Chapter 57: Another life...

The Ambrose Gang ruled the county for two years -- right up until the night that the piano player at the Royale wanted to die.

Nobody wanted to face down fourteen hardened gunmen, especially ones with hands as swift and steady as the Ambrose boys themselves. They had the sort of respect from the people of the county that comes from abject fear. They had money and power and the freedom to rob and even rape with impunity.

Poppa Ambrose even seemed to have a high placement in the coming state government all sewn up with bribes put in all the right pockets. They had it all.

The only mistake came when Danny and Whitney Ambrose and Oscar Jameson decided on a night of drinking, whoring and playing cards at the Royale.

"Why the hell ain't he playin'?" Danny asked. He sat at the poker table with his cousins, gun on his hip and a bottle in his hand. His erstwhile sidekick, Oscar, was upstairs with one whore or another. It was a busy enough night; most of the seats in the saloon were filled, but it just wasn't the same without music. Across the saloon floor, Tom just sat at his piano staring at the keys.

"Guess he ain't in the mood," the dealer frowned. "Ain't he bein' paid to play?" Danny growled.

The dealer looked up, then down at his cards again. He opted to ignore the question with a sigh, hoping the topic would be dropped. It would be better if Tom would start playing, but that didn't look likely.

Juanita came by to lean on the side of the piano. "She left on the train," she said.

"I know," Tom acknowledged in a soft, wounded voice. He didn't look up from the keys. "I didn't think she'd leave before she had the money."

"She got it from me."

"Oh? I thought you were hoping to leave with her?"

Tom just shrugged. "Was. She didn't have enough money to get back to Ireland. I didn't have enough money to go with her. But I was close. Showed it to her the other night. Then we had that fight."

"Ay. Heard some of that. You shouldn't have said those things," the Royale's senior female "entertainer"

said with a somber shrug. There was compassion there, but it was jaded. Matter-of-fact. Juanita called things as she saw them.

"I was hurt. Stupid. I was stupid. I knew her better than that." "Gone now, though. You gave it to her to make up for the fight?"

"She took all my money from my room," Tom said softly. "With what she had, it's certainly enough to get her back to Ireland." After a moment, he said, "I shouldn't have called her a whore."

"She is a whore. We're all whores."

"I shouldn't have said it like it's an insult," he corrected softly.

At that, Juanita inclined her head, nodding like a teacher who'd just confirmed her student had learned his lesson. "Ain't as much fun getting by on your back as people like to make it sound."

"It's gotta be a hard way to live."

"Lose your husband out here so far from home? Have to turn to whoring to get by? Yes. Awful. She thought she had something special with you."

"I thought so, too. I knew what she had to do. I just...couldn't stand it anymore. Having to wait. Having to be around while she worked. I just snapped. But I didn't think it was such a bad fight."

Juanita shrugged, about to say something else. She never got it out.

"Aw, y'all talkin' about Siobhan?" Danny Ambrose asked. He had come over to the piano, his speech only slightly slurred by drinking and his posture only a little stooped. It would get worse before the night was over, but not before he'd been upstairs with someone. "Yeah, she's a beauty. All that curly red hair.

Screams nice, too."

Tom just stared at the piano keys. Juanita turned away to hide her scowl.

"I was hopin' to fuck her again tonight," Danny mused, "but I guess that ain't gonna happen. 's too bad. I figured she'd be a little nicer to me after the lesson I gave her last time. Anyway, hey. Piano player. Play something, for fuck's sake. Somethin' cheery. Me an' my boys're gonna clean out that mess of redskins north of here tomorrow. Wanna have a good party tonight before we hit the trail." He reached out to shove a pair of coins into the breast pocket of Tom's vest. Tom didn't look up.

"Yes, sir," Tom mumbled. He reached, without really looking for it, to put some sheet music up over the piano keys.

"Y'all need t' read music?" Danny asked. "Heard you before. Never saw you need th' sheets before. Hell, ev'ryone says you're the best piano player west of the Mississippi."

"I might be a bit off my game tonight, sir," Tom answered quietly.

"Gotcha. Well, everyone's got a bad night now and again. Guess you're broken up about our favorite whore leavin', too, huh? Well, I hear ya. It's sad for me, too. I wanted that tight little asshole again. Maybe I'll just take Juanita's tonight instead. Huh, Juanita?"

Juanita shrugged and stepped away. "Hhh. Anyway, buck up," Danny said, lightly smacking his hand against Tom's face a couple times in a patronizing manner. "Play somethin' nice, for fuck's sake." With that, he roamed back to his table, where his back was to the piano.

Tom stopped shuffling the music. It was just to get Danny to go away, anyway. He couldn't play anything when he was in a mood like this. Not when there were tears about to fall.

It was over. He'd never find Siobhan, not now. Not without any money to follow her, nor any clue where in Ireland she was headed. Surely Siobhan wasn't even her real name. She was smarter than that.

But in listening to Danny ramble, Tom found himself forgiving her. He couldn't forgive himself for the things he'd said, but he certainly understood the pain in her eyes. His jealousy had gotten the better of him. Stupid. She couldn't make him understand why she had to act the way she did with other men.

Danny made him understand, though.

Danny also made Tom understand why she had stolen all of Tom's savings and disappeared on a train that afternoon. Tom got it now. He couldn't really blame her, either. Couldn't blame anyone from running away from that. As Juanita had said, there likely wasn't all that much fun in making a living on your back. Tom had never really figured otherwise, but there was thinking and then there was understanding. He forgave Siobhan completely. But he couldn't forgive himself.

With that decided, Tom rose from the bench. He walked over to Danny and Whitney Ambrose's poker table. They were engrossed in their game, goading the other players, all of them quite cowed, to make bets that were to the Ambrose cousins' advantage.

Tom stood between them. They didn't notice him until he snatched the revolvers from each man's holster

-- Danny was right-handed, Whitney was a lefty -- and, without looking, hurled the guns to either side of the saloon. Danny's fell behind the piano. Whitney's crashed into the rack of bottles behind the bar after the bartender ducked out of its way.

Tom also quickly overturned Danny's chair, sending him tumbling off to his left. Whitney was up quickly with that right-handed knife that Tom had seen before. He grabbed the wrist, twisted it, and quickly

shoved Whitney's blade up into the man's stomach while it was still in his own hand. He let Whitney tumble to the ground with a gasp.

Danny rose, looking at Tom more in disbelief than alarm. Tom simply said, "I am the best piano player in the west. I've also been in more bar fights than you've been in bars."

Danny threw his punch; Tom backed away from it quicker than Danny could see. Whitney was screaming in alarm now, calling out for Oscar. Tom stepped over him, backing away from Danny's swings until Danny stumbled over Whitney. At that, Tom seized hold of Danny's collar and punched him straight in the nose. He punched again and again and again, quickly pounding blood and teeth out of the face of the notorious Danny Ambrose. He didn't let go until he found himself partially holding Danny up. Tom let the outlaw stagger back against a chair.

Then he went to work with his booted foot on Danny's crotch. He grabbed Danny's feared right hand, twisted it, and then stomped once, very hard, for every prostitute at the Royale. A bloody stain began to spread at Danny's groin.

When he was finished with that, he turned Danny's twisted right arm over onto the table next to him. Then Tom grabbed the nearest bottle, smashed it over Danny's hand, and then stabbed the jagged, broken remains just below the bottle's broken neck into Danny's palm.

At that point, the guests and workers of the Royale could only look on in horror. The only sounds were Danny and Whitney Ambrose's gurgling, anguished screams.

"Hold on, Whitney!" someone yelled from upstairs. "I'm comin'! I'm comin'!"

Tom looked up at the top of the staircase. He grabbed another bottle and calmly waited. When Oscar Jameson appeared in his long johns, rifle in hand, Tom hurled the bottle with enough force and accuracy to smash it straight in Oscar's face. The stunned, surprised and drunk gunman lost his balance and came tumbling down the stairs.

Oscar lay there for only a second before Tom's booted heel came down on Oscar's right hand with a resounding crunch. The piano player then waited for Oscar to finish the resultant howl. "Done now?" he asked. "Alright. Take your pick of your friends here and get 'em to Poppa Ambrose. I'll stay here."

At that, people began clearing out. They didn't wait for Oscar to get to his feet, to evaluate the permanent damage to his shooting hand, or to see him drag Poppa Ambrose's pride and joy, now shattered, out of the bar. He left Whitney behind. Maybe the younger Ambrose cousin would make it; maybe he wouldn't. Probably not.

The last to leave was Juanita, who looked on at Tom in shock. She watched as he collected Danny's pistol from behind the bar, checked to see that it was loaded, then went to do the same for Whitney's gun.

"You should probably not be here," Tom said. "They're going to kill you," Juanita breathed.

"Seems likely, don't it?" Tom just shrugged. "Three less of 'em for anyone to have to deal with, though. None of them are gonna be gunslingin' ever again," he said, gesturing at the door where Oscar had dragged Danny.

"You don't have to do this." She was still in awe. The Ambrose boys had roamed all over those parts for months. She didn't think anyone would stand up to them, nor did she really blame people for not trying. Until now.

"It's done," Tom said sadly. "Head out. Hopefully I'll take out one or two more before it's over."

He didn't have long to wait. With only one lunatic piano player to deal with, Poppa Ambrose didn't delay his response until the whole gang had been mustered. There were only seven of them, plus the injured Oscar, all on horses in the dirty street outside the saloon. Everyone else had cleared well out of the way.

"Come on out here, Tommy!" Poppa Ambrose said once everyone was dismounted. With his usual flair for dramatics, he hadn't even drawn a gun. Nobody had their rifles pointed toward the saloon, either, nor were their pistols drawn. As Poppa had told them, this was someone trying to make a stand. Some fool making a show of standing up to the bullies. He'd want to be dramatic, too. There'd be words before the shooting. The townsfolk couldn't be allowed to see the Ambrose Gang cowed.

They waited outside until Tom appeared, Whitney's gun belt around his waist. The gun, as Poppa had predicted, was still in the holster. Poppa Ambrose opened his mouth to speak.

It was just enough of a delay for Tom to whip up the gun in his right hand, held just behind his leg, and shoot Dick Ambrose. The bullet hit him right in the throat. Poppa's eldest son was the second-fastest draw in the family after Danny. He had gotten his own shot off, striking Tom in the chest, but the damage was done on Dick himself.

There was more gunfire then. The Ambrose gang didn't wait, but in their surprise and general lack of sobriety their marksmanship wasn't quite as sharp in the first two seconds as it would've been otherwise. Tom, by contrast, wasn't even concerned with survival. He got out three more shots; one went wild, but one went straight through Willie Talbot's lung. The other, planted in Chris Fisher's leg, wouldn't have been fatal but for the infection that would arise two mornings later.

Tom Graham died on the steps of the Royale, lying there facedown and bleeding out from a couple dozen bullet holes. Poppa Ambrose watched him die, just as he'd seen the death of his son, Dick. He would later see Whitney die of his wounds with Danny now just a broken husk of a man.

There was no one to lynch for it. No one to drag screaming through the streets by horse, no one to make an example of to the town.

There were, however, considerably fewer of the Ambrose gang for the local sheriffs to worry about. The gang's much-vaunted fastest draws were out of the picture. A week later, men with badges carried out warrants that had been waiting in desk drawers for months. It was done by piecemeal, but with the gang's numbers so diminished, there were then even fewer of them around to retaliate until it was too late.

When Dick, Whitney and the others were buried, the only people who showed up were the members of the gang who weren't already in jail awaiting trial.

When Tom Graham was buried, the whole town was there. People came from miles around, right in the view of Poppa and Danny Ambrose, to see him laid to rest. His pallbearers included the town marshal, the county sheriff, the mayor, and the town's preacher. Everyone who knew him was there, along with dozens who didn't.

Everyone except Siobhan.