Friends and Enemies by Stephen A. Bly

jumped the man and began to swing. Several punches found their target. Yet the man in the middle fought even harder.
    Robert fired his .45 Colt single-action army revolver into the air.
    The fighting ceased.
    â€œWho in Hades are you!” The bearded man with the bloodied nose hollered.
    Shoulders back, gun raised, hand steady, Robert showed classic military posture. “Railroad inspector.”
    â€œI don’t need no help,” the man in the middle of the crowd bellowed.
    â€œI don’t care if you do or you don’t, none of you are going to fight on railroad property.” Robert’s gun moved slowly from one man to the next.
    A burly man in a tattered ducking coat pulled out a Bowie knife and brandished it. “Says who?”
    The man lunged at Fortune.
    Robert stepped aside. He brought the barrel of his revolver down with such force that it sounded like the crack of a whip. “I say so,” he growled. The man dropped to his knees in screaming agony.
    The fattest of the men tugged at a short-barreled Schofield stuck in his belt, but Robert grabbed the man’s shirt collar and shoved his own revolver against the man’s temple. “I said . . . there is no fighting on railroad property.”
    â€œNobody ever complained before.”
    â€œThings have changed.”
    â€œAre you sidin’ with that card cheat?” He pointed to the man catching his breath in the middle.
    â€œI’m not siding with anyone. You can go over there along the river and beat each other unconscious. But you can’t do it on railroad property.”
    â€œWhat about him?” another of the drifters shouted.
    â€œI want to talk with him.”
    â€œYou goin’ to arrest him for cheating us out of four bits?”
    This fight was over fifty cents? “Whatever it was about, it’s over now.” Robert waited until all but the man in the center of the ring trudged away. He turned to the bruised man.
    â€œI ain’t got nothin’ to talk to you about and I didn’t need your help.” The man stood his ground, smearing blood across his chin. “I’m tougher than any two of ’em put together.”
    â€œI have no doubt you’re right about that,” Robert replied. “But there were six of them. That’s bad arithmetic.”
    â€œI didn’t start it. I beat ’em fair. Two queens over an ace. But I don’t back away.”
    â€œYou lookin’ for a job?”
    â€œWith the railroad?”
    â€œMaybe. You ever been in jail for anything more than hurrahin’ a saloon or gettin’ in a fight?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œCan you go two weeks without drinkin’ alcohol?”
    â€œI don’t drink ever.”
    Robert surveyed the man from hat to boot. “Can you get a bath, a shave and a haircut, and wear a suit?”
    The man took a red bandanna out of his back pocket and mopped the blood off his ear and neck. “Why?”
    â€œI might have a job for you.” Robert stared at the cottonwood trees where the men still loitered.
    The man flinched when he touched the bruise on his forehead. “What if I don’t want a job?”
    â€œ$250 a month, plus expenses and a free train pass. Think about it.”
    â€œWhat do I have to do?”
    â€œWon’t be any tougher than what you just did.”
    â€œI ain’t dressin’ up for nobody. I don’t want your job.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Robert pressed.
    â€œHolter. Who are you?”
    â€œRobert Fortune.”
    â€œYou related to Sammy Fortune?”
    â€œHe’s my brother.”
    The man’s brown eyes relaxed for the first time. “I’ll take the job.”
    â€œWhy the sudden change?”
    â€œâ€™Cause I owe Sam Fortune a favor and I’d like to pay him back.”
    â€œWhat kind of favor?”
    â€œHe helped my sister when she was hurt and in trouble. I never met him