Ralph Compton Straight to the Noose

by Marcus Galloway

  “All right,” Mason said quickly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “For a man who wears two guns,” the overman said, “you seem awfully squirrelly.”

  “I’m not squirrelly. I’m just not a butcher.”

  Greeley and all three overmen broke into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Mason asked.

  When he caught his breath, Greeley said, “We’ve spoken to Willowby.”

  “You mean Winslow?” Mason snapped.

  “Yeah. That’s the one. We spoke to him and he told us about what you did to get away from him when my boys found the two of you near their rowboat.”

  “That was different,” Mason explained. “That was—”

  “Cold is what that was,” the overman closest to Mason said. “You shot his leg, gave him a bit of time to get doctored up, and then stuck a sharp stick into the bullet wound. If that ain’t cold, I don’t know what is!”

  One of the overmen standing at the edge of the plank leading back onto the boat mused, “I’ll have to use that one myself sometime.”

  “And don’t forget the part about punching the poor bastard in the face,” Greeley added.

  “I’m leaving now,” Mason said while climbing onto the horse he’d been given. “The lot of you enjoy yourselves.”

  “Go get him, Butcher!” an overman called out. Since Mason had already decided to ignore them, he wasn’t sure which overman had made the comment. All of the men on the dock found it amusing enough to parrot the comment, however, while more laughter spread among them like a brush fire.

  Mason sighed. After his horse had taken a few steps, he felt compelled to look over his shoulder at the Delta Jack. Greeley and his men were already walking aboard and having a grand old time along the way. Of the few passengers who’d continued to watch from above, only one remained.

  Maggie looked down at him from the third deck. Both of her hands were on the railing, and her eyes were locked on him as if she were still close enough to whisper into his ear. She raised one hand and smiled in a way that made Mason feel as if they were the only two people on the face of the earth. He’d heard others say things like that and written them off as either fools, drunks, or drunken fools. Mason might very well have joined one of those categories, but he was feeling too good to care.

  He snapped his reins, rode away from the Delta Jack, and headed into his first day as a hired killer.

  Chapter 22

  The town of Sedrich was exactly as advertised: small and impossible to miss. In fact, anyone using the road that led to the dock where the Delta Jack was waiting would have been forced to pass through the town on their way to just about anywhere else. Sedrich was like many other towns that had sprung up out of opportunity instead of necessity. Storefronts and saloons lined the road on both sides with smaller streets branching out here and there at irregular intervals. It catered to travelers, gamblers, and river folk. Anyone with money in their pockets and a hankering to spend it as quickly as possible was welcome in Sedrich. Mason felt at home almost immediately.

  Upon entering town, Mason let his professional instincts guide him to the closest saloon. As a man working the gambler’s circuit, he earned his living being able to sniff out big games or fertile hunting grounds. For someone in his line of work, saloons were the best hunting grounds available, and the louder they were, the better. Quiet saloons were filled with men who thought before they acted or sat back to watch for signs of trouble. Noise, on the other hand, meant liquor was flowing and customers were letting down their guard. There were no grounds more fertile than those for any gambler.

  Mason’s gut instinct pulled him toward a little place called the River Rat. It had the look of a saloon frequented by locals, which was low-hanging fruit for a man of Mason’s talents. He wasn’t in Sedrich on regular business, however, and shifted his sights a bit farther down the street.

  The Bistro was bigger than the River Rat, but not by much. A bouncy tune being played on a piano drifted through the air from that place. Every so often, some uproarious cheers would erupt. It had been a while since Mason had seen cancan dancers, and taking in a show seemed like a pleasant enough way to start his visit. First, he tied his horse to a post outside the Bistro and made sure there was a good amount of water in the trough. He then anxiously stepped inside the saloon and allowed his senses to soak everything up.

  A stage at the back of the room was positioned so someone passing by the Bistro’s door or front window would get a glimpse of the show without seeing too much. Although there was enough room for at least ten girls on the slightly elevated platform, only four were dancing at the moment. Whatever dance they were doing wasn’t the cancan, but Mason enjoyed it all the same. The girls were dressed in matching dresses made from wispy material that almost wasn’t there at all. They spun, twirled, and waved to the audience while giving the men seated throughout the place an occasional glimpse of long legs and pale skin beneath their skirts. Mason cheered along with the others when the girls all bowed and strutted offstage.

  He fell into his normal routine like an old wagon wheel settling into a rut in the road. Whenever he went to a new saloon for the first time, Mason looked around the room, made his way to the bar, and struck up a conversation with whoever served him his drink. The Bistro’s barkeep was a fellow with a large round face and dark, olive-colored skin. After ordering a beer, Mason asked him about the saloon’s specialties and any recommendations he might have for what to order next. That got the man talking in an animated fashion while Mason nodded and took another look around.

  Now that the bartender was friendly with him, the rest of the customers figured he was just there for a drink. Essentially Mason would go unnoticed for a while until he made a move that would set him apart from any other man with a thirst. Mason preferred to watch folks when they thought they weren’t being watched. Little habits would make themselves known, and Mason could get an idea for which men were on bad terms or which might be working together. Every saloon had a flow that could eventually be discerned by anyone who knew what to look for. As far as the Bistro went, almost every current in the place flowed to a table that was just to the left of the room’s center.

  Five men sat around that table. At first glance, it looked as if a deck of cards had been spilled onto the table by someone who’d tripped over their own feet. Mason sighed and grumbled to himself, “Damn seven-card stud.”

  While Mason appreciated the seven-card variation of stud poker, he didn’t particularly enjoy it. There were plenty of opportunities to bet, but far too many chances for an overeager player to get lucky. Being too anxious was supposed to be a gambler’s downfall. If they had more than five cards to make a hand, such players were given chances for a reprieve. One thing that Mason admired most about poker was its brutality. Adding more cards to the mix beyond the regular five as God had intended was pulling some of the teeth from the game.

  Mason only had to watch this table for a short while to realize there were only two men worth his attention. One was a fair-haired gentleman with a long face, and the other was balding and had a laugh like that of a hyena being rolled over by a slowly moving wagon. Part hacking cough and part cackle, the laugh came at the expense of everyone else at that table as he raked in a pot.

  “Real nice call there, Wade!” the balding man said, jeering. “A couple more like that and I can afford a new horse!”

  One of the quieter men at the table, presumably Wade, shook his head and took a drink from his beer.

  Everything about the balding man rubbed Mason the wrong way. From the way he gnawed on his cigar to the sloppy manner in which he heaped his chips in front of him spoke of someone who’d been raised by wolves. “I’m dealing next hand,” the balding man announced as if the entire world were interested. “Threes are wild.”

  Mason ground his teeth together. Wild cards in a poker game were for children who didn�
�t want to learn how to play but still wanted to win. Many a heated argument had been sparked at card tables throughout the Dakotas when Mason was foolish enough to give those opinions a voice. After that, he’d learned to keep his mouth shut and teach those overgrown children how to play real poker through trial and error. Mostly, their error.

  Deciding to remain at the bar, Mason nursed his drink in the hopes that the next man to get the deal would change the game. Otherwise he would just have to plaster a smile onto his face and pretend he enjoyed children’s games so he could get a seat at that table. As it turned out, the hand swung in Wade’s favor as he showed he could give as good as he got.

  “Looks like you won’t be able to buy that new horse after all, huh, Randy?” he chided after winning the hand.

  Like most spoiled children, the balding man could dish out the insults but had a thin skin when they were fired back at him. “Shut up, Wade,” he snarled.

  “Shouldn’t have made them threes wild. That’s how I wound up with four of a kind!”

  “I said shut up!”

  Wade must have been taking a ribbing for a while before Mason had arrived, because he wasn’t about to let up now that it was his turn. “How about you settle up with some of that jewelry? Or were you trying to pass yourself off as some sort of dandy?”

  Randy’s sudden burst of thrashing movement might have been an attempt to flip the table over. All he wound up doing was tilting it just enough to spill some of the other men’s drinks. Annoyed by the laughter his tantrum had caused, he got up from his seat and stomped over to Wade’s. It wasn’t until that moment that Mason realized exactly what Greeley had meant when he said the man he was after would act like a little king. The king part had been obvious enough. Now that the balding man was on his own two feet, the little part became clearer. When Randy stood up, he was eye to eye with Wade, who’d remained in his seat.

  “You think you’re funny or something?” Randy asked.

  “No, Randy. Just go back to your seat and settle down.”

  Randy reached for the gun at his side, using one of the sloppiest draws Mason had ever witnessed. Considering the number of drunks he saw on a daily basis, that was saying something. After two or three attempts, he finally got his fat little fingers around the grip of his pistol. He drew the gun and smiled victoriously while jamming its barrel into Wade’s side.

  Throughout the process of Randy’s draw, anyone in the saloon could have skinned their own weapon and put the stout fellow down. They might have too, if not for the two other armed men sitting nearby. Mason watched the scene unfold in front of him and noticed that the other men at that table all looked to at least one of those others as if they feared them more than the little fuming man confronting Wade.

  “You still think you’re funny?” Randy snarled.

  Wade looked to the neighboring table where a skinny man wearing an old Army model Colt leaned back in his chair so his hand could dangle within inches of his holster. Looking back to Randy, he said, “No. It wasn’t funny.”

  “That’s right. You got anything else to say?”

  “Sorry, Randy.”

  Randy placed a finger to his ear and leaned in a little closer. “I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”

  “Don’t push this any further than it needs to go,” Wade said. “I’m not about to grovel for you.”

  “What was that?” Randy straightened up, which put him at just slightly higher than Wade’s eye level. “You getting your hackles up on me?”

  “He said he was sorry,” one of the other players said. “That’s the end of it. Let’s play some more cards. I’ll buy the next round of drinks.”

  “No,” Randy said. Poking Wade in the chest, he added, “He’s buying.”

  “Fine,” Randy sighed. “I’ll buy. I’ll just use your money to pay for them drinks anyway.”

  Randy’s eye twitched. “Get up,” he said.

  Wade was more than happy to stand. He pushed his chair back, got to his feet, and glowered down at the shorter man. “What now, Randy?” he asked.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Randy balled up a fist and delivered a straight punch below Wade’s belt. When Wade doubled over, Randy swung at his jaw. Even though his knuckles landed more or less on target, he simply didn’t have enough muscle behind them to do much more than turn Wade’s head.

  “You stinkin’ little—” was all Wade got a chance to say before he was roughly shoved back down into his chair.

  Mason had been watching the confrontation along with the rest of the saloon, and he’d barely noticed the man with the Army Colt leave his table until he was within arm’s reach of Wade.

  If Wade had been ready to start a tussle with Randy, he was nowhere near as ready to get into anything with the fellow who’d put him back in his seat. In fact, Wade seemed downright timid when he said, “This isn’t anything serious.”

  The man with the Colt looked over to Randy and got a nod from the smaller man. He then knocked Wade’s hat from his head, grabbed a handful of hair, and dropped a fist onto Wade’s face like driving a railroad spike into the ground.

  Mason hadn’t seen anything so crude and viciously callous as that in a fistfight. Usually fighters tried to take swings at each other or aim for various pieces of anatomy. Whoever this man was, he smashed Wade’s head as if he weren’t hitting another living thing at all. It was barbaric in every sense of the word.

  At first, when Wade leaned back in his chair, Mason was certain he was out like a snuffed candle. Eventually Wade pulled himself up and pressed his hands to his face. From there, he slumped forward and trembled. “I’ll pay the money back,” he said through his hands.

  Randy couldn’t have been more satisfied with himself if he’d been the one to get his hands dirty. “What money?”

  “The money I won. Take it back.”

  “Nah,” Randy said as he patted Wade on the shoulder. “You won it fair and square. It’s yours. You should just be a little more courteous, is all.”

  “I’m sorry, Randy.”

  “See? This time, I believe you.” Turning toward the stage, Randy hollered, “Where are them dancing girls?”

  The men who played the music were nowhere to be found, but the girls who’d been on the stage earlier stuck their heads out to greet the crowd. They didn’t have anything to dance to, so they walked out to wander from table to table instead. None of the men in the Bistro seemed to mind one bit.

  Randy was on his way to the bar when he found one of the girls, a dancer with a slender frame and thick, curly hair. He made a few lewd comments to her, put his hand on her hip, and showed her a smile that was scummier than the back end of a swamp rat. To her credit, the dancing girl made a real good show of not being disgusted until she convinced him to let her go. By the time Randy made his way to the bar, Mason was already standing there.

  “Gimme a beer,” Randy said as he stood on the brass rail in front of the spittoons and slapped the top of the bar.

  The entire place was back to the state of merriment it had been in when Mason first arrived. Randy nodded and gazed about in self-satisfaction as if he were the cause of all the smiles on his fellow men instead of the beautiful women making their rounds. As soon as a beer was set down in front of Randy, Mason said, “I’ll pay for that drink.”

  Randy looked over at him and raised his mug. “Obliged, mister. Do I know you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then . . . why pay for my beer?”

  “You’re the man who brought them girls out from where they were hiding, aren’t you?”

  “You saw it for yourself,” Randy said.

  “That seems like a good enough reason for celebration to me.”

  “Ha! You got that right! I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Because I never tossed it,” Mason replied, using a joke that usually went over
well with obnoxious men.

  Randy ate it up as if it were coated in syrup. “Randal Simons, but everyone calls me Randy.”

  Mason pulled one of his aliases from the back of his mind a whole lot faster than he could have drawn his Remington. “William Abner,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Simons stuck out his chubby hand. It was the one with a gold ring wrapped around one finger so tight that it looked to be permanently wedged within his flesh. The instant Mason shook that hand, he knew what he was going to do to cross Simons’s name off Greeley’s list.

  Chapter 23

  Mason ignored his personal preferences and sidled up to the card table to play a few hands of seven-card stud. Granted, that was after having a few beers with Simons, but that small amount of bitter brew wasn’t nearly enough to cushion the blow of tossing in an ante for that dreadful game. Once he reminded himself he was playing with Greeley’s expense money, Mason felt a whole lot better.

  That night wasn’t about gambling as far as Mason was concerned. He won a few hands and lost a whole lot more. Considering the low caliber of competition at that table, losing without looking as though he’d meant to lose was a feat in itself. Every moment he spent in the Bistro that night was directed at getting a feel for Simons and any of the men working for him.

  The girls were soon back onstage, but only one of them was on her feet. The other two sat with their feet dangling over the side while having conversations with customers. A blonde stood in the middle of the platform, singing along to the tired strumming of a man with a guitar. It was well past midnight, and though Mason wouldn’t normally be ready for bed, he was very short on sleep.

  “I think that’s enough!” Simons announced as he stood up from his chair. “I’ll win more of your money tomorrow.”

  Players scattered throughout the room said their good-byes to the short man who’d bought so many rounds of drinks. The few who remained silent were armed and watched the people around them like hunters picking out the ducks they meant to knock from the sky. Mason wasn’t sure if they were deputies, bounty hunters, or just frightening members of the Simons family. He was certain they were looking out for Randy’s interests, though. During the entire night, when Simons had been angry, those men perched at the edges of their seats and didn’t relax until Simons did. When Simons had been happy, those men sank into their chairs and took advantage of the lull preceding another squall.