Page 89 of The Saloon Girl's Only Shot
“The stableboy for the Express office told me you and Emmett had a private meeting yesterday, arranging for a guarded shipment to Philadelphia as soon as the weather clears.”
“Well, that little shit is out of a job, isn’t he? Look, I know you’re not going to shoot me, Elmer. Someone will hear it and come running.”
Temperance’s heart lurched.
“No one runs toward a gun fight, idiot. Now get down there and open the fucking box.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God! What to do? Run? Scream for help?
Temperance flung a look to the back door. Her gaze locked onto Mrs. Stames, Owen’s long gun, in its rack beside the door.
In the parlor, she heard Owen’s voice growing muffled. He must’ve been going into the cellar through the trap door.
“Do you want me to turn this back into an undertaking parlor?” Elmer asked snidely. “You owe me. Mavis didn’t leave, and now you’ve gone and told Katherine?—”
“I’ve never spoken to your wife.”
“Yes, you did. Who else knew about Mavis?”
Me. I knew, Temperance thought with another swerve of her heart.
Shaking, she tiptoed to the door and picked up the gun. Owen kept it loaded, but she carefully slid the ramrod down the barrel to check. It didn’t go all the way, telling her it was ready to fire.
Should she take it outside and send out a blast into the air, hoping someone would come? Elmer was right. She never went looking to see who was exchanging gun fire. She turned the other direction.
With her guts sloshing like water, she crept back to the door with the long gun in her clammy hands. Her mouth was so dry, she couldn’t swallow.
“None of your fucking business where I’m going,” Elmer was saying, voice muffled by the floorboards.
She searched for a crack in the wall that was wide enough to peek through, winding up standing on Clarence’s blanket on the far side of the chimney. Here, she could see the corner of the bar where the trapdoor was propped open.
Elmer sat on the edge of the opening, one foot on the ladder into the cellar. He held a revolver that he pointed into the hole. In his other hand, he held an open bottle of bourbon.
He took a pull then asked, “What else is in there? Is that Sureshot’s pistol?”
“It’s not loaded,” Owen’s muffled voice replied. “Is that who you owe money to?”
“We’re not having a tea party here, Owen. Just give me the gold.”
Even if she wanted to try, she couldn’t shoot Elmer from this angle. The stove pipe was in her way.
“Toss that up here,” Elmer said, rising to stand over the hole.
Two nondescript looking parcels wrapped in deer hide landed with very hefty thuds next to his feet.
“Now, stay nice and quiet down there, or I’ll start shooting through the floorboards.” Elmer dropped the door with a slam and stood on it while he took another pull off the whiskey bottle. He was shaking with nerves almost as badly as Temperance was.
He set his revolver on the top of the bar then bent to set the bottle on the floor while he reached for the parcels. His grunt told her they were heavy. They must be gold.
She brought the gun up, but in this tight space, she couldn’t angle herself for a clear shot, not that she wanted a murder on her conscience, but she couldn’t let Elmer get away with daylight robbery. She opened her mouth to let him know she had a gun on him when, outside, Clarence gave one sharp bark.
Elmer swung his attention to the door into this room, hand blindly reaching for his pistol on the bar.
“Temperance, run!” Owen shouted. “Run, dammit!”
She held her breath, praying Owen knew his gun as well as he seemed to. She veers a little to the left. She aimed for Elmer’s pistol and squeezed the trigger.
The boom and kick and shatter of glass behind the bar scared the hell out of her. She didn’t see if she hit her target. She spun so her back was to the chimney bricks, waiting for Elmer to open fire against the wall between them.