“That you could never be,” Ernestine said. “Didn’t that penny dreadful call you the Missouri Man-Killer and the Terror of the West? You instill fear in others. They do not instill fear in you.”
Jeeter had never thought of it quite like that. “I reckon my reputation does make others a mite skittish.” Not that it caused the Blights to think twice about tangling with him.
“We must go before the posse puts your reputation to the test,” Ernestine said, and pulled on his arm.
Jeeter glanced back out the window. The mayor had moved to the saloon and was talking to someone under the overhang. Jeeter dipped at the knees but could not see who it was.
“Please,” Ernestine said. “For my sake if you won’t do it for your own. I do not care to be a widow so soon after becoming a wife.”
Jeeter wavered. The window was a good vantage point. He could shoot anyone who tried to cross to the store. But he could not stop the lead from flying, and two dozen guns was a lot of lead. Ernestine might be hit. “All right.” He gave in. “We will do it your way.”
“Thank you,” Ernestine said, and kissed him on the cheek. “You are doing the right thing.”
Hand in hand they descended the stairs to the hall and were a few steps from the kitchen when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 29
Chester Luce saw it. He saw Lawrence Fisch jerk at his nickel-plated Remingtons, but the revolvers were not quite clear when Abe Haslett’s pistol boomed. Fisch staggered against the batwings and looked down at a hole in his shirt over his sternum, a hole that had not been there a second ago.
“You have killed me, you son of a bitch.”
“Not yet,” Abe Haslett said, and shot him again.
As shouts and yells erupted in the saloon, Lawrence Fisch slowly turned. He swatted at the batwings and shouldered on through, crying, “Help me, someone! I am done for!”
Chester was only a step away from the Southerner. He did not want to draw attention to himself, but acrid powder smoke tingled in his nose and before he could stop himself, he sneezed.
Abe Haslett looked at him, and the muzzle of Haslett’s six-shooter swung in his direction. “Somethin’ on your mind?”
“Only that he is part of a posse,” Chester said, “and they are liable to take exception.”
“A what?”
The other Hasletts had dismounted and were running toward the saloon. They stopped when Abe Haslett whirled and bellowed, “I just shot a John law! Take cover!”
Chester dived under the batwings. He rolled and collided with something that should not be there. For an instant he was nose to nose with Lawrence Fisch. Their eyes met just as the spark of life faded from Fisch’s. It made Chester think of Adolphina, dead in their kitchen, and he squawked in terror.
Strong hands gripped him by the arms and hauled Chester erect. He was surrounded by posse members, foremost among them Undersheriff Glickman, who snapped, “What in hell happened? Who shot Fisch, and why? Is Jeeter Frost out there?”
“It was a Haslett,” Chester said. “There are four of them. Rebs. Friends of the Larns.”
“But why shoot Fisch?” Seamus was thinking of how mad George Hinkle would be, to say nothing of the boy’s father.
Over at the window the butcher’s helper said, “They are shucking rifles from their saddles and taking cover. It looks like they mean to shoot it out with us.”
“But
“They don’t like people who don’t like Rebels,” was all Chester could think of to say.
Out in the street a rifle cracked and the window-pane splintered but did not shatter. Win Curry dashed from behind the bar, saying, “Stop them! They are shooting my saloon!”
Chester tore his gaze from Lawrence Fisch. “My wife is dead, too. Jeeter Frost is to blame.”
“What?” Seamus said, unsure he heard correctly.
“He killed her in our kitchen,” Chester elaborated. “I think he beat her to death.”
“You
“It must have been a terrible way to go. Better if he had stabbed her with the butcher knife or chopped her with the meat cleaver.”
“Hold on.” Too much was happening too fast for Seamus. “Are you saying Frost has been in Coffin Varnish this whole time? Is he with the schoolmarm? Why were they in your kitchen?”
“What does anyone do in a kitchen?” Chester evaded the question.
Another shot struck the window. The pane dissolved in shards, and Abe Haslett bellowed, “Poke your heads out and we will give you the same! We won’t let you take us in, do you hear?”
Seamus’s confusion grew. “Why would we want to arrest them?” he asked no one in particular. “Someone tell me what in hell is going on.”
“I wish I could,” a store clerk said. “But someone would first have to tell me.”
“I hate this stupid town,” Seamus said.
Chester heard that. “You can’t blame Coffin Varnish. This is Dodge City’s fault. Dodge got the railroad and we didn’t.”
Seamus was fit to slug someone. “So now the railroad is involved? Why not throw in prairie dogs and George Custer?”
