But Grimes was already whirling from that lovely distraction. Thorman’s guns were clearing leather when the kid from Georgia cut loose. No one, Thorman least of all, believed that any man could get a Colt from a hip pocket and clear of a long frock coat in time to win the exchange.
But Thorman learned. His own shot went wild, just as Grimes’ Colt bucked a second time and knocked a second jet of dust from Thorman’s green vest. The big man spun, his knees buckled, and he fell face forward; his smoking gun skated down the hall.
Elma clawed her breast. Her gown was soggy, blood-soaked. Before Grimes could catch her, she caught the door jamb, missed, then slumped to the floor.
“Simon—you fool—I told you—mining towns—are poison—did he get you—?” She shivered, held to him with one arm. When he supported her in the crook of his elbow, she smiled. “Kiss me, Simon, you idiot—it’s been fun—herding you around—”
The men who came pounding up the stairs checked up short. One said, “Hell, the pore gal’s been shot, get a doctor.”
“Shot, hell!” Grimes choked. “She’s dead, and so is that son of a—!”
* * * *
He was right. Later that night, he rode to Jim Parsell’s house with the marshal and told of Thorman’s trick to palm off stolen coin as gold from a high grade mine. Anne came out, wide eyed, and laid a soft hand on his arm.
“Simon, darling,” she said, “I’m so sorry about that poor girl. And I’m not angry about the way…the way she called my hand. You saved us all, Simon, and—”
Grimes kissed her, then gently thrust her from him. He said to Anne, and to Jim Parsell, and to the marshal: “Folks, you all been mighty nice, but I’m leaving tonight. I’m going back to my uncle’s spread, like Elma wanted me to—” He choked, blinked, then jammed his hat on and ran down the front steps. As he stumbled toward town, he muttered, “Damn it, I wish I’d let her herd me around.”
DRINK OR DRAW
Originally published in Speed Western Stories, Dec. 1943.
Weariness made Simon Bolivar Grimes’ coffin-shaped face seem longer than ever. Spitting alkali dust, he muttered, “Another dang sign, DRINK RED QUILL BOURBON. Gosh, I wisht I was a hoss, they don’t git thirsty for nothing but water.”
Mile after mile along the wagon trail to Stinking Springs, Red Quill billboards had tantalized him by suggesting a bar, a free lunch counter, hard likker, and cool beer.
Some distance ahead, a freight wagon lumbered along. Instinctively, the kid from Georgia had sized up the country, a habit which had often kept him from being bushwhacked, and thus he noted a twinkle in the clump of post oak at the crest of a knoll. It was as though binoculars mirrored the blazing sun. Someone was spying on travelers.
The Stinking Springs region was the orneriest in Texas. Simon had a poke of gold pieces, the proceeds of the sale of some cow critters. If he were robbed, Uncle Jason would whale him with a wagon spoke; he’d claim that Grimes had spent the money on women and liquor.
“Dunno what in tunket else a man’d spend money for,” Grimes grumbled as he pulled over to the whiskey sign.
Though the country was too open for ambush, nevertheless he wanted a look-see, so he peered through a knothole. “Ain’t noticed me, they’re still studying the wagon,” he decided as the flickering continued.
He had brought Uncle Jason’s binoculars in his saddle bags. Grimes had barely focused the powerful glasses for a bit of counter-espionage when two riders came pelting out of the clump of post oak, their guns blazing.
The wagon pulled up. The men dismounted. They tore into the tarpaulin at the back, exposing a cargo of barrels. A sharp faced man came toward them from the wagon. He was unarmed, and he made gestures, as if begging them to be reasonable.
One of the raiders smacked him with a pistol barrel, knocking him down.
The taller of the pair, who had a brace and bitt, began drilling at the keg. By now Grimes had read the lettering on the head: OLD VICKERY BOURBON, NELSON COUNTY, KENTUCKY.
Then a girl, apparently having remained on the driver’s seat until indignation overcame her alarm, came racing toward the tail gate. She was blond, golden blond like a palomino filly. She bounded toward the man with the brace and bitt, and caught his arm.
He spat, grinned, thrust her aside. She recovered and smacked him. The other yanked her away; she tripped, landing asprawl in a puddle of whiskey. Liquor drenched her blouse and skirt.
Whatever was behind this insane business of letting whiskey run into the dust, Grimes decided that when people began slapping old men and girls, it was time to investigate. He mounted up and raced for the wagon. And then came the final horror: one of the ruffians touched a match to the whiskey, and flames began to lick the tarpaulin.
At the sound of his approach, the two whirled about, but seeing just one rider, they hooked their thumbs on their belts and waited. And when Grimes dismounted, they began to grin.
He looked as if he were about to fall over his own feet. Tall, gangling, with a straw colored cowlick reaching down to his china-blue eye, he did not look any too bright.
“What in tarnation you mean, burning good liquor?” he demanded. “And mauling that there lady?”
They chuckled tolerantly. The one with the brace and bitt explained, “Ain’t allowed to haul nothing into Stinking Springs but Red Quill, bub. That’s Colonel Delevan’s orders. And we carry them out.”
The other was rolling a smoke, and his amusement at Grimes was competing with his interest in the blonde, who wept in futile fury as she straightened her drenched garments. The old man, still dazed, was struggling to his feet. And all this was too much for Grimes.
“Hist ’em!” he commanded and went for his guns.
The man with the brace and bitt yelled. The other dropped his Durham and slapped leather. He was quick, but his Colt had not half cleared the holster when Grimes drilled him between the eyes.
Though the man with the brace and bitt made good time, his first shot went wild; and then, shifting, Grimes sprayed him with lead. He jerked one more shot, kicking up rocks. He lurched, fell across his gun.
The girl’s scream made Grimes whirl: “Oh, they hit dad!”
The old man was clutching his side. “Ain’t nothing, Melba, never you mind me, you help this young feller put out the fire.”
Then he sat down.
* * * *
So Grimes and Melba got blankets and whipped out the flames. That done, she gave him strips torn from her skirt, so that he could stop the flow of whiskey while he whittled plugs.
The old freighter said, “I’m mighty grateful, son. I’m Amos Hanford, and this here is my daughter, Melba. Baby, you get the jug for this gent, don’t you fuss with me, I ain’t more’n scratched.”
Grimes started to protest, but Hanford’s glance silenced him. As the girl hurried to the front of the wagon, the freighter said, “I don’t feel none too spry, but it’s no use scaring her. I can turn around and go back to Cold Deck instead of trying to get to a doctor in Stinking Springs; I’d probably get murdered there.”
“Not if I go with you,” Grimes countered.
“Bub, I never seen a draw like yourn and never heard of any like it,” Hanford countered. “Fust one gets it betwixt the eyes, and the second musta had most of his heart shot out with them three slugs. But whilst you’re watching me, who’d watch the whiskey?”
“Gosh, that’s right,” Grimes agreed.
Melba came back with the jug. Grimes hoisted a long one. “Is this here what you got in them kegs?”
“It is. You have jest drunk OLD VICKERY,” Hanford said proudly. “The finest bourbon made at Bourbon Springs, Kentucky, ever since 1833. Drink up, suh!”
Grimes hoisted another. Melba, who had impulsively put an arm around his shoulders, became more beautiful than ever. Her voice sounded like angels playing harps, and even the landsca
pe was no longer repulsive. “This is sure larruping whiskey,” Grimes said, and wiped his lips. “Anywhere but a downright warped and perverted town, it’d be welcomed with—”
And then, he saw that Hanford had fooled him as well as Melba. Grimes caught the old man just in time. “Honey, it looks like that chaw of tobacco he stuffed into that wound ain’t plugging it enough.”
“Oh, why did you have to start shooting?” she cried, panic again gripping her. “I’d rather lose all the liquor in the world—”
Grimes tipped the jug and gave Hanford a swig.
“M’am, they was banging away at me, and it is downright unreasonable, blaming me for someone else’s bad shooting. If you can prod them oxen, I’ll make your pappy comfortable and do what I can.”
“Oh, what can you do?”
“He’s jest weak, he’ll come outen it. And as soon as your pappy’s took care of, I’m going to run Red Quill and Colonel Delevan out of that ornery town, and when I’m through, they’ll be drinking Old Vickery in every bar in Stinking Springs.”
“Baby,” Hanford said to his daughter, “I’m all right, and Simon looks like the man that can do it.”
CHAPTER II
Recipe 309
Stinking Springs got its name from the hot sulphur spring which made the air reek with a rotten-egg bouquet; and the town itself, a sprawl of frame shacks and adobes centering about a plaza, looked pretty much like it smelled. Grimes dismounted at the Cozy Corner Saloon, which was between the Eldorado Hotel and Wing Lee’s Restaurant.
Bellying up to the bar, he called for whiskey. The sour-faced barkeep set out a bottle of Red Quill. The stuff made Grimes choke and cough. “Gosh, this here tastes like soldering acid and sheep dip, ain’t you got any good liquor?”
“Son,” the professor retorted, “there ain’t no other kind sold in this man’s town. Lookee here, bad liquor makes you shiver like a dog swallering peach seeds; this here just sort of chokes you a bit.”
The half dozen cowpokes who were watching looked as if this was an old and amusing story to them. One said, “Stranger, it ain’t no use bellyaching about Red Quill. Mrs. Hopkins, she’s a widow-woman, and the daughter of the Injun fighter that saved the hull dang settlement from the Comanches, and all she’s got to live on is dividends from Red Quill shares, and there ain’t a man in town low enough to drink any other kind of likker.”
This was bad. While one might outpoint Colonel Delevan, the widowed daughter of a local hero was something else. Grimes bought a round for the house and went out, muttering, “Hell, they are all heroes in this town, I’d ruther fight a passel of Comanches than a bottle of that rotgut.” Once on the boardwalk, he decided to head for Wing Lee’s; the only civilized person in Stinking Springs would be the Chinaman. And then he saw that even this ornery town had its good points.
A redheaded girl was stepping out of Lem Bigg’s General Store with an armful of packages cuddled against her bosom. She was an exquisite creature, slim-legged as a race horse; she wore silk stockings and store clothes. The group of small boys who sat on the curbing playing stud poker and chewing tobacco quit their game and stopped cursing. They chorused, “Evening, Mis’ Hopkins.”
The smile and voice which acknowledged the greeting were smooth and lovely, and as heartwarming as Old Vickery. For a moment, Grimes forgot that Doreen Hopkins, the Red Quill heiress, was a stumbling block in the pathway of good liquor.
She tick-tacked along on high heels which flattered her trim ankles, but a knothole in the tricky boardwalk played the devil with her alluring footgear. She snagged a heel. Her stride broke, and her ankle twisted.
Grimes lunged. Eggs poured from one of the paper bags, but he got an armful of the widow, and managed to keep her clear of the uncooked omelette and coffee on the boards.
Regretfully, he let her slide to her feet as he straightened up. Then, as she clung to him for a moment to steady herself, he asked, “You ain’t sprained your ankle, I hope?”
“Thanks, no!” After the full impact of dazzling smile and greenish gray eyes, he helped her salvage the groceries and stow them in the rubber-tired buggy. Doreen waved, smiled, drove down the dusty street. No dang wonder that Colonel Delevan was looking out for her interests!
Grimes stepped into Wing Lee’s restaurant, ordered a steak, six eggs, and a slab of apple pie, and settled down to studying it out. Finally he asked, “Wing, can you get me a couple empty whiskey bottles with the labels washed off?”
“Catchee quick,” the pigtailed proprietor said, and shuffled to the rear.
* * * *
Darkness had fallen. After wiping the egg from his chin, Grimes went to the hitching rack, and got his jug. Then, back in the restaurant, he said, “Look here, folks tell me that all Chinamen are honest fellows.”
“Thass light, Clistian Chinaman, watchee want now?”
Grimes stepped into the kitchen. As he filled the bottles, whose Red Quill labels had been soaked off, he said, “You keep what’s left in the jug, don’t tell no one, and I’ll give you five bucks.”
“My savvee plenty, Missee Glime. Allee-time, lynch whiskey sell-man, allee time thlow blicks in my window. Town no damn good.”
Wing chuckled gleefully. Grimes demanded, “What in tunket is so funny about getting bricks flung through your window?”
“I gettee even, I spit in coffee.”
“Someone oughta spit in their whiskey. Wing, have a drink.”
He offered one of the quarts. The Chinaman poured a shot into a tiny teacup, and downed it. “Vellee nice. You take dlink, Missee Glime. Ng ka pay, China whiskey.”
He dug out a stone jug and poured a shot of reddish and syrupy liquor. The stuff tasted like kerosene and orange shellac. It was almost as bad as Red Quill. But Grimes, having met the only civilized man in Stinking Springs, downed it and said, “Mighty good.”
Wing wagged his head. “You velly nice man. Evly-one else thlowee locks when I give Ng ka pay.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Mebbe-so five, ten yeah.”
That was odd. Today, they drank something worse and didn’t even blink.
“Wing, who hauls whiskey to town? Where do they keep it? Who dishes it out to the saloons?”
“Wagon tlain bling-ee Led Quill. Keep-ee in big house by jail. Ev-ly-body catch-ee whiskey flom Colonel Delevan.”
“How about Mrs. Hopkins?”
“Velly nice lady. Colonel Delevan fix-ee all business, him savvee plenty.”
Grimes went back to the Cozy Corner Saloon, after taking his horse to the livery stable. The same bunch of cowpunchers were playing poker in the corner. They dropped their cards, and eyed him as he went to the bar.
Grimes said, “Belly up, gents! I’m buying!”
There was a whoop and a jingle of spurs. The sour-faced professor set out glasses and Red Quill.
Grimes pulled a quart from his hip pocket. “Gents,” he said, and slapped a gold piece on the bar, “I’m buying the local likker. Only, I am gal-danged if I can drink the stuff, try some of this.”
He filled the glasses with Old Vickery.
The cowpunchers blinked, eyed each other; one said, “Stranger, you’re violating a local ordinance, Colonel Delevan had the mayor pass a law agin foreign liquor.”
“Ain’t I paid for Red Quill? Ain’t I doing right by the widder-woman?”
“Pardner, that’s gospel.”
They thrust out their grimy paws to grab the glasses.
The swinging doors slammed open. A stern voice shook the house: “Drop that, right now!”
Two men had entered. The foremost wore a star. He had a sawed off shotgun leveled at the group. The man beside him was tall, distinguished; slouch hat, frock coat, a pique vest, and flowing tie; drooping mustaches, and a neatly trimmed beard, an Imperial, perfectly tailored. And just for emphasis, he had a Col
t .45 pointed at Grimes. He looked as if he could shoot.
Grimes demanded, “What’s this, suh, breaking into some sociable drinking?”
“I am Colonel Delevan,” the man in the frock coat answered. “And my companion with the shotgun is Mr. Frost, the marshal. Selling liquor—without a license—”
“I am giving it away.”
The colonel fingered his silky beard. “Ha! That also is in violation of a city ordinance. Giving or selling, or causing to be given away or sold, without first having it tested for wholesomeness and purity, is a violation of the law. Mr. Frost, be pleased to seize the evidence. Young man—”
Grimes shouted, “This here is good whiskey, the finest dang whiskey I ever drunk, that Red Quill is sheepdip, it’s poison, it ain’t fit for human consumption!”
“If you were not a beardless boy,” the colonel retorted, “I would challenge you to a duel. Mrs. Hopkins, the daughter of a local hero, sponsors Red Quill.”
Mr. Frost seized the bottle of Old Vickery. Grimes saw no chance of shooting it out; and as Amos Hanford had observed, shooting a customer doesn’t improve sales.
* * * *
Late that night, Grimes decided to get to the bottom of things. If everything else failed, he’d set the Red Quill warehouse afire.
“Arson,” he told himself, “is genrully agin’ the law, but this here is an extenuating circumstance, every time you take a drink of that stuff, it’s committing arson on your gizzard.”
Wing’s description made it easy for him to find the warehouse. The place was of adobe, thick walled, with small windows high up and barred. Ceiling beams projected far out and supported the eaves whose overhang kept the rains from cutting into the adobe. Grimes had brought his lariat; it was simple enough, roping the end of a ceiling beam. Then, in the gloom at the rear of the adobe, he went up, hand over hand, and in a moment, he was on the roof.
As he had expected, this was of clay tamped over bundles of cottonwood saplings which had been laid athwart the massive ceiling beams. Such a roof, unless constantly maintained, deteriorates, and this one had been neglected; thus Grimes had less work than he had anticipated. He found a patch of bare saplings and very quickly worked them right and left, until he could, being lean and lanky, wriggle through.
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