The atmosphere was funereal.
Despite the music from the piano, the smoking, drinking and the card playing, the atmosphere was thick with anticipation.
Everyone seemed to be at the Emporium—Binky; Bixby, the sign painter; Gillardi, the barber/undertaker; Doc Barnes, who for the first time had brought along his medical bag; Oliver Knight, nursing a beer across from Henry, the bartender; Gallagher and Rooster, both leaning, backs to the bar, each with a drink in his hand; Francine, Alma and Marisa, none of whom had any clients that night, because nobody wanted to miss what might happen; Lessur, at his usual table, but with fewer winnings in front of him, looking as if he had something on his mind beside the poker game; Quentin Cord at his place at the bar, with an inscrutable expression on his face and nobody close to him on either side; and all the others, all moving a beat slower, and even speaking a little softer, with eyes and ears that watched and listened for any unusual movement or sound. They all did their best to avoid looking from Cord to Ike and Belinda. They weren’t very successful.
Somehow, the word had spread—maybe inadvertently, maybe on purpose—but the word had spread. There was going to be a showdown. And it was going to be deadly.
As Oliver Knight had said, the cause could be summed up in two words.
Quentin Cord was the perfect hired killer. Cord had no feeling—at least none that was ever betrayed or divulged. He was immune to emotion. All that had been left behind with the defeat of the Confederacy.
There was no hint of fealty to family, cause, country, animal, human or anything else. His only loyalty was to himself and to the job he was paid to execute. And execute was the operative word. He could provoke and slay an innocent sodbuster while the victim’s wife and children looked on, then walk through the bat wings to finish a drink without taking a deep breath.
He was the consummate killer with no regard for life or afterlife. A businessman whose stock in trade was tailor-made death. One size fits all, satisfaction guaranteed, results permanent, no strings attached. When the deed was done, the doer traveled to another job site and another piece of work.
Cord had been drained of every vestige of emotion. There was no place in any corner or crevice of his mind or body for any feeling of friendship, tenderness, sorrow or sympathy—detachment was the key. Feeling the enemy. Friendship unthinkable.
All of it—feeling, friendship, family—was consumed by Sheridan’s torches, and the flame and smoke that rose years ago from the Shenandoah Valley.
Quentin Cord swallowed the bourbon from the whiskey glass, set the glass back on the bar and motioned to Henry, then pointed to the glass.
Henry walked away from Oliver Knight, reached to the backbar for a bottle of bourbon, filled Cord’s empty glass almost to the rim, then walked back toward Knight.
Cord looked at the glass for a moment, but his hand did not move toward it. Instead, he took a step away from the bar.
As he did, Binky approached.
“I say, old chap, I wonder if you—”
Before Binky could say more, Cord’s right arm shot straight forward and his palm smashed against Binky’s chest, sending the little man hurtling against the bar, then down to the floor.
Silence. Utter silence.
No one moved, or, it seemed, even breathed.
Cord paused for less than a second, then moved in a slow, uneven gait toward Ike and Belinda.
“You don’t have to do this,” Belinda whispered.
“I’ve got to.”
“Why?”
“Rules of the game.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do.”
The words they spoke were virtually the same that they had spoken just before Milo Sebastian had challenged Belinda to a game of poker.
But this was no game. Or, if it was, the stakes had nothing to do with money. The wager was for life or death.
Cord stopped near the table, closer to Belinda than to Ike.
“You. Silver.”
Ike did not respond with word or eye contact.
“Look at me when I talk to you.”
Still no response.
“I see you’re keeping company with the saloon whore.”
Belinda sprang up. “Listen, mister—”
Cord slapped her hard with a backhand, grabbed and twisted her, lifted the right side of her dress and pulled the derringer from its garter holster. He tossed the derringer toward a spittoon near the bar, then shoved her away. He glanced toward Lessur, then turned back to Ike.
“Now you haven’t got a skirt to hide behind, so stand up and act like a man.”
Ike rose. Not fast. Not slow.
He stood facing Cord.
“You’re a craven coward,” Cord said, “and you’re going to get down on your knees and grovel.”
No word or movement from Ike.
“Then act like a man. Go ahead. I won’t pull until your gun’s out of its holster. Draw, you coward!”
Still nothing from Ike.
Cord stood too far for Ike to even think of throwing a punch or leaping toward him. It had to be a gunfight.
“I’m going to say it so everybody can hear. You’re a craven coward so get down on your knees and grovel. I want to see you do it in front of everybody here.”
Cord took one, two, three steps back.
“Pull, you low-down lying Yankee nigger-loving Jew bastard!”
Nobody watching could tell who drew first, but it was evident who got off the first and only shot.
Hook. Draw. Fire.
Ike’s shot hit Cord square in the gun hand. The hand went limp and bloody and dropped the revolver. Cord, stunned, went down to one knee. For just an instant he looked at Ike, then leapt forward, left hand extended toward the gun on the floor. In that split instant Ike knew that he had violated one of J.B.’s cardinal rules—” . . . never squeeze the trigger unless you’re willing to kill a man . . . without compunction or hesitation . . . it could cost you your life. . . .” This time Ike fired twice without compunction or hesitation.
The first bullet hit Cord’s heart. The second bullet hit the first.
At the end of this game there was no applause. No cheering. Just silence . . . and awe.
Doctor Zebelion Barnes, carrying his medical bag, walked over to the man on the floor and leaned down, then looked up toward Antonio Gillardi.
“Dead . . . I’m happy to say.”
First there was a murmur, then movement.
Binky walked to the bar where Cord had stood, lifted the glass of bourbon in a mock salute and drank.
Belinda went to Ike’s side and touched him gently on the shoulder as he holstered the Remington.
Rupert Lessur sat in shock, realizing that the second part of his plan had also failed.
Ike glanced at the bat wings where Sister Bonney stood holding her rosary. He walked toward her and nodded.
“Come on, Sister. I’ll take you home.”
“Just a minute.” Oliver Knight approached shaking his head. “Ike, who is this J.B. fellow who taught you?”
“The initials stand for James Butler. Last name’s Hickok.”
“The one they call Wild Bill?”
“I never called him that.”