Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Code of the West) by Stephen Bly Page B

You better lay down that gun right now.”
    “I’m surely glad he’s a friend of yours. That way I know you won’t want to cause him any mortal injury. Ya see, the first gun yanked from the holster, I’ll pull this trigger.”
    He leaned over to Hank. “Now we’ll find out who your friends are. Anyone who grabs for his pistol obviously wants you dead.”
    “W-wait, boys, wait.” Hank’s words ran together. “Wait’ll-Karl-getshere. This-man’ll-shootme-fursure.”
    “Old Hank a little nervous?”
    “How much money does he owe ya?” Another voice rolled across the now-silent saloon.
    “That’s the thing. It isn’t me he robbed. Hank and a couple others plundered the girls at April’s, then burned the place down. I figure those purdy dancin’ girls deserve their money back. What do you boys think?”
    “He’s crazy. The only thing we did is try to put the fire out. He’s just mad ’cause we was on his ranch. He shot Jimmy Ray point-blank and is tryin’ to do the same to me.”
    The front door opened, then closed quickly, but no one entered the saloon.
    “There ain’t goin’ to be any shootin’ in here tonight.” The bartender swung a shotgun out from behind the bar and waved it at Tap and Hank. “I don’t give two bits who kills who, but you ain’t doin’ it in here. Git out that back door, or I’ll pull the trigger and cut you both in two.”
    A whiskey bottle crashed into the back of the bartender’s head, sending a blast from the shotgun into the ceiling. The man crumpled to the floor in a litter of broken glass and spilled liquor.
    “It’s too dang cold to go outside and watch a gunfight,” someone called. “Go ahead, mister, make your play.”
    Tap couldn’t tell which man had cold-cocked the bartender.
    “He’s the one that gunned down Jordan Beckett,” Hank ho llered. “I heard him say so himself.”
    “Lots of us were friends of Beckett,” another shouted.
    “I’ll give fifty dollars to the man who guns him down.” Hank screamed. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck.
    “That’s a lot of money, boys,” Tap pointed out. “Where do you suppose Hank got that kind of money? He’s spendin’ your dance hall money.”
    A skinny man at the bar, his right hand resting on a revolver tucked into his belt, glanced at the back door, then over to Tap, then back at the door.
    At that moment Tap jerked Hank to the left toward the door and kicked over the table just as Bufe barreled in, pistol in hand. Shoved from the back, Hank stumbled into Bufe and caused the gun-toting outlaw to fall to the floor, firing wildly.
    “I shot my foot,” Bufe bawled. “Git off me, Hank. I shot my foot.”
    Tap fired one shot at a row of bottles behind the mak eshift bar. In the cover of gun smoke so thick he could no longer see the other saloon patrons, he dove out the back door just as bullets began to fly.
    The shock of ice-cold air on his lungs combined with the acid taste of gun smoke caused him to cough as he tumbled out the back door. He rolled to his feet.
    “Sounds a little unhealthy in there." Someone stood in the shadows.
    “Stack?”
    “Say, Andrews, do you need any help, or is everything under control?”
    “You plannin’ on waitin’ for them to kill me?”
    “I just got here.”
    “Let’s get out of the alley.”
    “You find out where the girls’ money is?”
    “No. How about you?”
    “Nope.”
    They ran behind the buildings. Tap kicked out the empty brass cartridge and shoved another bullet into the chamber of his .44. Several more shots rang out inside the saloon.
    “What are they shootin’ at now?”
    “The smoke, I guess.”
    “Who got shot?”
    “Bufe shot himself in the toe. That’s all I know.”
    “You think they’re carryin’ the money?”
    “Karl’s got to be the one. He must be in town som ewhere.”
    “If I were him, I’d catch a saddle and ride,” Stack offered.
    “The livery?”
    “That’s my guess.”
    “Stack, you go north, and I’ll