung filled with blood. Despite the pain, growing in intensity by the second, Bob knew he’d be hours dying.
Joe Wiley’s shadow fell over him. He closed his eyes against the killing round but opened them again at the sound of boots stepping away across the floor. He watched the former town marshal stride from the hotel into the flame dappled night, the doors swinging shut behind.
The burning fist inside him closed taut with a renewed fury.
