Town Tamers
“Listen to you,” Jake Bass sneered. “Who in hell do you think you are?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Mister, you have sand,” Crusty said. “Not much brains but a lot of sand. We’ll give Mr. Knox and Bull your message. And then you’d best be ready for when we come ridin’ in to settle your hash.”
“You misunderstood,” Asa said. “I didn’t say I want you to deliver the message. I said I need to send one. I’ll hire a boy to ride out to the ranch for me.”
“Why, when we can do it?” Crusty said.
“You won’t be able to.”
“Why in hell not?”
Asa Delaware always liked this part. He liked the looks on their faces when it sank in. “Because,” he said matter-of-factly, “both of you will be dead.”
Thunder Valley
Blood Feud
Ride to Valor
TOWN TAMERS
DAVID ROBBINS
SIGNET
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First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
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Copyright © David Robbins, 2013
Excerpt from
Blood Feud
copyright © David Robbins, 2010
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Version_1
To Judy, Joshua, and Shane
Ludlow, Texas
I
t was Saturday night, and the Circle K cowhands thundered into town whooping and hollering and firing their pistols, as they always did.
The few townsfolk foolish enough to be abroad quickly scattered to home and hearth or to the back rooms of their businesses, as they always did.
This night the Circle K’s ranny, Bull Cumberland, was with them, and he was the first to see the new bartender when he slammed through the batwings of the the Whiskey Mill. New barkeeps weren’t unusual. They tended to suffer a lot of “accidents” and often lit out for healthier climes after only a couple of months.
Bull hooked his thick thumbs in his gun belt and bellied up to the bar. He pounded it hard enough to be heard a block away and only then noticed that glasses had been set out in a long row. His blow caused them to rattle and jump.
The young bartender smiled at him and said, “What will it be, Childe Harold?”
Bull barely heard him over the ruckus his fellow cow nurses were raising as they jangled and clattered in, and he raised a huge hand and bellowed, “Quiet!”
It was as if the Almighty Himself had spoken. Every puncher stopped cold and fell silent. Several put their hands on their six-shooters.
Bull looked the new barkeep up and down and gruffly demanded, “What in hell did you just call me?”
“Not ‘what,’ but ‘who,’” the young man said. “Childe Harold is a name.”
“Who in hell is he?”
The young bartender smiled. He was handsomer than most, had broader shoulders than most, and had dark eyes that seemed to sparkle with amusement. He was also clean-shaven and wore a white shirt with a string tie and a spotless apron. “I’d imagine you haven’t read it, then.”
“Read?” Bull said. “Did you say
read
?”
“The poem.”
“The what?”
“
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
. It’s by Lord Byron.”
Then, to Bull’s astonishment, the young bartender put a hand to his chest and raised his other hand aloft. “‘Childe Harold was hight—but whence his name and lineage long, it suits me not to say. Suffice it that perchance they were of fame, and had been glorious in another day.’”
“God in heaven,” Bill said.
“I was quoting from the poem,” the young bartender said. “Isn’t it glorious?”
Bull looked at the other punches and they were as stupefied as he was. Some of them had their mouths open and a couple had cocked their heads as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.
“I ask you again,” the young bartender said. “What will it be for you and your fine company?”
Bull shook his head to get his brain to work and leaned over the bar to study the newcomer much as he might a new kind of snake. “What
are
you?”
The young man touched his apron. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Jake Bass came up next to Bull and let out a snort. “A whistle, is what he is.”
Old Tom stepped up on the other side and said in wonderment, “Whistle, hell. This feller is educated.”
“Educated how?” Jake Bass said. “Doesn’t look to me like he knows the hind end of a cow from a fiddle.”
“You heard him the same as me,” Old Tom said. “Ain’t it plain? He’s got more book learnin’ than all of us put together.”
“Is that so?” Bull said.
“One of those,” Jake Bass said.
Crusty joined them, his cheek bulging with chaw, and said simply, “Hell.”
The young bartender took a full bottle from a shelf and held it for all of them to see. “Who wants some ambrosia of the gods?”
“You shouldn’t ought to talk like that,” Bull told him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you have a handle, sonny?”
“Who doesn’t? In fact, I bear the same name as the man who wrote the poem. To my great delight and pleasure, I am proud to bear the moniker of Byron.”
“God, how you talk,” Jake Bass said.
“Well, By-ron,” Bull said, practically making two words of it as he hitched at his gun belt. “I reckon you haven’t long to live.”