He searched the bodies of all ten men, one by one. There were no clues to be found.
"Get these guns to the armory, then dump the bodies in the valley," Henry ordered Luke, then left the Sheriff's office.
With another thousand dollars in bounty money, Henry was in a good mood. He and Pete headed to the Phoenix Saloon for dinner.
Luke and Maddy did as they were told, leaving Lawrence to stand watch. In their eyes, Henry was now something close to a god. Following a Sheriff this powerful meant a bright future and a much greater chance of staying alive.
Pete was four years older than Henry and had just recently married.
The moment the two lawmen pushed through the swinging saloon doors, the entire place fell silent, as if someone had hit a pause button.
A second later, the noise erupted, louder than before.
Men all over the room called out to him with enthusiastic greetings.
"Henry! That shooting yesterday was a sight to see!"
"Henry, over here! The good whiskey's on me!"
"Henry, is it true you took down ten more assassins just now?"
Henry greeted them all in turn. He knew most of the men here; the original Henry had practically used the place as his mess hall. All lawmen got a sixty percent discount on food and thirty percent off on drinks.
The owner, Drummond, was a Scotsman, so the whiskey was authentic. And since this was a gold rush town, most of the patrons could afford the good stuff. Selling rotgut in Frisco was a good way to get run out of town on a rail.
The saloon was a three-story building. The ground floor was a large, three-hundred-square-meter hall with over fifty log tables and chairs. A pool table sat in one corner, and a standard-sized boxing ring—18 feet long by 16 feet wide—occupied another. The second and third floors were guest rooms, with a few private card rooms on the second.
Of course, you could play cards in the main hall as well. All four of Frisco's saloons doubled as restaurants and hotels.
Proper women wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this, unless they were saloon girls or women of ill repute. But the girls who worked in these Western saloons rarely "sold their company," except in the lowest-class dives. They would sing and dance with the lonely men, flirt a little, and encourage them to buy more drinks or play another hand of cards. They earned a commission on every drink sold at their table. If a real connection was made, of course, anything was possible, but it was rarely free.
Henry and Pete found a table by the window.
A blonde waitress with a stunning figure but a plain face, a girl named Trish, swaggered over. She shot Henry a sultry wink. "What can I get for our handsome Sheriff Henry today?"
"Two venison steaks, two beef steaks, three pounds of bread, and two orders of whatever vegetables you have," Henry rattled off his order from memory.
Trish scribbled it down. "And to drink?"
"Two whiskeys," Henry said. "Pete, your turn. My treat."
"That's plenty," Pete said with a shrug.
Henry grinned. "What I just ordered was for me."
"What?" Pete's eyes went wide as saucers. Trish's big, watery eyes widened in shock as well. A single steak here was a full pound.
Since his upgrade to LV 3, Henry's appetite had more than doubled. Four pounds of meat and three pounds of bread was a feast for a small family. The single steak he'd eaten at Linda's for lunch had barely touched the sides; he'd had to supplement it with dry rations from his storage space just to feel half-full.
Trish gave him a seductive smile. "A man who can eat like that can… perform. No wonder you're so amazing, Henry."
Henry just spread his hands. "You're not wrong." But Trish was too plain for his tastes; he wasn't interested in trying out his new talents on her.
"I'll have a beef steak, a glass of milk, a pound of bread," Pete said, "and a bourbon."
Trish took the order and walked away, her hips swaying hypnotically. Pete couldn't help but stare.
"You'd better think of a good way to get on my good side, Pete," Henry said with a laugh. "Or Mary might just hear about that."
Pete snapped out of it, his face flushing red. "You wouldn't. Hey, how did you get so good with a gun all of a sudden?"
Henry let him change the subject. "I was always holding back before. Yesterday, I had no choice. Forty men ambushing us… It's a shame Bryan was too far away. I couldn't save him in time."
Pete's eyes immediately reddened. He couldn't speak. Bryan had been like a father to him. He'd even been the one to arrange his marriage to Mary, acting as a matchmaker with a local farmer.
"Bryan took down nearly thirty of them himself," Henry continued, his voice firm. "Don't grieve for him too much. This is the West. You need to get better with your gun, so you can protect your wife and the children you'll have one day."
"Yeah," Pete said, nodding. "I will."
CRACK!
A sharp slapping sound echoed from the second floor.
"You rotten whore!" a gruff voice roared. "You dare signal my hand?"
"I didn't…" a woman's choked voice sobbed.
CRACK! Another sharp slap.
"Bitch! Don't think I won't put a bullet in you!" the man snarled.
Downstairs, all eyes turned to the staircase. The girls in most saloons were treated with respect. In a place where men outnumbered women so drastically, every woman was valued. If a man insulted one of the girls, he could expect to be thrown out, or worse.
"Get down there. You too," the man growled. Footsteps descended the stairs.
A moment later, a mountain of a man, at least six-foot-three with light brown, shoulder-length hair, appeared, dragging a saloon girl with a bruised and swollen face. Following behind them was a gaunt, hawk-faced cowboy.
"Where's the owner?" the big man bellowed.
Danger!
The big one is drawing, he'll fire at me in a blink. The hawk-faced one too. Both professionals.
Henry's hands were a blur, drawing both Colt 1878s. He fired from the hip, the guns roaring the instant they cleared leather. Because he was seated and had to clear the table, his draw was slower than before—maybe a tenth of a second. But it was more than enough.
BANG! BANG!
A normal man blinks in 0.3 seconds. These two quickdraws would never get the chance. They had just cleared their holsters when bullets punched through their brows, and they collapsed in a heap.
The echo of the gunshots was still ringing in the air.
Four more!
Henry's hands moved, spitting fire to his left and right.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
At two tables, eight or nine meters apart, four more men slumped over, the pistols they had just drawn clattering to the floor.
The warning in his mind ceased.