The Temptress (Montgomery/Taggert 8)

Ty shook his head. “I hope Mathison appreciates what I’ve gone through to get him his daughter back.”

“Come on, let’s get busy. We gotta pad you to make this fit.”

An hour later, Tynan stood surrounded by giggling females. Asher, smoking a one-inch diameter cigar, sat in a chair with Alice on his lap.

“It suits you, Tynan,” Asher said. “It really suits you.”

Red put her hand over Tynan’s, which was on his gun handle, as she checked his hair which was whitened with talcum powder.

The women had sewn pillows in the long johns of the dead showman so that Ty could fill out the voluminous suit. He now had a belly that hung over his silver buckled belt, and they’d adjusted the pants so they hung down low, the crotch half way to his knees.

“Too bad to cover that up,” Leora said, running her hand over his buttocks.

“Now,” Red said, “you look ready, but you gotta get in the mood. That man come in here with pistols blazin’. You gotta go out the same way.”

“I like to see you with pistols blazin’,” Leora said in Tynan’s ear.

“He don’t have time for that now,” Red said. “You ready, Mr. Prescott?”

“Any time.”

“Then you can help him out, ’cause Ty, you’re too drunk to get out by yourself. You got that?”

Tynan nodded silently.

“The horse ready?” Red asked.

“What horse?” Ty asked.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Asher laughed. “Believe me, you’ll know it.”

Red clasped her arm firmly through Tynan’s. “Honey, I wanta see you again and this is the only way. Now, give me a kiss and go.”

Ty held her for a minute, kissed her cheek then left the room, long, ornate spurs clinking on the wooden floor. At the top of the stairs, he halted, drew both the silver pistols and fired into the ceiling. The next minute he was down the stairs, women hanging onto him.

“I’m meaner ’n a snake and twice as quick,” he bellowed, lurching forward, then he grabbed a woman and kissed her while firing a pistol into the ceiling and one at a table full of men. He hit two glasses of beer and narrowly missed a big cowboy.

The cowboy got up and started toward Tynan, but Asher interposed his own body.

“He’s drunk,” Asher said. “It was an accident.”

“You’d better get him out a here,” the man growled, still standing, his gun hand loose.

“I’m strong as a grizzly and as eagle-eyed as a hawk,” Ty yelled.

“Come on, hawk, let’s get out of here,” Asher said, pushing Ty toward the door.

“I can outride, outshoot, out—”

Asher, seeing that Ty again had his pistol aimed toward the table of watching cowboys—probably Dysan’s men—knocked Ty’s arm upward so the shot hit the painting over the bar, making a hole in the plump buttocks of the nude woman in the painting.

“I’m as tall as a fir tree and as ugly as a mule but the girls love me best ’cause I’m as hard and big as a ship’s oar,” Ty yelled as Ash pulled him out of the saloon.

“Get on the damn horse,” Ash said, “before you get us killed.”

Standing before them was a white skinned, pink eyed stallion wearing a white leather saddle. Ty didn’t even hesitate before jumping into the saddle, wrapping the reins about the pommel, then withdrawing a rifle from the sheath on the side. While standing in the stirrups, fringe flowing behind him, the horse galloping north out of town, Tynan began firing along the edges of the roofs. Some of the men hiding there stood to see what was going on and Ty shot within inches of them.

Asher, on a horse following Ty, was sure he was as white as Tynan’s leather suit, but the men on the roof seemed to think they were being treated to a free show, and a couple even fired their rifles skyward in appreciation.