Tough Bullet

by Peter McCurtin

  “Let’s go, Basso,” I said. “Maybe we can still catch her.”

  Basso jerked the gun halfway up toward me. God, but he was boiling over! “Go on—chase the whore! Run out, you god-blasted cowboy! But this stinking black is going to hang.” Basso slapped Doctor Jack again, pointed his .45 at the old boy’s followers. I didn’t know a middling-old man like Basso could get so mad. “Come on, you chicken-sucking savages.”

  There wasn’t a sound. Basso was all surprise. It was like the time long ago when Daniel Boone gobbled like a wild turkey at those Indians, and it surprised them so much they ran away. Of course, that was more than a hundred years before and the here and now was New Orleans, 1891, and these were blacks, not Indians.

  Basso was making a mistake taking Doctor Jack out of there. But I thought I had to back him up. I don’t know why I thought that. To me, sure as shooting, it was a waste of time.

  “You go first,” I said.

  Chapter Ten

  Doctor Jack’s deep voice rose to a wild scream as Basso dragged him out of there. The lingo he was spouting was French and Spanish seasoned well with Voodoo talk. You didn’t have to understand it to know he was calling on the spirits to strike us dead. Getting no help from the other world, he told his bully boys to do the job with their razors.

  They started to move toward us, still shocked out of their skulls by Jack’s downfall, but taking orders is a hard habit to break. They didn’t exactly move; they flowed across the room like a mudslide. That was how I felt—a man trying to shoot a mudslide with a revolver.

  Basso put the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson under Doctor Jack’s right ear. The hammer was back, and his finger was closed on the trigger. Nothing quiets a man like the cold mouth of a .45 pistol. Doctor Jack’s mouth was open, but nothing came out it. “Tell them to hold up,” Basso told him, “One more move and you lose your shiny head.”

  Doctor Jack spoke again in Voodoo language, and they stopped coming—all but two big blacks. The old boy didn’t like that; he yelled at them. Razors slipped from their sleeves into their hands and flipped open. “Go back,” Doctor Jack yelled in English.

  Basso and Doctor Jack were behind me; the two blacks slashed at me first. The one closest had long arms and nearly got me in the neck. Thin steel sliced through the collar of my coat, and if it cut the flesh I didn’t feel it. I shot the first black in the chest, the other in the head, and I had to put another bullet in the first man before he fell down.

  Smoke curled from the muzzle of the gun— the only thing that moved in the room. As they say, it was now or never. Two down—twenty-eight to go! I eased around to one side of the squat doorkeeper. Something warm trickled down my chest under the shirt, and I knew what they said about razors was true. A few inches higher and it would have been the jugular.

  “Open it,” I told the doorkeeper. I didn’t put the gun in his back; once you touch a man with a gun he knows where to grab. Doctor Jack yelled at him, and he threw the bolts. The door swung open, and I cracked him across the back of the neck. The way he staggered was like a drunk trying to decide where to fall down. I helped him find a place.

  Basso walked Doctor Jack out first, and I knew there were men waiting in the dark, but nothing happened right away. Basso knew it, too, and he yelled, “Listen good, you sons of bitches. I got your witch doctor, and I’ll kill him quick, the first one tries anything.”

  Doctor Jack hollered long and loud in that secret lingo. I hoped he was agreeing with Basso. I went out the door backwards, with three bullets left in my gun and not completely sure I would ever see Texas again.

  The few lights that showed when we went in had gone out, and the narrow street was dark as a coffin with the lid screwed down. There was no noise, none at all; Blacktown was holding its breath. A thin shaft of light slanted from the door of Doctor Jack’s church, then that, too, went out. The light went out, but the door didn’t close.

  I followed Basso down the middle of the cobblestoned street. It was just barely possible to make him out in the reflected glare of the city lights. Basso’s heavy boots moved quickly and quietly over the cobblestones, and Doctor Jack didn’t make any noise at all.

  I found myself counting, and a long minute took us to the corner. They started shooting at us when we came around it. Five or six guns spat flame from street level, and then a rifle opened up from a second floor window. A knife came at me from behind; I didn’t hear it until it cut through the air beside my head. A black shape jumped at me, and I shot it in midair. Another shape jumped after it and got its hands around my neck. I slammed the gun against the side of the attacker’s head, and the hands held on until the skull bone cracked.

  Doctor Jack was screaming like a madman, trying to break Basso’s arm hold. Basso held Jack and fired back at the gun flashes. Bullets whanged off the cobblestones, zipping like hornets. I heard the yellow man shouting orders. Basso wasn’t getting anywhere with Doctor Jack, and when I heard a muffled shot I knew Basso had killed the old man with a bullet in the back of the neck.

  The body hit the street, and I fell over it. The rifleman in the window put a bullet where I would have been standing if I hadn’t tripped. Basso was crouched down by the side of a house, shooting back while bullets broke plaster above his head. The rifleman stopped to reload, and I fired at the next flash and got him.

  I wasn’t sure until the body fell into the street. “Jesus!” Basso cursed. “I’m hit in the chest.”

  My gun was empty. I tried to take his. “Shells in my pocket,” he said. “Load my gun, too. I can’t move my goddamn arm.”

  I thumbed shells into Basso’s gun and put it in his left hand. A bullet scattered plaster dust in my face. Basso fired, and a man screamed. I had to fire three times before I killed another one. “Can you move?” I asked Basso.

  “Better than you,” he roared. “Let’s go.”

  Just then a match flared, and a bunch of oil-soaked rags sailed through the darkness. I killed the man who threw the light, and we came around the corner shooting at everything that moved. Another bullet buried itself in Basso’s chest, but he kept going. “Leave me be,” he roared when I tried to help him.

  Our guns knocked down three more blacks, and I dropped another shooter who opened up from inside a window. Xavier, the yellow man, fired fast with a handgun before he ducked into an alley. There was another alley across the street, and they fired at us from both sides. Staggering and roaring, Basso took one side; I took the other.

  Then we were through the crossfire, and they were out in the street again, coming after us, firing as they came. The skin on the point of my elbow was touched by a bullet. We reloaded on the run. I did the reloading, passing the gun back to Basso. Every time we stopped to shoot it was harder for Basso to go on. I don’t know how many blacks we dropped—a lot—but they kept coming. When one black was killed another picked up his gun and kept coming.

  Basso started to fall. I grabbed him and he cursed me. “Save your strength, you dumb bastard,” I roared back at him. Some men pray when they’re going to die; Basso favored cursing. I caught him under the good arm and started to drag. It was like dragging a locomotive.

  “No use,” Basso groaned. “There’s no feeling in my legs. Get the hell away from here.”

  “Not yet,” I said. My gun had a full chamber and I emptied as fast as I could pull the trigger. An unhitched wagon stood outside a stable yard. It was rotten cover, but it was all we had. I shoved Basso under the wagon and rolled in after him. After I reloaded Basso’s gun, I tried to keep it.

  They couldn’t see us now, and they spaced out, coming slow. On my belly, I did better shooting. Two of them fell down before a hail of lead started taking the wagon body apart. All the blood in Basso’s body was coming out through the holes in his chest. No matter what happened, he didn’t have long. “Put the hat under my arm, then do what I say. Run, you shit-kicker. When you catch the whore, give her one for me.”

  “That’s a promise,” I said. There were
n’t enough bullets to load both .45s. Basso got a full load; I got three. I started to crawl out from behind the wagon. With the wagon between me and the blacks I might have a chance. “Be seeing you, Basso,” I said. “We all get it some time.”

  Air wheezed in and out of Basso’s chest wounds: The son of a bitch was trying to laugh. “You’re a lucky feller, cowboy. The minute we got the money I’d have killed you.”

  “Maybe,” I said. The firing was heavy again, and Basso fired back as I started to run. I got fifty feet before they spotted me, but Basso held them. He held them, his arm propped up by that fool hat, firing until the chamber was empty. Then they were all over him, shooting and stabbing.

  The ones who hadn’t stopped to chop up Basso were still coming after me. I hoped to hell I was running the right way. That way was where Rampart Street was supposed to be. A man running in boots is no match for bare feet. Behind me I could hear bare feet slapping over cobblestones, and the sound kept getting closer. There was some light in the next street, and when I turned I could see the yellow man out in front of the others.

  There was no way to outrun him. I steadied the short-barreled .45 and fired. The bullet didn’t hit him. He was a lot closer when I fired again. He was so close I could see the machete in one hand, the handgun in the other. The bullet hit him in the middle of the belly, and he kept running until his brain told his body it was time to die.

  Police whistles started to blow; a bell joined in. Isn’t it something? I could have bear-hugged those dirty grafting New Orleans bulls. When I looked back the only man in the street was the feller I’d just killed. The murdering bastards just faded away into the darkness. And so did I.

  I ducked into an alley and watched a patrol wagon full of uniformed bulls rattle past. The man sitting beside the driver rang the bell, and I knew there was going to be some fun when they found Basso’s body. After some more dodging, I made my way back to Rampart Street.

  Even in a wild town like New Orleans, a man with shirt and coat soaked with blood gets noticed. I hoped most of the blood was Basso’s. I was tired but not weak, and the slice from the razor didn’t hurt much. Tell the truth, I didn’t exactly know what to do next. Well, yes, I meant to get myself a new suit of clothes; beyond that I’d have to sit down with a bottle and think a spell before coming to any important decisions.

  I sort of missed Basso. Of course, I wasn’t sorry the big bull was dead. Still, he did know the dirty old town like the back of his hairy paw, and I didn’t know it at all. What I did know I didn’t like. I didn’t know where to find a clothing store, for instance. I walked along Rampart Street feeling like a fool. A uniformed policeman big as a buffalo was parading along the other side of the street. If he got friendly, I thought I’d tell him I fell down in a slaughterhouse. That was a damn fool idea, and I knew it. I knew I’d have to kill him with the last bullet in my gun.

  But he passed like a riverboat on a picnic cruise. Finally, I picked out the worst looking citizen I could find, and asked him for directions. He was the first cockeyed man I ever saw with only one eye. It made him sour on his fellow man, I guess, and I had to slap him in the jaw to make his mouth move. “Benjamin’s Dry Goods around the corner on Gravier Street.

  I turned him loose, and he scurried off like a sick coyote. When he got far enough away, he yelled something dirty after me. Lord, I thought, what a town!

  Benjamin was a man of the world or else his eyesight wasn’t so good. The blood didn’t bother him a bit. Sure he could sell me a suit, the latest model. He tried to sell me two suits when I peeled off some of Hindman’s money. In the end, I settled for a black worsted suit, two shirts, a tie, and a wide-brimmed fedora hat.

  I kept an eye on the old geezer while I changed my duds behind a curtain. The razor slash wasn’t nothing to fret about. I guess the suit-seller wasn’t interested in how I got so bloody. He went back to counting a stack of pants, and the only time he looked up was when I tore one of the shirts to make a bandage.

  I got out of there fast, with the old storekeeper telling me how well I looked, and ran after a trolley and climbed aboard. Three blocks from there I jumped down and went into a saloon. I stood at the bar and put away four drinks and thought about Minnie Haha.

  Sure, I decided—why not? I had chased this murdering female all over New Orleans. Every place she lit down somebody died. One way or another, she was a champion at killing or causing people to be killed—Gertie, Nails, Hindman’s two boys, her brother. After Doctor Jack I stopped counting. Like Basso said, I was no detective. Minnie could have run out of places to hide, or there could be no end of places. Now it wasn’t going to be so easy for her to hide, not in New Orleans, not when Basso’s man Frank connected her with the Chief’s death. All they had to do was dig up the Blue Book and they’d know what she looked like. They had no hard evidence on Minnie, but people have a way of talking after they’ve been in the back room for a while.

  My guess was that Minnie would keep running. But where? God damn it! It was more than an hour since Basso went up those stairs and found her gone. It would be another hour, maybe two, before they had a description and started watching the railroad stations and the riverboats. By then, she could be on a train for points north or west. Maybe on a boat for Tampico. Or—my guess—on her way to St. Phail.

  That’s what it was—a hunch, a feeling in my gut. Home is where most people run when they use up the other places. St. Phail was one of the places the law would check. I figured to beat them to it. Then, if she wasn’t there, the hell with it! I’d just have to live with the Gertie killing if, after going over all the facts, they decided to pin the tail on me. St. Phail would be my last stop in Louisiana; after that, good or bad, back to Texas.

  The bartender said the South Rampart Street Station was what I wanted. Right down the street. I walked down there, and nobody tried to stop me. There was a gun shop across from the station. I bought a box of forty-fives, then bought a ticket to Leesville after looking at the big map on the station wall. Leesville was the closest I could get to Minnie’s hometown by train.

  There was a twenty minute wait, and I went into the station barbershop and told the man to give me the works—haircut, shave, hot towels. On the train I’d be a sitting duck if the police came through, and the barbershop looked like a pretty good place to stay out of the way. The barber was still fooling with my hair when the train-caller yelled the last all aboard. I threw money at the barber and ran.

  The train started to move and, by God!, it was good to get out of New Orleans. I put my feet up and pulled the new hat down over my eyes. The conductor came through to punch the tickets, and told me to get my dirty boots off the seat. I did what I was told. Later a sandwich butcher came along, and I bought some bad-colored beef between two slices of stale bread. I hadn’t put food in my belly for close to twenty-four hours; the sandwich tasted fine.

  The thought came to me that Minnie might be on the same train. I was so damn sick of chasing Minnie, but I went through the train, one end to the other, and didn’t find her. No, the conductor said when I caught up with him, there was nobody aboard who answered to that description. Maybe she was on the express; the express had pulled out thirty minutes earlier.

  I went back to my seat and grabbed some sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was two o’clock in the morning when the local pulled into Leesville. It was a fair-sized town, and it had gone to bed. Scratching and yawning, the station agent told me to try Sanders Livery Stable for a horse. He told me how to get there.

  It took some active door-rattling to get the stable keeper out of bed. “Now why can’t folks arrange to do business during daylight hours?” he complained, stuffing his nightshirt inside his pants. “This is the second time tonight I been woke. First by a woman and now you. Tell me something, mister, what’s a woman want with a horse and buggy in the middle of the night?”

  “Maybe she wants to go some place,” I said.

  He eyed me suspiciously
when I described Minnie, said I was her cousin Haywood from Bogalusa. That we got separated in New Orleans, that I was worried sick about her traveling alone late at night.

  “We got to charge extra renting horses at night,” he said. He gave a creaky laugh. “Plus holding money should you injure the animal.”

  I gave him the money.

  “I guess that’s the female,” he said. “Come in on the express. Said she had to get over to St. Phail in a hurry. I told her she’d be smart to wait till morning, but, no, it had to be on tonight.” I climbed onto a brown gelding and rode out the west road. About ten miles out straight, no forks, the stableman advised me. There was good light, and I put some life into the animal with my boots. About an hour later a sign told me I was about to enter the village of St. Phail.

  It wasn’t much more than a wide place in the road—bigger than Hindman said, but not much. Mostly what it was—a post office, a few stores, a scatter of houses. There was no sign of any law office; the nearest law would be Leesville. I walked the horse through the town and out the other side. The crickets and bullfrogs were having a concert; they stopped and started again. A dog barked for a while, then lost interest. There still wasn’t any sign of the Verrier place.

  There was a crossroads with signs saying Slage and Hawthorn. I almost didn’t see the rotting sign, the painted letters peeling off, that said Verrier House. The arrow was pointed at the ground, but I got the idea. One mile, the sign stated.

  I passed some Negro cabins by the side of the road. Trees grew in close to the road, and it was dark for a couple of hundred yards. Out of the trees, I saw the bulk of the big house, a single light coming from a downstairs window. In a way, this was where it all started; I hoped to finish it in the same place.

  Two stone pillars had given up trying to support the heavy iron gates. The sagging gates had been open for a long time, and weeds and briars were tangled in the bars. A curved carriageway lined with poplars ran up to the house from the road; weeds and grass grew up through the gravel. The gelding’s hooves made hardly a sound as I led him toward the house.