by J. T. Edson
“Sounds a likely one for you then,” remarked the lawyer. “Is he good with his guns?”
“Not better than fair. Either Wren or Stocker could take him.”
“You haven’t heard from the packing plant about the next shipment they’ll want, have you?”
“Not yet, but I ought to some time this week. We’ve a fair bunch held at the hideout, all wearing Stocker’s brand,” she replied then looked in a calculating manner at Soskice. “What’re you getting out of this, Dean?”
“Huh?” grunted the lawyer.
“I’m in it for money. Not because I hate the big ranchers for working and building something my old man didn’t have the guts, intelligence or ability to make. I pay the cowhands to steal, to take all the chances, then get the money back off them in the saloon. It’s all clear profit for me. What do you get out of it?”
For some reason Ella knew her question would not be answered. Soskice looked around the room, down at the floor, anywhere but at her and when he spoke, the words had nothing to do with her question.
“The ranchers are getting riled about the stealing. Maybe they’ll call in outside help.”
“Not another bounty hunter, after what happened to Sammy and Pike,” Ella assured him. “And only the county sheriff can call in the Rangers. I don’t reckon Farley Simmonds would chance that.”
“I don’t know about that. He moved fast enough to send to Ysaleta and get word about that cowhand. I saw him on the way here. It seems that Forgrave pulled out of Ysaleta a few steps ahead of being told to go.”
“I thought so. That boy’ll be useful to us if I can get to him, and that won’t be hard. But you didn’t answer my question, Dean.”
“Maybe I do it so I can be close to you.”
While Ella doubted if Soskice ever did anything for anybody unless he saw a very good profit motive coming his way, she did not mention the thought. For all his faults, Soskice could sure make love and she reckoned that she might as well get something out of their association.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go tell Phyl to send a telegraph message to the Golden Slipper in Austin and find out about Marty Connelly. Go wait in the bedroom and when I’m through we’ll see how close we can get.”
Not knowing that her bona fides were to be checked, Calamity set about making herself comfortable. She took a liking to her roommate from the start and found the feeling mutual. Having only just left her bed—the previous night’s celebrations lasted very late—Mousey wore only her nightdress; but she bustled around showing Calamity where to unpack and chattering away like she had not talked for weeks and looked for a chance to do so.
Although the girls’ room was anything but grandiose—it consisted of a couple of small beds, a dressing table, washstand and a small cupboard for storing the bulk of their clothes—Mousey appeared to be highly satisfied.
“I never had anything like this before,” she told Calamity, clearing her belongings out of two of the dressing-table’s drawers. “Always lived in a shack. Six of us kids shared one room, it had a dirt floor and we used to pass down clothes one from the next. Boy, this is living here.”
“Yeah,” Calamity answered. “Where’s a gal take a bath?”
“Down the street at Ling Sing’s Chinese Laundry. He runs a bath-house at the back. I’ll come with you, but let’s grab a meal first.”
All in all, Calamity found Mousey to be quite a talker. By the time they reached the small staff dining room, Calamity knew all about Tommy and the little blonde’s intentions in that direction. It seemed that while Mousey enjoyed the glamor of being a saloon-girl, she still appeared to be quite willing to return to a small cabin with a dirt floor—provided Tommy went with her.
“The other girls laugh at me when I talk about it,” Mousey said wistfully. “But I know Tommy will marry me as soon as we’ve saved enough money to buy in on a little place of our own.”
On entering the dining room, Calamity began to see the reason for Mousey’s almost pathetic eagerness to be friends. All the other half-dozen girls seated around the table appeared to be either older, or at least more suited to the life of a saloon-girl. Brassy, hard-faced, none of them would be the sort of friend an innocent kid like Mousey wanted and most likely her attempts at making friends met with constant rebuffs.
More than any of the others, one girl took Calamity’s attention. There was trouble, or Calamity had never seen it. The girl was a blonde, slightly taller and heavier than Calamity, shapely, beautiful; and knowing it she had an air of arrogant truculence about her.
For the rest, they looked like the kind of girls one expected to find in a saloon. Maybe a mite younger and better-looking than one figured on in a small town such as Caspar, but run-of-the-mill. Even the buxom brunette who sat at the head of the table and smoked a cigarette, she would be one of the boss girls and, while looking tough and capable, did not strike Calamity as being out of the ordinary.
“How do you feel, Dora?” Mousey asked sympathetically, going to the blonde.
“Great, how else?”
“But I thought——” the little blonde gasped.
“God! You’re dumb!” the bigger girl spat out.
“She’s not alone in that,” snapped the buxom brunette. “If your brains were gunpowder and went off they wouldn’t stir your hair.”
An angry glint came into Dora’s eyes, but she knew better than give lip to Maisie. So she turned her spleen on somebody else. Her eyes went to Calamity who still stood at the door, taking in the red-head’s travel-stained clothing and lack of make-up.
“Who’re you?” she asked.
“This’s Marty Connelly,” Mousey introduced, sounding puzzled. Dora did not act like a girl grieving for a dead lover. If it had been Tommy who—here Mousey stopped herself with a shudder—well, she wouldn’t act like Dora did at such a time.
Smarting under Maisie’s rebuke, Dora watched Calamity walk toward the table and decided to establish her superiority over the newcomer. Which only went to prove that she had no right to call anybody else dumb.
“Is the boss hiring tramps now?” she sniffed and a couple of her particular friends giggled.
Calamity looked Dora up and down with cold eyes. While she had refrained from handing Phyl her needings upstairs, Calamity figured there must come a time when meekness stopped; and that time had arrived right then. If she allowed Dora to push her around, her subsequent social position would be under the blonde; which Calamity reckoned might be mighty undesirable.
“Looking at you,” Calamity said calmly, “I’d say the boss started hiring old tramps some time back.”
“My my!” Dora purred, twisting around in her chair. “Aren’t you cute?”
With that the blonde hurled forward and lashed around her right hand in a savage slap calculated to knock its receiver halfway across the room and reduce her to wailing submission. Only to achieve its object the slap had to land on the other girl first.
Throwing up her left hand, Calamity deflected the slap before it reached her. Before Dora recovered balance or realized just how wrong things were going, Calamity drove a clenched fist into the blonde’s belly. The blow took Dora completely unawares, sinking in deep and driving waves of agony through her. Croaking with pain, Dora folded over and caught Calamity’s other fist as it whipped up. Dora came erect, a trickle of blood running from her cut lip, and caught a roundhouse smash from Calamity’s right hand. The fist crashed into the blonde’s cheek just under her eye and sent her sprawling backward to land with a thud on her butt by the table.
“All right, you alley-cats!” Maisie yelled, throwing back her chair and coming to her feet. “Simmer down. If you want to fight, save it until tonight and do it in the bar for the paying customers.”
“I’ll take her any time!” Calamity hissed, crouching with crooked fingers as she had seen so many belligerent girls stand at such a moment.
“How about you, Dora?” asked Maisie, knowing the entertainment value of a good
hair-yanking brawl between two of the girls.
Dora did not answer, but sat on the floor trying to nurse her swelling, pain-filled eye, soothe her puffing-up lip and hold her aching, nausea-filled stomach, sobbing loudly all the time. Never a popular girl, Dora received little sympathy from her fellow-workers.
Looking down at the blonde, one of the other girls gave a laugh and said, “I don’t think Dora feels like tangling with Marty.”
Walking to Dora’s side, Maisie bent down and pulled the blonde’s hand from the eye, looking at the discoloration forming.
“Whooee!” said Maisie with a grin. “That’ll be a beauty soon. Anyways, it’ll keep you out of the way for a few days. Which’s a good thing, the way you’re acting. You’d queer the boss’s game going on like you are when you’re supposed to have lost your own true love. Now shut your yap, or I’ll turn Marty loose on you again.”
Knowing that Maisie meant every word she said, Dora stifled her sobs. She dragged herself to her feet and limped slowly from the room. Looking around the table, Calamity did not figure she would have trouble with any of the other girls.
Now all she had to do was start learning the proof of the saloonkeeper’s part in the Caspar County cow stealing.
Chapter 10 BRING ME HIS WALLET
ALTHOUGH CALAMITY WONDERED HOW ELLA Watson would take the news of her actions, no complaints came down from the boss’s office. Over the meal Calamity became acquainted with the other girls. She let it be known that she left Austin at the town marshal’s request, but none of the other girls pressed her too deeply about her past. Having seen how Calamity handled Dora, a tough girl in her own right, the rest figured that the redhead might resent too close questioning and had a real convincing argument for anybody who tried. One thing Calamity made sure the others knew, how Mousey stood with her. Always a generous and good-hearted girl, Calamity had decided to take Mousey under her wing and intended to give the friendship the little blonde craved but found missing among the other saloon workers.
After eating, Calamity waited until Mousey dressed and then they left the Cattle Queen. While walking along Main Street toward the Chinese laundry’s bath-house, Calamity listened to Mousey’s chatter and kept her eyes peeled for some sign of Danny Fog, but saw nothing of him. However, Mousey, telling of the discovery of Gooch and the cowhands’ bodies, let Calamity know that Danny had arrived and appeared to be well involved in the business which brought them both to Caspar County.
Even without formal training, Calamity used the best technique for a peace officer involved in such a task; she let the others do most of the talking. With Mousey that proved all too easy. Starved for friendship and loving to talk, she prattled on and gave Calamity some insight into the doings of the area.
“That Dora!” Mousey sniffed indignantly. “She was in love with Sammy, yet she doesn’t even look as if she cares about him being killed.”
Calamity doubted, from the little she had seen of Dora, if the girl really loved a forty-dollars-a-month cowhand. However, Mousey’s words gave Calamity an idea of how Ella Watson ensnared the young cowhands into her cow-stealing organization. Women were far outnumbered by the men out West and the local young cowboys would easily become infatuated by a saloon-girl. After that, the rest would be easy.
“She’s a mean cuss all right,” Calamity admitted. “Does she pick on you?”
“A little. If I could fight like you do she wouldn’t.”
“You’re danged tooting she wouldn’t,” grinned Calamity and felt at Mousey’s nearest arm. “Say, you’re a strong kid. She’d be like a bladder of lard against you if you stayed clear of her and used your fists instead of going to hair-yanking. I’ll teach you how, if you like.”
Thinking of all the mean tricks Dora had played on her, Mousey gave a delighted nod. “Boy, that’d be great, Marty. Where’d you learn to fight?”
“Here and there. Hey, isn’t this the place we want?”
On their return from the bath-house and while waiting for the evening trade to arrive, Calamity began to teach Mousey a few basic tricks of rough-house self-defense in their room. From the way the little blonde learned her lessons, Calamity could almost feel sorry for Dora and next time she tried her bullying.
When Calamity and Mousey reported to the bar room to start work, Dora was nowhere in sight, being confined to her room with an eye that resembled a Blue Point Oyster peeking out of its shell. So Mousey did not find opportunity to put her lessons into practice.
Calamity found the feeling of wearing a saloon-girl’s garish and revealing clothing and being in a bar as a worker a novel sensation. Not that she did much work at first. Until shortly after eight o’clock only a few townsmen used the bar and they showed little interest in the girls, having wives at home who took exception to the male members of the family becoming too friendly with female employees of the saloon.
Shortly after eight a few cowhands began to drift in and the place livened. The girls left their tables and mingled with the new arrivals. Laughter rang out, a couple of the games commenced operation and the pianist started playing his instrument. A couple of the customers came to where Calamity and Mousey stood by the bar.
“Hey, Mousey, gal,” greeted the taller customer, a cheerful young cowhand sporting an early attempt at a moustache, “Where-at’s Tommy?”
“He’s not in tonight,” Mousey replied.
“Then how’s about you and your amigo having a drink with me ’n’ Brother Eddie?”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Calamity told him. “The name’s Marty.”
“This’s Stan and Eddie,” Mousey introduced. “They work for the Box Twelve.”
“Sure do,” Eddie, a shorter, slightly younger version of Stan, agreed. “Say, what’ll you gals have to drink?”
“It’ll have to be beer until I’ve seen Miss Ella,” Stan warned.
“My mammy always told me never to look a gift-beer in the froth,” replied Calamity.
“Lord, ain’t she a pistol?” whooped Eddie. “I’ll buy ’em until you get your money off Miss Ella.”
A frown creased Stan’s face as he glared at his brother. “You hold your voice down, you hear me, boy?”
“I hear you,” Eddie answered, dropping his voice. “Hell, these gals are all right, Stan.”
“Sure we are,” agreed Calamity. “First thing a gal learns working in a saloon is to mind her own business.”
Apparently the words mollified Stan for he started to grin again. “Sure, Marty. Only folks might get the wrong idea if they heard Eddie.”
“He’s only young yet, not like two old mossy-horns like us,” Calamity answered. “Say, do we have to stand with our tongues hanging out?”
“Huh?” grunted Stan, then started to grin and turned to the bar. “Four beers Izzy, the ladies’re getting thirsty. Say Mousey, where-at’s the boss lady?”
“Upstairs, I think,” Mousey replied.
“Just have to wait a spell then. Here, Marty, take hold and drink her down.”
The beers came and the cowhands drew up their chairs, sitting with Calamity and Mousey at a table. While drinking, Mousey and the cowhands discussed local affairs. Calamity noticed that any attempt to bring up the subject of cow stealing was met with an immediate change of subject by the cowhands. Not that she kept asking questions, but Mousey seemed to be interested as might be expected from one who had been some time in Caspar County. While Stan and Eddy cursed the departed Gooch for a cowardly, murdering skunk, neither appeared eager to discuss why he might have shot down the two Bench J cowhands. Showing surprising tact, Mousey changed the subject and told of Danny’s defeat of the Rafter O’s bay. A grin played on Calamity’s lips as she listened; it appeared that Danny Fog had been making something of a name for himself since his arrival.
“Let’s go have a dance,” Eddie suggested.
“Sure, let’s,” Mousey agreed.
Already several couples were whirling around on the open space left for dancing. Calamit
y, Mousey and the two cowhands joined the fun and it was well that Calamity had always been light on her feet for cowhands did not often make graceful partners. However, Calamity had long been used to keeping her toes clear of her partner’s feet when dancing and found little difficulty in avoiding Stan’s boots as they danced in something like time to the music.
Calamity saw the two buxom girls who acted as Ella’s lieutenants standing by the bar and watching her. For a moment she wondered if they might be seeing through her disguise. If she had heard their conversation, she would not have worried.
“That Marty doesn’t dance too well,” Maisie remarked.
There was a considerable rivalry between Phyl and Maisie and the red-head took the comment to be an adverse criticism of her as she took Calamity to see Ella and had her hired.
“Maybe she’s out of practice,” she answered. “You should know they don’t go much for dancing classes at the State Penitentiary.”
Before Maisie could think up a suitable reply, Phyl walked away. The matter dropped for neither girl felt sufficiently confident in her chances of winning to risk a physical clash that would establish who was boss.
“Hey, Phyl,” called Stan, leading Calamity from the dance floor. “Where-at’s Miss Ella?”
“She’s still up in her room, but she ought to be down soon,” Phyl answered. “You wanting to see her real bad?”
“Bad enough. We, me’n’ Eddie’s going with the boss to take a herd to Fort Williams and’ll be away for a month. I wanted to see if—well, she’ll know.”
“I’ll go up and see her,” Phyl promised.
On reaching Ella’s door, Phyl knocked and waited.
“Who is it?” Ella’s voice called.
“Phyl. It’s important.”
The door opened and Phyl entered to find Ella standing naked except for a pair of men’s levis trousers. This did not surprise the red-head for she knew that her boss had not been in the room all afternoon.
“What’s wrong?” Ella asked. “I’ve only just got back from the hideout.”