Slash’s gut tightened when, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he got a good look at the girl’s face. One eye was badly swollen and a long, scabbing cut ran at an angle down and across her lips. The knife slash started an inch from the corner of her left nostril and ended on the right side of her chin.
“Yeah, they passed through here,” the girl said in a heavy Cajun accent. “The whole gang. Only”—her jaws hardened and quivered with emotion, one nostril swelling—“two are still here in town.”
Again, Slash and Pecos exchanged a quick glance.
“Still here?” Slash asked.
“Tha’s right. Two of ’em.”
“Which ones?” Pecos asked the disfigured doxie.
“The leaders,” the mulatto said, her jaws still iron-hard, her enraged gaze shifting quickly from Slash to Pecos, then back again.
Slash’s heart quickened. Could he and his partner have gotten this lucky?
“Loco Sanchez and Arnell Squires?” he asked.
The mulatto shook her head. “No. That weren’t them.” She continued shaking her head as she glared darkly down at Slash. “Slash Braddock an’ the Pecos River Kid.” She pointed at her ruined lips. “The Kid held me down while Slash, true to his name, gave me this!”
CHAPTER 24
Slash and Pecos sat frozen in their saddles, shocked.
Enraged.
They glanced at each other, darkly.
Composing himself, Pecos turned back to the three girls glaring down at him and Slash and said, “Sure never hear of ole Slash an’ Pecos mistreating women like that. No, sir. Slash Braddock an’ the Pecos River Kid, you say? Hmmm.” He thoughtfully scratched his chin. “They’re here in Morrisville, you say?”
“They sure are,” Grace told him. Neither she nor Shyla appeared nearly as friendly as they’d seemed before the Snake River Marauders had been mentioned.
Slash said haltingly, “Where, uh . . . where do you suppose we might be able to find Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid?”
“Only place you could find ’em,” said Grace, “since they been gamblin’ for the past three days, ever since they left here.” She glanced quickly, sympathetically at the mulatto girl. “There’s only one gamblin’ house in town.”
The redhead stretched her droll gaze toward where a two-story log saloon with a large front veranda sat on the main street’s right side, about a block beyond the parlor house. A large sign over the high, false facade announced THE LUCKY LADY. The saloon/gambling house was situated on the corner of a cross street and the camp’s main drag. Several men dressed in miners’ garb stood out on the veranda, talking, laughing, and swigging heavy schooners of soapy ale.
Pecos pinched his hat brim to the doxies staring coldly back at him. “Much obliged, ladies.” He slid his eyes to Slash, and the two cutthroats touched spurs to their horses’ flanks, moving on up the muddy street, weaving through the heavy, midday traffic.
“Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid, eh?” Slash said, raking a speculative finger down his neck.
“Sounds like,” Pecos said. “Me? I’m lookin’ forward to meetin’ those two notorious old owlhoots.”
“Me, too,” Slash said as he and Pecos drew their horses up to one of several hitch racks fronting the saloon. “Me, too . . .”
Roughly a dozen horses were tied at the hitch rails, indicating the Lucky Lady was doing a fair business at midday. Slash and Pecos added their own mounts to the tally. Pecos removed his sawed-off Richards ten-gauge from where it hung from his saddle horn by its leather lanyard. He draped the lanyard over his head and right shoulder.
Turning to Slash and shoving the formidable-looking popper behind his back, he said, “A feller can never be too careful.”
“Nope,” his partner said, unsnapping the keeper thong from over the hammer of the .44 holstered for the cross-draw on his left hip. “Especially when them two devils Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid are in town.”
“Ain’t that the truth, though?” Pecos chuckled dryly as he and Slash climbed the veranda steps, their spurs ching-ing softly on the risers.
They edged around the small crowd of men drinking suds and sipping whiskey on the veranda—mostly a stout, bearded lot of Germans and Scandinavians clad in the dungarees, wool shirts, suspenders, and high, cork-soled, lace-up boots that marked them as prospectors. They were conversing in either their own mother tongues or in heavily accented English or combinations of both—a jovial but sun-seasoned, work-hardened breed taking a midday break from their toils.
Side by side, Slash and Pecos pushed through the batwings. As usual, they separated quickly on the other side of the threshold, Slash stepping to the left, Pecos to the right.
Slash’s gaze swept the room in which a good two-dozen men sat at tables or stood at the large bar at the back. The crowd in here appeared very much like the one on the veranda. Sprinkled in small clusters about the room were men in the chaps, high-crowned hats, and bright, billowy neckerchiefs of cowpunchers. The air was so smoky, and the bright light angling through a handful of windows contrasted so sharply with the shadows, that Slash doubted he’d be able to recognize any of his old gang if he’d been staring right at them.
Raising his voice to be heard above the low roar that echoed loudly in the cave-like room, Slash canted his head toward Pecos, standing on the other side of the batwings, and said, “Why don’t we get us a drink, so we don’t look too conspicuous, and walk around?”
Pecos started to nod but then he glanced to his right, froze, and walked over to Slash, canting his head and saying quietly into Slash’s right ear, “I think I just spotted Sanchez.”
Slash started to turn his head toward the far side of the room, but Pecos placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder, stopping him. “Don’t look. Let’s get us a table, have a drink, and work out a plan.”
Slash moved toward an open table ahead and to the left, which had just been vacated by three black-bearded men speaking in heavy Russian accents. At least, they sounded Russian to Slash, who’d encountered such men and their heavy language here and there about the West, mostly where mines were dug and tracks were laid.
Slash sank into a chair. Pecos did, as well, across from Slash, and swept several empty beer mugs and a whiskey bottle to one side. Folding his arms on the table, he looked at Slash and said, “To your right. Under the grizzly head.”
Slash feigned a yawn, running a gloved hand down his face, and glanced as inconspicuously as possible to his right.
The grizzly head was mounted on the far wall, which was covered in red paper patterned with gold diamonds. Several other game trophies decorated the four walls of the place, but under the grizzly head sat Loco Sanchez—at a table with six or seven other men, most of them dressed like cowpunchers.
One of those others, however, was definitely not a cowpuncher.
The little, wiry man decked out in a black hat, green silk neckerchief, and black shirt under a pinto vest was Arnell Squires.
Squires wore black gloves on his hands and, just as he always did, he wore a gold-banded diamond ring on his right hand, over the glove. Squires had been very proud of that ring ever since he’d won it down in Mexico playing poker with a famous Sonoran border bandito.
Squires sported the ring everywhere he went, usually wearing it outside the black glove to better show it off. Now he had poker cards fanned out in the hand trimmed with the ring, and he was smoking a fat stogie and talking as he played, snorting and snarling and scowling menacingly, placing bets and calling.
He sat beside Loco Sanchez, a beefy half-Mexican whose black sombrero hung down his back by its horsehair thong. Sanchez had a broad, Indian-featured face but with long mare’s tail whiskers and thick, black chin whiskers.
He had a nasty scar across his coffee-colored forehead. He’d acquired the scar long ago, he claimed, by the stiletto heel of a former, jealous Mexican wife—one of many he’d claimed over the years. All, of course, had been beautiful and jealous
of his frequent bouts of cheating with other beautiful women.
However, Slash had known the man long enough—for ten years and more, in fact—to know that Sanchez had never actually been married and had only ever lain with whores. The cutthroat had acquired the scar from a drunken tumble out of a haymow one night while answering the call of nature, after the gang had robbed a bank in Bullhook Bottoms up in the Montana Territory.
Slash’s heart surged.
He glanced at Pecos and gave a cunning smile. “You see . . . ?”
“Arnell? Yeah. Just seen him.”
“Which one do you suppose is you and which one is me?”
“I don’t know, but it galls me somethin’ painful that those two hydrophobic polecats are raping, pillaging, and plundering their way through the territory, calling themselves Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid.”
“Yeah,” Slash said, nodding slowly, cutting his eyes toward the pair. “Disfiguring doxies, too.”
“What you two see over there?” The girl had just walked up to them, an empty tray in her hands. She was a pretty saloon girl, maybe twenty years old, with creamy, pale skin and wearing a corset and bustier, black fishnet stockings, and high-heeled red shoes. Painted ribbons poked out of her piled-up hair. For all the garishness of her attire, there was a midwestern innocence about her. In her high-heel shoes, she looked like a newborn colt trying to stand on its new legs.
“Oh, nothin’,” Slash said quickly, inwardly wincing, hoping the girl hadn’t drawn Sanchez’s and Squires’s attention.
She turned toward Slash and Pecos and said, “Those two friends of yours—are they? Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid? I’ll let ’em know you’re here if—”
“No, no friends of ours,” Pecos interrupted her quickly. “Why don’t you bring us a couple of beers—won’t you, little sister?”
“Yeah, make it fast—will you, honey?” Slash said. “We’re powerful thirsty!”
“Everybody in Morrisville is powerful thirsty!” the girl grouched as she hurried to the bar, stumbling in her shoes.
When she’d set down two frothy dark ales in front of Slash and Pecos and scooped the coins off the table, she headed off to answer the shouted orders of a stout German at the back of the room, near the stairs that rose to the second floor.
Slash glanced toward the table at which Sanchez and Squires were playing poker, Squires just then laughing his belligerent laugh as he raked the pot into the already sizable pile of scrip and specie before him. Slash licked some of the cream-colored foam off the top of his beer and looked at Pecos.
“What do you say we walk over and shoot that son of a bitch? Shoot ’em both.”
“They’ll see us before we get there. They’ll open up on us, and innocent folks’ll get shot.”
Slash sipped his beer, thought it over.
He glanced at the poker players once more, then said, “Wait till they leave? Shoot ’em on the street or out on the trail?”
“Might be best,” Pecos said. “Out on the trail. Yeah, that’d work.”
“Sure would be nice to know where the rest of the gang is,” Slash said. “Maybe wing one of ’em, make the other one ta—. Wait, hold on.”
“What is it?”
Slash had just then seen the saloon girl deliver a tray of beers to the poker table. As she’d tried to turn away and head back to the bar, Loco Sanchez had grabbed her arm and pulled her down on his lap. Sanchez was saying something into the girl’s ear. Slash couldn’t hear what the cutthroat said, but he could tell the girl didn’t like it. She was frowning and shaking her head, trying to climb off Sanchez’s lap.
Loco held her down firmly, and his hands were straying.
Slash looked at Pecos, who had followed Slash’s gaze to Sanchez and the girl. Pecos turned to Slash and pursed his lips, jaws hard. “He’s sure got a way with women, Loco does. I see that ain’t changed.”
“What’s changed,” Slash said, “is he thinks there’s no one around to make him keep his wolf on its leash.” Slash took a quick sip of his beer, then kicked his chair back, rose, and closed his right hand over the grips of his cross-draw. 44. “But there is, by God. Me!”
He froze as Sanchez laughed loudly and rose from the chair, heaving the girl up before him and then crouching and pulling her up over his right shoulder.
“No!” the girl squealed. “I told you, damn you—I don’t work the line! I just serve drinks!”
Sanchez laughed louder and, making his way toward the stairs with the girl draped over his shoulder like a sack of grain, yelled, “Well, you work it now, girl. Don’t worry—I’ll give you top dollar!”
The other poker players, including Arnell Squires, whooped and laughed.
“Give her hell, Slash!” Squires bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth.
Sanchez turned to yell back over his shoulder at Squires, “Watch my winnin’s, Pecos. Anybody tries to rob me, shoot ’im!”
Squires clapped his hands and laughed. The other poker players looked a little less delighted than Arnell did at that last comment.
“That tears it!” Slash stepped out around the table and slid his .44 from its holster, turning toward the stairs.
“Slash, sit down!” Pecos hissed up at him, pulling Slash’s gun hand down. “Sit down, dammit. You’re liable to hit the girl!”
Slash glared toward where Loco Sanchez was climbing the stairs, laughing while the blond saloon girl pounded his back and kicked her legs, though her struggles were in vain. Sanchez was three times her size, and five times as strong. He had her clamped hard against his shoulder.
Most of the men in the room were laughing.
The two bartenders, however, stared after “Slash Braddock” and the innocent saloon girl, darkly shaking their heads. They appeared unwilling to do anything about the girl’s violation. Too frightened to interfere.
The reputations of Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid, adorned with legend, had preceded them....
Slash released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, then holstered his pistol and sat back down in his chair. “Dammit all!” he raked out, keeping his voice down.
Pecos was looking toward the poker table. “Dammit, Slash—I think Squires mighta seen you.”
“Good!”
“Slash, dammit—for the last time, stand down. We don’t need lead flying through here like rain in a mountain storm. The room’s got too many innocent folks in it!”
Slash glanced toward the poker table. Squires and the other gamblers had resumed their game. Slash kept his eyes on Squires, looking around several men sitting between them. Squires didn’t glance toward Slash even once.
Slash turned to Pecos, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, pard. I think we’re all right.”
“Whew!”
“Yeah.”
“How should we play it?”
“Well,” Slash said, glancing at the ceiling. “One of us better get upstairs and trim Loco’s wick before he gives that girl what he gave the mulatto or better. You best do it. In the state I’m in, I might not have too steady a hand. I don’t want to get that poor girl killed. Did you see her? She could barely stand up in them shoes.”
“Yeah, I saw.” Pecos cast a quick, furtive glance toward where Arnell Squires, alias the Pecos River Kid, was back playing poker with the cowpunchers, raising and calling, cajoling and threatening, bluffing and mocking. “Ole Pecos over there looks purty preoccupied. I think I can make it upstairs without him spottin’ me.”
“I’ll wait to hear your shot before I go to work on Arnell. He’ll likely rush to the stairs. I’ll wait for a clear shot and take it.” Slash hardened his jaws as he glanced toward the poker table. “Even if I have to back shoot the crazy devil.”
Pecos rose from his chair, shoving his shotgun back behind him. Drawing his hat brim low over his eyes and keeping his head down, he strode back toward the bar and the stairs flanking it, on the room’s left side. He walked past a table of Germans
also playing cards, conversing loudly in their own tongue, and swilling small tin buckets of suds, their beards and mustaches frothy with the stuff.
Pecos climbed the stairs, trying to look as casual as possible. At the top, he turned and walked down the hall opening on his right. The hall was dimly lit by a fly-specked, dirt-streaked window at the far end, and by a single bracket lamp with a badly soot-stained mantle.
Pecos thought he was going to have trouble locating the serving girl and Loco Sanchez, but he hadn’t taken more than four steps along the hall, padded by a musty runner, before he heard a girl give an anguished cry behind a door just ahead of him, on his left. What sounded like a water pitcher crashed into a wall, breaking and dropping to the floor.
Sanchez thundered a laugh. “You like it rough—do you, sweetheart? Ain’t that a coincidence? I do, too!”
CHAPTER 25
The half-Mex cutthroat laughed again. Boots thumped behind the door ten feet from Pecos now. The girl gave another cry, this one more pinched.
A door latch clicked to Pecos’s right. He paused mid-stride as a door opened on that side of the hall, and a man with mussed hair and a thick mustache peered out from behind small, round spectacles. He wore only white cotton longhandles and black socks. One of the socks was half off. He was likely a traveling drummer who’d rented a room to sleep off a drunk but had been rudely awakened by Loco Sanchez.
He peered toward the door behind which the girl just then gave a wail, and said, “What in God’s name is—”
Pecos pressed two fingers to his lips, stopping the man midsentence.
The man scowled up at him, indignant. He opened his mouth to speak but Pecos dropped a shoulder so that his savage-looking shotgun swung around in front of him. He held up the twelve-gauge in both hands, giving the sleepy drummer a good look at the savage weapon. The drummer gasped, stumbled back into his room, and quickly but quietly closed the door and locked it.
Pecos continued walking forward, hearing more commotion behind the door on his left. He’d nearly reached the door before a bellowing wail rose from below, and a man’s lunatic voice—which he recognized as belonging to Arnell Squires—shouted, “Die, you old devil!”
Cutthroats Page 19