Black Hats by Patrick Culhane Read Free Book Online Page B

show the Cowboys that the marshal was not there to murder them—after all, his gun hand was filled with a harmless cane.
    Not approving of this strategy—why was Behan afraid the Cowboys would murder them, if he’d disarmed the group?—Wyatt withdrew his pistol from its holster and stuck it in his overcoat pocket, and kept his hand clamped on the handle, finger on the outer trigger guard.
    As the Earps approached, the Cowboys disappeared deeper into the vacant lot. Clearing the corner of Fly’s Photography Shop, Wyatt could only see about half a horse….
    But as the lawmen advanced, the Cowboys came into view again—standing in a row but with Ike out front, his baby-faced brother Billy with a hand on his holstered sixgun, Frank McLaury, too, his horse behind him. Tom McLaury stood next to his horse with a hand on the Winchester rifle in its saddle scabbard. Squared-faced, sad-eyed, modestly mustached men, the McLaury brothers, like the Earps, were all but indistinguishable.
    The wind spoke first, blowing dust and snow and howling apparent disapproval; then Virgil addressed the Cowboy contingency in a loud, business-like manner.
    “Boys, raise up your hands. I want your guns. You know the ordinance.”
    Palms still on the butts of their six-shooters, Billy and Frank thumb-cocked the holstered weapons, and even against the wind the klik! klik ! stood out.
    At the same time, Ike’s right hand was drifting toward his loose shirt, unbuttoned at the breast.

    Tightly, Wyatt said, “You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight. Now you can have it….”
    “ Hold on !” Virgil said, raising the cane, revealing the other hand empty of any weapon. “I don’t want that.”
    Too late: Billy Clanton began to jerk his gun.
    Wyatt whipped his long-barreled Colt from the overcoat pocket, but did not take aim at Billy, who was a punk kid and not much of a marksman; the one to get rid of was Frank McLaury, a crack shot and dangerous.
    So Wyatt gut-shot Frank, who managed not to fall by holding on to the reins of his nearby horse, while Billy indeed missed, and the gunshots spooked Tom’s horse so bad, its owner couldn’t get a grip on that Winchester. Scrambling behind the nervous horse, Tom got his pistol out and fired over the horse’s back, twice.
    One bullet struck Morgan, who yelled, “I’m hit!”
    Wyatt said, “Get behind me,” and put a few bullets into Billy, as gray-white gunsmoke drifted like fog in the cramped vacant lot and lent the frenzied fight a dream-like haze.
    Shotgun in his hands, Doc moved into the lot, upper lip peeled back in a ghastly smile, and closed in on Tom behind the fishtailing horse and let go both barrels, catching the Cowboy under the right armpit, sending him screaming and staggering but, somehow, Tom had enough left to sway out into the street.
    Doc pitched the shotgun and switched to his more familiar nickel-plated revolver, and threw shots at Billy Clanton, who seemed to be everywhere, shooting at everyone, hitting nobody.
    Meantime Virgil had shifted the cane to his left hand and yanked his Colt and started shooting, once at Frank, three times at Billy, one catching the kid in the belly, though the boy kept moving, kept shooting. Gut-shot Frank, leading his horse by the reins, stumbled toward the street, firing along the way. Tom’s horse, ever out of control, provided an inadvertent shield for the other Cowboys, and in this moment Ike ran up to Wyatt and clutched his arm, the booze on his breath, the red in his eyes, matched by the terror in his face.
    “Don’t kill me!” he sputtered; spittle had frozen on his goatee like little icicles. “Please don’t kill me….”
    Wyatt pushed him away, seeing the man held no weapon, and said, “This fight has commenced, Ike—get a gun, or get away.”
    Ike scrambled out of the lot and into Fly’s, leaving behind him the continuing carnage that he’d so recklessly instigated. Claiborne was gone, too, and now so were the horses,