Shawn Starbuck Double Western 3

by Ray Hogan

  “Fisher. Why?”

  “Because—I—I talked—told you about—McGraw.”

  Shawn, pity tempering the wild anger that had gripped him at first sight of the gambler’s sadistic handiwork, sat down on the edge of the bed, doing it slowly, carefully so as to not cause the girl more pain.

  “I wish’t now I’d done like Dolly—not come back.”

  “If you don’t want to stay, you won’t have to,” Starbuck said gently.

  Jenny sighed heavily. “You—you don’t know how it is. They won’t let me—leave.”

  “If you want to go, I’ll see to it. The doctor been here yet?”

  “No—”

  “Why not? How long have you been here?”

  “Since—this morning. The doctor—he’s afraid to come.”

  “He’ll come,” Starbuck said flatly. “Where’ll I find him?”

  “The barber shop—in the back. But there’s no need. Not much—he can do that Hallie—a friend ain’t already done.”

  Hallie would be the woman who had spoken to him in the alley. She evidently had come to Jenny’s aid at great risk to herself.

  “Best he see you anyway. He can give you something to ease the pain.”

  “No—it’ll mean trouble for you—with Bart.”

  “I can handle it,” Starbuck said, rising. “I’ll be right back.”

  Leaving the room, he entered the hall and returned to the alley. The barber shop was immediately to his left. Moving to it, he tried the doorknob. It was locked; doubling his fist, he rapped sharply. After a moment the panel opened and a tall, hawk-faced man peered out at him.

  “I’m looking for the doctor.”

  The man half turned, took up a lamp that was nearby, and held it above his head for better light. He nodded briskly.

  “Oh, it’s you, marshal. I’m Gilman—what’s the trouble?”

  “Friend of mine. Like for you to come.”

  “Sure,” the medical man said, setting the lamp down and reaching for his coat.

  “Won’t need that,” Shawn said. “Only going next door.”

  The doctor released the garment and picked up a leather satchel bearing faded, gold-lettered words, J. Gilman ... M.D., on its side.

  “The hotel? Never heard anything—”

  Ignoring the man’s doubt, Starbuck held the door open and hurried him out into the alley and on into the rear entrance of the hostelry. Gilman paused there, waited while Shawn moved ahead of him to the room in which Jenny had been placed.

  The medical man entered, halted abruptly when his eyes settled upon the woman. Half turning, he shook his head. “Now wait a minute—I can’t interfere—”

  Starbuck had closed the door and was standing against it, pistol in hand.

  “If you expect to walk out of here, you’ll do what you can for her,” he said coldly.

  Gilman frowned, wiped at the sweat suddenly glistening on his narrow face. “But Fisher—McGraw—if I—”

  “They won’t do anything about it if you tell them I held a gun on you. No need for them to know, anyway, far as I can see.”

  “It’s all right,” Jenny murmured weakly. “I don’t want to make more trouble for—”

  “Get at it, Doc,” Starbuck cut in. “I damn well meant what I said!”

  Gilman shrugged and crossed to the bed. Moving the lamp closer, he examined the woman carefully, pressing, probing, moving her arms and legs, turning her head gently from side to side, peering into her mouth, eyes, and ears. When he was finished, he looked up.

  “A bad beating, nothing more. No broken bones. Teeth all intact ... Not much I can do except give her something to make her sleep.”

  “You sure that’s all?”

  The medical man, digging about in his satchel, paused, fixed his eyes on Starbuck. “That’s all,” he said quietly. “Was there anything else, I’d be obliged to do it ... Besides, I learned a long time ago that it was stupid to argue with a man holding a gun.”

  Shawn dropped his weapon back into its holster, and pulled away from the door. Gilman concluded his ministrations, snapped the bag shut, and turned.

  Starbuck said, “I’m obliged to you. Nobody else needs to know about your coming here. It won’t be mentioned unless it’s by you.”

  Gilman smiled faintly. “One thing I never do is discuss my patients,” he said, and opening the door, disappeared into the dark hallway.

  Shawn crossed to where Jenny lay and looked down at her. The tautness of pain was fading from her bruised features and the brightness that had filled her eyes was dulling.

  “Thank ... you,” she murmured.

  “It’s all right. Just stay quiet and rest. Nobody will bother you, and soon as you’re able to travel, I’ll see about getting you out of town.”

  She roused slightly. “You—you can do that?”

  “Sure. Any place special you’d like to go?”

  “Wichita ... I have some friends there.”

  “Then Wichita it is. How about something to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You will be when you wake up. I’ll talk to Bessie, get her to bring you something ... Fisher and McGraw don’t scare her any.”

  Jenny managed a wan smile. “No—they sure don’t ... Thank you, again. Can you stay—a while?”

  Her words dragged. The sedative Gilman had given her was beginning to take effect.

  “Sure, but it’s time I moved on, let you rest. I’ll drop by later when I make my rounds.”

  He could have saved his breath. Jenny was asleep. Setting the lamp farther back on the table, he turned it low and left the room. Again using the rear door, he left the hotel, circled the building, and came around to the restaurant.

  Bessie was in conversation with the woman cook as he entered; calling her aside, Starbuck explained the situation in a few quick words.

  The corners of Bessie’s mouth pulled down. Her thick shoulders stirred with disinterest. “Let one of them other sluts look after her ... she got what she had coming.”

  Starbuck, surprised, stared at the older woman’s sagging features. “She didn’t deserve that,” he snapped. “And far as one of the others helping her—they won’t. They’re all afraid.”

  Again Bessie shrugged. “That supposed to make me bleed?”

  The bitterness in her tone did not escape Shawn. There was an intensity of feeling that went deeper than envy—jealousy, perhaps, and a strong hatred. He gave that thought, then switched his approach.

  “Aim to get her out of here soon as she can travel,” he said. “Wants to go to Wichita. I’m going to see that she makes it.”

  Bessie’s expression did not change.

  “I know how you feel about McGraw and Fisher. Helping me help her is one way you can spite the both of them.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered. “How you going to get her out of here?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “They’ll stop you. They won’t let any of them go until they ain’t of no more use.”

  “That’s going to change. Jenny’ll be on her way to Wichita quick as she can make the trip. Any of the others wants to go along, they’ll be welcome.”

  “What about McGraw—and Bart Fisher?”

  “I’ll take care of that part of it. You willing to help?”

  Bessie hesitated for a long moment, then bobbed her head. “I’ll do what I can,” she said. “What room’s Jenny in?”

  “Number eleven,” Starbuck replied, and turning back to the street, pointed for the Babylon Palace. Bart Fisher was due a dose of his own medicine.

  Fourteen

  Grim, a sullen determination bordering on keen anticipation gripping him as he thought of giving the gambler the same merciless kind of beating that had been administered Jenny, Shawn stepped up onto the gallery fronting the Babylon Palace.

  He paused, arrested by the singular hush that lay over the place. At that hour the Palace ordinarily would be throbbing with activity and noise. Instead, it was
as if the place were deserted.

  Frowning, his wrath toward Bart Fisher momentarily fading into the background of his mind, Starbuck pressed forward quietly. Hand resting on the butt of his pistol, he passed through the wide doorway into the lamplight-flooded saloon.

  The stilled crowd had drawn back against the walls. Eyes upon two poised drovers, their faces were taut, expectant as they awaited that fragment of time when hands would go flashing down for pistols and the room would rock with the explosions that would mean death for one, possibly both.

  Intervention at such a moment could ordinarily be a mistake. An argument, progressed to the point of challenge and showdown, should be permitted to run to its conclusion; any man attempting to halt those natural proceedings was taking a long chance.

  But the casino was packed, and the danger from stray bullets was far too great to ignore.

  Walking softly, Starbuck crossed to the center of the area and angled toward the pair, approaching them from the side and on a course that would take him into the exact middle of the space that separated them. In so doing he was giving each man equal opportunity to become aware of his presence.

  Shawn was a fraction late. He drew his pistol and started to call out to the pair, to caution them not to make a move for their weapons. As the first word formed on his lips, the drover to his right buckled slightly. The man facing him took a half step left. In that identical instant the crash of two heavy weapons blasted the quiet within the Palace into a bedlam of rocking echoes.

  A yell of pain went up from a man standing with several others among the poker tables as a deflected bullet smashed into his leg. The drover to Shawn’s right leaned forward on his toes, wavered uncertainly, and fell, his weapon, released from nerveless fingers, striking the floor with a thud and skittering off to one side.

  Immediately Starbuck crossed through the layers of drifting, acrid smoke to the other rider. The man hung motionless, the barrel of his pistol tipped down as he stared at his lifeless opponent.

  “I’ll take that,” Shawn said harshly, and wrenched the weapon from his grasp. “You’re under arrest.”

  As if coming from a deep slumber, the drover roused slowly and turned his eyes on Starbuck. “What?”

  “You’re coming to jail,” Shawn replied, and as the crowd, paralysis broken, surged forward, he lifted his hand in warning. “Stay back! A couple of you carry the dead man outside—see about burying him. The rest of you go on about your business.”

  “I’m hit—shot—”

  Starbuck swung his attention to the wounded bystander. He jerked his head at those standing near. “Get him over to Doc Gilman’s,” he ordered, and once again came back to the gunman. “Let’s go, mister.”

  The drover frowned, did not move. “Was a fair shoot-out—”

  “Maybe, but you picked the wrong place to hold it.”

  Taking the man by the arm, he pulled him about and, ignoring the mutter of protests that instantly arose from obvious friends, marched him toward the door. Reaching that point, Shawn looked back. The drover’s friends had threatened, but they were not acting; satisfied, he pushed his grumbling prisoner through the doorway and continued on to the jail where he locked him in one of the cells.

  Once again in the street he paused. Several men were now standing in front of the barber shop; and he guessed the luckless customer accidentally shot in the altercation was receiving Gilman’s attention. The dead man, he supposed, had been taken there, too, as usually the town physician also served as coroner and quite often as undertaker.

  The tenseness within him began to fade, and the deep anger accompanying his original purpose, shunted to the side when the emergency arose, lifted to the surface again. At once he struck off along the street, moving in an erect, purposeful manner toward the Palace. Entering, he found all things back to normalcy, plainly uninhibited to any extent whatever by the death of one man, the wounding of another.

  Nodding brusquely to the half a dozen or so persons who sought to compliment him on his actions, he pushed through the crowd to where Bart Fisher was holding forth at a roulette wheel.

  “Got something to take up with you,” he said in a low, uncompromising voice.

  The gambler’s brows raised slightly at the tone. He half turned, beckoned to one of the dealers, and then wheeling, led the way to the office at the rear of the casino.

  As they entered, Amos McGraw, seated at the desk going through a sheaf of papers, looked up. He had small, hard-surfaced eyes that stared out from a flaccid, joweled face with unblinking constancy. There was an oiliness to him and instantaneous dislike stirred through Starbuck.

  Fisher halted, motioned at Shawn. “Amos, this is our new marshal—one I told you about. You just saw how he works.”

  McGraw’s fishlike gaze did not change. “I like the way you’re doing things,” he said.

  Starbuck folded his arms across his chest. He shook his head. “I don’t like the way you are.”

  The older man eased back into his chair slowly. Bart Fisher’s mouth tightened. “That what you came here to say?”

  “It is.”

  “Then say it.”

  “I’m talking about Jenny—what you did to her. I aim to give you a little of the same treatment.”

  A half smile pulled at the gambler’s lips. He reached into an inside pocket of his coat and drew out a cigar. Biting off its end, he probed for a match.

  “Wouldn’t be very smart, marshal,” he murmured.

  Amos McGraw brushed at the sweat beading his forehead with an impatient swipe of his thick hand. “What the hell’s this all about?”

  “Jenny,” Fisher said, lighting his match and puffing the cigar into life, “was shooting off her mouth. I had to teach her a lesson.”

  McGraw shrugged, shifted his weight. “So? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Plenty!” Starbuck snapped, temper rising within him. “There was no need for it. She did nothing wrong except tell me a few things I should have been told in the first place.”

  “I don’t deny that—and I apologized,” Fisher said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “But it wasn’t her place to go spouting off.”

  “And there was no call for you to beat her half to death either!”

  McGraw laced his fingers together, considered Shawn coldly. “Now, hold on, marshal, I don’t figure that’s any of your business,” he said.

  There was a trace of accent to his words, the faintly rounded edges of the South. Starbuck’s jaw hardened. “Happens I’m making it my business.”

  “Don’t,” McGraw continued. “But so’s you’ll know the why of it, women of her stripe have to be handled like that. Have to be held in check, made to remember they’re here for only one thing, and that anything they see or hear ain’t to be carried on.”

  “Exactly,” Fisher declared. “It’s necessary to work them over now and then. Only way we can keep them in line.”

  “Not the way I see it,” Starbuck said. “No woman deserves that kind of roughing up—”

  “You’re wrong, boy,” McGraw broke in, a forced smile splitting his mouth. “You don’t know nothing about whores, and we do. Best thing you can do is forget coming in here and spouting off. You leave them to us and take care of your own job ... You’re doing fine at it. I was just thinking about talking to Bart, seeing if we couldn’t up your wages a notch or two.”

  “Forget it—I’m not interested. And far as your job’s concerned, you can—”

  “Now, don’t do something rash!” McGraw cut in, stirred to haste for the first time. “This here’s all unnecessary. Maybe Bart did go a mite far punishing the girl, but I reckon he felt it was needful ... That right, Bart?”

  Fisher’s shoulders lifted, fell. “Could be, but you never know how much is enough when you’re dealing with her kind. They’re hard—tough. Takes a plenty to make them remember.” The gambler paused, took a deep draft of his cigar, and exhaled. “How’d you find out about her, marshal?”

  Shawn fa
vored the gambler with a humorless grin. “Was a little bird ... Now, soon as she’s able, she’ll be leaving here. I’m arranging it—and if anything happens to her in the meantime, you’ll both answer to me.”

  McGraw and his partner exchanged glances. The older man cocked his head to one side and studied Shawn. “You figure to make her your woman, that it?”

  “No, feel the same if it had been one of the others—or if it was some man who couldn’t take care of himself.”

  “I see ... This your price for staying on the job?”

  “That’s it, and I don’t much care which way it goes.”

  “Well, we’re agreeing ... Now, how about talking a bit about the main reason you were hired for—looking out for me. You got any special plan in mind to trap him?”

  Starbuck shrugged. “Not much I can do but keep watch over you when you’re out in the open.”

  “About all you can do,” McGraw said; and casting a sly glance at Fisher, he added, “Don’t expect to be out and around much for the next few days. Got something that’s going to keep me plenty busy. You might—”

  A quick knock sounded on the door. It opened immediately to admit Pete. The barman, one hand on the knob, the other braced against the frame, leaned in.

  “Marshal—thought you better know. Them Texan friends of Gannon’s are aiming to bust him out of jail!”

  Fifteen

  Starbuck spun on a heel. He checked himself as Amos McGraw’s exasperated voice caught him.

  “My God—you didn’t jail that man did you?”

  “Of course I did!” Shawn snapped. “He killed—”

  “I know that, but all you should’ve done was take him outside, send him on his way.”

  “What kind of law and order is that? Can’t expect to keep it if I’m to stand by and let any cowhand with a chip on his shoulder settle his differences with a gun inside the place. Too many people could get hurt.”

  “He’s right, Amos,” Fisher said. “One customer did get winged by a stray bullet, and it could have been worse. Be smart to get word spread around that we’ll stand for no gun play inside the place.”