Page 66 of Charlotte's Reckoning
“Someone send for the doctor,” she called.
She didn’t see anyone move but heard the scuff of boots behind her. With both hands pressed to the hole in Fen’s chest, as if she could hold back the blood gushing out, she glanced over her shoulder at the bastard who shot him. Unperturbed over having just gunned down a man, he calmly raked a pile of cash and gold coins into a pouch.
Fen coughed, and blood gushed between her fingers.
“Hang on,” she urged frantically. “The doctor will be here soon.”
But his eyes were hazy with pain, and fear. She knew as well as he must, her assurances were worthless platitudes, and the end was near.
“Love…you…Lottie,” he choked out hoarsely between gasps and gurgles. “Always have.”
His eyes fluttered closed, and she whispered, “Don’t go.” A strangled sob escaped her and tears, which she hadn’t shed since Carson, splashed on his cheek. “Where’s the damn doctor?” she screamed.
“Don’t waste his time,” Emmett advised, without being asked. He bent and spoke near her ear. “How many does this make for you, Red? First, there was your husband, who couldn’t have seen twenty-five. Now, your saloon owner who’s a sight older but had a lot of years left in him. It makes me wonder about a certain Frenchman, up in years with a liking for the whip. He got burnt up in that fire at Heloise’s, which was the same night you dropped out of sight. It’s like you’ve got the kiss of death all over you.”
With a malevolent chuckle, he straightened and moved to the exit. In the stillness following the chaos, his voice carried. “Sorry I can’t stay longer and reminisce, but Laramie’s not my favorite town. I call it the armpit of the West because between South Town and that slaughterhouse, it reeks.” With a black, snaggle-toothed grin, he started for the door. “I’ll see you around, Miss Charlotte. Something tells me you and I aren’t done crossing paths. When we do, count on me taking that sample I never got—on the house.”
Another shot rang out and screams erupted. Plaster rained down from the ceiling. When the dust settled, Charlotte knelt on the floor, pistol in her blood-slick hands. She had intended to blow his head off, and be done with him for good, but she missed—damn her lousy aim.
It wasn’t fair that he was still breathing when Fen no longer did.
Emmett removed his hat and stuck his finger through the hole in the crown. Then he turned and glared at her, retribution for her daring, ablaze in his eyes. She would have fired again, but the gun slipped easily from her handas Violet took it, aiming steady with the confidence that said she knew exactly what she was doing.
“That was a warning shot,” her friend declared then followed up that bald-faced lie with a bigger one. “Charlotte can shoot the wings off a fly at sixty paces. I’m not near as good, but I’m decent enough not to miss a braying jackass the size of you at ten. Don’t believe me? Go for your gun. If you do, get out ’cause the sheriff is on his way.”
He stared Violet down for the count of three then spit another stream of tobacco on the floor. “Filthy whores. Good for only one goddamn thing.” He glanced at Charlotte with contempt as he concluded, “Some, like at the Red Eye Saloon, not even for that.”
If pure unadulterated hatred could kill a man, he would have dropped dead on the spot, but he turned and left, the doors swinging wildly back and forth in his wake.
***
The undertaker’s wagon was outside the saloon when Seth arrived. Never a good sign. Hushed whispers and soft weeping greeted him when he entered. He grimaced as he took in the gruesome scene: two bodies, congealed pools of blood, one dead man he hadn’t met, the other Fenton Sneed.
Charlotte was nowhere in sight. He didn’t blame her. The smell of death was nauseating. He approached the bar and the grim-faced bartender.
“Your name?” Seth asked.
“Stanley Carver. I’ve tended bar for Mr. Sneed and Miss Charlotte going on two years.” His eyes drifted to the undertaker who was taking measurements and swallowed hard.
“Did you see what happened?”
He nodded slowly and spoke as if reliving it. “He drew fast, both times. Before anyone could react, they were dead.”
“Did anyone know the shooter?”
“Mr. Sneed did. Called him Thorn.”
Seth froze, an icy knot of dread tightening in his gut. It couldn’t be. He was supposed to be dead, hanged for murder. “Can you describe him?” he said, almost afraid to ask.
“He was an ornery cuss, as ugly as he is mean,” a man on a stool to his left stated as he nursed a whiskey.
“His face was leathery and brown, like he spent his whole life in the saddle,” the man next to him added.
“And most of his teeth were missing. The ones he had left were black,” the man said, with a grimace of distaste.
“What I noticed,” Stanley said, “is that he slurred his words like a drunk, but I never served him a drop of whiskey.”
“Where is Miss Charlotte?” Seth asked.
