Hangtown Hellcat by Jon Sharpe

wrath.”
    Both men found enough hand- and footholds to climb quickly down to the floor of the gulch in the generous light of a full moon. They shucked out their six-shooters. Fargo found the latchstring out and cautiously pushed the slab door open. The house had a narrow center hallway running its length with candles burning in brass wall sconces. Curtained archways opened off both sides. They could hear feminine voices conversing from the central room on the right.
    Fargo nodded at Buckshot and they advanced on cat feet, Fargo wincing each time one of the floorboards creaked. They paused in front of the expensive damask curtains. Fargo recognized the musical lilt of the woman who had tantalized them during her erotic bath.
    “I’ve assured you repeatedly, Jasmine, that the prisoners are not being abused. And certainly you are not. You’re young and pretty, and I brought you to live with me for your protection, not so I’d have a servant. Your husband would still be alive if he had not foolishly resisted. Trying to pull a gun on a gang of armed men was certainly not the brightest decision of his life, was it? All of my men are under strict orders to avoid killing whenever possible.”
    “I’ve heard you give that order, Miss Lavoy, but I was there! Butch McDade is a liar! Jimmy had a gun, yes, but he never drew it. The moment Butch found it on him, he murdered him in cold blood.”
    “Well, I won’t defend Butch. He’d shoot a nun for her gold tooth. He is mean and low and spiteful, the brooding kind that holds a grudge until it hollers for its mama. And I admit that most of the men in this gulch have oozed out of ‘the pitch that defileth.’ I am truly sorry about Jimmy. But right now the vermin in Hangtown are useful tools for me.”
    For me.
Fargo glanced at Buckshot, who nodded to show he had heard. So that was the gait—everybody in the gulch was feeding at the same trough, and this was their linchpin, all right. Nor had either man missed the fateful word “Hangtown.”
    Fargo inserted the muzzle of his Colt between the overlapping curtains and began to nudge one aside. Suddenly he felt a blow like a mule kick to his head, saw a bright orange starburst, and his world shut down to black oblivion.
    *   *   *
    Fargo drifted in and out of patchy fog trying to claw his way back to the surface of awareness. He could hear voices, but not words. Finally his quivering eyelids twitched open.
    His head throbbed like a Pawnee war drum, and when he tried to move, pain jolted through him. He was seated in a comfortable chair, his short gun, ammo belt, and Arkansas toothpick missing. The first thing he registered was a pleasant room featuring red plush furniture with fancy knotted fringes.
    And then four sets of eyes watching him as if he were a piece of curiosa in a museum.
    “Well,” the brunette beauty greeted him, “Skye Fargo—a prince among knaves. Poor as Job’s turkey but so utterly handsome.”
    There was a groan to his left as Buckshot began to regain awareness.
    “You’re both quite lucky,” the brunette told Fargo in her musical voice. “El Burro and Norton are quite protective of me, and normally they would have decapitated you on the spot with their machetes. But I suspected you might be…visiting soon. So I gave them orders to simply incapacitate you so we might visit.”
    Wincing, Fargo sat up a little straighter. The pain in his head far surpassed his worst cheap-whiskey hangover.
    “I do appreciate that, Miss Lavoy.”
    “So you know my name? May I inquire how you learned it?”
    Fargo was still groggy, but not stupid enough to admit he had spied on her while she bathed. “Well, I heard this blond lass here call you Miss Lavoy. I don’t know your front name.”
    “It’s Jennifer although I prefer Jenny. The denizens of Hangtown have dubbed me Little Britches, a name I detest but tolerate. ‘The Trailsman,’ however, is a very fine nickname.”
    Fargo took her pleasing measure from