Boon by Ed Kurtz (top 100 books to read .txt) 📕

anymore, which seemed equal parts blessing and curse. The upshot of it was I was able to gather my senses enough to focus on the task at hand. Namely, getting that son of a bitch off of me and his gun away from him.

It was easier than I reckoned it would be. I took the beating long enough that it gave the old boy a right smart of security that I would not fight back. He had me licked, at least as far as he was concerned, so that when I snatched the six-shooter from the rig he had cinched around his waist he hardly did anything but gawp.

My hand curled around that grip fair nicely, and though my eyes were half-swollen shut and I was half-blind with tears, I managed to stick the barrel right under his chin and I sort of smiled. His hands went up sort of instinctively.

I said, “We done here?”

He went for the gun. I wished he hadn’t done that. I shot him, the bullet exiting the top of his head and his eyeballs rolling back as the whites turned red. He slumped down on me. I rolled him off into the mud and spent a couple of difficult minutes rocking back and forth, trying to right myself. That fellow sure gave me a hellacious drubbing and I was beginning to feel it all over again.

I was dizzy on my feet. The world tilted and spun. I figured that made us just about even: one solid shooter on each side, one impaired. Then I remembered that Boon had a hole in her back. It was what it was. I shrugged it off and crept slowly around the side of the shack to the front.

Sam still sat his mount. The other fellow was crouched on the ground behind a rock, balancing his pistol on the surface with an unsure left hand. Both fired on the cabin until they were empty. Then the injured man vanished behind the rock and Sam wheeled around to the other side of the cabin while they both reloaded.

I checked the hogleg I’d taken off the corpse back of the cabin. Double-action five-shot, two in the cylinder. I cried out, “Boon!”

And ran out front, my boots splashing in the muck. The man behind the rock poked his head up. I fired, but the ball struck the rock instead of him, kicking up a column of dust and pebbles. Sam gigged his horse back to the fray, his iron trained on me. The front door slammed open and Boon spun out of it, shooting before Sam knew she was there. He got hit in the side and dropped out of the saddle. His mount didn’t move, so Boon hurried over and slapped it on the backside. Off the horse went, snorting its complaint, and Boon loomed over Sam on the ground with the Colt trained on his face.

“Hi, Sam,” she said.

Sam spat. I kept my eyes on the rock.

“Sam?” the man called out. “Hey, Sam?”

“She got me dead to rights, Lem,” Sam said. Though he hadn’t let go of his gun.

“That’s my brother there,” Lem called back. “Can’t let you kill my brother.”

“Seems like your brother was fixing to kill me,” Boon countered.

“Ain’t personal.”

“Is to me.”

“Christ in Heaven, woman,” Lem said. “It’s just a God damned job.”

“For Arthur Stanley?”

Lem did not respond to that. Boon kicked the revolver from Sam’s hand and spun her .44 ’round so that the butt jutted out. Then she smashed it against Sam’s forehead.

Sam hollered.

“For Arthur Stanley?” she asked Sam.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Where did he hire you? At the Palace?”

“Naw. Custom house.”

“That right,” she said. “Why there?”

“Why, he’s the collector.”

He said it like it was common knowledge and that he couldn’t believe Boon so stupid as to not know it. She knew it now. She looked both astonished and like it was the most expected thing in the world at the same time.

“He’s the Customs Collector, Edward.”

“I heard.”

“Guess that means he’s the boss of what can or can’t come through port.”

“Reckon it does, Boon.”

She nudged Sam in the ribs with the toe of her shoe.

“Stanley own any other whorehouses besides the Palace?”

“You kidding?” Sam said, wincing. “A shit-load of ’em.”

“Quite the mack,” I said.

“A mack who controls the human chattel he deals in,” she said coldly.

“Your pa ain’t a very nice man.”

Boon’s eyes flashed on me.

Sam said, “Your pa? Christ.”

Lem shouted, “Sam? What’s going on, Sam?”

“What’s going on is you ought to shoot these fucking people, God damn it.”

“I won’t let them kill you.”

“You shoot,” Boon said, “and Sam will die.”

“I believe this is called an impasse,” I offered.

“Shut up, Edward,” Boon said.

I shrugged. I’d heard her say it once or twice and it felt good to use it myself.

“Toss out that iron, Lem,” she said. “And come on out of there with your hands where I can see them.”

“I can’t hardly even lift the right one,” he said. “You shot me.”

“I surely did. Do what I told you or I will shoot your brother in the mouth and then I will come for you.”

“God Almighty,” Lem whined. “You are sure a mean woman.”

“What about Watts,” Sam said.

“That your other man?” Boon said.

Sam nodded.

I said, “Watts ain’t no help to you anymore.”

“Dead?” Sam asked.

“Dead.”

“You are both damned bastards and cocksuckers,” he spat. “Hey, Lem—they killed Watts.”

“God damn it,” Lem said from his hidey-spot.

“I wish that son of a bitch told me what bastards you are,” Sam lamented.

“Damned inconvenient when folks shoot back,” Boon said.

“Want I should start shooting, Sam?” Lem said. “I reckon I can get ’em.”

“Not before this bitch does me,” Sam said.

“Impasse,” I said.

Lem said, “Oh, God damn it.”

Boon gingerly lifted her right foot and brought the heel of her boot down on the gunshot wound in Sam’s side. He grunted. She stepped down hard.

He screamed.

“Sam?” Lem called.

“You cunt,” Sam spat, his eyes streaming and arms flailing. “You fucking bitch.”

“Where is he now?” she said.

“Fucking bitch.”

Boon lifted the boot again. This time, she stamped down fast and