Spur Giant: Soiled Dove

by Dirk Fletcher

  "You must be punished with blood," he said.

  He sliced the other breast, deeper, watching the blood gather and run down the side of her soft white belly. He cut her again, down the center of her chest, between her breasts all the way to her navel. She bit his hand and he yelped and drew it back.

  Amy screamed as loud as she could. She screamed four times before he got his hand over her mouth again.

  "You shouldn't have done that, Amy. After all we meant to each other. I was gonna take you with me. I was gonna give you the fifteen-thousand. You just got greedy. Your little cunt got greedy and wanted lots of cash to be free of your father. Well, you're gonna be free of him in a few minutes."

  Her eyes went wider with fear.

  "Amy, you know you shouldn't have stolen those bonds, don't you?"

  She nodded.

  "You know you've been terribly bad stealing them and running away where you figured I'd never find you. You admit that, don't you?"

  Amy nodded.

  "Now, Amy, did you tell the police where I was? Did you tell the sheriff or anybody?"

  She shook her head side to side.

  "Don't lie to me, Amy. I can hurt you a lot more."

  Tears streamed down her face and made it hard for him to hold his hand over her mouth.

  "Can you be good now that you've been punished for lying, Amy Hellman?"

  Amy nodded.

  "Oh, Amy, you're lying to me again. You know that if I let you go now, you'll run straight to the sheriff's office or the Chief of Police and tell them exactly where I am, what I'm going to do and what I did to you. You'd do that wouldn't you, bad Amy Hellman?"

  She shook her head side to side.

  "Quit lying to me."

  He let go of her mouth and slapped her so hard it slammed her head to the side. Before she could scream again his left hand covered her mouth and this time her nose. She struggled to breathe.

  "Amy, Amy. I'm sorry about this, but there's just nothing else that I can do."

  He put the knife against her neck and in one quick slice pulled it sharply across her left carotid artery and her jugular vein. Her eyes glittered with pain for a fraction of a second, then dulled and went dark as the blood spurted from her carotid ten-feet across the brush and trees, pulsating out each time her heart beat.

  He sat there on his knees watching the blood spurt time and time again. Each time it came, the arc was shorter until at last the rich red blood sim ply dribbled out of her neck. Her head rolled to one side and he heard a long, last breath gush from her lungs.

  Doug Chandler sat there on his knees next to the blood splashed body and cried. He put his hands over his face to block out the view. She had been so great in bed, always ready for a good time. Always came when he called. She had given him a lot of pleasure and fine nights of lovemaking. Now she was gone. The fact that he had killed her wasn't important.

  He stood, slid the knife back in his half boot and wiped his hands off on the grass. He didn't have a drop of blood on him. He turned and walked out of the brush.

  As he did, a man came out of the house nearest him. He was older, but spry and sharp.

  He waited as Doug walked toward him.

  "What happened to your girl friend?" the man asked. "I heard her scream."

  Doug tried to draw his six-gun but remembered he had left it in the hotel room.

  "None of your business," Doug barked and ran past him up the street toward his hotel.

  Now he had to get out of there. Get out of town before the police did find him. Now they had a new charge and one they might be able to prove. He stopped and looked back at the old man. He could kill him easily.

  Doug changed his mind and ran on up the slight hill toward the rest of town and the hotel.

  In back of him, the old man shuffled down to the brush and pushed into it. He came out a mo ment later, rushing as fast as he could on his bad leg. He went right past his house and to the next block, then over one more to the County Sheriff's Office. Inside, he told them what he had seen, gave a description of the man and the direction he had headed.

  Spur McCoy had been talking with the County Sheriff and the Little Rock Chief of Police.

  "This the same man?" the sheriff asked.

  Spur turned to the witness. "Was the girl a young blonde with short hair, maybe 21 and slender?"

  "Yep, sounds like her."

  "Was the man short, maybe five-four or so, a little overweight, with brown hair?"

  "Sounds like him. Yelled at me and hurried past."

  "I can identify the girl," Spur said. "If she's Amy Hellman, the man involved is probably Doug Chandler."

  "Amy, the governor's daughter?" the sheriff asked, his eyes wide in surprise.

  "The same. It's a long story involving a fake kidnapping up the other side of Fort Smith. You must have heard about it. A lot of money was involved.

  "Sheriff, I'd suggest you put a man at the railroad station and at the dock and livery stables. Don't let anyone who fits the description of Doug Chandler leave town. I'll go with the witness and confirm that the girl is Amy Hellman. If she isn't, I'll let you know quickly.

  "Doug Chandler is wanted on several other charges as I was telling you earlier, including a double murder."

  Spur looked at the witness. "Now, sir. If you'd take me where the body is, I'd appreciate it."

  Spur, the witness and two deputy sheriffs hurried along the street toward the river.

  The moment Spur stepped into the brush near the Arkansas River, he knew that the dead girl was Amy Hellman. He covered her breasts, growled when he saw the slash marks on her body and the final slash across her throat. It had to be in that order. If she were already dead the cuts on her breasts would not have bled since her heart had stopped beating and there would be no blood pressure.

  If it was Doug Chandler who killed the girl, he must have been out of his mind with anger to make her suffer so much before he killed her.

  Spur set his mouth in a firm line and walked away from the site eager to get on the trail of this madman and bring him to justice. Now it seemed certain that Doug Chandler was the linchpin that held this whole series of robberies, swindles, murders and kidnappings together.

  Knute Safire figured that Little Rock was far enough to run. He knew the man who set up the train heist was on the same boat he came on, but it didn't worry him. He knew that Doug Chandler would be moving on down to the Mississippi shortly and then all the way to New Orleans. He had told him so.

  All Knute had to do was look out for himself. He'd been to Little Rock before. The place was growing like a spring cabbage. Must be tenthousand people in and around the town. Booming, some said. He'd had a woman here for a while.

  At the moment he was in the Red Ox Saloon where he had spent most of the first day in town after the river boat had arrived early in the wee small hours.

  He'd slept on the way downstream on a bale of burlap bags. Now he finished the beer and wondered if he should have another one. He needed a place to stay. He thought of the rooming house where he lived the last time he was in Little Rock: Mrs. Grundy's Boarding House.

  It was all right. The food was good. Damnation, could that woman cook! She was a widow, maybe thirty-five or so. Not bad looking with a nicely cushioned body. Knute grinned thinking about that one night she came to his room late and knocked. He was in his pants and bare to the waist.

  He opened the door and she pushed inside and closed it. She had a glass in her hand and was either half drunk or pretending to be. She hadn't made any pretense about what she wanted. She put the glass down and took off her blouse. Then she had pushed her bare tips up against him and kissed his mouth.

  They spent that night together, and two more, before he had to go downstream to do a small piece of work for a man. He hadn't seen her since.

  Knute wiggled his toes thinking about the fiftydollars he had in each sock. Yeah, good place to hide money. He had taken Doug's advice and kept his cash out of sight. He'd b
roken a dollar bill to buy his brews. Nothing unusual about that. If he'd flashed a twenty the barkeep might have signalled a tough to beat him up and take his money. A lot of crooked aprons worked on a 50-50 split with the mugger.

  He tipped the beer bottle again, but it was empty. Better see about somewhere to stay. He figured on a bath, then a new shirt and a new hat to spruce up his appearance, and then maybe one of the soiled doves. Hell, it had been almost a week since he did Amy.

  He snorted thinking about sexy Amy. She's the governor's daughter but she sets up her own kidnapping to get some of her old man's money. Strange. She was absolutely wild about sex. He wondered if Doug would poke her all the way down the river. Probably. He didn't worry abut Amy. She'd make out fine wherever she landed. She was that smart.

  He pushed away from the table and walked out the saloon door.

  Uta, that had been her first name. Uta Grundy at the board and room place. For just a minute he thought of settling down, poking Uta once a week or so to keep her happy, and do little odd jobs around the boarding house and let her support him.

  He thought about it as he turned toward her place. It was about half-a-mile from the main part of town. Not easy to get to, but worth it for the suppers. Damnation, but that woman could cook ... and fuck! She went crazy in bed, but never until she was stark naked. Nothing was too wild for her. If you could think of it, and it didn't hurt, she'd do it.

  On his way, Knute passed the county sheriffs office. He usually went on the far side of the street past any sheriff or police office, but this time he merely pulled the wide brim of his tan hat down a little more. Just before he got there, three men burst out of the county sheriff's door.

  "Down at the end of Taggart Street?" the largest of the men asked. A deputy sheriff with a silver star on his shirt nodded.

  "Yes, sir. That's what the witness said. That government man checked it out. He said no two ways about it, she's the governor's daughter all right. Throat slashed. Blood all over the body."

  Knute edged up against the store front next to the sheriff's office and leaned heavily against the siding. Amy dead? Who the hell would do that? Doug? He could get hellish mad sometimes. Not much control of his temper. Damnation, gonna be hell to pay around here. He best get to Uta's place fast and settle in for a day or two until all of this murder business was settled.

  The lawmen were gone down the street. He passed the office, then walked a little faster. Yeah, Uta's would be good. She took the newspaper. There'd be a story about it tomorrow, all the gruesome facts. He walked faster and didn't notice anymore the way the fold of greenbacks in his socks scratched his leg.

  The boarding house was just as he remembered it. He might fix it up a little. Maybe some new paint and a trim. Hell, he had enough money.

  He went up the plank sidewalk from the street, mounted the two wooden steps and started to knock. Then he grinned, turned the knob and pushed the door inward. It was about three in the afternoon. Uta would be getting things ready to start supper.

  No one was in the hall or parlor. He saw the dining room table set for six. She wasn't full of boarders, good.

  He went down the hall to the kitchen and caught the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread.

  The moment he stepped in the kitchen, a woman turned and looked at him.

  "Hi, Uta. Knute is back."

  Uta was thick waisted with large breasts, heavy arms and a sour, pinched-in face. Her eyes were close together and she had her dark hair pulled in back and tied in a bun. She wasn't nearly as pretty as he remembered her. Uta stared at him a minute.

  "Yeah, Knute. I remember you."

  "You should, Uta. We were good together in your big bed."

  Uta grinned and he saw the gaps in her front teeth. "Oh, yeah, that Knute. You back to stay?"

  "For a time at least. You have my old room?"

  "Nope, but there's another one. Bed don't make no noise when you bouncing on it."

  Knute rubbed a growing erection behind his fly. "Uta, you have time right now?"

  "Here in the kitchen in front of my pots and pans and celery stalks?" She giggled. "Not now. Got to make supper. You move into room eight, then I heat you up some water and you have a bath. I like you best all clean."

  Knute nodded and turned. He wanted to jump her right there, but he'd best take it slow. If this was going to be a hideout for a while, he'd have to take it soft and easy.

  He went up the stairs, passed his old number six room and down to the end of the hall to number eight. It was half again as big as his former room. The bed was newer, had two chairs, a dresser and a small writing table.

  He opened his blue carpetbag and took out some different clothes. The brown shirt was clean. Yeah, now that he had money, he'd buy some new clothes. Was he trying to impress this woman? Hell, yes. The dance hall hookers didn't look any better and she was a lot cheaper.

  When he got down to the bathroom on the first floor, Uta had one bucket of hot water there and said she'd bring another one.

  "Got me a new stove with coils in the fire box for the water to run through from the tank on the side. Gets water hot and keeps it hot in the reservoir for a long time."

  She stood there as he poured the water in the tub. When she came back with the second bucket of water he had his shirt off.

  Uta paused for a minute and giggled again. "I best not get my juices all riled up watching you take off your pants. I'll wait for the good part till tonight."

  She tossed him a bar of store bought soap. "Get washed up. Supper promptly at six-thirty, case you done forgot."

  "Hey, woman, I ain't forgot." He slid his pants down and watched her. Uta grinned, turned promptly and left the room before he could get his underwear down.

  After a long bath, Nate put on his clean clothes, buffed his boots the best he could with the towel, and took his other clothes back to his room.

  By the time he got downstairs again, there were three men and a woman waiting in the dining room. He recognized two of them who had been boarders when he was here before. Knute nodded at them and stood by the window looking outside.

  He hadn't heard anything more about Amy Hellman which was fine by him. He wanted all of that trouble to go away. He'd been thinking about what to do next. He was just a year past thirty and he didn't want to go on robbing trains the rest of his life. He figured he'd been lucky on this one. He heard that Russ Dolan got himself killed over in Indian Territory.

  Russ damn well couldn't enjoy that money he'd stolen. Ten thousand dollars. How did he have nerve enough to try that? He knew that Doug Chandler would track him down.

  Five-hundred dollars and Knute had earned every dollar. He still had most of it. He figured he'd spent about ten dollars so far including his ticket on the boat. He had the rest of the cash in his small carpetbag upstairs far back under the bed. It couldn't stay there long. Tomorrow he'd have to put it somewhere. Where could he hide it? He thought of a bank, but wouldn't they ask him where he got so much money? Maybe not in a big place like Little Rock.

  Two more men came in and at the same time Uta carried in a tray with fried chicken, mashed potatoes and two kinds of vegetables in large serving dishes.

  Before they sat down, Uta introduced him to all the people at the table. She gave them his name, then went around fast. He didn't try to remember any name except the woman's, Priscilla something. They sat down and ate.

  Knute had forgotten that supper in a boarding house wasn't a time for polite or any other kind of conversation. The serving bowls came around the table. People helped themselves and then ate. Now and then there would be a request for the salt or butter or maybe to pass the chicken.

  Knute sat beside one of the men he had known there before, a clerk in a store downtown somewhere. They nodded and ate and when the dessert came, bread pudding with whipped cream topping, they finished it and both stood about the same time. They went into the parlor where the men were allowed to smoke. Cigars or pipes were the favorite. The man Knute ha
d sat beside offered him a long thin cigar that was nearly black.

  "I get them in from New Orleans," the man said. "I think they come from Jamaica. Case you forgot, I'm Ben Upworth."

  He held out his hand and Knute took it. "Yeah. I'm Knute Safire. You still at the store?"

  "Yep. Probably die right there in the hardware section counting out some half-inch long by oneeighth inch stove bolts."

  They both chuckled.

  "You here for a time?"

  "Yep, near as I can tell. Finished a project. Now I'm hunting something new."

  Ben took a long pull on the cigar, tried to blow a smoke ring and failed. He shook his head. "Never could do that. Looking, huh? You take to clerking in a store?"

  "Hardware store? I...I don't think hardly."

  "Nice steady work. Know I'm gonna have a job. Get paid regular. Not a lot, but enough to get by."

  "How much is the pay?"

  "Boss said he'd pay a man starting work nine dollars a week. That's for six days, nine hours a day, eight in the morning to six at night."

  "Sounds like one hell of a lot of work."

  "Get used to it. I got no family to worry about or plan for. What the hell, it's interesting."

  "Hardware, huh? Hell, I might give it a try. Why don't I let you know in a couple of days? I need to kind of settle down after my river trip."

  "Sure, no problem. Boss ain't in a rush. I'll tell him you might come see him."

  They sat on the worn green sofa and talked about this and that. The woman in the group, Miss Priscilla something, passed through quickly, smiling and fanning away the smoke as she went down the hall and they heard her go up the stairs.

  She was in her thirties, Knute guessed, slender with big breasts and long brown hair. She had a sweet face, about twice as pretty as Uta.

  "School teacher," Ben said when she was out of sight. "Right nice looking woman. Smart as a buggy whip, that Priscilla. I mean, yes sir, she's a smart one. Has been to college for two years she told us one night. Right nice too, not uppity or snooty. Now that it's summer and no school, she's working in a book store downtown somewhere. Told you she was smart."