Stand Up and Die. William W. Johnstone

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      When the waitress from the Deep Flood café entered his room, Jed Breen frowned. He realized when the shooting started, he wouldn’t be the only person dead. Otto Kruger would kill the redhead, too.

      Kruger was savvy enough, experienced enough, and most certainly deadly enough, to stand back and find the perfect position where he could keep an eye on Breen and the handsome woman. His eyes seemed independent of one another; one looked at Breen, while the other focused on the girl. The Remington remained level at Breen’s chest.

      “Fräulein,” Otto said. “Ya put food here on bed and step back. Run, yell, try anyting and ya die. I vill kill ya. And him, too. Ruhe.” He motioned with his left hand toward the bed.

      The tray shook in the redhead’s hands.

      “Be quiet!” Otto shouted. “If people hear ya, I vill kill ya now.” He pointed the gun at her, and her Adam’s apple bobbed twice, but she somehow managed to stop shaking, and placed the tray on the end of the bed.

      A shot rang out outside, and the girl jumped back, almost turning over the coffeepot. Instinctively, she reached for it.

      Otto turned back, kept the gun aimed at Breen, and laughed as a second gunshot echoed outside.

      “Hans do good vork, ja?” He laughed again and drew careful aim at Jed Breen.

      The wide smile on Breen’s face stopped the German.

      “Vat make laugh?” Otto Kruger frowned. “Ya vant to die vith a smile on yer lips.”

      Breen’s head shook, and he laughed out loud as yet another gunshot came from the bank.

      “No. It’s just so damned funny.” He pointed at the waitress from Deep Flood’s only eating joint.

      Quickly Otto Kruger jerked his head toward the redhead, and that sent Breen diving for the Sharps. About to turn back and put a bullet into the bounty hunter’s head, the German instead raised both hands to protect his face and screamed. He screamed before the redheaded waitress tossed the scalding hot coffee into his face.

      Behind him, Breen heard the German shrieking in agony, writhing on the floor, and the redhead cursing him. The coffeepot clattered on the floor. The waitress kicked Otto Kruger—where it counted.

      Breen jerked back the heavy hammer of the Sharps, leaped to his feet, and swung it at the window. The barrel smashed the glass for he had no time to try to slide the barrel and its fancy brass telescope through the crack. He saw the horse, but only the tail, heard another gunshot, and then Hans Kruger was galloping out of Breen’s sight.

      “Damn,” Breen barked, and broke more glass from the window as he pulled the Sharps back inside.

      Otto, his face an ugly mess of red, white, purple (and brown coffee), rolled back and forth, gasping in pain from damage to his face, neck, and groin. The redhead didn’t look happy either, and she kicked the man in the shin.

      “No . . .” Otto Kruger found enough strength to push himself up. “Hussy!” He spit at the redhead.

      Breen brought the stock of the heavy Sharps onto the top of the outlaw’s head. Otto Kruger groaned, yelped, and slumped into the coffee that was slowly disappearing into the cracks on the floor.

      Outside and downstairs and even on the second floor hallway of the hotel, people began shouting and asking questions.

      Breen nodded at the woman.

      “You all right?”

      She didn’t answer. She pointed at Otto Kruger. “Who is that wicked, little weasel?”

      “Otto Kruger. Bank robber, ma’am. Now out of commission.” Breen lowered the rifle and grinned. “There’s a five hundred dollar reward on him. I think it would be fair for us to split it.”

      He expected her to argue, but she just stopped and blinked, and looked down at him, then back at Breen.

      Her lips trembled. “What?”

      “The bank robber is a killer, ma’am. That was his brother down below, robbing the bank here in Deep Flood.”

      “Who are you?” she managed to ask.

      “Breen, ma’am.” He reached up as if to tip the hat that was hanging on the horn of a longhorn steer on the wall. “Jed Breen. I’m sort of what they call . . . a . . . man hunter. Part-time . . . um . . . peace officer.”

      “Bounty hunter.” Her eyes turned rigid.

      “Yeah. That’s another way of putting it. Five hundred dollars.” He pointed his chin at the unconscious outlaw. “For him. Two hundred and fifty suit you, ma’am?”

      “Keep your blood money,” she said. Then she spit on the floor, kicked the unconscious Hun in the ankle, and hurried out the door. As she disappeared, Breen heard the echoes of her heels on the stairs, then the front door slam.

      Eventually, another face appeared in the door. The man looked first at the door Breen had busted open, then at the coffeepot, eventually finding the broken window. He looked at length at the ugly face of the ugly bank robber, and then, finally, at Jed Breen.

      “What the hell has been going on here?” the hotel clerk said.

      “Fetch the town law.” Breen lowered the Sharps onto the bed and moved to the plate of steak and potatoes. But he lost his appetite. Seeing all the coffee and such over his meal, he figured it had been contaminated with Otto Kruger’s snot, hairs, and sweat.

      * * *

      Inside what passed for a lawman’s office, the constable of Deep Flood, Texas, rolled out the reward poster close to the still-unconscious face of the notorious man-killer and robber. “This is Otto Kruger.”

      Breen nodded and poured himself a cup of coffee since his supper was turning out to be the constable’s coffee. “Yeah. Once those scars are all set, there shouldn’t be any trouble in telling him apart from his brother, Hans.” The coffee tasted like lukewarm water flavored by two or three coffee beans.

      “And you are . . .?”

      “Jed Breen.”

      “The jackal?”

      “I’ve been called worse.”

      The constable rose and rolled up the wanted poster. “Well, sir, what is it you want from me?”

      Breen made himself drink what some idiot might call coffee and tossed the empty tin mug onto the counter. “Well, sir, I’d like for you to identify this man, then go over to the bank, and bring me back my five hundred dollars. Just like that reward poster says. The great state of Texas and the territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado will pay you and the bank back. That’s what it says on that dodger, doesn’t it?”

      “Bank’s closed,” the constable said.

      “No, it’s not. They’re busy trying to figure out how much money Hans Kruger got away with.”

      “If it was the Kruger brothers, they likely cleaned out everything,” the constable said, choking out the words.

      “No. I saw Hans Kruger drop a sack in the dirt while he was trying to get his horse to giddyap.”

      The constable frowned, looked at Otto Kruger, and shook his head. “And then what?”

      “Then you lock this low-down dog up, and the Texas Rangers will ride over in a day or so and haul his sorry ass off to wherever they want to hang him.”

      The constable straightened, smiling as he shook his head. “Well, we can’t do that, Mr. Breen.” He made a lazy gesture toward the backdoor. “Jail only has room for one prisoner, and that’d be Orrin, our local drunk. Besides, you don’t want to keep a villain like Otto Kruger.” He looked down at the man’s ugly, swollen face, and shook his head before looking again into Breen’s cold eyes. “There’s