Calamity Jane 10

by J. T. Edson

  In spite of Belle’s consideration, the blow she struck was sufficient for her purpose. Bright lights seemed to start bursting inside Claude’s skull as the unyielding steel ball made its impact. Then everything went black and, with his outstretched hand scraping down the front of her jacket as it fell limply to his side, he collapsed like a steer struck with a hide and tallow man’s pole-axe. 43

  ‘Oh jolly well played, dear girl!’ the Remittance Kid enthused, momentarily losing his Scottish accent and not entirely surprised by what had happened. Then, remembering the character he had adopted, he went on, ‘That was a braw blow y—!’

  ‘Catch Tinville!’ Belle yelled, any gratification she might have felt at the praise being forgotten as she saw that the actor was in full flight and appeared to have a clear avenue of escape.

  Swinging around, the Englishman and Ballinger were about to give chase when they saw a figure appear at the doorway. Tinville was between them and the newcomer, preventing them from being able to make out more than that somebody was on the sidewalk. However, the actor was at no such disadvantage. Recognizing the man who was confronting him and seeing what the other was holding, he tried to come to a halt and scream a request for the weapon not to be used on him.

  ‘Don’t!’ was all Tinville managed to utter in French.

  ‘Why not?’ countered le Loup-Garou in the same tongue.

  Saying the words, Cavallier thrust with the eight inches long, razor sharp, clip-point blade. 44 He selected the target he considered to be best suited for his purpose. Aimed with the skill gained by long practice, the knife bit through the inside left leg of the actor’s trousers with the intention of entirely severing the great femoral artery. Such a stroke, experience had taught him, would bring death more quickly than if it was delivered to almost any other portion of the human anatomy.

  Having been a medical student before becoming an actor and joining the anarchist faction, a scream of agony burst from Tinville as he realized what had happened. Clutching at the blood-spurting wound, he twisted around and stumbled into the path of the approaching men. For once in his life, he was not deliberately obstructing the police. If he had been capable of thought, he would have wanted them to capture or kill his assailant.

  Satisfied that his victim was as good as dead, le Loup-Garou turned and darted across the street. He realized that either Ballinger or the man who claimed to be a Mountie was certain to take up the pursuit. Out of respect of their marksmanship, he went at a swerving sprint and made for the darkness of the nearest alley.

  Seeing that Tinville was wounded and from its position, guessing at the seriousness of the injury, the Kid and Ballinger sprang forward even faster. They were just in time to catch him as his legs buckled under him. Lowering him to lay supine on the floor, each knew from the sight of the blood spurting through the gash in his trouser leg that there was little or no hope of him surviving. So they decided to follow the suggestion that they went after his assailant which Belle was making as she hurried towards them. Straightening up, they crossed to and went out of the door.

  ‘Over there!’ the Kid snapped, pointing with his Webley R.I.C, to where le Loup-Garou was already disappearing between two buildings on the other side of the street.

  ‘Stay with Belle, Rem!’ Ballinger requested, starting to run forward.

  Having confidence in the detective’s ability to look after himself, the Kid raised no objections to the proposal. Instead, he turned and strode swiftly into the barroom. One glance told him that Ballinger had been correct in suggesting he should return. Belle was kneeling by the injured actor and, raising his shoulders to rest against her bent right leg, doing what she could to comfort him. Making the most of the opportunity with which they were being presented, Papa Champlain was bending to retrieve the sawed-off shotgun and Andre, an ugly look on his face, was stalking the Rebel Spy.

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it, gentlemen,’ the Kid warned, remembering to use the Scottish accent. He sounded almost benevolent, but the gesture with his revolver encompassed both the father and the elder son, bringing their respective movements to an end. Without taking his gaze from them, he went on, ‘How is he, lassie?’

  Looking up, Belle gave her head a quick negative shake. Returning her gaze to Tinville’s pain-distorted and frightened face, she said gently, ‘Tell us who did it so we can make him pay for it.’

  ‘L … l … le Loup-Garou!’ the young actor gasped, fighting off the gathering waves of weakness which were assailing him in his determination to be avenged. ‘I … it w … was le Loup-Garou.’

  ‘Who?’ Belle asked, speaking French as Tinville had been and feeling sure that she could not have heard correctly.

  There was no answer. Although the actor’s mouth opened, his eyes glazed and his body went limp in the faint which preceded his death from loss of blood.

  ‘He said something about le Loup-Garou,’ Belle said, reverting to English as she raised her eyes to look in bewilderment and disbelief at the Kid. ‘But he must have been rambling.’

  ‘Not necessarily, old girl,’ the Englishman replied in his natural voice, darting a glance to where Papa Champlain—having left the shotgun on the shelf once more—was coming from behind the counter.

  ‘But it means a werewolf!’ Belle objected. ‘You know what that is, don’t you?’

  ‘One of those peculiar johnnies who changes into a wolf every time there’s a full moon and goes around biting people,’ the Kid answered. ‘I remember when my aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Brockley, first told me about them, I asked if the chappie got fleas when it happened.’ Seeing the exasperated glare the Rebel Spy directed at him, he became more serious and went back to the Highland accent. ‘Le Loup-Garou means the not a werewolf, lassie. Or it could in this case and, if I’m right, this one isn’t in the least supernatural.’

  ‘Do you know the man who killed him?’ Belle asked.

  ‘Not know, lassie, have heard of,’ the Kid corrected. ‘Le Loup-Garou is the nickname of Arnaud Cavallier. He’s a Metis and, if rumors are correct, isn’t the most pleasant of them in spite of being one of the richest. It’s even been hinted that his ambition is to lead an independent nation of Metis, but nothing has ever been proven. Everybody who’s taken too close an interest in his affairs so far has met with a fatal accident—or rather what appears to have been one.’

  ‘Then why would—’ Belle began.

  ‘I was asking myself the same thing,’ the Kid admitted, guessing what the unfinished question was going to be. ‘Why would a Metis with dreams of becoming the ruler of a nation of his own people be involved with a bunch of anarchists apparently raising money for the cause of Irish Republicanism.’

  ‘How badly is Claude hurt, André?’ Papa Champlain asked in his native tongue, drawing the couple’s attention to him before they could continue the conversation.

  ‘He’s recovering,’ the elder brother replied, darting a baleful glare at the cause of his sibling’s indisposition.

  ‘It could have been far worse, m’sieur,’ Belle pointed out, laying Tinville flat on the floor and speaking French with a Louisiana accent. ‘I only struck to stun him.’

  ‘Deuced considerate of you, I thought, under the circumstances,’ the Kid went on, showing that he had followed the brief conversation although he spoke in English.

  ‘I have a feeling that neither of you are what you have said you are,’ Papa commented, walking forward, having noticed that Inspector Macdonald had not taken the precaution of removing the spring-loaded billy which lay alongside the girl’s right knee and appeared to change his accent in a puzzling fashion.

  ‘That’s more than likely,’ Belle replied, picking up the billy and rising. ‘What is more, m’sieur, providing you answer a few questions, we may be able to save you from serious trouble with the police.’

  ‘Trouble,’ Champlain growled, trying to sound as if the possibility had not occurred to him. ‘What kind of trouble could I be in?’

  ‘Just before he
died,’ Belle answered, with such apparent sincerity she might have been speaking the truth. ‘Tinville told us you were holding him against his will and that could be construed as kidnapping.’

  ‘Which is the way Lieutenant Ballinger would construe it,’ the Kid supplemented, deducing what the Rebel Spy was hoping to accomplish and demonstrating an equal facility to speak French as he supported her. ‘Having a dying confession made in the presence of two official witnesses will give him all the proof he needs to arrest you.’

  ‘I see,’ the proprietor said quietly, but he sounded uneasy rather than defiant as he swung his eyes to Belle and went on, ‘It seems to me, mademoiselle, that your official standing might be open to question.’

  ‘Do you want to gamble on it?’ the Rebel Spy challenged, tapping the billy gently against her right thigh. ‘I think that, even if I was what you thought I was, Lieutenant Ballinger and his superiors would rather have a certain case against you than something vague and practically impossible to prove against me.’

  ‘But the lady isn’t what she pretended to be,’ the Kid elaborated, returning the Webley to its holster on the back of his belt as if satisfied he would have no further need of it. ‘Far from it, m’sieur. In fact she has sufficient influence in far higher places than the Chicago Police Department to be able to refute any accusations you might try to make against her.’

  ‘Who are you, mademoiselle?’ Champlain asked, staring with something like awe.

  ‘It’s better for you that I don’t answer that,’ Belle stated, in tones which exuded menace. ‘Just be content with knowing I can help you—providing you help me, of course.’

  ‘What do you want of me?’ Champlain asked sullenly, then glanced to where André was helping Claude to rise. ‘Take him to his room and make sure he stays there.’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ the elder brother assented and did as he was told without any protests or further attempts by his sibling to attack the Rebel Spy.

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ Belle requested, after the two young men had left the room by a rear door. ‘Why did Tinville come to you?’

  ‘He said he’d quarreled with that crowd of anarchists who were doing the show for the Irish at O’Malley’s theater,’ the proprietor obliged, sitting at a table. ‘So he wanted to get out of the country. But why he should have come to me—’

  ‘We want facts, not fairy tales!’ Belle interrupted coldly. ‘Your private affairs are of no concern to us, unless you make them so.’

  ‘I meant he was Belgian, not French,’ Champlain explained, accepting that it was useless to pretend he was merely an honest businessman. ‘But he said he’d arranged with two different thieves to have the anarchists robbed of the money they’d already collected for the Irish. Whichever of them did it would meet him here with some of it to buy some further information he’d pretended to have. It was his idea we should rob the one who came.’

  ‘I’m sure it was,’ Belle purred, but her manner suggested exactly the opposite. ‘What did he tell you about the anarchists’ plans?’

  ‘Plans, madam?’ the proprietor began.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me,’ Belle advised and her manner became charged with menace. ‘You knew the people he was trying to desert are working with Phineas Branigan. So you’d want to find out what they were up to in case it might have an adverse effect on you. Tinville was neither loyal nor courageous. He’d tell you all he knew.’

  ‘You’d better cooperate, m’sieur!’ the Kid warned.

  ‘Just remember that I have!’ Champlain requested, having detected a similar warning in the Englishman’s voice. ‘According to him, they’ve been collecting money to buy arms for what they’re planning.’

  ‘To send them to Republicans in Ireland,’ Belle said, in tones of one being given information which was already in her possession.

  ‘No,’ Champlain contradicted. ‘It sounded so unlikely that I thought he was lying, but he said they have an army of Irishmen waiting for them and are going to invade Canada.’ Seeing the disbelieving glances directed at him by the couple, he continued, ‘I give you my word of honor that is what he told me. As I said, I didn’t believe him at first either. But nothing could shake his story.’

  ‘Where is this army?’ the Kid demanded, impressed by the old man’s obvious sincerity and unable to conceive why he should have made up such an unlikely story.

  ‘He wasn’t sure of the name of the place,’ Champlain replied. ‘But he said that the priest would be taking their party to what I believe is Stokeley in Montana. Anyway, he said they were going there by train and there’s only one railroad into Montana, the spur that runs north from Mulrooney, Kansas.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ Belle conceded. ‘And Tinville might have been speaking the truth. If so, that could explain why the Metis are working with them. They could have come to some arrangement with the man who killed him.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ the Kid admitted. ‘Arnaud Cavallier—’

  ‘Arnaud Cavallier?’ Champlain put in, spitting out the name rather than merely saying it as if hating to have it in his mouth. ‘Do you mean le Loup-Garou, m’sieur?’

  ‘That’s who I mean,’ the Kid confirmed. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I know the half-breed pig all right!’ Champlain snarled, thinking bitterly of a costly project to import Indian and Metis girls as prostitutes he had financed and which was ruined when he refused to cut in Cavallier for fifty per cent of the profits. “Was that him who killed Le … whatever you called him?’

  ‘It was,’ Belle declared, deciding that she might obtain more information if she accepted the actor’s identification of his assailant without waiting for confirmation.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Champlain demanded, frowning in puzzlement.

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ Belle admitted. ‘But that’s who Tinville said it was. Why?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard he was back in Chicago,’ Champlain replied, sounding aggrieved by the omission.

  ‘And you should have been?’ the Kid suggested.

  ‘I should have!’ Champlain confirmed, thinking of the arrangements he had made so he would learn if le Loup-Garou returned to the city. ‘If you want him, he usually stays at the Paris Hotel.’

  ‘He may have guessed you’ve somebody working there and is staying somewhere else,’ Belle deduced. ‘Have you any idea where?’

  ‘No!’ Champlain stated. ‘But I don’t think it’s in the French quarter, or I’d have heard about it.’ 45

  Further discussion was ended by a police whistle shrilling from fairly close to the Bistro. Hearing it answered from two points further away and footsteps approaching across the street, Belle went to pick up her skirt. She was donning it when Ballinger entered. He was carrying her Kerry coat, which had been dropped on the opposite sidewalk when he and the Kid had dashed to her aid.

  ‘He got away,’ the detective announced unnecessarily. ‘Damned if I’ve ever seen anybody, except the Ysabel Kid, who could move so fast and quiet in the dark.’ He swept his gaze around the room and halted it at the motionless figure on the floor. ‘Got the femoral artery, huh?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Kid confirmed. ‘Although even a doctor couldn’t have saved him, I’ve seen it done better. He lived just long enough to tell us who did it.’

  ‘That’s something,’ Ballinger growled, being aware of how quickly death usually came as a result of such an injury. ‘Was it anybody I know?’

  ‘A man called Arnaud Cavallier, alias le Loup-Garou,’ the Kid answered, but could see that neither name meant anything to the lieutenant. ‘Papa here very obligingly told us where we might find him.’

  ‘I’ll go and see if he’s there when the local harness bulls arrive to take care of things,’ Ballinger decided, wondering how Champlain’s cooperation had been obtained.

  ‘Mind if we come along?’ the Kid requested. ‘My superiors will want me to follow it through.’

  ‘I’ll be pleased to have you, Inspector,’ Ballinger decl
ared. ‘Unless you’re too tired, ma’am?’

  ‘I’m fine thank you, lieutenant,’ Belle replied, pleased by the way the detective had supported the Kid’s pretence of being a member of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police and refrained from mentioning her name. She listened for a moment to the sounds of two sets of running feet converging on the Bistro, then went on ‘Thank you for everything, M’sieur Champlain. I know I can rely upon your discretion where I’m concerned, as you can on mine.’

  ‘Of course, mademoiselle!’ Champlain confirmed fervently, hoping his mysterious female visitor was as influential as he had been led to assume and would intercede on his behalf.

  ‘I just may be seeing you later, Papa,’ Ballinger warned, with thinly veiled menace. ‘So I’ll be obliged if you tell anybody who comes asking about this dead feller that you don’t know who killed him, or why.’

  ‘I’ll do that, lieutenant,’ Champlain promised, as pleasantly as he could manage.

  ‘I’d like to thank you, Ed,’ the Kid remarked as Belle, he and the detective were walking away from the Bistro after the latter had told the summoned patrolmen what he wanted doing. ‘You’ve been a thorough gentleman all through this affair.’

  ‘That’s the first time anybody’s ever accused me of being one of them,’ Ballinger answered, grinning. ‘But I’ve a bad feeling that I’m not going to be able to nail Papa’s hide to the wall this time.’

  ‘There’s nothing you could do it with, unless you called us as witnesses,’ Belle pointed out. ‘And I don’t think any of us wants that’

  ‘I don’t reckon any of us do,’ Ballinger conceded, being aware of how irregular his own conduct had been. ‘How much did you learn from that old son-of-a-bi … gentleman?’

  ‘Only a little,’ the Kid confessed, amused by the way in which the detective had amended the description of Champlain out of respect for Belle’s presence. ‘But what he told us was very disturbing.’

  Thirteen – A Most Remarkable Young Woman