Texas Bluff

CHAPTER 25

Butler moved his belongings into a room on the second floor of the White Elephant, behind the casino. Luke Short and his wife lived in an apartment down the hall, but she was away and had been since his arrival. It was just as well. Short didn’t need to worry about her during the days to come. At least she was safe.

Short led Butler into his rooms for a drink while they discussed what the events of the day meant, and how they should proceed.

“Bill’s not going to sit in?” Butler asked.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Bill’s a little slow to act. He doesn’t want to get anybody mad at him—which, I think, is one of the main reasons he wanted me as a partner.”

“So you could be the bad guy?” Butler asked. “Get people mad at you?”

“Exactly” Short said, “not that I mind, you understand. I’m pretty much at the point in my life when I can’t stand most people, anyway. You’re a little young for that. Give it ten more years.”

Butler doubted that he was ten years younger than Short. He was also closer than ten years to feeling the way Short felt about people. That tended to happen when so many of them had tried to kill him.

“Luke, I haven’t said it yet, but I’m sorry about Victor.”

“Yeah,” Short said, “he was a good man. You could trust him to do what he could do, you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“He never disappointed me by trying to do more, and then failing.”

“Luke, you got any other men we can count on, or is it just going to be you and me?”

“I told you about the two bartenders. They can fight, and they can fire a shotgun.”

“Can they hit anything?”

Short looked away and repeated, “They can fire a shotgun.”

“Hard to miss with one of those,” Butler said.

“Yeah, well, let’s not count on them hitting anything.”

“So basically it’s you and me.”

“Yes,” Short said, “but so far only one guy took a shot at you. I think we can handle one guy.”

“And how many others do you think Ed Cramer will send after us?” Butler asked.

“I don’t know,” Short said. “I’m not sure if he wants a war or not.”

“A war…” Butler said.

That’s exactly what Butler ended up involved with in Dodge City, but then he had Jim and Bat Masterson and Neal Brown on his side.

“Maybe it won’t be a war,” Short said. “Maybe everything will just…work out for the best, huh? What do you think of that?”

“And just how would that go?” Butler asked.

“I don’t know,” Short said. “Maybe, since whoever Cramer sent after you missed, he’ll change his mind. He’ll know we know he’s behind it, and maybe he’ll decide to lay low for a while.”

“Or maybe,” Butler said, “somebody’ll just…kill him.”

“Well,” Luke Short said, “wouldn’t that be nice of someone, to kill him for us.”

Zeke had something stuck in his teeth, which was odd, because he only had some stumps left in his mouth. He’d always thought that the good thing about not having a mouthful of teeth was that nothing would ever get caught, but now he saw that he was wrong.

“Crap,” he said.

There were a few customers at the bar, who looked up and stared at him.

“Ah, mind yer business.”

He needed a toothpick. He knew his boss kept some on his desk, and he wasn’t supposed go in his boss’s office, anyway. But it was early in the morning and the boss wouldn’t be in yet.

“I’ll be right back,” he told the man at the bar. They were all regulars, came staggering in as soon as Zeke opened the doors at nine A.M. It was like that in Hell’s Half Acre. Nobody cared if a saloon opened early, or if a bunch of men drank in the morning.

Zeke walked to the back, looked around, then pushed aside the curtain and entered. He started for the desk, saw his boss seated there, and stammered, “Hey, uh, boss, I was just—” but then he noticed something.

Ed Cramer’s head was splattered all over the wall.