Cowboys & Devils (Devil Aster Days Book 3) (2 page)

It was too quiet for Ulric’s tastes. He turned his attention down the stairs and towards the pianist. The little man sat at the large instrument on what looked like a very uncomfortable wooden stool. He wore a long, black coat and a bowler hat. He didn’t look like most of the dirty Americans Ulric had seen so far.

“Oh, and piano-man,” Ulric called from upstairs. His face leered at the pianist from the balcony above. “Try to play something a little more upbeat. After all, we’re here to have fun!” Ulric smiled and pointed his finger towards the pianist. With a wink and clicking noise, he imitated a gunshot aimed at the pianist.

Ulric disappeared into one of the rooms, dragging the
bored-looking woman behind him. The pianist waited only a moment to hear what would come next, but a sudden gunshot stirred him from his thought. A brand new smoking hole in the wall only a foot away from his head caused him to turn around at once.

One of the gang members leered at him, gritting his dirty teeth
and holding a smoking a gun. “Play!” he barked at the pianist. Instantly, the man’s hands sprung into action and he started performing the most upbeat tune he could remember. Any parts of the song he didn’t remember, he simply made up as he went. He was a skilled pianist, and it all sounded great.

The name of the game now was keeping Ulric’s gang occupied long enough.
Just long enough for me to sneak away for a minute
, the pianist thought to himself.
Just long enough for me to get to Ulric
…

Something flickering caught the attention of the piano man. He stared up at the brass candleholder sitting atop the piano. The very candleholder he placed there himself earlier that day,
solely for the reason of being able to keep an eye on the gang without having to turn around completely.

The strange thing was, the candle was
now lit. The orange flickering flame burned atop the wick, confusing the pianist. It was not lit before. He searched his memory. The last time he looked at it, only minutes ago when spying on the gang, the wick was not lit. He’d never intended on actually lighting the candle and lacked the matches to do so.

So then why was it lit now, and when did it happen, and
how
? The pianist pondered on this while he continued to play his beautiful music that was truly lost on the audience. The old man dashed around behind the bar, cursing his poor luck and wishing that at least one of his servers had stayed to help out instead of fleeing for their lives at the sound of the incoming outlaws.

Six of them
, the pianist thought.
If I’m fast enough…

While the pianist contemplated his next move and the women fanned out to service the men and the barkeep hustled to pour drinks and prepare food, another stranger approached the bar. The upbeat, peppy music must have sounded welcoming, since the stranger stepped through the threshold of the bar without so much as a second thought.

The stranger startled Ulric’s gang (and everyone else), as no one noticed his presence until he was already through the doors and frantically turning his head this way and that, looking out-of-his-mind frustrated and fed up.

“Excuse me!” he said, raising his voice to top the piano.

The pianist jumped a little and stopped playing. He, along with all of Ulric’s gang, directed their attention to the lone man by the door.

“Do any of you know where I can find a man named Ulric?”
he asked.

Suddenly
the stranger had six guns pointed directly at him.

“I’m looking for Ulric,” the stranger repeated. Though he
was looking straight at the men holding guns, the stranger didn’t panic. He just stared at them with that agitated look of boredom in his eyes as if he were in no danger at all.

“I
heard Ulric was around here,” the stranger said, stepping towards the bar. “Everyone I asked pointed me in this direction. Ah, you there,” he said, looking at one of Ulric’s goons.

The stranger stepped up to the outlaw sitting nearest to him. The outlaw still had his gun leveled at the stranger’s hip.
With the movement of just a finger, the stranger would be dead.

“You sir,” the stranger addressed the outlaw again. “Have you seen a man named Ulric around here?”

The pianist cringed.
What is that idiot doing bursting in here, declaring he’s after Ulric? Doesn’t he know he’s talking straight to Ulric’s gang?
the pianist thought.

“Who wants to know?” the greasy thug cackled, taking a swig of his ale
.

“My name is Aster,” the stranger said. “Though I suspect that won’t mean anything to you all.”

The men erupted into laughter. “You mean
Aster
, like the
flower
?” one of them said, practically howling with childish (or drunken) delight.

“With a tough-sounding name like that, its no wonder he’s tracking the most dangerous outlaw in the state!” 
another man said, wiping the tears of laughter from his crusty eyes.

Aster sighed. “I am aware I share the name of a particular plant,” he said, turning away from the gang of unhelpful strangers. Instead, Aster turned towards the bar, locking eyes with the confused old bartender.

“Maybe you could help me find Ulric,” he said. The bartender looked past Aster, to where Ulric’s gang was already on their feet with guns drawn. The bartender looked back at Aster’s hopeful, oblivious gaze. He made the smart call and hit the deck instead.

“What you lookin’ for Ulric for?” said a gang member.

Aster turned around to face them once more. “I’m the man that’s going to drag Ulric’s sorry carcass back to Hell where he belongs.”

Gasps. Blank stares. Frustration.

Aster left them and headed for the pianist next. The outlaw was outraged by Aster’s outlandish behavior. His patience wore thin.

The pianist panicked seeing Aster striding towards him. This fool’s behavior was definitely not accounted for in the pianist’s plans. He wrapped his left hand around the barrel of a gun concealed within the bottom of his coat. He had a feeling he’d be needing it soon.

“Excuse me, music man,” said Aster. “You’ve probably heard by now, I’m looking for Ulric. Is he here or what?”

“Fool…” the pianist uttered. “That’s his gang over there!”

“
Them
?” Aster said, casting a disgusted look back towards the other men. “I guess it must be slim pickings here. Hardly the image of the men I’d want in
my
army.”

BANG
!

The outlaw’s anger had peaked. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what Aster had meant by the army comment, he still recognized his words as a vague insult and had to be dealt with.
So he shot him.

The bullet hit Aster square in the back. The pianist saw a flash of pain in Aster’s eyes before the man stumbled forward. Aster’s death, unfortunate as it
was, would be the perfect moment for the pianist to get his plan back on track. He knew it was now or never.

He caught Aster by the shoulders and held the man’s limp body in front of him.
With his other hand, he held his gun. The outlaws were still hootin’ and hollerin’ and drinking. Far too distracted to notice the gun now pointed at them. The first step was to take out the aggressive one. The others were still relaxed and hadn’t yet drawn their weapons.

The pianist
drew his gun. Aimed. Almost fired.

“Are you using me as a shield?”

The pianist froze. He turned his head slightly, and sure enough Aster was staring directly into his eyes with that same look of bored agitation. Even though he’d just been fatally shot, he looked as though he thought he was in no danger at all.

A second of confused pausing too long. Someone noticed the extra gun in the room.

“The piano man’s got a gun!”

Ulric’
s gang was up and on their feet with weapons drawn. Aster was still staring into the pianist’s eyes.

“You don’t mind if I acquire a new shield for the both of us?” Aster asked. The pianist shook his head. Aster spun free from the pianist’s grip and kicked the edge of a nearby round table. The thick, wooden table spun on its rounded edge and rolled forward, blocking the outlaw thugs from sight.

“How’s that?” Aster asked.

“Draw your gun and get down!” the pianist ordered as he did just that. Aster remained standing, even as the table before him became littered with bullet holes.

“This is only step one of my plan,” said Aster. Without consulting, Aster gripped the edges of the table and rolled it forward at the gang. He used his full strength, and the table rolled across the room so fast it actually became lodged in the wall on the other side.

Ulric’s gang was divided, diving out of the way of the rogue table.
The pianist couldn’t believe what he saw, but snapped to his senses more quickly. He dove behind the edge of the bar for safety before the gang regrouped. Aster remained standing in place.

“Get down!” the pianist urged him. “They’ll shoot you again! You got lucky that first shot was a dud! At least draw your own gun! Do something!”

“I don’t really
want
to hurt any of you,” Aster said to the gang as they scrambled to their feet once more. “But if you’re going to insist on siding with Ulric and being annoying, well then I guess I’ll have to deal with you first.”

Aster picked up a nearby chair. The first man to draw his gun and aim it at Aster became the first target. Aster tossed the chair across the room with such force and accuracy that no one in the room had ever seen before. The chair collided with the outlaw’s face, the wood split and cracked from the force. The man dropped his gun and fell to the ground. He did not get back up.

The next guy to draw his gun almost wet himself from fright. It probably didn’t help that he’d been drinking whiskey all day either. His hand was shaking and his aim was poor. Aster sensed this, and made no move to dodge. He only advanced.

The outlaw fired, a stray bullet that hit the wall. He aimed a little more steadily, but Aster kicked the chair before him. It flew across the room and hit the poor drunkard in the chest.
He toppled to the ground, landing on top of a full spittoon that splattered its contents all over the man.

Another gunshot. Aster felt the bullet collide with his shoulder. He turned his attention towards the next man, the trigger happy gunman who shot him. Aster started walking towards him now, but the outlaw wasn’t going to give him the chance to launch another chair.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three more gunshots went off. The first hit Aster
in his gut. The second slammed into his solar plexus. The last one struck him in the chest. Aster winced. He’d have some bruises for sure, but the bullets were definitely not fatal.

“Your toy
s are starting to annoy me,” said Aster, standing before the outlaw who shot him. The gun in his hand clicked over and over again, refusing to pop any more caps into the pissed off stranger before him.

“
I think we done bought some bad bullets
,” the outlaw said. Aster clocked him on the side of his head. He only used less than half of his strength. He knew a full one hundred percent of his strength would kill the man.

Three gang members remained.
All three took shelter behind a nearby flipped table. One at a time, they took turns popping up and firing a round at Aster. Aster managed to easily dodge, strolling casually through the room he snatched up a deck of playing cards.

Aster waited for the next outlaw to pop up from behind the table. As soon as one did, he took a playing card and chucked it at him. With precise aim, he managed to badly cut the man’s fingers. The outlaw screamed at all the blood coming from his hand and dropped his gun at once.
Suddenly, the other gang members were having mixed thoughts about their chances.

“I’ll leave you all alone if you get out of here right now and forget about Ulric,” said Aster. “Or, I could hurt you some more. It’s your call.”

The pianist watched everything from behind the bar. He was too amazed to do anything more than watch.
Is that guy an assassin too
?
If so, he’s way better than me
.

Suddenly Aster spun around. There was another gun shot. Everything moved so fast, the pianist couldn’t tell what happened. He crawled forward, trying to find a better vantage point. When he finally deduced what had happened, he couldn’t fully believe it.

Standing in the room with them now was Ulric, a bloody playing card lodged in his forehead. Aster was on the ground writhing in pain. In Ulric’s hand was a smoking gun.

Ulric reached up and plucked the playing card out of his forehead. Blood shot out of the wound.
He admired the card, a joker, for a moment before smirking and discarding it.

“Your aim is as sharp as ever,” said Ulric flatly.

“Not so…” said Aster. His face displayed a look of pain he’d yet to show. “I was aiming… for your gun.”

“An interesting little tool, isn’t it?” Ulric asked, examining his gun with a grin. “With only one movement of my finger, I can render you unconscious. I could even kill you with it if I had enough bullets.
”

Ulric pointed the gun at Aster. He pulled the trigger, firing a bullet right between Aster’s eyes. The pianist felt his blood run cold at the spectacle.

“Everyone up,” Ulric called to his men. “I don’t care how hurt you are: on your feet!”

The gang of outlaws grumbled in pain as they climbed slowly
on their wobbling feet. The bartender was uttering a silent prayer to himself, and the women had long since ducked into a storage closet. On the balcony above the bar, the woman Ulric had dragged off to bed earlier stood naked, leaning up against the railing with a cigarette pressed between her lips.

“Hey boss,” one of the men said to get Ulric’s attention. “Is our bullets bad or something? How come that guy ain’t dead yet?”

Blood oozed out of Aster’s forehead wound, but the bullet sat on the floor next to him. Aster looked dead or unconscious.

“This man is like me,” said Ulric. “
Hard to kill
. Tie him up, drag him around, string him up, then use him for target practice.”

“Okay
boss,” one of the men said. “But what if he gets up and starts making trouble again?”

“Another shot to his he
ad will put him to sleep again,” Ulric said. “So remember: head shots.”

Two of the men sprung into action heading outside to retrieve rope. While they were busy doing that, one of the men told Ulric about the pianist.

“The piano man has a gun too,” he said. “He’s behind the bar right now, probly waitin’ to ambush us!”

The pianist didn’t wait any longer. He grabbed a nearby bottle of alcohol and chucked it towards the other end of the bar. Instinctively the outlaws drew their guns and fired towards the sound. The pianist, no, the
assassin
acted.

He leapt from the opposite end of the bar, gun drawn and aiming straight at Ulric. “You’re mine, Ulric!” he declared. The assassin squeezed the trigger. His gun fired. The bullet struck Ulric. It was the first thing Aster saw as he gained consciousness on the floor, Ulric’s gang already working to tie him up.

The bullet struck Ulric in the shoulder. The man stumbled back a bit, but was otherwise okay. Aster tried to stand up, but found himself much weaker than he’d anticipated. He tried to bust free from the ropes too, but they slung a rope around his neck and pulled it tight.

Ulric returned fire on the assassin. The assassin dove behind the bar again.
Someone dragged Aster out of the bar by his neck while the other men fired off the rest of their bullets at the bar. When they ran out of bullet, the gang promptly left the bar.

The assassin waited only a moment before rushing to the window.
The men were on their horses now, with one man still holding the rope that was tied around Aster’s neck.

“
Put as many bullets in his brain as it takes to kill him,” Ulric said. “It may take a while, so have some fun with it. When you’re done, bury his body where no one will ever find it and head back to Fort Luster. I’ll see you all there!”

With a slap of his horse, Ulric was off. The assassin thought about trying to put another bullet in the man, but his confidence was shaken. He couldn’t believe that everyone in the bar that night had been sold bad bullets, but it seemed the only reasonable conclusion.
How else could Aster and Ulric still be alive?