Sun goes orange when Beatrix decides she's thrown enough dice for one day. A penny on the line, dollars by her elbow, and she doesn't pocket a coin. She only wanted to see if today was the day she'd lose.
Four hardcases shoulder through the batwings and make the air go still. Beatrix rises, fishes four wanted dodgers from her duster, and fits each sketch to each face like she's measuring for a coffin. Her eyes jump paper to flesh and back, the gaze loud and obnoxious.
The barkeep ducks and vanishes. Talk dries up. The lucky few near the door ooze into the street.
"What in perdition...?" the tall one blurts, forgetting to drag iron. "Wench, are you out of your Goddamned mind?"
Beatrix smiles like she's heard it all twice. "Misters Theodore Kreier, Richard Clarkson, Harry Kind - and the mysterious friend known only as أنت, I presume?" She lays the dodgers on the craps felt; her winnings slither to the boards. Her hand drifts easy under her duster. "I know a marshal still sore about that bank."
Short Richard yanks a Bowie and lunges - floorboard snaps where his boot lands. He spills forward and rams his own throat on the Bowie's edge. He don't even get to scream. "Huh," Beatrix mutters, thumbing one less cartridge into the Colt's wheel.
Theodore finally drags leather and snaps a wild shot. It misses - nerves from the woman's calm, perhaps. Harry's rusty piece belches back in his palm - blood, smoke, curses. Beatrix answers with a slug under Theodore's ribs and another that ruins Harry's pretty face.
Which leaves أنت.
"Afternoon. You are a fascinatin' one," she says, tipping Richard's twitching carcass with her boot, not minding the blood. Theodore, mule-stubborn, tries to level on her again. Without looking from Will, she gives him another round neat through the brow. "Best if at least one of you comes along intact. Be neighborly now."
Just in case the fugitive tests her, she spins the cylinder. She can't recall how many she loaded, but - as always - it's just enough.
محادثة قصة مع Beatrix Boone
