Twisted Hills by Ralph Cotton

around here. You’ll hear of him soon enough.”
    The others all watched as Rolo filled shot glasses and slid one in front of each man, including Sam and Graft. The cantina owner smiled in relief and stepped back, shot glass in hand, as two workers came through shoveling broken mirror shards from the floor behind the bar. He tipped his shot glass toward Dolan in thanks.
    Dolan nodded at Sam’s shot glass of whiskey.
    â€œDrink up, Jones,” he said. “It’s always good to meet a man who knows his way around a shooting iron.” He gave a thin smile. “To be honest, you gave a hell of an account of yourself—three on one, you killed one, wounded one and put the hurt on a third. Those damn scalp hunters. Here’s to shooting the stinking sons a’ bitches.” He raised his shot glass as if in a toast of denouncement.
    â€œMy pleasure,” Sam said, lifting his shot glass.
    â€œSee?” Graft grinned. “There was really no trouble here.” But the gunmen appeared not to hear him.
    As the empty shot glasses came back down onto the bar and Rolo started refilling them, the front curtain pulled to one side and harsh sunlight slanted in across the tile floor. On Dolan’s other side, Clyde Burke spoke under his breath.
    â€œLook who just showed up, Daryl,” he said.
    â€œI bet I already know,” Dolan said. He turned sidelong to the bar, as did the others. “Well, well, if it ain’t Ray Segert’s
boys
,” he said to the new arrivals. “You didn’t need to show up. We’ve got this covered.” Then he turned to the cantina owner. “Graft, set these boys up some
sassafras
tea, on me.”
    â€œDolan’s right, fellows,” Graft called out. “There’s no trouble here.”
    The four men slowed on their way to the other end of the bar.
    â€œI’ll sassafras his ass,” a gunman named Dusty Phelps growled under his breath to the man, Max Udall, standing beside him. He started to make a sudden turn toward Dolan. The men at the bar tensed, as did the four newly arrived gunmen.
    â€œHold your spit, Dusty,” the lead man, Max Udall, demanded, stepping almost in between Phelps and Dolan. He gave Daryl Dolan a sharp snarl of a grin. “It’s just Daryl’s inhospitable way of being hospitable.” He spoke directly to Daryl. “I see nobody’s yet carved out your tongue and used it for a door hinge.”
    â€œYou own a knife, Max. Come show us how it’s done,” Dolan returned, his hand poised deftly at his gun butt.
    But Max Udall nodded his men on toward the far end of the bar, drinkers pushing aside, making room for them. Some drinkers had already slipped out of the cantina and gone on their way.
    â€œNot today, Dolan,” Udall said, walking on. “We only come to see what the shooting’s about. Hope none of yas got rowdy and lost any toes.”
    Dolan looked down at his boots. “Still got enough toes to stick a boot up your—”
    â€œGentlemen, gentlemen! Welcome, one and all,” Graft cut in, hoping to stop any trouble before the men got past the stage of hurling insults from their lips and started blasting bullets from their guns.
    â€œWhat
was
the shooting about, Graft?” Udall asked the nervous cantina owner as he and his men lined along the far end of the bar. Graft hurried down to them behind the bar, crunching glass underfoot on his way.
    â€œThose stinking scalp hunters, Petty, Fain and the Mex, came in here goading my new customer down there,” said Graft, sweeping a hand toward Sam’s end of the bar. “He put the
slam
on them, sure enough,” he said, grinning.
    â€œIs that a fact?” said Udall. He eyed Sam from the far end of the bar.
    â€œIt is a fact,” said Graft. “He killed one, wounded one and left the third one carrying a ten-pound knot on his jaw.”
    Udall didn’t comment as he