Gunslinger 04, page 5
‘You talk big.’ His voice was low and hoarse with anger. ‘When you’re holdin’ the gun. How’s it feel now?’
The bouncer whimpered, his eyes showing more red veins as they opened wide with fear.
Ryker eased down the hammer of the derringer, cradling the little pistol in his fist. He held it so that the base of the butt stuck out from under his fist. And dubbed the man twice on the side of the neck, just behind his jaw. The bouncer opened his mouth and a croaking sound came out. His eyes went blurred and his body limp. Ryker let him slump, standing up.
The girl was still huddled against the wall and the three sailors were standing wide-eyed and breathless. One rubbed at his bleeding cheek, where a stray pellet had hit him. Ryker cocked the derringer again. A sailor laughed.
‘I seen them baby pistols before, friend. You ain’t close enough to hit us.’
Ryker cursed in silence: the man was right. At anything much beyond arm’s length, the gun was wildly inaccurate. Whereas a thrown knife was not.
‘Now you really got trouble.’ The sailor was grinning evilly. And taking care to stay out of range. ‘Now you got us three an’ Henry’s pal to take care of. You got a real problem.’
Ryker turned slightly.
The bouncer guarding the door had left his station and put away his brass knuckles. In their place he was carrying an ugly-looking Tranter 80 bore pistol. Ryker knew that the old gun was a long way from being accurate, but it still had the range to outdistance his derringer; and the Navy Colt was too far away, too close to the sailors. The old gun had a double trigger, the lower hook extending beneath the main guard so that the user had to haul that back to cock the spurless hammer before putting his finger to the firing trigger.
The click of the cocking trigger sounded very loud in the silence.
‘Goddam troublemaker.’ The bouncer paced slowly forwards. ‘Now I’ll show you.’
Ryker heard the tension in the man’s voice, and recognized it as nerves, rather than anger. He glanced round, wondering if he could reach his Colt, or get up the stairs before the big pistol went off. He decided not. If the Tranter missed him, one of the sailors would get him with a knife.
He tensed, automatically plotting the best course of action.
You get yourself cornered, it's most likely because you made a mistake. Best way to correct that is to wipe out the reason for it. Times are there ain't much else you can try to do.
A cold-eyed gunhawk had said that to him once. A man who looked to be a half-breed, someone called Hedges; something like that. He had brought a gun to be repaired, a long time and a lot of memories ago, back in Settlement. Ryker had been a gunsmith then; nothing more. But the words stuck in his mind. They mostly did when they were concerned with guns and staying alive.
If you're stupid enough to get in that situation, the best way to go is forwards.
Ryker decided the man was right.
So … take a try for the Colt’s Navy sitting on the floor. Jump for that, using the derringer on the way. Maybe the slug could hit one of the sailors; at least throw them all off. The Tranter wasn’t close enough to hit and once it was fired the bouncer would need time to work the double triggers again. By then Ryker might—might!—have the Colt in his hand and a fighting chance on his side.
He dropped to a crouch, preparing to spring.
‘Oh my sweet Jesus and Mary bless me! Oh dear God! Help me! HELP ME!’
The Tranter dropped from the bouncer’s hand as his scream froze the sailors like wax dummies in a museum. The gun bounced on the floor. Ryker threw himself backwards onto the stairs, but the pistol didn’t go off. Instead, it skittered over the planks as the bouncer crumpled forwards. His knees bent and he pitched onto his face, his arms reaching round behind him, scrabbling at his back.
Where a hatchet was planted haft-deep in his spine.
It was a small hatchet, the shaft no more than six or seven inches long, all wrapped with colored ribbon that twitched and fluttered as the man writhed on the dirty floor, trying to get his hands to where he could pull it loose.
He arched his back, his whole torso lifting clear of the floor as his toes drummed a dying beat on the planks. He roiled to one side and got a hand on the shaft. Then his arm sprang out like an uncoiling spring and he screamed as he jerked and smashed his face against the planks. Dead.
A sailor swung his arm upwards and down, releasing a bright-shining glitter of well-honed blade at Ryker’s chest.
A wheeling, spinning thing caught the blade two feet from Ryker. He heard the sharp clang of metal on metal, and saw a second axe bed deep in the woodwork of the stairwell as the thrown knife spun uselessly away.
Four Chinese walked into the saloon. They wore clean linen shirts and wide, white pants, around which were belted wide leather straps with loops set into the leather. Most of the loops carried hatchets. Two of them held an axe in both hands, the others had only one apiece. The three sailors stared at them in horror. Ryker noticed that the girl was smiling now.
‘Back off, Chink.’ The sailor who had first grabbed the girl stepped forwards. Incongruously, Ryker remembered that his accent was from a town in England called Birmingham. ‘You’re dealin’ with Larry James, an’ he ain’t a man to fool with.’
He held his knife ready to throw.
‘Go home, Mr. James.’ The leading Chinaman spoke perfect English. ‘You have made enough trouble.’
‘Gerrahell!’ James’ accent got a whole lot thicker as he got madder. ‘I ain’t backin’ down to no Chink.’
As he said it, he flipped his knife down into his palm and darted forwards, aiming a gut thrust at the Chinaman’s ribcage.
The Oriental stepped aside with almost casual grace, deflecting the knife with the head of the axe in his right hand. He turned James’s blade upwards, forcing the Englishman to extend his arm. Then he twisted the hatchet and drove it down in a wide-swinging curve into James’s stomach. The sailor gasped, almost loud enough to drown out the soggy, cutting sound of the axe head splitting his belly. The Chinaman twisted the blade and pulled it loose. It came out with a long spill of entrails hanging off. James screamed. He doubled over, and the axe-man smashed the hatchet down into the back of his skull.
The sailor fell with wide-open eyes that couldn’t see anymore. He hit the sawdust with the dull thud of a body devoid of life.
His companions were staring in amazement. So was Ryker’s derringer still cradled in his hand.
The other knife-carrying sailor threw his blade. It was as good a throw as Ryker had ever seen; fast, straight, and true. But it missed because the Oriental ducked and caught the knife with his bloody hatchet. It was almost casual, as though he swept a troublesome fly aside, except that his arm went on swinging and released the axe in a whirling blur of light that ended where the sailor’s face began.
The man slammed back against the wall, close to the girl, and began to slump down the pine panels. Ryker saw that the hatchet was imbedded between his eyes. It had hit just above his nose, splitting his skull from hairline to eyebrows. Blood trickled out from either side of the blade, running like red tears over eyes and cheeks, dripping onto the lifeless chest with a thin, slow drip.
The third sailor dropped his billy club and ran.
The Chinese watched him go; all the way to the back end of the saloon, where he found the door locked.
He pounded on the woodwork while the whole saloon looked on, staring with the same kind of interest a vulture shows in a faltering horse that it senses is dying, waiting for the last moment when it can spiral down out of the sky and eat its fill with nothing to stop it. The sailor turned with his back to the wall. His swarthy face was streaked now, with tears, and his lips worked furiously to produce the high-pitched weeping sound that seemed to come up from the pit of his stomach.
‘Help me!’ His voice was shrill and breaking. ‘For Chrissakes! Someone help me.’
No one moved.
Except the three Chinese walking soft as cats stalking a mouse down the length of the saloon.
‘Oh God! Won’t anyone help me?’
The sailor left bloody furrows down the wood of the door, like a cornered rat trying to scratch its way to safety.
The Chinese halted, waiting. Their leader, still standing with his blood-stained hatchet in his right hand, called something in his own language. They nodded, and moved.
It all happened almost too fast to follow. Ryker had never seen an edged weapon used with such efficiency as these men employed, not even amongst the Apache.
An arm lifted. Swung down to release a glittering, bright-ribboned axe.
The blade caught the sailor in one upflung hand. It crashed through the palm, pinning his hand to the door. He screamed. Then screamed again as a second hatchet drove his left hand against the wood. One of the Chinese laughed. Then the remaining Chinese hurled three of the small axes with the rapidity of a fast-action gun. The sounds were loud and sickening. Like the hollow thudding of a woodsman’s blade against a rotten log. The sailor stopped screaming. Mostly because the first hatchet split his mouth apart, driving between his teeth to sunder his lower jaw and leave him gaping squint-eyed at the blade sticking out from his mouth. The second sank deep into his chest. Ryker heard the sound of his clavicle shattering. The third dug into his ribcage, just over the heart.
The sailor would have fallen to the floor, but his pinned hands held him upright, so that he hung there with blood pumping out over his face and arms and chest. His legs jerked once and after that he dangled like a discarded puppet.
The hatchetmen tugged their weapons free, wiped them on the sailor’s stained clothes, and paced back along the saloon.
Still no one spoke or moved.
Ryker waited.
It seemed like a long wait. And a longer way still to the Colt’s Navy resting on the floor.
‘Pick up your gun, Mr. Ryker.’ In the mouth of the young Chinese Ryker’s name came out with an ‘L’ sound, all slurred into Mirster Lyker. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ryker. ‘That’s quite a relief.’
The Chinaman smiled, and for the first time, Ryker realized that he was good-looking and couldn’t be much over twenty.
‘We have no quarrel with you. You tried to help and for that we are grateful.’ It sounded like glatefur. Ryker picked up his belt and hung it back round his waist. ‘It is not often a Westerner helps one of us.’
‘Well,’ said Ryker, feeling a whole lot more comfortable with his pistol back on, ‘they weren’t exactly Americans. That one,’ he inclined his head at the gutted body of the sailor called Larry James, ‘said they came from England. A place called Birmingham, I think.’
The Chinaman shrugged. ‘You are all Westerners to us. It is difficult to tell you apart.’
Ryker had no answer to that, so he shrugged and finished belting on his gun.
‘No matter,’ added the Chinese. ‘You tried to help Tsai Lu and for that we owe you a debt of gratitude. I shall try to repay it.’
He called something to the girl, who left her position by the wall and came over to him. For several minutes they spoke a babble of sing-song talk that Ryker could not understand. Then the girl turned away, smiling, and walked over to him.
‘Tsai Lu has suggested a means of thanking you, Mr. Ryker,’ said the young Chinese. ‘I think you will appreciate it. Have joy of her.’
He went over to the bouncer with the Tranter and set a slippered foot on the man’s back. His hatchet tore free with a crisp, nauseating sound, exposing the wide gap in the man’s spine.
‘You others!’ His voice rose to carry down the saloon. ‘You remember what happens to men who try to play with our girls.’
The saloon stayed quiet as he walked out at the head of his little column.
‘Come.’ The girl tugged urgently at Ryker’s sleeve. ‘Best we go now. Before they get angry. They always get angry with us. Now they get angry with you, because you help me. Best we both go before they take it all out.’
Ryker looked at her. Then at the blood-stained saloon. What she said made sense, and the last part put ideas in his head. He let her lead him through the swing doors into the warm night.
She led him away from the Lonely Digger into a maze of backstreets without speaking any more. She seemed anxious to get him clear and he went along with it, reasoning it all out as he traversed the garbage-laden streets in the direction he guessed would take them to Chinatown.
Whether or not the girl was a whore he wasn’t sure any more. That the men who came to her—and his, dammit!—rescue belonged to one of the Tongs Anthony had spoken of, he was certain. They had known exactly what they were doing. Used those funny little axes as efficiently as he used a gun. And commanded enough respect, or fear, to quell a saloon full of armed men. Men armed with cap and ball guns for the most part; not knives or throwing hatchets. That spoke for a large degree of naked fear.
Or commonsense.
He followed Tsai Lu down a rancid alley and up a narrow staircase.
‘My home.’ She turned, smiling. ‘Welcome, Mr. Ryker.’
With one hand on the lady and one hand on his gun Ryker followed her inside.
Chapter Five
THE ROOM WAS small, about half the size of some of the meaner cabins Ryker had seen in the Arizona territory.
There were five people inside. An old man with rheumy eyes and a silver pigtail angling down his back; an old woman whose face was so wrinkled Ryker could barely tell it from the man’s; a girl of about nine who stared at him from eyes the same color and shape as Tsai Lu’s; and two babies swathed in blankets inside a wooden cot hung from the wall above the old man. A small stove burned at the center of the room with a big, black metal dish set on top. The old woman stirred it without stopping as they came in. It gave off a succulent odor that Ryker couldn’t identify.
Tsai Lu smiled at them and said things in Chinese that brought appreciative nodding from the old folks and a wild gurgling from the child, who stared after Ryker as he disappeared through the inner door.
The second room was fractionally larger. It needed to be, because it held three beds. At least Ryker assumed they were beds. They were about the size of a stretched-out body, but looked more like rough mattresses with wooden blocks at the head of each.
After that came a short flight of stairs leading up to a narrow catwalk, like the balcony of a whorehouse, except that it was open to the sky, looking down on a small, dim courtyard where women in black robes washed cloths amidst the squalling of black-haired babies.
All around was the smell of frying rice, and other odors Ryker couldn’t identify. He thought he caught the soft, greasy odor of soap, the sharp tang of urine, the blankety smell of dirty linen, and a sweeter, more pungent odor that was vaguely akin to tobacco. It was hard to tell, so he followed the girl along the catwalk in silence, trailing her into the room she opened with a tiny key produced from between her breasts,
This room was no larger than the first he had seen, but emptier and cleaner. There was a sweet smell inside that seemed to come from two little trays set to either side of the place with tiny pyramids of some brownish stuff burning on them. The pyramids gave off thin curls of smoke that carried the scent of lemons through the room. The walls were covered with a fine, yellowish paper on which were painted bright figures of men and women and animals he had never seen before. The floor was covered with some kind of rough matting that looked to be made from dried reeds, except at the center where a bright-dyed carpet was piled with cushions, like a gaudy bed.
Tsai Lu tugged on a drawstring at the far wall and a section of apparently solid wall rolled up to let in a filter of moonlight. Ryker closed the door.
‘Welcome,’ she said demurely. ‘Welcome to my home.’
She was lithe and brown and beautiful, and Ryker wondered what kind of paradise he had walked into. Somehow, within the confines of the tiny room, she was no longer a saloon girl, but a lady. A woman, giving because she wanted to give.
And Ryker took what she offered with a ready eagerness that was not entirely due to the pent-up frustration caused by his long abstinence.
She turned from the window with a slow, lazy smile on her face. One hand reached up behind her back and, with a slight sighing of unfastened strings akin to the swish of the window blind, her dress fell away. A second deft movement, and the drawstrings of her underwear let the lacey hose fall about her ankles.
Ryker stared.
The girl smiled. ‘I put on a robe while you get ready. I have one for you, too.’
She turned away to a tiny cupboard he hadn’t noticed before and drew out two colorful garments. One she pulled around her body, the silken material emphasizing the contours perhaps even more than when she had been naked. The other she tossed at Ryker.
‘Why you not undress? You feel ashamed?’
‘The hell I do,’ grunted Ryker.
And stripped himself down faster than a man with skunk spray on his clothes.
He pulled on the robe she had set out for him. It was soft and black, with a curly-tongued, lizard-like animal painted across the chest, its fire-breathing nostrils lancing crimson darts over his groin.
Ryker felt that the painted flames were pointing away from the volcano mound pushing the skimpy cloth outwards. The girl saw it, and laughed.
‘You want me, Mr. Ryker? You look like hot-blooded dragon.’
‘Call me Jack.’
It was all he had time to say before he grabbed her and threw her down onto the piled cushions.
She was lithe and brown and beautiful.
Her skin tasted of honey, her lips Hire full, ripe peaches. Her breasts were swelling cones of soft, sweet flesh, and when Ryker touched them they swelled to meet him, the nipples hardening to tiny brown thimbles of ecstatic temptation. He bit them gently, and she writhed, grinding the rough, curly hairs of her lower belly against him.
