Showdown

by M.L. Bushman

Deaf to her, to what remained of the crowd parting like the Red Sea, in a quarter-turn, I faced a skinny teenaged boy dressed in buckskin, not six feet tall or twenty feet away, narrow shoulders, mismatched guns holstered over slim hips. Underfed. A swift scan of the roof of the black marble building caught the crown of a hat floating just above the rim.

Now I frowned, squinting one eye. "Ain't gonna yell draw, are you?"

"You tell 'em, Clint," somebody shouted. Even I had to grin at that.

Sporadic laughter from the crowd faded to dead silence, the young man wrinkling his nose into a baby's scowl, obviously too young for the joke.

"Calling you out," he said, arrogantly raising his pointy chin. "Heard you’re the man from up north."

"I'm from out west originally," I replied. Somebody snickered lightly nearby, but I wasn't looking away.

The boy put his face into that baby scowl again. "Ain't you the one kilt my brother?"

"And which one was that?"

"Shank," the boy said, his hands drifting to the butts of his guns. "Shank was my big brother."

A wink from that rooftop, I slapped my hip and fired. A yelp like a battered pup, Shank's little brother spun to look. A body met the ground with a meaty thud raising a cloud of dust, leather hat seesawed after. His shiny weapon just a puff of dirt close by.

Hands on his guns, Shank's little brother whirled to my leveled revolver, smoke trailing yet from the muzzle.

"Even I ain't that fast, kid," I said.

37 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 11, 2013

About the author

M.L. Bushman has three books published by Jigsaw Press--Miracle the novel; and The Implausible Hero. She also writes under the pseudonym Kris Karrel and has two books published as such: Threads, a Blaine Horney Mystery, and Just Blaine Horney. She is currently working on a futuristic Western series of books.

A single mom, Ms. Bushman wears a lot of hats these days. Novelist, writer, editor-Jigsaw Press, typesetter, book cover designer, interior layout and design, to name a few.

In addition to all of the above, the author likes to play ranch-hand for her better than good neighbors when called upon. "In my neck of the woods," she says, "we're all cow and horse junkies. Sort of goes with the territory."

Ms. Bushman states emphatically that she could do none of the above without the support of God and her twelve-year-old daughter, a girl good as gold and smart as the day is long, and then some.

The author and her daughter share their home outside of Sun River, Montana, with one indoor cat--Lady--numerous outdoor cats with names like Garfield, Whiskers, Garfield Imposter, Pinky and Rabbit, plus one American Saddlebred horse, Chewy.