I reckon that for years I'd been heaps virtuous keeping my quick gun off Balshannon's meat, so now I was full of joy because the patrone had finished up all the unpleasantness and made peace without loss or damage. No grown responsible man had any quarrel left.
But then my youngsters weren't grown up a bit, nor responsible, nor anything else, but rattled with a gun-fight too rich for their blood. Curly was scared all to pieces, Jim was right off his head, and as to my three kids outside the window, they had no sense anyways at their best. I ought to have thought of that before; it was too late now.
What matter if young Michael eased his feelings by empting off his toy at the patrone? His pellets chipped the ceiling, and did him credit for a pious son, but only got a laugh from Balshannon. Michael just went on popping ostentatious, so Balshannon showed he bore no malice by throwing his own gun on the bar. Then somebody called out for drinks as a sign of peace.
But Jim only saw his father being attacked, and he surely never had a sense of humour. He turned his wolf-howl loose, and broke his gun-arm free from Curly's hold, then started splashing lead at Michael Ryan. I saw some fur fly off from the Jew coat, and the next shot dispersed young Michael's hat, but the third struck Low-Lived Joe on the shoulder.
Then there was surely war, for Louisiana loved that Joe more than anything else on earth, and all his friends lashed out their guns. Curly knelt quick below the blast of lead, and Jim leapt sudden behind the end of the bar, but in a blaze of flame and rolling smoke I saw Balshannon clutch both hands to his heart, then swing half round and fall.
It must have been then that poor Curly fired the two shots which killed Louisiana and Beef Jones, the horse thief. It must have been then that the window close beside me fell with a crash of glass upon the floor, and my three men, all masked, with guns and rifles poured red-hot slaughter into the Ryan crowd. That was bad, but I felt grateful then, while one by one I shot out the swinging lamps which lit the smoke. There were five, making so many shades of deeper gloom, and then dead blackness pierced by flaming guns, and at the end of that silence, with a patter of running feet, the groan of a dying man.
CHAPTER XII
THE CITY BOILING OVER
Once I remember seeing an old bear roped in the desert by cowboys, and dragged by the scruff of his neck into the fierce electric glare of a Western city. Some female tourists said he looked dreadful rough, a school ma'am squealed out he was dangerous, a preacher allowed he was savage, but nobody made excuses for that old bear. Now I reckon that I'm just like Mr. Bear, dragged sudden off the range into the indecent light of civilization. Nobody is going to make allowances for me if I look dreadful rough, and savage, and dangerous. I own up I've no excuse. Bear and I were raised outside the prickly fences of your laws, beyond the shelter of your respectable customs, exposed to all the heat and cold, the light and darkness, the good and the bad of life. Bear, he has teeth and claws, as I have horse and gun; but both of us fight or go dead, for that is our business. If you're shocked, quit reading; but if you want more, read on.