The Floating Outfit 27

by J. T. Edson

  Small, skinny, his thin and vicious looking face having protruding teeth which in part accounted for his sobriquet, Nellist gave the impression of being some kind of less likeable rodent. For once his attire gave a suggestion of modest affluence. However, his selection would not have struck many people as being the epitome of sartorial elegance. A pearl gray derby intended for a larger man perched at the back of a head with black hair going thin on top. He had on a lime-green shirt with an attachable white celluloid collar marred by a couple of finger marks, a black and white three-piece check suit which ‘fit where it touched’ and ox-blood red Hersome gaiter boots. Being so diminutive, a noticeable bulge could be detected under the left side of his jacket where a revolver of some kind rode in a shoulder holster. There was a thick chain, which might have passed for gold if bits had not flaked away to expose a baser metal underneath the gilt, extending slackly between the pockets of his vest. He reeked of the cheapest brand of bay rum and a somewhat wilted red flower sprouted from his buttonhole, but neither did anything to improve an aspect more garish than tasteful.

  ‘And wasn’t neither of us said’s how you had,’ the Kid pointed out, in a voice so mild and caressing the tiny man knew it boded no good for him. ‘Talk to me, amigo. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘T—Talk?’ Nellist asked, sounding as if he had never heard the word. His right arm was grasped in a way which would have prevented him from drawing the newly acquired four shot Colt Model of 1871 ‘Cloverleaf Cylinder’ House Pistol revolver from its open-fronted spring retention shoulder holster, even if he had contemplated such a piece of folly while in his present company. Reluctantly starting to walk between the Texans into the dark shadows of the alley, he went on, ‘What do you want me to talk about.’

  ‘Any old thing’s comes to mind,’ the Kid answered, his manner obliging. It had taken some time to find the tiny man, but he suspected having done so would prove worthwhile. ‘Not the birds, the bees ’n’ the flowers, though. Waco’s still a mite young for that. Which being, tell us about how the weather looks to you. The price of beef. Which gal’s doing the best business down to Mrs. Gouch’s fancy-house. Where you get them real high-toned clothes, seeing’s how I bet’s Mark’d surely like some just the same. Or, happen you’re so minded—who-all’s behind those jaspers who tried to grab off Miss Freddie Woods?’

  ‘How would I know that?’ Nellist almost wailed, having noticed how the bantering tone had taken on an edge like steel as the final sentence was uttered.

  ‘Mousey, Mousey,’ the black clad Texan purred, the response he had elicited convincing him that he and his companion had come to the right source to satisfy their curiosity. ‘How do I know my old Thunder-hoss’s white?’

  ‘Don’t tell me’s how you reckon Lon’s a liar, what he told me about you,’ the blond youngster put in, but there was no gentleness in his tone. ‘He allows there isn’t an owlhoot ’tween here and Honesty John’s in Brownton ’n’ back the long way’s you don’t only know how many times a day he goes for a shit, but which page of the dream-book he uses to wipe his butt when he’s through.’ 52

  ‘I wouldn’t’ve put it’s coarse as that, being raised right, proper ’n’ respectful,’ the Kid asserted, with what would have been taken for prim superiority by anybody who did not know him. However, neither of his audience fell into that naive category. ‘But such’s allus been my belief.’ He paused for a moment before going on in the manner of one paying a compliment, ‘’Cepting Waco’s selling you short by all accounts. Why I do believe you know every crooked doings’s goes on ’tween here and Kansas City and from the Canadian line down’s far as the Indian Nations at the very least.’

  ‘Which being,’ the youngster went on. ‘It doesn’t seem right, natural, nor possible, that you can’t help us on something as’s happened slap bang in your own front garden so to speak.’

  ‘I don’t know noth—!’ Nellist commenced, but the protest died away into uneasy silence. The Kid had released his arm as he started to speak. However, he found no comfort in his liberation. Steel rasped on leather and he stared at the massive blade of the James Black bowie knife which was slid from its sheath and glinted just a little in the light filtering between the buildings from the rising moon. The time had come, he concluded, to be frank. ‘Well, I don’t know much.’

  ‘Feed us crumbs,’ the black clad Texan requested, but the words were clearly an order as the tiny man was well aware. Flipping his knife in a spinning arc and catching its ivory hilt once more in the palm of his right hand—no mean feat as he had the Winchester Model of 1866 rifle in his left—he went on, ‘We’re so hunger-parched for news, we’ll take anything no matter how small.’

  ‘Only just you make sure they be for-real crumbs,’ the blond youngster advised, having produced and started to twirl his left side Army Colt rapidly on his trigger finger. ‘We get real quick to temper should we be given mouse-droppings.’

  ‘Would I lie?’ Nellist squawked, exuding what sounded like genuinely righteous indignation.

  ‘Only should you reckon you could get away with it,’ the Kid declared dryly. ‘Which I allow you’re smart enough to know you can’t with us.’

  ‘Lon’s part-Comanch’, happen you didn’t know it,’ Waco drawled, his tone seemingly solicitous and he returned the Colt as swiftly as it had been drawn. ‘Which means he can smell a lie from a mile back, even over that fancy nose-scent you’re wearing.’

  ‘What I heard was those three jaspers came here to take on for somebody, only he didn’t show,’ Nellist supplied hurriedly. ‘So they hired out to one of those Limey high mucky-mucks down to the Railroad House.’

  ‘Which one?’ the blond demanded.

  ‘I dunno,’ the tiny man replied and his voice took on a note of urgency as he reiterated, ‘I don't know and may God strike me dead if I’m lying!’

  ‘Either He’s not listening, or you’re telling the truthful true,’ Waco assessed, having glanced at the sky in obvious anticipation. ‘Which, Him likely being so all fired eager to get a fine catch like you in his net afore the Devil can, I reckon you’re speaking true.’

  ‘’Cepting you know more than you’ve let on,’ the Kid growled, sheathing the knife. ‘Which I’m getting quick sick of playing this game so’s you can make out to all your owlhoot amigos how us mean ole John Laws tried to make you talk, but you slickered us by not telling anything we was wanting to know. Give us what you have and make it muy pronto.’

  ‘Which means, happen you don’t habla Mex’, more pronto than just pronto,’ the blond offered, not too succinctly, being aware that they had been indulging in the kind of routine described by his amigo. ‘Give it afore I gets to five and I’m starting the count at three.’

  ‘Where at’s the son-of-a-bitch’s got away from Hampton’s?’ the Kid demanded, with the air of getting down to serious, no more frills, business.

  ‘I dunno,’ Nellist claimed.

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Waco challenged.

  ‘It’s like the ground’s swallowed him up,’ Nellist countered, but apologetically, knowing he had gone as far as he dare with the two young peace officers and the suggestion in his voice that he was aggrieved by the paucity of information he had acquired was not simulated. ‘’Bout all I’ve picked up is the message-passing was done by that young Limey soft-shell’s Miz Freddie stopped being hoorawed by three fellers from the drive’s come in yesterday. Which, knowing how co—friendly—Cap’n Fog is with her, you can bet your life I tried for more'

  ‘Had you said, “cozy” like you started,’ Waco growled, angered by what he considered to have been a near insult to two people who he greatly respected and admired. ‘I’d have stomped those buck teeth of your’n until they was sticking out of your butt.’

  ‘D—Don’t get riled, I wasn’t meaning nothing!’ the tiny man yelped and decided there was cause to make amends. ‘I didn’t get nothing out of him, but maybe you’ll have better luck.’

  ‘You mean we should bust into t
he Railroad House and ask him?’ the Kid suggested sardonically.

  ‘He ain’t there,’ Nellist replied. ‘Fact being, where he was headed when I saw him last, you ought to be able to talk to him without nobody seeing you!’

  ‘Where’d that be?’ the black clad Texan inquired.

  ‘Not knowing the town,’ Nellist answered. ‘He asked me where he could get some—company.’

  ‘And you sent him to Mrs. Gouch’s fancy-house, for shame,’ Waco guessed.

  ‘Nope,’ the tiny man denied. ‘She don’t have the kind of company he wanted. You know what them soft- shells’re like. It’s “hims” they fancy, not gals.’

  ‘You couldn’t have sent him anywhere ’round Mulrooney for that,’ Waco declared, having any normal man’s revulsion for the kind of sexual deviation implied by the informer.

  ‘I told him where I’d heard tell there used to be one of ’em,’ Nellist asserted. ‘Fact being, it’s where you'll know how to find i—!’

  ‘Those god-damned buck teeth are getting closer to your butt by the second!’ the blond growled, the words having been directed specifically at him.

  ‘Take it easy, I didn’t mean it that way!’ the tiny man yelped hurriedly, alarmed by the anger with which he was addressed. ‘It’s where you took down Tricky Dick Cansole and everybody knows he was a no-bullfighter, even though he ain’t there no more.’ 53

  ‘You mean you took that jasper’s money and sent him there?’ the kid demanded, feeling sure the information had not been given without payment. ‘I’ll say one thing for you, Mousey, you’re one of a kind. There just couldn’t be another.’

  ‘That’s for sure,’ Waco agreed, his good humor restored by learning of the destination supplied by the little man. ‘When the Good Lord made you, he threw the moldy away.’

  Striding through the moonlight, Shaun Ushermale was in far from a pleasant frame of mind!

  Left to his own devices, the young Englishman had gone in search of the kind of company he always selected when finding time hanging heavily on his hands. Being unfamiliar with the town, he had had no idea where to start looking. Bruce Millan had stated a disinclination to receive further visits, even of a social nature, which ruled him out as a source of information. However, calling at a small saloon, he had found what appeared to be the solution to his problem.

  To have been made appear foolish in such a fashion would have been bad enough by itself, but for it to happen at the hands of a terribly dressed and miserable smelling little wretch, all too clearly one of the ‘little people’ Ushermale disdained while pretending to admire, to whom he had given money made the feeling far worse. On his arrival at the big house where he had been assured he would find the kind of sexual relationship he sought, the door had been opened by a large and formidable looking nun.

  It had taken Ushermale a few seconds to realize he had been sent to a convent and not a home of an obliging homosexual!

  Such was the young Englishman’s sense of fury and humiliation, he did not notice the two tall figures approaching along the alley he had entered until he was addressed by the one in all black clothing.

  ‘Where at’s that son-of-a-bitch’s you sent to grab off Miss Woods?’

  ‘I—I don’t know what you mean!’ Ushermale stated, but with more alarm than conviction.

  ‘Then we’ll likely have to sort of jog your remembering,’ the slightly taller of the pair warned.

  ‘D—Don’t you dare touch me!’ the Englishman wailed, trying to turn and run, but finding his legs would not obey the dictates of his mind. However, regardless of the disparagement he generally expressed for officers of the law, he gained a little heart from seeing both of the men wore badges on what he would have called their waistcoats. ‘If you do, Sir Michael Dinglepied will take up the matter with your superiors.’

  ‘Would you be the boot-cleaner for this Sir Michael what-the-hell-you-said,’ the Ysabel Kid inquired.

  ‘I’m Sir Michael’s confidential secretary,’ Ushermale corrected, annoyed at it having been implied he held a menial position.

  ‘Then we’d best go ask him,’ Waco suggested.

  ‘No!’ the Englishman close to shrieked, aware of just how inadvisable such a visit might prove.

  ‘Yes!’ the blond corrected, realizing the objection was made with a greater vehemence than the situation appeared to warrant on the surface and passing his supposition to the Kid in the kind of Spanish spoken along the Rio Grande.

  ‘Could be,’ the black clad Texan admitted, employing the same dialect with an even greater fluency. ‘He’s too riled for it just to be over what he’s been out looking to do. Way he talks about his boss, I’d say they’re the same kind and it wouldn’t make no never-mind to his “sir-ship” that his hired man goes for boys not girls. Like’s not, he’s so inclined hisself.’

  ‘Let’s rile this feller up a mite and see what he does,’ Waco suggested and, reaching out with his right hand, reverted to English, ‘All right, hombre, we’ll just head on down to the Railroad Hou—!’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ Ushermale screeched, pushing at the young blond and starting to turn.

  The attempt at flight did not achieve its desired effect! Caught by the shoulder with a strong set of fingers, the Englishman was pulled by a force he could not resist until he had reversed his direction. Almost immediately, a rock hard fist crashed against the side of his jaw and he went sprawling helplessly on his back. Through the whirling mists and eruptions of brilliant lights which seemed to be filling his head, he heard the hateful voice of the black clad ‘detective’; as the absence of uniforms caused him to assume the pair must be.

  ‘Striking a duly swored and ’pointed officer of the law ’n’ trying to escape arrest. Them’s crimes against this here fine town of Mulrooney, Deputy Marshal Waco.’

  ‘You’re forgetting being like to bust one of the said duly swored ’n’ appointed officer’s fist with his jaw, Deputy Marshal Lon,’ the second went on. ‘Feller like that’s a menace to decent folks. I reckon it’s our duty to haul him down to the hoosegow, afore he does any more damage.’

  ‘You do it, boy,’ the Kid instructed, ‘I’ll go ’n’ tell his boss what’s happened to him.’

  ‘Trust you to hog the best chore, amigo,’ Waco complained through force of habit, ‘I’m sure his “sir- ship” would want to know.’

  Chapter Twelve – They’d Never Believe You

  ‘What the devil are you doing in here?’ Sir Michael Dinglepied demanded, albeit in a quavering tone, having turned and looked in alarm from one to the other of the hard-faced men he had found in the sitting-room of his suite at the Railroad House Hotel. Even when he was not quivering with fear, he was far from being a particularly distinguished or impressive figure. Nor did wearing a formal evening dress suit improve his usual slovenly appearance. Sucking in a nervous gulp of breath, he went on with no greater spirit, ‘G—Get out, or I’ll call the ma—’

  The baronet had just returned from a lengthy and expensive dinner paid for by a group of local businessmen. Although receiving a free meal of such quality always put him in as near an amiable frame of mind as he ever attained, especially when it was paid for by what he often referred to in speeches as ‘bloated capitalists’, this had all ebbed away quickly. He was silently cursing himself for having entered backwards, so he could keep watch on the other members of the British Railroad—having a full measure of the paranoid hatred his kind were already developing towards the United States, he insisted upon saying ‘Railway’—Commission who had come upstairs with him and closed the door when one glanced his way. Now he was wishing that he had left it open.

  ‘You won’t do no such thing,’ corrected Hugo ‘Camb’ Camberwell with complete assurance, crossing the room quickly. Taking the key from Dinglepied’s unresisting fingers, he turned it in the lock and dropped it into the side pocket of the wolfskin jacket he was now wearing. ‘’Cause, even happen we didn’t stop you real mean sudden afore you could get out, we’re
the fellers’s you had hired to grab that Limey gal from the Fair Lady.’

  ‘I—I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Dinglepied bluffed. Then he remembered something he had heard over dinner. ‘Oh no you aren’t. I was told only one of you got away.’

  ‘So I lied a smidgen,’ Camberwell replied, showing no sign of being abashed over the deception. He waved a hand towards the thickset and medium tall bearded man in dirty range clothes who was sitting at the table. ‘But Jasp here needs to light a shuck like I do and, seeing’s how him ’n’ me’s been good friends from way back, I reckoned you’d be right pleasured to help him on his way along of me.’

  ‘You want me to help you?’ the baronet queried, being extremely parsimonious by nature and never offering to donate any of the considerable fortune he had inherited to help finance the various schemes he put forward for ‘improving the lot’ of what he always referred to as the ‘down-trodden masses’ of the working class. Furthermore, despite his usual willingness to give vocal support to any criminal with a complaint against the police, he had never done anything positive to assist one personally and saw no reason why he should start in a foreign country. ‘Why tha—!’

  ‘I conclude you don’t have no other choice but help us,’ Camberwell claimed, returning to the table and pouring a drink from the decanter of brandy the baronet had had concealed in the cupboard of the sidepiece to avoid having to share it with visitors. ‘Happen we get caught, ’specially by them beef-head bastard’s’re running the law hereabouts, we’re just natural’ going to have to tell ’em’s how it was you paid us to grab the Woods gal.’

  ‘Th—They’d never believe you!’ Dinglepied croaked, watching the bearded man take and further deplete the contents of the decanter and resenting the visible evidence that at least part of his quarters had been searched and pillaged in such a fashion.