Town Tamers Read Online Free PDF Page A

percent.”
    “Do they?”
    “Need you ask, especially after this?” Tandy gestured at the parlor. “Ed and Myrtle were well-liked. He was the one brought us the idea of hiring you after Madeline wrote to him.”
    “All of you agreed then and there?”
    “Well, no,” Tandy admitted. “Some of us balked. You ask an exorbitant fee, or so we felt at the time.”
    “And now?”
    “I just told you. We back you one hundred percent.”
    Asa regarded him a few moments. “Make it clear to them. There’s no backing out. Make sure they understand that I always finish what I start, no matter how much they might complain.”
    “Why would they complain? We sent for you. We paid you half in advance. We want the job done as much as you do.”
    “I doubt that.”
    “It’s our town, Mr. Delaware. We’ve had to live with those curly wolves running roughshod over us for far too long. They shot our marshal and do as they damn well please, and they have to be stopped.”
    “I’ll stop them.”
    “You’re one man against many.” Tandy glanced at the soft leather case. “Even with that, I don’t see how you can do it.”
    “I have a secret.”
    “Care to share it?”
    “No.” Asa moved to the door and gripped the latch. “One last thing. This town have an undertaker?”
    “Sure. His name is Sam Wannamaker.”
    “Have him send word to the Circle K. Have him tell them that he wants them to come in so he can fit them for coffins.”
    “Do what now?”
    “You heard me.” Asa opened the door.
    “Hold on,” Tandy said. “If Sam does that, they’ll want to know why. What should he tell them?”
    “He’s to say that Asa Delaware asked him to.”
    “Sam is to say who you are?”
    “He is.”
    “Is that wise? They’re not stupid. Some of them will have heard of you and will put two and two together.”
    “That’s the idea.”
    “You
want
them to come looking for you?”
    Ada nodded. “Saves me the trouble of going to them.”
    “And then you’ll kill them?”
    “When the time comes,” Asa said, “I’ll kill them as dead as can be.”

10

    T he evening’s festivities were in full swing for the middle of the week when Noona Not came out of the back of the Whiskey Mill and sashayed to the bar. The men lining it and those at the tables stopped what they were doing to gape. She was an eyeful, and she knew it.
    Lustrous black hair hung to the small of her back. Her eyes were a lovely hazel, her body an hourglass. Her red lips formed a perpetual pout and made her all the more enticing. Grinning in amusement, she turned in a circle and airily asked, “What do you think, barkeep?”
    “You look like a whore,” Byron Gordon said.
    Noona laughed. “That was poetical.”
    “I don’t like it, and you know it.”
    “You never do.”
    A townsman half in his cups sobered enough to ask, “What are you two talkin’ about?”
    “Nothing,” Byron snapped. “Go back to drinking.”
    “Bite a man’s head off, why don’t you.”
    “Careful,” Noona said.
    “I always am,” Byron replied irritably, and moved down the bar to pour for another customer.
    “He’s a mite prickly tonight,” the townsman said to Noona.
    “Not just tonight.” Noona smiled sweetly, clapped the man on the arm, and moved to a table where four others were playing poker. She leaned on the table and said, “Having fun, gents?”
    “We are now,” a husky said.
    “We’re awful glad that Tandy brought you in, ma’am,” remarked another.
    “You’re just what this place needs,” commented the third.
    “I bet you say that to all the gals,” Noona said.
    “I wish,” the man said. “My wife would kill me if she heard me compliment another female.”
    Noona laughed and moved to the next table. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Byron glowering at her, and she shot him a glance to warn him. She would have thought by now he was used to it but he always was too protective.
    She made small talk and did more teasing, and when she