Outlaw Hell by Len Levinson Read Free Book Online Page B

tonight. Sorry.”
    â€œDon't you like girls?”
    â€œNot interested right now.”
    She wore gypsy earrings and a rhinestone necklace, and the tops of her wrinkled smallish breasts were visible. She had three black stumps remaining in her mouth. “I'll show you a real good time.”
    â€œI'm sure you would, but I'm waiting for somebody.”
    The whore opened her mouth to reply, when a shot rang out behind the saloon. Duane yanked his gun and dived to the floor, and was joined by other outlaws and waitresses on the way down. The bartenderpeered fearfully out the back window. “Looks like somebody got shot!”
    Duane aimed his gun before him, hammer back and ready to fire. Whores, outlaws, and vaqueros arose cautiously around him. The bartender opened the rear door and looked toward the privy. Then he moved cautiously toward the dark figure bleeding on the ground in front of it. “It's Amos Twilby!”
    Duane pushed through the crowd, gun in hand, heart beating wildly. He erupted outside and saw the bartender kneeling over a prostrate figure on the ground.
    â€œShot in back of the head,” the bartender said. “Wonder what kind of low-down varmint'd do a thing like that?”
    Obviously he'd been bushwhacked from behind. But why? Duane kneeled beside the grisly shattered head of his newest friend, and felt nauseated, his brow furrowed with confusion. It made no sense. “What'll happen to him now?” Duane managed to ask.
    â€œCemetery,” replied the bartender. “You a friend of his?”
    â€œThat's right. Who d'ya think did it?”
    The bartender shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”
    Duane tried to calm his uprooted mind and think it through. Evidently, someone had been waiting for Twilby to come out of the privy, then coldly and deliberately bushwhacked him from behind. Duane needed a drink to settle himself down.

    â€œAt least he died with his boots on,” somebody said. “Somebody grab his arms, I'll take his legs, and we'll carry ‘im to the undertaker.”
    Duane reached for Twilby's wrists, and a stranger carried Twilby's legs. The dude wore a frock coat, stovepipe hat, and salt-and-pepper beard. “Who're you?” Duane asked.
    â€œMy name's Burkett, and I've got a gunsmith shop. I wonder why somebody shot the poor son of a bitch?”
    â€œYour guess is as good as mine,” Duane replied, trying to digest the hideous deed. “You know him long?”
    â€œA few years.”
    â€œHe have any enemies?”
    â€œWho don't have enemies? But I can't think of anybody who'd shoot ‘im, except maybe one of them fellers you had a beef with earlier tonight, Mister Pecos Kid.”
    Suddenly the plot came together in Duane's convoluted mind. The outlaws had taken his table, then tried to kill him. Duane fought back, shot one, and the others retreated to plan their next move. They'd eliminated Twilby first, with Duane next on their list, but they wouldn't just walk up to him and start shooting. They'd catch him when he wasn't looking, as they did Twilby.
    The crowd was dispersing back to the saloons. It was another random, senseless killing in a border town, with no apparent cause, no justice, and no mercy. Duane and Burkett lugged Twilby's corpsedown a dark alley strewn with whisky bottles, and came to a house that carried a sign above the door: Caleb Snodgras, Undertaker.
    Burkett kicked the door, and it was opened promptly by a tall thin man with deep-set eyes, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black string tie. “I heard the shooting and figured you'd be here directly. It's turning out to be a busy night. Right this way, please.”
    They followed the undertaker down the corridor to a small room with four cots. On one of them lay the naked corpse of Jones, the owlhoot shot by Duane earlier, washed clean of blood, with a red hole in the middle of his chest. A medicinal odor filled the room. The