The Six-Gun Solution (TimeWars 12)

“I’ve heard of them,” said Scott.

“That’s not surprising.” Masterson replied. “Curly Bill Brocius has killed his share of men. And Ringo has a big reputation as a gunfighter. There’s a good number of others, cattle rustlers and stage robbers, not a good apple in the bunch, but of them all. I’d worry about those two the most.”

And you think I have something to worry about?” asked Scott.

“If you stick around, you do.” Masterson replied. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful or unfriendly. Kid, but if I were you, I’d waste little time in moving on. You’re young, yet. Got your whole life ahead of you. You can be anything you want to be. But if you decide you’re going to be a gunfighter, then you’ve closed off a lot of options. You can find some town that needs a good man with a six-gun to wear a badge. A saloonkeeper who’ll cut you in for a small share of the business to hang around and make sure there isn’t any trouble. Or you can hunt bounty. There’s some money to be made from that. But it’s not what I’d call an easy life. Or a very good one. Often, it’s a short life. too.

“Oh, maybe your reputation as a pistolero will make some men back down.” he continued, “but it will also mark you. Instead of trying to face you down, they’ll look to shoot you from behind or get you through a window with a scattergun. And then they’ll be able to brag about how they gunned down the Montana Kid. You’ll be popular with the saloon girls, but most respectable women will keep shy of you. You’d be a bad bet to settle down with You’ll have men respect you and move aside when you walk down the street, but deep down, they won’t like having you, around and no one will be sorry when you leave.”

“What about if you’re a gambler?” Scott asked.

Masterson pulled out a crudely made wooden chair and sat down at the table. “Well, it’s more respectable, for one thing,” he said, as he took out a pack of cards and absently started to shuffle them. “Lots safer, too.”

“Like yesterday, you mean?” asked Scott, with a smile.

Masterson shrugged. “What happened yesterday doesn’t really happen very often. And, in a way, it was my own fault. Slim was cheating. And he wasn’t very good at it. I decided to cheat back a bit, to teach him a lesson. He wasn’t good enough to catch me at it, hut he tumbled to it somehow. I read him wrong. I didn’t figure that he’d pull a gun. That was foolish of me. Yes, there are risks to being a gambler, but the advantage is that you only have to deal with trouble that comes to you. You don’t have to go out looking for it.” He glanced at Scott and smiled. “You play?”

He put the deck down in the center of the table for him to cut. Scott looked at him a moment, then picked it up and cut it twice, one-handed. He shuffled it, quickly shot the deck from one hand to the other, split it, fanned the two equal parts in either hand, put it back together and then started dealing from the top, face down.

“Deuce of hearts.” he said, as he put the first card down. “Deuce of spades. Deuce of clubs. King of clubs. King of diamonds.”

Masterson stared at him, then slowly turned each card over to reveal the full house. He whistled softly.

“Son. I don’t know how you did that, but if you could teach me. I’d be much obliged. That’s my own deck and I know it’s clean.”

“All it takes is practice. Mr. Masterson.” said Scott. He reached out and pulled a silver dollar from Masterson’s ear, then walked it across his fingers, back and forth, snapped them, and the coin was gone. “Lots and lots of practice.”

Masterson shook his head with awe. “There sure is a lot more to you than meets the eye.”

Neilson smiled. “You could say that.”

“You see about all you want to see here?”

“Yeah. I guess I have.” said Scott

They were so small, they could easily have been missed, but he had known what he was looking for. Three tiny holes in the adobe wall. Burned into it by lasers.

The dining room in the Grand Hotel boasted an elegant menu for a town like Tombstone, but Neilson avoided the dubious French cuisine and ordered a thick steak, instead. He had it with a buttered baked potato and some beans and washed it down with a passable claret. He was about halfway through his meal when a soft, feminine yoke behind him said. “You’re the Montana Kid, aren’t you?”

He turned slightly and saw a lovely young girl of about eighteen or nineteen, with long, silky, ash-blonde hair and large, powder-blue eyes. She was wearing a long, light blue calico dress with lace around the collar and high-buttoned shoes. Her creamy complexion was absolutely flawless, she had a small, tuned-up nose, a slightly pointed chin and naturally pouting lips. He thought she was one of the most beautiful girls he’d ever seen.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal,” she said, coming around in front of him, “but I saw what you did yesterday and I thought it was about the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You were there? “ Scott said, with some surprise. He could hardly believe he had missed seeing her.

“I work there.” she said, lowering her eyes slightly. “I… I wasn’t dressed like this. I’m one of the saloon girls. My name is Jennifer. Jennifer Reilly.”

Neilson wiped his mouth and stood up “Pleased to meet you, Miss Reilly. And no. you’re not interrupting me. I’d appreciate the company. Please, sit down.”

He pulled out a chair for her.

“Call me Jenny. What do your friends call you-Montana?”

He grinned. “No, not really. My friends call me Scott. Scott Neilson.”

“It’s nice to meet you. Scott” She watched him as he sat back down. “I see you’re not wearing your gun.”

“No, Virgil Earp took it from me. Said there was an ordinance against carrying guns in Tombstone.”