The E. Hoffmann Price Spice Adventure MEGAPACK ™

by Price, E. Hoffmann

  He offered one of the quarts. The Chinaman poured a shot into a tiny teacup, and downed it. “Vellee nice. You take dlink, Missee Glime. Ng ka pay, China whiskey.”

  He dug out a stone jug and poured a shot of reddish and syrupy liquor. The stuff tasted like kerosene and orange shellac. It was almost as bad as Red Quill. But Grimes, having met the only civilized man in Stinking Springs, downed it and said, “Mighty good.”

  Wing wagged his head. “You velly nice man. Evly-one else thlowee locks when I give Ng ka pay.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Mebbe-so five, ten yeah.”

  That was odd. Today, they drank something worse and didn’t even blink.

  “Wing, who hauls whiskey to town? Where do they keep it? Who dishes it out to the saloons?”

  “Wagon tlain bling-ee Led Quill. Keep-ee in big house by jail. Ev-ly-body catch-ee whiskey flom Colonel Delevan.”

  “How about Mrs. Hopkins?”

  “Velly nice lady. Colonel Delevan fix-ee all business, him savvee plenty.”

  Grimes went back to the Cozy Corner Saloon, after taking his horse to the livery stable. The same bunch of cowpunchers were playing poker in the corner. They dropped their cards, and eyed him as he went to the bar.

  Grimes said, “Belly up, gents! I’m buying!”

  There was a whoop and a jingle of spurs. The sour-faced professor set out glasses and Red Quill.

  Grimes pulled a quart from his hip pocket. “Gents,” he said, and slapped a gold piece on the bar, “I’m buying the local likker. Only, I am gal-danged if I can drink the stuff, try some of this.”

  He filled the glasses with Old Vickery.

  The cowpunchers blinked, eyed each other; one said, “Stranger, you’re violating a local ordinance, Colonel Delevan had the mayor pass a law agin foreign liquor.”

  “Ain’t I paid for Red Quill? Ain’t I doing right by the widder-woman?”

  “Pardner, that’s gospel.”

  They thrust out their grimy paws to grab the glasses.

  The swinging doors slammed open. A stern voice shook the house: “Drop that, right now!”

  Two men had entered. The foremost wore a star. He had a sawed off shotgun leveled at the group. The man beside him was tall, distinguished; slouch hat, frock coat, a pique vest, and flowing tie; drooping mustaches, and a neatly trimmed beard, an Imperial, perfectly tailored. And just for emphasis, he had a Colt .45 pointed at Grimes. He looked as if he could shoot.

  Grimes demanded, “What’s this, suh, breaking into some sociable drinking?”

  “I am Colonel Delevan,” the man in the frock coat answered. “And my companion with the shotgun is Mr. Frost, the marshal. Selling liquor—without a license—”

  “I am giving it away.”

  The colonel fingered his silky beard. “Ha! That also is in violation of a city ordinance. Giving or selling, or causing to be given away or sold, without first having it tested for wholesomeness and purity, is a violation of the law. Mr. Frost, be pleased to seize the evidence. Young man—”

  Grimes shouted, “This here is good whiskey, the finest dang whiskey I ever drunk, that Red Quill is sheepdip, it’s poison, it ain’t fit for human consumption!”

  “If you were not a beardless boy,” the colonel retorted, “I would challenge you to a duel. Mrs. Hopkins, the daughter of a local hero, sponsors Red Quill.”

  Mr. Frost seized the bottle of Old Vickery. Grimes saw no chance of shooting it out; and as Amos Hanford had observed, shooting a customer doesn’t improve sales.

  * * * *

  Late that night, Grimes decided to get to the bottom of things. If everything else failed, he’d set the Red Quill warehouse afire.

  “Arson,” he told himself, “is genrully agin’ the law, but this here is an extenuating circumstance, every time you take a drink of that stuff, it’s committing arson on your gizzard.”

  Wing’s description made it easy for him to find the warehouse. The place was of adobe, thick walled, with small windows high up and barred. Ceiling beams projected far out and supported the eaves whose overhang kept the rains from cutting into the adobe. Grimes had brought his lariat; it was simple enough, roping the end of a ceiling beam. Then, in the gloom at the rear of the adobe, he went up, hand over hand, and in a moment, he was on the roof.

  As he had expected, this was of clay tamped over bundles of cottonwood saplings which had been laid athwart the massive ceiling beams. Such a roof, unless constantly maintained, deteriorates, and this one had been neglected; thus Grimes had less work than he had anticipated. He found a patch of bare saplings and very quickly worked them right and left, until he could, being lean and lanky, wriggle through.

  His lariat, let down into the whiskey-scented darkness, was as good as a portable stairway. In a moment, Grimes was down in the stockroom.

  He struck a match, lighted a candle stump, and with hat and bandanna, shaded the flame. Along the wall furthest from the door was a row of barrels which were marked “proof spirits.” On a table was a plane, some paint, and a stencil which read, “RED QUILL BOURBON.” There were several empties, freshly stenciled. But what most interested Grimes was the cabinet in the corner.

  There he found a bucket of stewed prunes, some one-pound plugs of chewing tobacco, and a jug of wine vinegar. Also, there was a pail of beef blood. Hanging from a nail was a paper bound book entitled, AMERICAN BARTENDER’S GUIDE. A glance at this last item confirmed his suspicions; he read, “To one hundred gallons of proof spirit, add four ounces of pear oil, two ounces of pelargonic ether, thirteen drachms oil of wintergreen, and one gallon of wine vinegar; color with burnt sugar.”

  But what prodded Grimes to a high fury was “Recipe 309; Bead for Liquor. For every ten gallons of spirit, add forty drops sulphuric acid and sixty drops of olive oil previously mixed in a glass vessel.”

  “There ain’t no Red Quill Distillery,” he said to himself. “There ain’t any likker hauled to Stinking Springs. That sculpin makes it right here, outen chemicals and acids.”

  Such being the case, how could the daughter of a local hero be dependent on dividends from Red Quill shares? Instead of setting the warehouse afire, it would be far better to expose the fraud and drive Red Quill forever from the market.

  CHAPTER III

  A Risk To Be Taken

  There was a lot of excitement in Stinking Springs when two horses came into town without riders. Grimes, going from bar to bar, drank Red Quill and listened to the news. Dusty and Pecos, gunslingers protecting the whiskey market, had heard that a rash freighter was heading for Stinking Springs, and they had gone to meet him.

  And now this.

  Most of the population galloped out to investigate. They found, after chasing away the buzzards, enough odds and ends to identify beyond any doubt the remains of Dusty and Pecos.

  Thereafter, when Colonel Delevan appeared in public, he had Buckshot Frost at his heels. Grimes, barging into a saloon, caught a snatch of conversation: “That long lanky galoot that don’t look like he had sense enough to come in outen the rain.…”

  Silence. Dripping silence. Then the boys began whooping it up again. They could not believe that he had cut down the two gunslingers, and yet, there was something odd about it all. So Grimes began to cat-walk about town. People were wondering about his protests on the whiskey question.

  Stinking Springs got another sensation when a shapely blonde came driving down the main street in a rattling buggy. She looked sweet and helpless. Her somber mourning accented the pallor of her face and the pale gilt of her lovely hair. Grimes, sitting with the hotel lobby wall at his back, heard her say to the cowpoke who carried her carpetbag, “Thank you so much! Never mind the things in the buggy, it’s just a sewing machine, would you mind taking the rig to the livery stable?”

 
She signed the register. Then, to the clerk, “Oh, what is that horrible smell?”

  Grimes chimed in, “M’am, that there is Red Quill Bourbon.”

  The girl was Melba Hanford. Her dainty nose rose a degree or two, and she sniffed. The clerk said, “M’am, that there is the hot sulphur spring, it ain’t bad when you get used to it.”

  * * * *

  The hours dragged. Grimes watched Melba come down the stairs and sweep past him, head high. He watched her return from the restaurant. He heard the muttered speculations of the cowpunchers who lounged on the board walk.

  “Widder-woman…Sure looks like a lady…proud as a queen…hell no, she ain’t fixing to work in the dance hall, not that gal…”

  * * * *

  That night, Grimes went to bed with his boots on. But the real novelty was that he did not sleep. He was on edge, alert, and at the first faint scratch at the panel, he was on his feet. Just for luck, he had a gun ready.

  Melba edged in when he opened the door. “Simon, it’s the craziest thing, I nearly died when I came to town, with everyone eyeing me.”

  “How’s your pappy?”

  “He’ll pull through, though I hated to leave him. What have you found out?”

  Once Melba had found the settee in the darkness, he seated himself on the floor at her feet. “Honey, it’s thissaway—”

  He told her everything and concluded, “The hull dang town’s against us. I’d figgered a gal like you might have a chance pertending you was a orphan or widder, but that there Doreen Hopkins is mighty purty for a old woman dang nigh thirty; these jaspers worship the ground she walks on, account her pappy, and I jest don’t know what to do next.”

  “You mean, if you did prove that Red Quill is just chemicals and acids, you’d be casting reflections on a hero’s daughter, and that would not help us?”

  “Correct, honey.” Grimes sighed gustily. “But there’s sumthin’ salty about it all. That Mis’ Hopkins looks like a honest woman. She don’t look like the kind that’d have cowpunchers drinking sheep dip and soldering acid and sechlike. This here Red Quill musta once been fitten to drink, account they nearly lynched Wing Lee for offering them ng ka pay on Chinese New Year.

  “And this Colonel Delevan, you call on him, tearfullike, and whilst he’s listening to you sobbing, I’ll sort of make a pasear around the house, he’s a bachelor.”

  * * * *

  The following evening, Grimes lurked in the shelter of a weeping willow until Melba drove up to Colonel Delevan’s big white house. He came from cover when the colonel went to admit his lovely visitor.

  “Good evening, m’am. What is your pleasure, Miss Hanford? You had scarcely arrived in town when I took the liberty of ah…inquiring at the hotel.”

  “You’re very kind, colonel. I hardly know where to begin—

  Grimes crept to the window. Delevan was stamping down the hallway and bawling, “You, Tomas! Paca! Where are you?”

  The only answer was echoes; then, returning, he said to Melba, “I had hoped to have one of the servants offer you refreshments, m’am, but the scoundrels have, so to speak, folded their tents like the Arabs. But I make a very tolerable mint julep.”

  Grimes grinned. Delevan had merely made a loud show of assuring Melba that they could have a cozy chat. And when he went to the rear to prepare juleps, Grimes tapped gently at the window, and whispered, “Do your best, and if he gits familiar, I’ll pistol-whip him.”

  Delevan lost surprisingly little time in coming back with a silver bowl and tall glasses.

  Melba said, hesitantly, “Colonel, I hope I don’t seem rude, but I don’t drink strong liquor. I might take a sip of Madeira, though I really shouldn’t—” She dabbed her eyes with a lace edged handkerchief. “Not so soon—after—poor father’s death.”

  As he poured Bourbon and added sprigs of mint to garnish his tall glass, Delevan said solicitously, “M’am, it was all too evident from your mourning—ahem, if you’ll forgive my saying so, it is most becoming—you remind me of the late Mrs. Delevan, when her distinguished father passed away.”

  He sighed gustily. “I am a very lonesome man and have been for many years now. Pray accept my heartfelt sympathy, m’am, for I also have been bereaved.”

  The man was magnetic. Grimes’ trigger finger began to itch. He said to himself, “That goat-bearded sculp-in’s got a routine for widder-women and orphans, I ’low he ain’t ever asked Mis’ Hopkins to marry him, not with them notions for preying on bereaved gals.”

  The colonel was on the sofa beside Melba. He barely touched her further shoulder with his fingertips; he was waiting for her grief to get out of control before he offered consolation.

  “You’re so kind, colonel. I almost hate to bring up a matter of business—”

  “Consider me your servant, m’am.”

  “It’s about—whiskey.”

  “Whiskey, m’am?”

  The lovely blonde head inclined in a nod. “My poor father, practically ruined by railroad competition, was freighting a number of barrels of OLD VICKERY BOURBON into new territory, and—and—”

  Her voice broke. He patted her shoulder. Melba went on, “Bandits—road agents—held us up. There were two of them—I begged him not to resist—but he fought like a lion—he killed them both—but his wounds—he succumbed, and here I am, trying to sell—that whiskey—and I’ve been told—that nothing but Red Quill is allowed in Stinking Springs.

  “They gave me to understand, Colonel Delevan, that you are a stockholder in the Red Quill distillery, and that this ban on other liquors is to—well—protect your interests.”

  She eyed him reproachfully; but the colonel’s glance did not waver. “M’am, I have been put into a false position. Pray let me convince you. The truth is, I am protecting the interests of a widow, the daughter of that gallant hero, the late Cyrus Barlow.”

  Melba rose. “Colonel Delevan, it is not gallant to put the blame on a widow!”

  The colonel’s face became red. “Madam, I have been put in a false light! I shall challenge the dastard who put me in such false light! Pray let me convince you.”

  The colonel stalked out, and in a moment came back with a tin box which he unlocked. He took from it various papers, and began, “M’am, this should convince you that years ago, as a gesture of gratitude, I conveyed to Mrs. Hopkins’ gallant father every share of my Red Quill whiskey stock.”

  “I know so little about business—” Melba wavered, her knees buckled; she would have fallen had he not caught her. “Oh—I’m sorry—I’m dizzy—I think I’m about to faint—”

  The colonel scooped her up in his arms. “Let me make you comfortable in the late Mrs. Delevan’s room—there are some smelling salts—”

  Melba protested feebly, but the masterful colonel insisted that nothing was too much trouble. And he had barely started up the stairs when Grimes tiptoed into the living room.

  Melba’s voice filtered down from the upper darkness: “Oh, colonel, I’m so confused and worried and lonely…I don’t know whom to believe…I’ll be all right in a moment—”

  Grimes scooped up the papers. The first one seemed to bear out Delevan’s contention, but as he riffled his way through the file, Grimes found a letter of earlier date, on the stationery of the Red Quill Distilleries. The colonel’s thousand shares were to be assessed $5 each, and in return he would get one thousand new shares. Grimes muttered, “Participating perferred, gosh it sounds worsen the time Uncle Jason got hornswoggled outen that mine in Arizony.”

  Another paper: a notice of bankruptcy, dated a year after the assessment. Grimes, listening to the murmuring upstairs, was assured that Melba was holding her own. Delevan, while a scheming scoundrel, was in his own way a gentleman. And so Grimes hurried out to make a move which neither he nor Melba had planned.

&nb
sp; There wasn’t and there had not been any Red Quill whiskey for some years, except in Stinking Springs. Bit by bit, Delevan had cut the stock of Bourbon, so that the local cowpunchers had gradually become accustomed to rotgut bearing the label of a once drinkable brand. And he had used Doreen Hopkins as a front.

  Exposing Doreen as a crook would be tough work. It might end in an all around shooting scrape which would not help the sale of Old Vickery. But Grimes had to risk it.

  CHAPTER IV

  Challenge!

  When Doreen Hopkins came to the door, the lamplight put a flame-gold halo about her red hair; it played tricks with her white robe, which had been made out of an embroidered Chinese shawl.

  “I rarely have visitors—if I’d been expecting you—”

  “M’am, you look scrumptious thatta-way. And if you ain’t too busy with your embroidering, I’d admire to talk business with you.”

  He thumped a buckskin poke of gold pieces into the heap of embroidery silk. “It’s about your pappy’s Red Quill shares. The Old Vickery Distillery craves to buy your interest and good will.”

  “It’s paid such splendid dividends, I’d have to consult Colonel Delevan. He’s advised me ever since father died.”

  “How many shares you got?”

  She shrugged. “Good heaven, I don’t know! But wait a moment.”

  When she returned, she had a thousand-share certificate made out in her father’s name. The date was prior to the dates of the letters announcing the assessments. Grimes, scrutinizing the late hero’s name, saw what only a keen eye could have noted: there had been an erasure, and Cyrus Barlow had been written, letters widely spaced, in the space once occupied by, as a good guess, Worthington Delevan.

  “M’am, when’d you know your pappy had it?”

  “Colonel Delevan found it among father’s papers, after the estate was settled. I guess it hadn’t paid dividends for some time, but soon after the colonel found it, I began getting checks, in my own name, he said he’d written the company that I’d inherited the stock.”