“If things had been different, then?” She looked into his eyes wistfully, not bothering to disguise the desire burning there.
J.B. looked at her, admitting to himself the desire he felt for the young woman. But it was only passing fancy, and he knew himself well enough to know that. What he had with Mildred, there had never been anything like it in his life. She understood him in ways that no woman ever had, while at the same time remaining one of the most vexing creatures he’d ever encountered.
“Mebbe,” he said, just to give her that.
Anna pulled him close. “There hasn’t been a man for me since Eddie died. Mebbe there never will be. But if you get back this way, or you hear of Tinker Phillips’s Gun Shop, you come on around for a visit.”
“Sure,” J.B. said, and the lie tripped from his lips with no effort at all.
She pulled his face into hers and gave him a burning kiss that he felt clear down to his toes. Then she broke the kiss and walked back to the trapdoor. Her walk suggested the curves and the passions that burned under her clothing.
“You put up a hell of an argument,” J.B. said in a thick voice.
“But you’re still going.”
“Yeah.”
Anna stepped back into the tunnel and climbed down. “I wish you well, then.” She pulled the trapdoor closed.
J.B. went over to the horses, his Uzi canted at his hip and gripped in one hand. Anybody that came through the door while he was bridling a mount was fair game. Moonlight and lantern light drifted in through the patchwork glass windows.
He took down a bridle and fitted it over the head of a bay gelding that seemed gentle enough. He didn’t bother with a saddle because he felt he was already working on borrowed time. Then he led the gelding to the rear doors of the blacksmith’s shop.
Pulling himself onto the animal’s back, he put the duffel across his lap, then thumped the horse in the sides with his heels and headed through the alley. Two men stood at its mouth, peering down the street at the hotel. Both turned to look at J.B., but neither of them recognized him.
He rode past them.
“Man, get your fool self chilled out there bastard quick,” one of the men said.
J.B. ignored the warning and rode straight for the hotel, knowing there was every chance he’d get chilled in a cross fire between his friends and Kirkland’s people.
The sec men stared after him as he rode out into the center of the street. They froze, not knowing what to do. A ragged cheer burst out from some of them as they thought one of their own had gotten courageous enough or stupid enough to try another attack on the hotel.
“Go get them outie bastards!” someone yelled.
And that, J.B. knew, might very well be the kiss of death because Mildred and Ryan were good enough to empty the horse’s saddle even now. He raised his voice. “Rider coming in! It’s J.B.!”
It took only a moment for what was truly happening to crystallize in the sec men’s minds. Then they opened fire.
J.B. stayed low, aiming the horse at the front doors of the hotel. He kept his stomach pressed tight against the duffel bag so he wouldn’t lose it. Twisting, he brought the Uzi to bear, raking a line of 9 mm bullets across the sec men behind him.
The bullets chewed through kegs, an overturned buckboard, and tables that had been brought out of various establishments. A handful of sec men went down under the blasterfire.
J.B. didn’t let up until the Uzi was empty. He turned his attention back to the hotel, holding on to the horse’s mane as it vaulted up onto the boardwalk. He knew it had taken some hits during the firefight; he’d felt them shiver through the animal’s flesh. Two bullets had grazed the Armorer’s left side, tearing through skin and glancing off the bone beneath.
The doors opened ahead of him just before he thought the horse was going to smash into them. The animal struggled to keep taking steps, blood flecking from its nostrils and blowing back into J.B.’s face in warm, wet drops.