right up,” the bartender replied. “My name’s Jess Landis. Welcome to the Oasis.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Jess. I’m Jon.”
The bartender gave Jon a friendly nod. “Staying in town long?”
“Naw, I’m just passin’ through. I’ll be trekkin’ on toward California in the morning.”
Jon felt a bump on his arm as one of the whores in the bar pushed in next to him. She smelled of cheap perfume and laudanum. Swashes of rouge on her pale cheeks couldn’t hide her dark, tired eyes. Her round, well-shaped bosom was precariously close to falling out of the top of her white cotton dress as she leaned toward Jon. Her face looked young—too young. “Buy a girl a drink?” she smiled awkwardly, batting her long eyelashes.
“Set her up, Jess.”
“Usual?” Jess asked.
“What else?” she asked in a voice too glib to be confident.
Jess quickly poured a glass of Merlot and set it on the bar. She smiled at Jon as she lifted the glass to her thin lips. “Where ya from, honey?” She took a sip and gently pushed her knee against Jon’s thigh.
“I’m from a lot of places, darlin’. How about—”
Suddenly, the wine glass crashed on the bar as the whore screamed and jumped back. Jon’s back went stiff as the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed hard against his skull. There were more screams; chairs scattered across the floor as the patrons scurried out of the way. The piano stopped. The saloon went stone quiet.
“Remember me, Stoudenmire?” A strong hand grabbed Jon’s chin and pulled it around as the gun pressed hard against the back of his head.
Jon’s anger grew as he looked into the face of the bearded man. His eyes shot up and down, trying desperately to figure out who he was. Nothing looked familiar until he looked at those eyes—those black, wicked eyes he had seen years earlier in that saloon in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
“Will Sledge. Remember me? Your worst nightmare just came true.” The iniquitous man laughed as his bony fingers slid roughly off Jon’s chin. He grabbed the handkerchief on Jon’s neck and yanked hard.
Jon was livid as the handkerchief cut into his neck. As he gasped for breath, he thought back to that day in Cheyenne. Sledge and a companion had come there to seek revenge against Jon for beating his older brother nearly to death a couple of years earlier in a buffalo camp in the Dakota Territory. After threatening Jon in a local saloon, the two men were quickly disarmed by an alert local sheriff. Wanting some closure, Jon goaded them into a fistfight, two against one out in the street. It was a brutal affair with Jon administering quite a beating to both men. Humiliated in front of the whole town, the badly beaten Sledge vowed revenge.
“I never gave up lookin’ for you, Stoudenmire, but I was always just one step behind. Then I ran into some trouble down Abilene way. I choked a man to death and they gave me five to ten in a Kansas prison. I spent a lotta time in jail—all I could think about was finding you and killing you. My brother never recovered from the beatin’ you gave him in the Dakota Territory. He died a few years later. You beat him unmerciful, you never gave him a chance. He was the only family I had, and you took him away from me. Now you’re gonna die!”
A portly, unshaven man standing just behind Sledge cracked a wicked smile.
Jon glanced to his left as the bartender Jess moved carefully along the bar. He reached down ever so easily and pulled up a sawed off shotgun and laid it carefully on the bar.
“The man’s not armed, mister,” Jess said calmly. The hammer clicked on the shotgun. “Pull your gun down nice and easy and put it back in its holster. And tell your friend there to keep real still. One false move out of either one of you, and I’ll blow your damn heads off.”
Jon could tell this young barkeep meant business and so could Sledge.
“Keep still, Red,” Sledge commanded his stubby partner. Then a nasty grin broke out on his face. “Don’t worry bartender, I wasn’t planning on shootin’ him in here anyway. I want a fair fight.” He pulled the gun away from Jon’s head, let loose of the bandanna and stepped back. He dropped his gun in his holster.
Jon turned slowly around; he stared angrily at his old nemesis. “I vowed I’d never carry again, Sledge. But for you, I’m gonna make an exception. You need killin’.” There were groans from the crowd as Sledge knocked a table aside, giving the men more room for their showdown.
“Give him a gun, Red,” Sledge hollered.
His partner pulled an extra six gun from his sash, set it on the bar next to Jon and quickly stepped back.
“Pick it up, Stoudenmire,” Will ordered.
“I’m not stupid, Sledge. If I touch that gun, you’ll blast me to the heavens,” Jon said calmly. “Fight me like a man, Will, face to face out in the street.”
Sledge paused and cackled, an ugly shrill little laugh. “I don’t care where I kill ya, Stoudenmire. Street’s fine.” The cruel man sneered at Jon as he stepped backwards through the swinging doors, pushing Red behind him.
Jon yanked out his Bowie knife and dropped it on the bar. He grabbed the six gun and stuffed it in his sash as he tipped his hat down and walked outside. “I should have killed that bastard when I had the chance,” he mumbled.
Spurs jingled as the patrons hurried toward the door to watch the fight. Jess eased the hammer down on the shotgun and set it back under the bar.
Jon scanned the street as he pushed through the batwing doors. Sledge stopped in the middle of the rutted road and turned toward Jon. The sun was quickly setting below the tops of the wood frame buildings. With the building blocking the glare from the sun, Jon would have a clear shot. Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice.
“Evenin’, Jon.”
Surprised, Jon spun to face Marshal Brown, just arriving for dinner.
“What’s going on here?” Brown asked.
“Sorry, Ned. I ran into a little problem.” He nodded toward the menacing Sledge standing feet apart, hands poised above guns in the middle of the street. “Didn’t mean to bring trouble to your town, Marshal.”
“Why don’t we all sit down and—?”
Jon interrupted the marshal. “Ned, this man’s been trailin’ me for years. He doesn’t want to talk. If I don’t take him out here, I’m gonna be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
The two were interrupted by Will’s gravelly voice. “What’s the hold up, Stoudenmire—you gettin’ cold feet?”
Jon glanced back at the marshal. The marshal grimaced. “Go ahead and take the son-of-a-bitch, Jon. I’ll watch your backside.”
Jon ambled slowly to the center of the street. He yanked the gun out one last time and spun the cylinder to be sure it was fully loaded, a ceremony he performed without fail before every shootout. Then he tucked the gun back in the sash for a crossover draw. He opened and shut his hands, trying to relax his fingers as he turned to face the determined Sledge. Unafraid, Jon
