Read Online The big gundown by J.A. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page A

together, that was saying something.
    After looping the buckskin’s reins around a crowded hitch rail in front of Augustine’s, The Kid stepped onto the boardwalk and pushed through the batwings. Not surprisingly, it was loud and smoky inside the saloon. Chandeliers made from wagon wheels hung from the ceiling, each with half a dozen oil lamps mounted on it casting a harsh glare over the big room. The long hardwood bar ran down the right side. Poker, faro, and roulette were set up on the left. The area in between was filled with tables and chairs where miners with grimy faces and hands and equally grim clothes sat and drank so they wouldn’t think about the tedious, dangerous life they led underground. At the far end of the room, a staircase with an ornately carved banister led up to the second floor with its balcony that overhung the bar. As The Kid paused just inside the saloon’s entrance, he watched two whores in gaudy, spangled dresses leading customers upstairs, while a miner came down the stairs with a big grin on his face and fewer coins in his pocket.
    The Kid had seen dozens of saloons like this, although to be fair about it, Augustine’s was one of the biggest and best-furnished he had run across since he started drifting. Of course, it couldn’t hold a candle to some of the establishments he had patronized in Boston, New York, Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco, back when he hadn’t cared who knew that he was a rich man.
    He was still a rich man, but he didn’t flaunt his wealth now. Just like his father, the money was important to him only because it allowed him to keep drifting without having to worry about how he was going to pay for his next meal or the supplies to carry him over the next hill.
    He spotted an empty place at the bar and started toward it. It had been a long, terrible day, and he intended to chase away not only his thirst but also some of his weariness with a mug of what a sign over the bar proclaimed to be ice-cold beer.
    Before he could reach the bar, though, a man ran into his shoulder with a heavy jolt. The Kid had to take a quick step to the side to keep his balance and not fall down.
    “Watch where you’re goin’,” the man growled. He was a miner, a tall man whose shirt bulged from the massive, slab-like muscles on his arms and shoulders, muscles that had developed from years of working with a pick and shovel.
    “Maybe you’re the one who should watch your step, mister.”
    The words came out of The Kid’s mouth before he could stop them, but even if he had thought about it, he would have spoken up anyway. He had learned from Frank Morgan and from life itself not to go looking for trouble, but not to back down from it, either. The Kid came by that honestly.
    The miner stopped and swung around to glower darkly at him. “What the hell did you just say to me?” he demanded. He had a faint accent that marked him as being English. A Cornishman, maybe, The Kid judged. He had been to England several times, but he was far from an expert on the accents of people who hailed from that island nation.
    “I said you should watch your step.” The Kid nodded toward the bar. “And while we were talking, someone else got that empty spot we were both after.”
    He had guessed that was the miner’s goal, and the way the man’s head jerked toward the bar confirmed it. “Blast it!” the man said. “If you hadn’t run into me, you American lout, I’d be there drinkin’ now.”
    The Kid didn’t care for that “American lout” comment. After all, the miner was over here working in an American mine, being paid American wages. If he didn’t care for the country and its citizens, he could always go back where he came from.
    But The Kid wasn’t going to start a fight. He started to step around the miner. “There’s room for all of us.”
    The man’s hand came down hard on his shoulder. “No, there ain’t,” he said as he hauled The Kid around and swung a mallet-like fist at his