Six Men

Six men rode into a dusty town on a dusty moon on a Wednesday afternoon looking for a man to kill. They rode horses and wore an odd assortment of clothes and hats, but all carried guns. All had pistols and each also had a rifle or machine gun, but their leader, the Boss they called him, had a Callahan full bore auto lock, a big mean looking gun that had killed many men in its day. They were bounty hunters and they were after a particular bounty on a particular man who was wanted by the Magistrate of Canton on Higgins Moon. The bounty wasn’t the biggest they ever went after but 50,000 credits was enough to pique their interest and bring them to this moon where they heard their man was.

The Boss was big across the shoulders, tall in the saddle, and had two pistols plus his Callahan, wore a long duster and a leather cowboy hat, had a thick black moustache and two gold teeth in the upper set. The others were an odd assortment of killers and lowlifes that the Boss had gathered over the years. Lin was a limber Chinese man who had guns, but preferred to kill with a knife or his hands and feet when he had the chance. Dirty Mike was dirty in both his hygiene and fighting and was known to shoot a man in the back and then spit on the corpse. Red Fred was a redhead and had a thick bushy beard and loved automatic weapons and more than one innocent bystander was knocked down in his quest to collect a bounty. Clark was clean shaven and the tidiest of the bunch and was deadly at any range with a scoped sniper rifle, an old Mauser, preferring a long range kill to the up close action. Arch Stanton was short in statue and thick in limbs and ham fisted and also deadly with guns, but preferred to stick a man in the belly with a Bowie knife and watch him bleed to death.

They had a reputation and when a big bounty needed collecting they were called on. The Alliance feds had arrest warrants for all six but not too many local sheriffs and fed officers at lonely rim outposts cared to tangle with the six so they pretty much did what they wanted.

“He’s here! He’s here!” said a thin wiry man as he ran up to the six men at the edge of town “Jayne Cobb is here!”

The Boss took a long look at the fellow and spit a wad of tobacco juice right at his feet, just missing his cowboy boots. “You sure?” he said a long slow drawl, with a hint of menace that said the thin man better be sure or there’d be hell to pay.

The thin man gulped. “Yup, I’m sure. His horse is hitched outside the whorehouse and Madam Stephanie said he’s been there three days now, and bedded every whore in the place and that’s got to be ten ladies at least. Hasn’t left this room, got the door locked and curtains drawn and he only eats in the room. Madam getting ready to kick him out cause his money’s about gone.”

“What room he in?”

“Top floor, right side, second on the right.”

The other five men listened and looked to the Boss to see what move he’d make. The Boss sized up the thin man. “What’s your name again?”

“Smith, Bill Smith” said the thin man and the Boss tossed him a gold coin.

“That’s half, Bill Smith. You get the other half if your info is spot on.”

Dirty Mike laughed and looked at Bill Smith “And you know what you gets if it ain’t spot on?” And he pointed a machine gun and pretended to kill Bill Smith who shivered in fear. The other men all laughed and the Boss chuckled in a slow dry manner and looked at Smith.

“Show us the way.”

Smith took them down the main street and as they walked people scattered and within seconds the street was empty. Smith pointed to the whore house at the far end. The Boss sized up the situation and looked to Clark and nodded to a two story building. Clark dismounted, hitched his horse to a post and took out his sniper rifle. Then the Boss noticed something wrong. There weren’t any horses hitched in front of the whorehouse. He was just turning to yell to Clark when a shot rang out and Clark dropped dead with a bullet in the head.

A lot happened in the next few seconds. All the men turned to the sound of the shot and there was no mistake that it came from the whore house. Dirty Mike turned with a rage on Smith and was burning off a clip at the man who was scampering into an open door with bullets chasing him when Dirty Mike died with a bullet between the eyes. The remaining four men jumped off their horses and scattered to cover. Slowly they made their way from cover to cover as more shots rang out, doors hit, windows broken, posts shattered, but no one else was hit. After a few minutes they converged on the whorehouse near the sides.

“Jayne Cobb!” yelled the Boss.

“Yeah, that’s me!” Jayne yelled back from the second floor but they couldn’t tell which window. “I got two of you already. How many more gonna die today?”

“Just you, bastard!” yelled Red Fred and he rained a fusillade of bullets at the upper floor hitting every window and shattering them all. The Boss opened up with the Callahan as Lin and Arch Stanton ran to the front door and entered the whorehouse at a run. Red Mike kept up the fire while the Boss ran for the front door and got inside just as a grenade fell out a window, which landed on the front step, bounced and rolled to where Red Mike was hiding. The explosion blew him back through a store front window, which just happened to be hardware store and he was impaled on spike sticking out of wall holding some shovels on display.

The Boss cleared the sweat from his eyes and shook his head to get the ringing out of his ears from the grenade explosion. Lin and Arch were slowing making their way to the stairs. He signaled them to stop and then he noticed the place was empty except for him and his men. No whores, no customers, no one playing poker or having a drink. He didn’t like it one bit and something wasn’t quite right. It was a trap, for them.

“I guess that makes only three left now,” Jayne yelled form the upper level. “Odds getting’ better all the time.”

The Boss nodded to Lin and he took off his shoes, undid his pistol belt and put a knife in his teeth and slowly crawled up the stairs, quiet as a mouse.

“Cobb!” yelled the Boss as loud as he could.

“I’m listening,” Jayne yelled back.

“Magistrate of Canton mighty sore at you, Cobb. Offered us 50,000 for you dead or alive. You pay us that, we’ll walk out real quiet.”

As the Boss talked Lin got to the top of the stairs and disappeared left around a corner. Arch then started up, Bowie knife in one hand, pistol in the other.

“Sounds like a good idea, ‘cept I paid all the money I had to these lovely ladies and still owe 'em some, so you and me jus’ going have to settle this ‘nother way.”

“Guess there’s gonna be some more killin’,” drawled the Boss.

“Guess so,” said Jayne.

Arch Stanton reached the top of the stairs and went right, the opposite way of Lin. Smith had to be lying about where Cobb was and they couldn’t quite tell from his yells where he was. Just then there was a scream and the sound of bone crunching and Lin staggered out of the hall to the top of the stairs, his knife in his chest, his arm dangling, broken, and then a bullet hit him in the head and he dropped and rolled down the stairs just as Arch Stanton let fly with a flurry of bullets as he ran down the left hall. The Boss leaped over Lin’s lifeless body and bounded up the stairs just in time to see Arch fly back with two bullets in the chest and drop dead at his feet.

All five were dead now and the Boss knew he was in trouble. Cobb was no mere robber as the magistrate made out. He was a stone cold killer and they had been duped into a false sense of security. He should have run but there was no way his pride could stand that and he wanted this man’s head on a stake, his blood now up and on fire, and Jayne Cobb’s death could be the only thing that would settle accounts.

“Let’s see,” Jayne said down the hall in a mocking tone. “That’s five I believe. Guess that only leaves you, Boss.”

“Guess it ain’t no chore to know who we are,” said the Boss as he hid behind the cover of the stairwell. “But who in blazes are you, Jayne Cobb?”

“Jus’ a guy with a fondness for guns and fighting,” said Jayne with a laugh. “Might just say it’s a hobby of mine.”

“You ex-military? Fight in the war?”

“Hell no. War’s for fools and generals, and sometimes can’t tell them apart.”

“Alliance, police?”

“Now that’s even stupider than the last thing you said. Me and the Alliance ain’t friends no how, no gorramn way.”

The Boss was listening to him and finally figured out where he was. Second room on the left, down the left hall. He slid down the hallway, keeping low, the Callahan in front of him, a fresh clip in, and when he came to the first door he pushed all his weight against it, fell in and fired a full burst into the wall connecting the room to the second on the left. He heard a scream and a thud, like a body hitting the floor. He changed magazines and then went to the hallway slowly making his way down to the second door. He kicked it open but couldn’t see inside because of the angle. Slowly he stuck his head in and saw a bed, with many guns and ammo on it and there was a body on the floor, a big man, face down, head toward the door, wearing a yellow t-shirt, with blood soaking the floor under him.

Grinning the Boss entered the room and was staggered by a blow to the head and all went black.

He came to a few minutes later and looked up at a leering Jayne Cobb holding his Callahan at his head. He turned and the body of the man was still there.

“Who?”

Jayne looked at the body. “Oh, him? That’s fellow came about an hour ‘for you got here. He was a bit better than you guys, caught me with my pants down, but he’s dead and I ain’t so you know how that turned out.”

“You knew we was coming?”

“Yeah, old Smithy and me goes way back. Said you hired him yesterday to scout round for me before you arrived. Guess you shoulda picked someone else or paid him more.”

“I got money…don’t have to end this way.”

“No, it don’t, but it’s gonna cause if I takes your money and lets you go I be looking over my shoulder rest of my life. Got enough enemies as is.”

And the last thing the Boss ever saw was the leer of Jayne Cobb as he pulled the trigger of the Callahan full bore auto lock.

As they stacked up the bodies in front of the whore house, the local sheriff handed Jayne stacks of money, the Alliance bounty on the six men he killed. There was no bounty on the first man as he wasn’t wanted by the law. Jayne had a big grin and turned to Smith and handed him a nice pile of bills.

“Good job Smithy,” Jayne said to his friend. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Not so fast Jayne Cobb,” said Madam Stephanie, a tall woman in her forties who still had a killer body and eyes of steel. “There’s matter of your bill and the damages to my establishment.”

Jayne just sighed and handed over more money. Then the hardware store owner got his cut for the broken window and damaged goods and another store owner had a broken window from the grenade blast. Jayne’s reward kept getting smaller as more people came up looking for money to fix bullet holes in their stores and houses and soon Jayne’s hand was almost empty. The sheriff confiscated the six horses and the men’s weapons and cash to offset the cost of the bounty paid to Jayne and for the funeral arraignments. Jayne held the Callahan in his hands and the sheriff looked at it.

“Ain’t you got enough guns?” he asked Jayne.

“Yeah, but none like this one.”

“Alright, keep it, guess you earned it.”

“Shiny,” said Jayne and he turned to Smith. “Guess you’ll be buying me that drink now.”

“Sure thing, Jayne,” said Smith as they entered the whorehouse. “That’s a mighty fine gun.”

“Yeah. And I know jus’ what I’m gonna call it.”

THE END