A Different Trade

Mess with the Bull and You Get the Horns

While he was crouched down low, Clint drove a few quick punches into Westin's midsection. The big man's stomach felt more like a slab of beef wrapped around a post. Clint was still doing his best to chop that post down when a pair of beefy forearms dropped onto his shoulder like a sledgehammer. The impact stole some of the breath from Clint's lungs and dropped him to one knee.

Leering down at him, Westin hunched over a bit as he asked, “Did that hurt?”

Clint's reply to the taunt was to reach up with one hand, take a firm grip on Westin's beard, and pull him down sharply. The big man's chin thumped against the edge of the bar, and he staggered back while letting out a pained roar. Clint pulled himself to his feet and put every bit of strength he could muster behind a right cross to the head.

Although Westin was hurt by the last blow, he had enough of his wits about him to catch Clint's incoming punch. The sound of knuckles slapping against his left palm still hung in the air when Westin tightened his grip around Clint's fist. “You made a whole lot of mistakes here, boy,” he snarled into Clint's face.

When Clint tried to pull his hand free, he only felt Westin's grip become even tighter. Already, sharp jolts of pain shot up through his arm.

“You picked the wrong saloon to come into,” Westin said. “You opened your mouth when you should'a kept it shut. And you raised a hand to a man who can put you six feet under anytime he chooses.”

Clint balled up his other fist and took a swing at Westin. That punch bounced off the big man's side, and before Clint could follow up, the bones in his trapped hand were mercilessly ground together. Even though Clint was able to stand up in front of the bigger man, he couldn't do much else at that moment.

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A DIFFERENT TRADE

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2014 by Robert J. Randisi.

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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14538-2

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Jove mass-market edition / December 2014

Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

L
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Most towns had a story that could be read in the way they were laid out, where they were located, or what sorts of business were run within its boundaries. Some towns had played host to well-known events or even legendary ones. Others simply . . . were. As far as Clint could tell, Larga Noche was one of the latter.

Located close enough to the desert for the winds to carry a harsh warmth along with the gritty texture of sunbaked sand, it wasn't trapped within the scorched rocks like so many other settlements. There was a meandering stream on the town's northern edge and some vistas to the southwest that were downright breathtaking when the sun hit them in the morning. None of these things was reason enough for a town to be built, however. There were no major trade routes passing through. The closest railroad station was a day and a half's ride away. Even getting there by stagecoach required a five-mile ride to meet a driver who only bothered to come along every other week. Clint didn't need to know why every town had come to be, but he usually could get a sense for such a thing after spending a minimal amount of time there. Larga Noche might as well have sprung up from the arid dirt like an old tortoise that didn't have the good sense to draw its head straight back into its shell again.

As far as he could tell, there was barely any organization to the town at all. Its crooked streets were irregularly spaced. Some buildings looked to have burned down years ago and been left to rot while others were immaculately maintained by their owners. But beyond any of that or anything else that could be seen or heard, Clint simply felt as if Larga Noche wasn't going to be there for very long. It was similar to crossing a bridge that creaked and moaned with every step. A man in that spot didn't need to know why the bridge had been built or how long it had been there. He simply knew he had to finish his walk to the other side before that shoddy structure inevitably fell apart.

Scowling at the town as he rode through it, Clint patted the neck of his Darley Arabian stallion, Eclipse. “I know you're thirsty, boy. We'll get you something to drink and put a roof over your head for the night. Hopefully we won't be here much longer than that.”

When he looked up again, Clint saw a couple who looked to be somewhere in their late fifties. Judging by the near-lifeless stares they wore, neither the old man nor his wife was surprised to hear such words coming from a stranger. In fact, they seemed just as ready as Clint to get the hell out of that place. Even though it didn't look like he'd hurt any feelings, Clint tipped his hat to them and smiled in a casual apology. The old man grunted under his breath and pulled the woman across the street toward a store with shoes displayed in its front window.

“Might warn me next time,” Clint grumbled to Eclipse. “We've got business to conduct here, and the better it goes, the faster we can leave.”

Clint continued riding down a street that had been called Linden at the south end of town and, for some unknown reason, changed into Preston Avenue farther north. Before long, he spotted a street that branched off to the right. If not for the ruckus coming from that direction, Clint might have overlooked the street altogether. As it was, a man would have had to be blind and deaf to move past it without noticing the cloud of dust being kicked up less than sixty yards away.

Normally, hearing a whinnying horse wasn't enough to catch Clint's undivided attention. Since there wasn't much else to look at apart from a shoddy town, he was all too eager to investigate what had made the animal so unhappy. It didn't take him long to spot the woman dressed in dirty jeans and a dusty flannel shirt trying to grab hold of the anxious horse's reins. When the horse turned its eyes toward her, it reared up and started churning its front hooves in the air. The woman in the dusty clothes was smart and fast enough to dive to one side before those angry hooves came down again.

“Easy, girl!” the woman said as soon as she hit the ground. “Just let me—”

Before the woman could finish what she'd been saying, the angry horse pounded its hooves against the dirt and then turned away from her while shaking its head as though a bee were trapped in its ear. Clint didn't like the erratic way the horse was bucking and kicking, so he snapped his reins to get his own stallion moving a bit faster. He arrived just in time to lean over and scoop the woman up in one arm before the angry horse's rear legs snapped back in a powerful kick.

The woman was much prettier up close, even when she pinched her features into an expression of angry surprise. “Let go of me,” she said. She had the strength to back up her request and nearly wriggled loose from Clint's grasp. When he tightened his arm around her waist, Clint was pulled from his saddle and barely managed to break his fall before breaking his neck.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Clint snapped as he rolled on top of her. “I'm trying to . . . look out!”

The angry horse's rump was so close to Clint and the woman that it blocked the sunlight from their eyes. Wrapping both arms around the woman, Clint rolled away from a water trough as the horse's rear legs lashed out to smash through the long wooden container. Wooden planks cracked and broke into splinters. Water sprayed in every direction and ran onto the ground. When he felt the impact of those hooves thumping against the ground again, Clint was just as nervous as he'd been when shots were fired at him.

If either one of them caught even a glancing blow from those raging kicks, Clint or the woman would be pulverized. He wrapped his arms around her even tighter, covered her with his body, and waited for the longest couple of seconds he'd suffered through in a long while. After those seconds had passed, Clint twisted his head around to get a look at the wild horse. He let out the breath he'd been holding once he saw the animal point its nose away from them and start running down the street.

“Stay here,” he said to the woman. “I'll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To fetch that horse before it kicks someone's head off their shoulders!”