Forty Times a Killer Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed mildly amused, but the majority were openly hostile and stared at us with a mix of disapproval and disdain.
    â€œI’m here to see Sam’l Luck,” Wes called out again.
    After that, things got rapidly out of hand.
    The beautiful officer marched into the dining room, a riding crop in his hand. He grabbed Wes by the shoulder and yelled, “Out you go, my buck.”
    â€œYou tell him, Custer!” a man yelled. And people laughed.
    â€œWho the hell are you?” Wes said, his eyebrows drawing together.
    Custer knew he had a captive, adoring audience and made a grandstand play. “General George Armstrong Custer,” he grandly announced. “And I’m the equal of an ’undred, nay, a thousand, of you.”
    As he knew it would, this bold statement drew a round of applause and cheers, and, amid the loud huzzahs, I heard yells of, “Give him hell, General!” and “Remember the Washita!”
    Wes hated Yankee soldiers, was widely believed to have shot several, and he took a set against Custer. His hands blurred and an instant later the muzzles of two blue Colts pushed into the blue belly of Custer’s frockcoat. “Back off, soldier boy.” His voice was as cold as death.
    Looking back, I have to give Custer credit. The man had sand. He wasn’t too smart, but he had bark on him and he didn’t even blink.
    â€œPull those triggers and you’ll hang like the damned Rebel dog you are,” he said.
    â€œMight just be worth it,” Wes said, smiling.
    Oh sweet Jesu!
    John Wesley’s knuckles were white on the triggers and America was about to lose a hero.
    â€œGeneral Custer!” A small, frail black man stood up at his corner table. In the sudden hush that followed, he said, “Please allow the gentlemen to draw closer to me without harm or hindrance.”
    He’d phrased that request so that Custer could extricate himself without losing face.
    But I still don’t know how things would have ended had a pale young waitress, in extremis , not dropped a tray of dirty dishes that clattered and crashed onto the wood floor.
    The sudden clamor broke the spell that had plunged the room into silence.
    Custer took advantage of it. He lowered his riding crop and said to Wes, “I’ll deal with you later, sir.” Then he swung on his heel and stomped away, his spurred boots chiming.
    Wes grinned, spun his Colts, and let them thud into their shoulder holsters. “There goes a lucky man.”
    Custer wasn’t the only one who loved to make a grandstand play.
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    Sam Luck, for indeed that was the identity of the delicate little black man, waved us over to his table.
    Wes sashayed across the room like a new rooster in the hen house and basked in the crowd’s attention.
    He didn’t deign to hear, or chose to ignore, the hear-hears after one fat Yankee with broken veins all over his nose and cheeks called out, “We should hang the rascal.”
    But when Luck ushered us into chairs, the diners settled down and the normal buzz of conversation and the clink of cutlery resumed.
    I’d formed a picture in my mind of what Sam Luck would look like, a big-bellied, shiny-faced black man in a loud checkered suit smoking a fat cigar the better to show off the diamond ring on his little finger.
    He was none of those things.
    Luck was tiny, spare, dusty and worn, like a leather-bound book on a disused library shelf. His skin was coffee-colored, his eyes small and dark as raisins, and his mouth was a thin gash, tight, hard, and mean.
    The black broadcloth he wore, once expensive, was much frayed and stained and his linen was yellow with age.
    Withal, he was a very unimpressive figure . . . but for the most singular scar that marred his forehead. The letter R had been burned into his skin with a hot iron. The brand was fairly small—I could have covered it with a silver dollar—but it was sharp and deep.
    I recognized it