Cole’s instinct was to pull out his revolver and blow the bastard’s brains all over the canvas behind him, but in such close quarters the lead might end up in Ned’s flesh instead, so he ran up to the bear-like sonofabitch who’d split Ned’s lip, and hooked his arm under the thick neck, pulling with all the strength he had.
Most folk would have tried to force the intruding arm away from their throat, but this bully did no such thing, and within the blink of an eye, Cole found himself falling back, as if the big bastard’s strategy was to crush him.
Squashed between the heavy body and the dirt floor, Cole saw stars when a dull pain radiated in his ribs. By the time he managed to breathe again and opened his eyes, a bloodshot gaze stared down at him from a flushed face, and something sharp dug into the flesh of his throat.
“Don’t you fucking dare move!” the man yelled, spraying spittle on Cole’s face. Cole’s brain was still spinning, but the features above promised more violence, teeth grinding as if they were about to break.
Just as he was considering his chances, two big hands he knew intimately grabbed the sides of the thug’s head and pulled it back, away from Cole. The knife in the man’s hand nipped Cole’s skin, but Ned roared his fury as if he were the Wolfman again, and with one twist of his arms, snapped the man’s neck so fast, the victim didn’t get to utter a final scream.
The body on top of Cole sagged, bloodshot eyes wide open and bulging, but Cole rolled from under it as fast as he could, his gaze meeting the other thug’s behind Ned’s back. Fear shone back at him from the unshaven face. The lowlife had realized they weren’t the vulnerable sheep he and his companion had thought them to be, and opened his mouth, about to beg for his life.
But there could be no witnesses to what Ned had done, so Cole put a bullet in the other stranger’s forehead in a single, clean shot.
He dropped like a sack of potatoes, leaving Parita’s sobs and Terje’s panting as the only noise.
Ned hunched over, wild eyed searching for more threats, but when he saw none, there wasn’t a force that could have kept him from Cole’s side.
“You’re bleeding!” He kneeled next to Cole to inspect his neck despite his own nose dripping with blood.
“So are you,” Cole said, drunk on the heat of violence and threat. He wiped the red sheen from Ned’s face and smiled, feeling like in the old days, when moments like this were an integral part of friendship.
Like that time when they’d fought the Vultures and Cole had shot them all to hell before taking care of Ned’s injured hand. Ned hadn’t been able to pull the trigger back then, still barely stepping into the shoes of an outlaw. How he’d changed since then…
“You can lose a nose, not your neck,” Ned growled, checking on the cut at the front of Cole’s throat even though there was a bloodstain on the collar of his jacket, which Cole desperately wanted to wipe off. It was unreasonable to hope for it to stay as it was the day Cole had presented it to Ned, but he wished it would be in perfect condition on the day they parted. That it would serve Ned long and well, and that the lock of Cole’s hair would forever remain Ned’s good luck charm.
“I’d rather you didn’t lose your nose. It fits your face.” Cole chuckled and slapped Ned’s side in a bid to calm him, but then rubbed the red dot off Ned’s leather with his sleeve. “I’ve had worse nips when shaving.”
Ned took a deep breath and had to be satisfied with his inspection of Cole’s neck, because he stepped back. “This kind of nose fits no one’s face,” he grumbled, but was so, so wrong, because it complimented him perfectly. Such a strong feature didn’t belong on a man any less solid than Ned O’Leary.
“What are we gonna do with the bodies?” Terje asked in a voice that tore through the haze of closeness and gratitude that overcame Cole, pulling him right back to a reality where two corpses lined the floor, and an old friend bled from his head.
“He’s waking up,” Parita cried, hunched over in the revealing costume made for her Cleopatra routine. Designed to make her into a fantasy about Egypt’s legendary queen, it revealed her entire legs, stomach, shoulders, and only left the privates and breasts covered with bejeweled fabric. But as she cradled Roger’s head, rocking while tears rolled down her golden brown skin, she was just a woman fearful for her husband.
Roger’s face twitched, and he finally came to his senses. “Parita? Are you all right?” he uttered.