Read Online Damnation Road by Max McCoy - Free Book Online Page A

released it. She fell in a heap on the floor, clutching her hand.
    â€œThere,” the cowboy said, walking wildly in a circle “Are you happy, pappy? You’d better watch your step with me, old man, or you just might get all busted up.”
    He lunged at Gamble with a feigned punch, but Gamble did not flinch.
    â€œYou think you’re tough,” Gamble said, “but you’re not. You’re just drunk. You work on one of the big spreads in the Nations, probably the Miller brothers, and maybe you impress the girls in town, but you’re not a real cowboy. You wouldn’t have held a candle to any of the men that came up the Chisholm Trail twenty-five or thirty years ago.”
    â€œHow the hell do you know?”
    â€œI was there,” Gamble said. “For a season or two, anyway. I was about your age and so full of shit that my eye damned near turned brown. But that’s one of the advantages of a long life—you get over that.”
    â€œYou’re as old and washed up and as full of it as my Pa.”
    â€œMaybe. But that doesn’t change the fact that you aren’t as tough as you think. You wouldn’t have been good enough to ride the river with any of the men I knew back then.”
    The cowboy grinned drunkenly and looked over at his friends, but Gamble was keeping an eye on his right hand. His fingers were hanging too loose and too close to the bone-handled Colt.
    â€œThing is, I don’t have to be as tough as those old boys,” he said. “I just have to be tougher than you.”
    The cowboy whirled around while trying to pull the gun out of the fancy holster. The front sight caught on a loop of leather stitching, the half-cocked hammer fell, and the gun discharged. The cowboy fell to the floor, a .45-caliber slug in his thigh.
    â€œSonuvabitch,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I think my leg is broken.”
    Gamble was half out of his chair, the Manhattan in his left hand, the hammer drawn. The cowboy’s friends were standing around the craps table, motionless.
    â€œI should kill you,” Gamble said, then gently lowered the hammer on the Manhattan and placed it on the table. “But I won’t. I want you to live to be fifty or sixty years old and have some punk come try you and see how it feels to be called old and washed-up when you know that you are one cold and sober second away from having to splatter that kid’s brains all over the floor. You will remember that, won’t you?”
    â€œYes, sir,” the cowboy said. He had wrapped his hands over the wound and was watching the blood spurt from between his fingers. “I’ll remember, I promise.”
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?” Gamble asked. “Get him out of here. Find a doctor or a vet or a dentist, I don’t care which.”
    His friends grabbed the cowboy by his boots and under his arms and carried him toward the door.
    â€œTake the gun,” Gamble said.
    One of them scrambled back, snatched the bone-handled Colt from the floor, and ran out. The door slammed behind him with a clap.
    It was suddenly silent in the tent. The pit man, a scruffy-looking character with wire-rimmed glasses and a bowler hat, used the stick to scratch his head.
    â€œChrist,” Buell said, uncorking a bottle of rye and pouring himself a shot. “You sure know how to break up a game of craps. Them boys was good customers. I should have stuck to the five dollars an hour.”
    The woman walked slowly over to Gamble and placed a hand on his arm.
    â€œThanks,” she said.
    â€œDon’t thank me.”
    â€œOh, but I must.”
    She wet her lips, then leaned down to whisper in his ear.
    â€œHow about a poke?”
    â€œPass,” Gamble said.
    â€œA blowjob, then. You can’t turn that down.”
    â€œWatch me.”
    She stroked his cheek.
    â€œDo you prefer boys?”
    â€œThat’s revolting,” Buell called from