Mick Quade was quick to take advantage as Brazos staggered back on rubbery knees, and knocked him as cold as a Colorado Christmas with a forty-pound hardwood chair.
The saloon was still rocking to the thump of Brazos’ two hundred and twenty pounds hitting the floorboards, when Mayor Humphrey Carbrook and Deputy Sam Fink came barging in through the batwings, followed by the posse men.
Mayor Carbrook took one disgusted look about and didn’t hesitate. Daybreak had more than enough troubles of its own at the moment without drunken gamblers and brawling drifters making things worse.
“Lock them up!” he instructed Deputy Fink. Waiting only as long as it took eight strong men to stagger out the doors under the combined weight of the unconscious trouble-makers, he then collected his posse men together, and with Surprising Smith at his side, stamped out and crossed the street to where the horses were waiting.
The way things were going, the mayor huffed to himself as he mounted up and led the posse out, it looked like being a damned sight more peaceable out hunting Ben Sprod than here in town.
The girls of Belle Shilleen’s were glum as they watched the posse men lope past below their balcony, then take the trail out of town.
“Drat!” pouted Kitty Kellick. “They did go! I thought it was all just big talk.”
“So did I,” lamented leggy Gypsy Jones. “Golly, they mightn’t be back for the openin’ Friday night.”
“Won’t be like a real opening without all the boys,” chimed in Sweet Shirley. And amongst the “boys” she was referring to, were some of the leading citizens of Daybreak.
“All right, girls,” an authoritative voice spoke from the open doorway behind them. “No time for slacking. There won’t be any opening tomorrow night unless we get everything ready in time.”
The girls sighed, but turned obediently away from the balcony.
Belle Shilleen smiled sympathetically as they walked past her for she knew just how much they’d been looking forward to the big opening. The madam of the biggest bordello in Calico County was a handsome woman of forty, no longer available to the clients, but still the best looker in the house. Taller than average, Belle had a fine full-bodied figure, generously curved and graceful with deep breasts and flaring hips. Her face seemed arrested in the final smoothness of maturity which comes directly before the lines of experience and age begin to shatter it. Belle’s flower-blue eyes could be warm as spring or cold as winter depending upon her mood. She bossed her business and it didn’t do for anybody to forget it.
Belle Shilleen had had one great love in her life which she didn’t talk about any more and her girls hadn’t seen her give a single man so much as a smile of encouragement in months, until good-looking Duke Benedict had stepped elegantly through the doorway a few nights back. Belle looked upon herself as the protector of her brood of pretty hustlers, and they in turn regarded Belle as mother, confidant and confessor all rolled into one.
“Don’t fret too much, girls,” she comforted them, following them through into the upstairs parlor which was almost ready for opening night. “I’ve never seen the posse yet that didn’t run out of steam inside twenty-four hours.”
“Speakin’ about steam, Belle honey,” said Kitty. “When’s that there good-lookin’ Duke goin’ to fix the piano?”
“In the morning,” Belle replied, putting a cigarette in a twelve-inch holder and lighting it over the chimney of an ornate table lamp.
The girls cheered up a little at that. “Will he be stayin’ for the openin’, Belle?” Kitty wanted to know.
“Most likely.”
The glum expressions faded and the girls returned to work. It didn’t seem all that important now whether the posse got back or not, in view of what Belle had just told them. Between them, the girls of Belle Shilleen’s “salon” had encountered just about every breed of man there was. They were authorities on the species. Some men they hated, some they loved, some they despised, some they mothered. Individualists all, they seldom agreed about any man who came their way, drawn by the silent invitation of the rosy red light above Belle’s door.
In the case of the gambling man who seemed to have taken such a shine to Belle however, they were unanimous. Of all the men they’d ever met, the good and the bad, the ugly and the comely, rich or poor, winners or losers, liars, frauds, empire-builders or baby-faced cowboys, Duke Benedict, they fully agreed, was unquestionably the most handsome man unhung.
And if Duke Benedict was going to be here Friday night, why, that was about all the guarantee they needed that the night was going to be like the Fourth of July.
Six – Remember Bo Rangle?
The town clock was striking nine when Sam Fink released his charges and the two tall men stepped out onto the jailhouse porch. It was already hot, and the fierce yellow glare of the sun bouncing off the dusty street didn’t do anything for throbbing heads.
Both men had used Sam’s razor, and but for the odd bruise or two and a touch of greenish pallor, didn’t look too much the worse for wear. Benedict was still the best-dressed man on Johnny Street despite yesterday’s clothes and his night in the cells. Brazos by contrast looked just that much more disreputable than when he’d ridden in. The purple shirt had been ripped half off him in the melee last night and some true vandal had stomped his hat, though any worsening of its shape could only have been apparent to him. The big man in fact looked like he’d had an argument with a buzz saw and come out with honors about even.
Bullpup growled good morning from the end of the gallery where somebody had chained him after the brawl last night, drunk as an Irish pig. Brazos growled back and tugged out his packet of Bull Durham and set about building a cigarette with fingers that were almost steady now. Benedict watched him but made no move for his silver cigar case. He wasn’t quite ready for that first Havana yet.
It was Benedict who finally ventured to break the sun-baked silence.
“How do you feel, Reb?”
Brazos fired his quirly with a sweep of a lucifer and sucked in a great lungful of smoke. He coughed, spat in the dust then took another deep draw just to show he wasn’t about to take any sass from any cigarette.
“How do I feel? I feel like hell is a mile away and all the fences are down.”
“Dry?”
“As a lime-burner’s boot.”
“Going to have a pick-me-up?”
“Mebbe later.”
Brazos’ tone was rough, his manner surly.
Last night he’d been ready to raise hell forever and drink the whole world dry with his old buddy Duke Benedict. Today he had the grand-daddy of headaches and his mouth felt that at some time during the night, some small, furry animal had made it first his bedroom then his urinal and finally his grave. Added to that was the bitter knowledge that he’d let some clowns get the better of him at the Bird Cage, and to top it off he found himself sharing the morning-after horrors with a high-rolling, light-fingered gambling man who talked like a school teacher and dressed up like a Christmas tree.
Hank Brazos hadn’t forgotten Pea Ridge; he never would. But in the hard glare of daylight and sobriety, he knew instinctively that Duke Benedict and he came from opposite ends of the street and were just about as different as two men could be. Duke Benedict would always stick in his mind as the bravest man he’d ever met, but they were a different breed and they could never be anything else. So they’d met unexpectedly and they’d celebrated. So that was that.
He spat in the dust again. “Stayin’ around town?”
“Could be.”
“Then mebbe I’ll see you around.”
Benedict nodded, glancing sideways with some distaste at the big figure propping up the gallery. He sensed the change in the relationship, understood it much more quickly and clearly than did Brazos, and welcomed it. Their reunion was well and truly over for Duke Benedict. Last night, with his judgment sadly affected by alcohol he might have considered Brazos as an amusing companion, perhaps even a friend. Today, he saw him
as he really was, a brawling illiterate saddle tramp. Pea Ridge, Georgia, seemed a million miles away in the revealing glare of the Kansas sun, distant and unreal. All that was real this hangover morning, was that because of Hank Brazos he felt like something the dogs had had under the house, he’d made a fool of himself, and for one of the rare times in his life, had spent a night in a prison cell.
“Sure,” he said, touching fingers to hat brim as he stepped down from the gallery and headed for his hotel. “See you around, Reb.”
Brazos watched the tall figure recede. His stormy blue eyes were thoughtful. He’d seen the faint distaste in Benedict’s face, realized the gambler had also sensed the great gulf between them, and didn’t give much of a damn.
But he was curious, he realized, though with his brain feeling like so much damp cotton wool, he couldn’t put his finger on what it was about Benedict, Daybreak, and last night that nagged at him, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.
The hell with that. What he needed was a drink.
He stepped out into the full blast of the sun and angled for the Bird Cage, a big shambling man with his shoulders hunched, a torn shirt hanging half off his back, hands hooked in his shell belt and kicking a rusty can before him. He was more than a formidable sight and passers-by stepped warily out of his path, mistaking his scowl of concentration for ferocity.
He gave way for nobody, whether afoot, mounted or on wheels—until the girls dusted by. He stopped in the ankle-deep dust and with his cigarette dangling from his lower lip, hazed a grin at them. They smiled back brazenly as they swept by, and a greenhorn might have thought they owned the town. Brazos knew better. They were young and toughly pretty, dressed in bright silks with painted faces, bleached hair blowing in the wind and paste jewelry glittering around throats and wrists. They sped on down the stem, speaking to none but looked at by all wearing expressions of haughty contempt. He grinned to himself as he saw them swing in at the brick house down Johnny Street. Then he continued on for the saloon.
It was cool and quiet in the Bird Cage with only a smattering of early customers. Last night’s wreckage had been pretty well cleaned up, though a boarded-up window and several new bullet holes in the back wall were mute reminders of what had taken place.
And Strom Beecher and Mick Quade were sitting down at a table sipping rye whisky.
Suddenly Hank Brazos was no longer thinking of his thirst. Suddenly, with a hard bright light in his blue eyes, he was thinking only of last night and how a certain pair of rannies had got the best of him only because he’d been drunk, and how hard Quade had hit him with that chair. Their superior cocky looks now were like a red rag to a bull. They thought they had his number...
The hardcases stiffened as he lounged over to the table. Quade’s eyes popped as Brazos lifted his glass and drained it at a gulp. With a roar, Quade came up swinging. Brazos smashed him on the bridge of the nose, gripped the edge of the table and flung it aside, scattering bottle and glasses and bringing enraged shouts from Beecher who fell over backwards with his chair and crashed to the floor, still cussing.
Nose streaming claret, Quade crashed in with a big left. Brazos’ fist exploded against his jaw and he was down and out. Beecher was still struggling to rise. Brazos helped him up, then jack-knifed him with a rip to the guts and stretched him across Quade with a booming haymaker.
Harp Moody came rushing from out back, hair disheveled, eyes bugging. He gaped at Brazos, then at his bouncers, back to Brazos again.
Brazos grinned and dusted his hands. “I don’t like to have jokers struttin’ about the idea they can lick me, Moody,” he explained amiably. “This straightens things out some. You get the idea?”
Moody wilted. Last night he’d congratulated himself on his triumph. Now it looked like he’d just been lucky. Brazos’ wide shoulders, his challenging grin and the two prostrate bouncers were proof of that. Yes, Harp Moody got the idea all right. Brazos was the breed who always came back.
“No hard feelin’s, Moody,” Brazos drawled, and feeling a whole lot better, shambled across to the bar where the shaky barkeep was pretending to polish a glass.
Brazos put him at ease with a friendly grin, spun a silver dollar on the zinc top.
“I come in peace, pardner,” he grinned. “Want to smoke the peace pipe?”
“Huh?”
“Have a drink with me.”
The barkeep went limp with relief. “Why, sure, Brazos.” He smiled, showing tombstone teeth as he poured whisky. “For a moment there I thought you were gonna start up where you left off last night.”
“Only got kind of a dim recollection of that there ruckus,” Brazos admitted, fingering back his battered hat to sit precariously at the back of his head. “Nobody got hurt, did they? I mean, really hurt?”
“No, not all that bad,” replied the barkeep, a lanky stray with a nasal drip. Then growing confidential, “Matter of fact, I kinda enjoyed it all.” He snickered. “No siree, I don’t recall seein’ as much hell-raisin’ in town since Bo Rangle left.”
Hank Brazos lifted his glass, drank deep. The name didn’t hit him at first, but when it did it hit him hard.
His glass came down to the bar top, very slowly. “Did I hear you right, mister? Did you say Bo Rangle?”
The train rolled into the station at Chisolm, panting like a spent stallion. The grimy black clouds from the smokestack stretched out for miles fading into the distance until it was nothing more than a faint smudge against the summer sky of Kansas.
The three tall men stepped down stiffly from one of the yellow wooden cars. For a moment they stood together, a part of, yet somehow aloof from the swirl of movement and noise about them. Nobody spoke to them, they spoke to nobody. The three were dressed alike with ankle-length gray dusters covering their trail clothes. They wore the collars of the dusters turned up high, hats tugged down low. The tallest of the three wore his kerchief pulled up over the lower part of his face as if in protection against the dust. From underneath his low hat brim, intent brown eyes cut sharply at a man strolling through the crowd wearing a star. The lawman kept on his way, the tall man grunted, then led the way down to the horsebox.
They paid the railroad conductor, then led their horses down the ramp toting saddles and warbags over their shoulders. The conductor watched them curiously but quickly turned away when the one with the black beard returned his stare. The three men didn’t look the kind to appreciate curiosity.
None of the three spoke until they’d ridden clear of the dust and noise of Chisolm. The tallest man then drew his horse to a halt on a timbered saddle, tugging down his kerchief to reveal the sort of long, strong face that once seen wasn’t easily forgotten.
“So far so good,” he said, taking a flask from a pocket of the duster and tipping it to his lips.
“How fer from here to Daybreak, boss?” said Dunstan, the man with the black beard.
“Around forty miles.”
“Will we make it by tonight?” queried Glede Skelley, a spare hard man with a yellow moustache.
“Sure, it’s easy ridin’.”
The leader put his flask away. Skelley and Dunstan stared south at the rim of the hills that formed the north border of Calico Valley without enthusiasm.
“Cheer up,” the tall man said, noting their uncertainty. “I’m not plannin’ to stay on. I just aim to drop in on openin’ night to see how my investment looks, maybe have a drink or two with Belle, then light out. Nothin’ to it.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never been able to figure, Bo,” puzzled Dunstan. “How come you sunk two grand in a brothel?”
“You’ve got to look to the future, and a bordello’s as sound an investment as a man can make this side of the Mississippi,” came the laconic reply. Bo Rangle slapped his reins and used his heels. “Okay, let’s cover some miles. And wipe those looks off your pans, will you? We don’t have anythin’ to worry about down there. I’m about the last pilgrim Daybreak expects to see tonight or any night.”
&n
bsp; They rode on and Skelley’s worried frown was gone, but Dunstan continued to brood as the fiery yellow sun climbed the sky. What Bo had said was convincing up to a point, but what Dunstan couldn’t figure was why Bo had picked him and Skelley to ride along. Next to Bo himself, they were the top guns in the band at present holed up across the Missouri border. Seemed funny Bo should single them out if it was going to be such a picnic.
Still, he wasn’t all that worried. He’d been riding with the boss for two years and knew he wasn’t a man to take fool risks. If Bo Rangle said it was safe in Daybreak for them, then that’s how it was.
Seven – Sprod Plays To Win
It was an hour after his release from jail when Duke Benedict emerged from his hotel. He’d bathed and changed into a tailored brown suit, watered-silk Prince Albert vest and highly-shined brown dress boots that caught the sun as he walked two doors down Johnny Street and entered the steamy doorway of Willy Wong’s laundry.
It was ten minutes before he reappeared, donning his low-crowned gray Stetson. He paused to check his appearance in the laundry window. Satisfied, he took out a cigar, set it alight then strode briskly north along the boardwalk in the direction of Belle Shilleen’s.
A pretty girl smiled at him as he passed the wheelwright’s. Benedict doffed his hat, flashed his white smile and continued on with the smile still playing about his lips. He was feeling better by the minute. Perhaps another small bourbon at Belle’s before going to work on her piano, and he would be one hundred per cent.
“Why, you sure do up well, Yank.”
Benedict came to a dead halt, tugging the cigar from his teeth. Hank Brazos stood leaning lazily in the doorway of an old, disused bakery twenty feet away. The big man straightened and strolled out into the sun, one brown hand hooked in his belt, the other toying with the harmonica dangling from the cord around his neck. Brazos was wearing a big grin that looked somehow smug.
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