"Connie Willis - One-Eyed Jack" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

Then she went down to face the day.


As the sun neared its zenith Miss Lily's girls clustered on the verandah, designed
to give her establishment a touch of elegance. Their seductive gowns and poses
were good advertising; folks had crowded into town for the upcoming spectacle,
and business would boom tonight. If the business survived.


Slow Joe and two hired hands manned the roof with an arsenal of shotguns. The
girls had derringers tucked in amongst their ruffles, and knew how to handle
them. But Jack was Lily's best hope.


Jack sat stiffly in the parlor, expressionless, barely breathing. Miss Lily didn't
intrude. She trusted him by now to know his own business best. Maybe he'd
learned some kind of concentration trick in the alleys of Chinatown.




She stepped out onto the verandah, adjusted her chiffon-swathed hat at just the
right tilt, then moved down to the board walkway along the street. As though
he'd been waiting for her appearance, a horseman left the milling throng in front
of the general store and approached her. Henson, Rigby's mouthpiece. She
waited calmly for his opening gambit.


"So, Miss Lily," he said, glancing around to make sure of his audience, "you finally
allowed as how that whip ain't enough to make a man of you. Heard you
brought in a hired gun, or more like half a gun. What's that make him, a
firecracker?" This drew a few laughs, at which he bowed and preened, but most
folks waited to hear Miss Lily's reply.


"If your yellow-bellied boss would rather face a woman, I'd be happy to oblige,"
she purred huskily, fondling the tip of her lash. "If not, he's about to get a
firecracker up his ass."


The laughter now was sly, muffled, nobody wanting to be identified. Rigby
wouldn't take kindly to ridicule. Nobody was willing to bet on an outcome in
which his petty tyranny would no longer be a factor.


The street emptied. Miss Lily glanced up at her own rooftop troops to be sure
they noticed Rigby's henchmen up behind the general store's false front. Slow
Joe jerked his head in their direction.