One Broken Spur - Norman John

“Hey, tough guys! I have been nursing cows longer than you been playing cards, and every one of them cows, have better manners than you do on your best day, and I’ve also been a sheriff and every one of them bad ones had better manners than you do right now.”

The card shark pushed his chair back with a jump, his fingers just an inch away from his shell belt gun.

Ken’s lips curled, showing his teeth, and Ken said, “Mister, I’ve been lifting cows and calf’s for a living most of my life, you don’t frighten me in the least, I’ve stared down cows and bears, and when I was a sheriff, I stared down the wrong end of a barrel of a gun a time or two, all you have is a plum loco way of looking at things. Let’s face it, you just don’t look good and your stink is worse.”

Alasdair said, “Gie him a skelpit lug, oh, I forgot, give him a slap on the ear.”

Ken thought the card shark looked like a rattler had been thrown on the table between us.

Then the card shark said, “Stand up, I’m callin’ you out, I’ll shoot you down like a dog that you are.”

Ken stood up and faced the card shark. The card shark’s hand twitched, Ken’s hand blurred in movement, and magically, the .45 appeared in Ken’s hand. There was one loud roar, and the shining .45 bucked in Ken’s hand, a bluish-colored and acrid smell of gun smoke filled the air. The card shark’s legs buckled and gave way. He crumpled to the floor with a bullet hole between his eyes. The bullet hole was a perfect triangle with that third eye Ken had just made.