by J. T. Edson
“Keep your hands off my perfume!” Bell snapped.
“You hear her, Hickey?” Amy-Jo asked. “Anybody’d think it was her got the gun way she gives orders.”
“Don’t you put any of that perfume on yourself!” Belle warned.
“Listen here now, quality gal!” Amy-Jo flared back. “Right now I don’t have to do one lil thing you tells me.”
With that she directed the nozzle at her face and squeezed the bulb. A misty spray of liquid shot out, striking just under her nose. Instantly Amy-Jo let out a strangled, gagging croak, half-dropping, half-throwing the bottle on to the bed as she reeled backwards. The raw, acrid aroma of ammonia rose from the girl as she stumbled around in a circle and dropped fighting for breath to her knees.
Hickey’s head jerked around to stare at Amy-Jo and for a moment he wondered what had caused the girl to act in such a manner. After which he became too engrossed in his own problems to care.
Up rose Belle’s foot and this time she wore a boot highly suitable for kicking. While Hickey’s Le Mat wavered involuntarily out of line, the toe of Belle’s boot drove with considerable power under his jaw. Shooting backwards across the room, he crashed into the wall, bounced from it and landed face down on the floor.
At the commotion, the nearer of the men in the passage turned and sprang into Belle’s room. His companion foolishly failed to keep full attention on Sam Ysabel. Whipping across, Ysabel’s right hand slapped the man’s revolver aside and flashed towards his holstered Dragoon. As the man took an unintended pace to the rear, Ysabel bunched and launched his left fist against the side of the other’s head. Sent reeling across the passage, the man tried to bring his gun back into line. Thumb-cocked on the draw, the big Dragoon bellowed in Ysabel’s hand as it cleared leather. The bullet sliced into the man’s head, ending his attempt at shooting immediately. Even before the man fell, Ysabel went leaping towards the door of Belle’s room.
Diving on to the bed as Hickey’s second companion entered, Belle grabbed the scent-spray. She swung its nozzle owards the man as he lunged with hands reaching for her, and squeezed the bulb. Caught in the face by the spray of ammonia, the man duplicated Amy-Jo’s reactions. Belle brought up her foot, ramming it into his stomach and shoving hard. Propelled backwards, the man offered Ysabel a empting target. Up and down rose the big Texan’s arm, smashing the base of the Dragoon’s butt on top of the man’s head to drop him like a pole-axed steer.
From downstairs came the voice of Rosita O’Malley, raised in a mixture of lurid Spanish and Irish curses.
“Watch ‘em, gal!” Ysabel yelled, turning to dash out of the room and in the direction of the stairs.
Looking around her, Belle decided there would be no need to bother about the visitors for a spell. Even Amy-Jo showed no signs of recovery, but still crouched on the floor gagging and trying to breathe.
“I warned you not to use it,” Belle remarked as she picked up her shirt.
Deciding that they would be making a hurried departure, Belle donned the shirt, tucked it into her waistband and then strapped on the gunbelt. With the Dance at her hip she felt capable of dealing with anything Hickey’s crowd cared to start. Gathering up her belongings, she took them to Ysabel’s room. On coming out, she saw Ysabel returning. The big Texan walked towards her, shaking his head as if unable to believe what he had found below.
“I never figured Hickey to have one lil bit of right good sense,” he told the girl. “But I never reckoned he’d he hawgstupid enough to leave just one feller guarding Rosey.”
“Is she all right?” Belle asked.
“She’s fine. Only I don’t know how the feller’ll feel when he gets round to feeling again. That skillet she hit him with sure messed up his face some.”
From which Belle concluded that Rosita had managed cope with the situation unaided.
“What lousy luck,” Belle commented. “Picking today all times to attempt a robbery.”
“Like I say,” Ysabel drawled. “Hickey’s not smart; but he’s a whole heap too smart to try a game like that at Rosey’s place and again me without real good reason. If he knowed how much money we’re carrying—.”
“Then he might?”
“He just might get brave enough then.”
“But he can’t know!’ Belle stated.
“He shouldn’t know,” corrected Ysabel. “Maybe we’d best ask some questions!”
“I think you’re right,” Belle agreed. “The girl looks to be the only one likely to tell us anything for a time.”
Sucking in sobbing breaths of air, Amy-Jo stared with tear-reddened, frightened eyes as Belle and Ysabel approached her.
“We didn’t mean no harm!” the girl whined, edging across the floor on her rump away from them and darted a glance at her companions. “I tried to tell Hickey it wouldn’t work.”
“What wouldn’t work. Amy-Jo?” Ysabel asked.
“Nothin’—.”
Bending down, Belle dug her fingers into the girl’s dirty hair and jerked her head back, looking at Ysabel and saying. “Pass me that scent bottle, please, Sergeant Ysabel.”
“No!” Amy-Jo yelped, the recollection of her first tangling with the thing still vivid in her mind.
“What wouldn’t work?” Belle demanded. “H—Hickey’d kill me if he knowed I’d talked!” Amy-Jo wailed.
“You’ve got troubles from all sides, gal,” Ysabel told her unsympathetically “Rosita’s all riled up and looking to take it out of somebody’s hide. I’ll just call and tell her you’re the first one woke up.”
“Lookee, Big Sam!” the girl yelped, fear plain on her face as she directed another glance at the still form of her leader. “I had to come. You know Hickey!”
“I know him,” Ysabel admitted. “And I never figured he’d be loco enough to try a game like this.”
“That ten thousand dollars you’ve got sounded mighty tempting,” Amy-Jo answered simply.
Belle and Ysabel exchanged glances. Maybe the sum fell short of the actual total, but it came close enough to arouse ugly suspicions.
“How’d you know about that?” Ysabel growled.
“We was down on the river this afternoon,” Amy-Jo replied. “Heard something coming and dog-my-cats if’n around a bend don’t steam three itty-bitty boats like I’ve never seed afore. Like big rowing boats they was, only with chimneys ‘n’ engines in ‘em. Done got cannons in the front—.”
“Steam launches!” Belle breathed. “What about them?”
“We was just fixing to get the hell out of there when a feller yells out Hickey’s name. It was Golly, that ‘breed who ides for Charlie Kraus. Tells us it’s all right and they only wants to make talk.”
“What did he say?” Belle asked.
“That Big Sam was coming up river with you and for us to go after you. Hickey wouldn’t’ve listened, only Golly allowed you’d got maybe ten thousand in gold along. Said for us to let Charlie have a cut if we got it.”
“Who were in the boat?”
“Fellers in uniforms, ma’am. They let Golly come on to the bank to talk to us. that’s how he let on about the money.”
“Smart,” Belle said to Ysabel. “They’re sending word up-river and making it look like the people he tells are getting something extra that the Yankees don’t know about.”
“Smart and tricky.” Ysabel agreed. “Charlie Kraus always was. What come off next, Amy-Jo?”
“Golly gets back to the boat and they heads on up river,” the girl replied. “Then Hickey allows you’d be sure to call in here, Big Sam, and we should oughta try for the money. Only it didn’t work.”
“You tell Hickey, when he starts to take notice, to keep well out of my sight from now on,” Ysabel growled.
“If you ain’t holding me, I’m going to be long gone afore that,” the girl stated. “Hickey’s not going to forget it was me worked that damned scent squirter.”
“Light out, gal,” Ysabel grinned. “Let’s get going, Miss Belle.”
> Collecting their belongings, Belle and Ysabel went down. stairs. By the time they reached the ground floor, the drumming of hooves told that Amy-Jo had made good her promise of departing.
“I let her go,” Rosita remarked.
“She’d not help against Hickey,” Ysabel answered. “So its as well.”
“I’m sorry about making trouble for you, Rosita,” Belle went on.
“So’ll Hickey be, unless you killed him,” the woman replied, nodding to a bunch of tough-looking Mexicans who hovered in the background. “We’ll tend to everything here. You’d best start riding.”
“Could be there’ll be more folks around asking about us, Rosey,” Ysabel warned. “Don’t get smart should they come.”
“They’ll get the same as everybody else,” Rosita promised. “Food, a place to sleep, and no information. How about Lon?”
“Tell him we’re headed south, instead of sticking to the river trail,” Ysabel replied. “He’ll find us easy enough.”
“1 agree with you, sergeant,” Belle put in. “Those launches can make easily six miles an hour going up-river and will have been moving while we rested.”
“They’ve got engines that don’t get tired, ma’am,” the Texan pointed out. “Hosses do, and people. Thing is, how did the Yankees get to know about us?”
“They have efficient spies too,” Belle replied as they walked out of the building. “I’ve been afraid they’d find out from the start.”
“You mean they brought them launches here especial for this?”
“No. Although somebody acted fast and smart in using them to pass on the message. I don’t suppose there’s a chance of them meeting some of our troops along the river?”
“Devil the bit this far from Brownsville.”
“How about Captain Cureton and his men?” Belle asked.
“They’re Rangers, not army. Fellers who didn’t want to take sides, some Yankees and some of us rebs,” Ysabel explained. “Cureton can only hold ‘em together by staying clear of either side in the War. They’re trying to protect the homes of soldiers away fighting from Injuns, bad whites and Mexican bandidos. There’ll be no help from them.”
“And the man with the launches can find other men like Hickey?”
“Or worse. Golly knows the river hang-outs. Even if he only tells ‘em ten thousand dollars, there’ll be plenty wanting to try for it.”
“What do we do then?” Belle inquired.
“Like I said. Go south. They’ll likely all be figuring on us sticking to the river and looking for a place to cross into Texas.”
“How about Rosita?” Belle said as she saddled her horse. “Will she be safe after we’ve gone?”
“From Hickey?” Ysabel laughed. “She could eat two like him and his whole bunch. And for the rest; well, she’s got kin on both sides of the river, tough hombres all of ‘em, thicker’n fleas on an Injun dawg, who’ll come a-running happen she yells, or should anything untoward happen to her. Yes, ma’am. I figure Rosey’ll be all right. But we sure as hell won’t, unless we put some miles between us and the border.”
Chapter 10
You Never Should’ve Tried A Knife
Seeing a dead animal on the range, a domesticated dog will go straight up to it and investigate. A wolf never does, but circles around the body warily, alert for traps and danger.
So it was with the Ysabel Kid as he rode towards Rosita O’Malley’s place at ten o’clock on the night of his father’s hectic visit. Instead of riding up to the buildings—owned by a good and loyal friend though they might be—he studied them from a distance and made a circle around to take note of everything. Lights glowed at the downstairs’ windows and he could see a number of horses in the corral.
Slipping from the white’s saddle, he led it to some trees beyond the house. Although he removed the headstall and bit, hanging them with the coiled rope on the horn, he left the saddle in place. The horse would remain where he left it, tied or free, while a whistle would bring it to him when needed. So he left it in the cover of the trees, with good grazing under-foot. Silently as an owl hunting in the night sky, the Kid advanced on foot towards the buildings. His route took him by the corral and he kept down wind as a matter of simple precaution. Pausing, he looked the horses over. Fine animals, yet their assortment of colours seemed to rule out a French cavalry patrol. Which still left a whole slew of possibilities. No guards around the place made the visitors unlikely to be Juaristas, for such invariably kept watch for their foreign enemies. That left a variety of border citizens, not all friendly to the Ysabel family, who might be calling on Rosita O’Malley.
The Kid moved on, creeping to the side of the main building and moving to where he could see into the big barroom through a window. What he saw surprised him and made him bless the precautions taken.
The visitors formed two distinct groups, either of which might be found anywhere along the bloody border, except in areas with large and efficient law enforcement organisations. Finding them both at Rosita O’Malley’s place, noted for its neutrality in the various border feuds, might have been natural enough. What surprised the Kid was the fact that the two leaders shared a table in apparent amity.
No mere chance meeting could bring them together, nor a desire to discuss matters of cultural interest. Tall, slender, elegantly dressed like a wealthy haciendero, Ramon Peraro possessed leanings towards education and gentlemanly habits. Which same nobody could even start to claim for Bully Segan. Big, bulky, with cold, hard eyes practically the only thing visible among his mat of whiskers, he wore buckskins and might have been a member of the old hairy Rocky Mountain brigade who opened up so much of the far West. Only one thing linked Peraro and Segan. Each ran as mean a band of cut-throats and killers as could be assembled.
Four of Segan’s men, Americanos del Norte dressed in buckskins and well-armed, sat at a table behind their boss. While two of Peraro’s gang stood at the bar, another four sat over against the wall beyond the bandido leader. The atmosphere seemed strained, only natural with the two gangs in competition with each other, and most of the company drank left-handed. Only the two leaders sat together, using the right hand to raise their tequila glasses. Watching the others, the Kid was reminded of seeing, as a boy, a cougar and grizzly bear drinking on either side of the only waterhole in ten miles. The two predators showed the same alert, suspicious watchfulness as did the members of the rival gangs.
“Now what in hell’s ole Bully Segan doing sat here all friendlied-up with Peraro?” the Kid asked himself. “Last I heard, Ramon was fixing to side with Juarez against the French.”
Not to celebrate, or merely have fun, certainly; for the men ignored Rosita’s girls and drank sparingly. One possibility sprang to mind. Ever since they started smuggling, long before the War, the Ysabels had built up a name for rugged, effective defence of their property. Few gangs on the border would chance attacking one of their pack trains. Yet it seemed unlikely that such a project would bring together Peraro and Segan. Even less so that their meeting would take place at Rosita O’Malley’s posada, known to be the Ysabel family’s favourite visiting spot.
Deciding to learn more about the visitors before entering the Kid withdrew and went to the rear of the building. He could see into the kitchen, but made no attempt to approach it. Instead he settled on his haunches and waited in the darkness with all the patience of his maternal grandfather’s people.
Almost an hour passed before Rosita entered the kitchen and came close enough to its open door for the Kid’s purpose. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he gave a near perfect imitation of an Arizona pyrrhuloxia’s mating call Passing the doorway, Rosita changed direction and walked outside. Again came the twittering whistle. Aware that the bird rarely came into that region and sang only in daylight, she knew the call to be a signal. So she spoke over her shoulder, telling the cook she was going out back and walked into the darkness.
“Cabrito?” she asked, speaking barely above a whisper.
&nbs
p; “It ain’t Benito Juarez,” the youngster replied, moving to her side. “You got the cream of society tonight, Rosey.”
“That’s no way to talk about my customers,” the woman answered, lowering the Remington Double Derringer she had carried concealed on her person since Sam Ysabel’s departure. “Way you’re fancied up, I thought you’d be coming in. All it wants is for your pappy and that high-quality gal to come along for it to be the success of the year.”
A grin twisted the Kid’s lips as he realised that his change of clothes had come close to bringing a bullet into his belly. Knowing Rosita, he did not doubt that she would have shot if he had spoken less promptly to identify himself. Not that he blamed her. Anybody who aroused the suspicions of either Peraro or Segan stood a better than fair chance of meeting a painful death. So she could take no chances.
“What’s up, Rosey?” he asked, moving to one side as she entered the small backhouse and left its door open.
“I don’t know who that high-quality gal was, or what’s she’s doing; and’d’s soon not find out,” Rosita answered. “But she’s sure got a heap of real nice folks looking for her and Big Sam.”
“Charlie Kraus here as well as Segan and Peraro?”
“Nope. Hickey ‘a’ his crowd come in earlier. Lone Walt’s still here—’fact he won’t be leaving.”
“Poor ole Lone Walt,” drawled the Kid, in a voice which showed no sympathy. “I hope he’s not planted close to drinking water or growing things. You mean Hickey come here looking for pappy?”
“Si!” admitted the woman. “I couldn’t hardly believe it myself. That high-quality gal sure has something.”
“That was Belle Boyd, the Rebel Spy,” the Kid told her. “What’s going on, Rosey gal?”
“Ramon and the Bully’s after your pappy and the gal. From what they’ve said, there’ll be more folks looking. So they’re working in cahoots and figure to split the money between ‘em—.”