Gun-Quick by Brandon Barrows

THE BARREL OF BILL Hunnigan’s forty-five looked me straight in the eye. The man was big and angry, and looming over me, he looked like a god-damned giant, but that little black hole held all my attention.

“I want to know,” Hunnigan demanded. “If you tell me, Mick, maybe I won’t kill you.”

He wasn’t fooling or lying. That was one thing about Hunnigan—he might shoot you in the back if he thought it was for his own good, but he never told a joke or an untruth. He stood by his word, and he handled his own trouble, too. Hunnigan had a gang of four tough hombres, any of whom would have been glad to kill me on his say so, but Bill saddled his own broncs when it was personal. And the twenty-thousand dollars lying loose on the bed in my hotel room was a very personal problem for Hunnigan because before it came to me, he stole it first.

“I work alone since I left the gang, Bill. You know that,” I told him. “’S’why I left in the first place, since we couldn’t get along.”

“Bull hockey,” Hunnigan spat. “I don’t buy it.”

The forty-five inched closer. Both it and Hunnigan looked even bigger now. I began to sweat something fierce.

“You left… what was it, ’81? Yeah,” Hunnigan decided. “When we had that big storm. That was three years ago. Ain’t seen you since. So someone had to tell you about the money. I wanna know who. Who’s the long tongue, Mick?”

Getting out of this was going to be rough. I thought I was slick, ducking in and out of Hunnigan’s place lickety-split while he and his boys were attending the few cows they ran to keep up their half-respectable front. Someone must have seen me and recognized me, though, cuz Hunnigan kicked in the door of my room not an hour later. If I hadn’t dallied or if he’d been fifteen minutes slower in getting here, I’d have been in the wind. It seemed so perfect when I planned it. They’d never know who took the money, and who was there to cry thief to when they’d stolen it in the first place, somewhere up in the Territory?

I thought my days of living in dingy rooms and eating lousy food were finally at an end. Now, it looked like everything was just about over.

My only chance was to keep talking. Maybe if I did, Bill would let his guard down a little and give me some sort of opening. Killing me would solve one problem, but he still wanted to know who tipped me. Until he knew that, he would never feel safe again.

“There was nobody, Bill,” I told him. “I just heard some talk about that bank job and decided to have myself a look-see. That’s all.”

“I’ll ask you just once more, for old times’ sake. That’s it. Once more and then I shoot and figure out the rest on my own. Who told you about my money?”

I was sweating like a pig in August. My heart thumped in my chest, and my eyes darted to the gunbelt hanging from a knob on the bedframe. It was no good, though. Even if Hunnigan didn’t have his gun out, even if it wasn’t already six inches from my face, even if my gun wasn’t four feet away, I could never beat him. He was one of the quickest men with a gun I ever met, and with his Colt already in hand, I had no chance in hell.

I licked dry lips and forced my eyes up to meet Hunnigan’s. “Bill, there was nobody—”

“That’s your last lie.” Hunnigan’s thumb cocked back the forty-five’s hammer. “Now you get it, and I’ll sort this all out myself.”

He meant it, and he’d have killed me in the next moment if a choked-off kind of sob hadn’t escaped from the wardrobe in the corner of the room. Hunnigan was primed to shoot already, and he just twisted his hips, flicked his wrist, and fired twice at the wardrobe. There was a sharp outcry of surprise and pain, and then the door slowly swung open, and a body pitched out onto the floor.

I dove at Hunnigan. It was my only bet, and I had to take it. I sprang up, grabbed him about the waist, and dragged him to the floor, smashing my fist into his face with all I had. He struggled and tried to bring his gun-hand up to strike back, but I slammed my elbow down onto his wrist and then my fist into his face again. There was a crack as something let go, and he went limp.

I climbed to my feet, shaking and sweating and working to convince myself that I could still get clear of this. I could hear a commotion from elsewhere in the hotel. I had to move fast.

Swiftly, I took up my gunbelt, strapped it on, found my saddlebags beneath the bed and stuffed the greenbacks inside. I left the room, headed down the hall toward the back staircase. Hunnigan pulled the trigger, so let him talk his way out of it or swing for it. It made no difference to me. In a few hours I’d be safely away from this town and somewhere else entirely in a few days or weeks. California or maybe Mexico. Twenty-thousand dollars buys a lot of living no matter where you are.

Calmly as I could, I walked to the livery, saddled up, paid the hostler what I owed, and hit the trail. Nobody gave me a second glance, and I thanked my lucky stars for the break I got. Bill Hunnigan prided himself on his gun-quickness, but this was one time I’m sure he wished he was just a mite slower, otherwise it might have been me lying dead on the floor back there instead of his wife, Laura-Ann.

—BRANDON BARROWS is the author of the novels Burn Me Out, This Rough Old World, Nervosa, and over fifty published stories, selected of which are collected in the books The Altar in the Hills and The Castle-Town Tragedy. He is an active member of Private Eye Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Find out more about Brandon and his writing on Twitter @brandonbarrows, or on his website, www. brandonbarrowscomics.com.