Hell's Half Acre

by William W. Johnstone

  Jess tossed the kid the reins of the paint pony. “Len died for nothing,” he said. “See he’s buried right.”

  “We will,” the puncher said. “Me and Bill here will ride out right away afore it gets too late, see on account of how Len was always afeard of the dark.”

  “Well, he’s in endless darkness now, isn’t he?” Jess said.

  * * *

  Jess Casey took care of his horse then flopped behind his desk. He poured himself three fingers of Old Crow and built a cigarette, willing himself to relax. He’d made his feelings clear to Kurt Koenig and he was sure the big man would make the next move. But what might it be? Would he take his bullet-holed star and tell him he was through? That was the most realistic possibility, but exhausted as he was, Jess decided to postpone any thoughts on that topic until tomorrow.

  He sipped the whiskey and drew deep on his cigarette, eyes closed, his head resting against the back of the chair.

  The door opened and he heard the rustle of skirts.

  “The office is closed and the sheriff has gone fishing,” he said without opening his eyes.

  “I came to thank you.”

  Jess recognized the voice and jolted upright in his chair. “Miss Burke, what are you doing here?”

  Lillian Burke smiled. “As I said, I came to thank you. May I sit?”

  “Of course,” Jess said. He rose to his feet and made a fuss of adjusting the chair before the girl sat. Lillian wore a dress of amber-colored silk that was as glossy as her hair. A small hat with a ship under sail perched on the top of her swept-up ringlets. She carried a long-handled parasol the same shade as her dress and it was as lacy and feminine as she was.

  She’d been in an opium coma the night before, sweaty, babbling and disheveled, but now she looked as fresh as a spring morning, as though she’d just stepped out of a bandbox.

  Lillian refused a drink then said, “Mei-Xing Sun told me what you did. You were very galant, Sheriff, a knight in shining armor, but I really didn’t need rescue.”

  “But you were in that terrible place . . .”

  The girl smiled. “The Green Buddha is not a terrible place. Once I enter I’m soon transported to wonderful destinations on the wings of dreams. It’s a fabulous flight. Do you understand?”

  “Miss Burke—”

  “Call me Lillian, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Opium is a drug.”

  “Of course it is and so is morphine, its bastard child, and I love them both. Have you slept with a woman, Sheriff?”

  Jess was wary of a trap. “Yes . . . yes, of course I have.”

  “Opium is better.” Lillian giggled. “Or so I’m told by my gentlemen friends.” Still smiling, her face that of an angel, she said, “Please don’t rescue me again or I’ll be very cross with you.” She rose to her feet. “I’m perfectly safe, you know.”

  Jess said, “Anyone, I mean . . . oh hell, I mean you could be taken advantage of in that place.”

  “Raped, you mean?” Lillian said.

  “Yes. Exactly that.”

  “A man tried that at the Green Buddha once. He lay beside a dreaming girl and tried to have his way with her,” Lillian said.

  “Was it you?” Jess said.

  “No. She was someone else, but a girl I knew. The man’s name was Pettibone and later they found his body in Rusk Street, his manly parts in Houston Street and his head, well, his head has never been found.”

  Lillian stepped to the door, stopped and blew Jess a kiss from her beautiful scarlet mouth. “Bye-bye, gallant knight,” she said.

  Jess said, “Lillian, I’ll do my best to shut that den down.”

  The girl smiled. “Oh dear, Sheriff, then Kurt Koenig will surely kill you.”

  The door slammed shut and Jess felt a great sense of loss. Never in his life had he seen a woman as beautiful as Lillian Burke and he knew he was falling in love with her. But she had another, greater love in her life that she would not forsake, an ardent but fickle lover named Opium.

  Jess drained his glass, and poured another. He laid the drink beside him and buried his face in his hands. Somehow he’d lost his way and had ridden into a box canyon of his own making. Now there was nowhere to go but back the way he’d come . . . to a life without Lillian, a life without joy or purpose.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Luke Short didn’t like what was coming down.

  The two Panther City Boys, big, belligerent and boozed up, were hunting trouble and they’d already scared off a dozen regular customers. It was the midnight hour and the White Elephant should be jumping, but it was as quiet as the city library and the piano player, threatened with death if he didn’t play “Juanita” the whole night long, had slunk away.

  The girls had tried their best, but the Panther City Boys, being employees of Kurt Koenig, the richest and most powerful man in Fort Worth, reckoned their exalted status entitled them to free ones. Mexican standoff had resulted. The four girls sulked at a table and the boys, hunting trouble, let them.

  Short was not an even-tempered man and his rage simmered as he stood behind the bar and waited for customers who would never arrive. The last thing he wanted to do was offend Koenig and get run out of town. But a man has his limit and when the boys began to jeer, openly comparing breast sizes and then tossing their empty glasses in the girls’ direction, he reached his.

  Short disliked gun belts. He said they constricted his bowel movements, and that night he carried his fancy Colt in his waistband. He stepped from behind the bar, eased closer to the two men and said, “You boys pipe down and let the ladies alone.” Luke purposely separated himself from the two thugs by about five feet of smoky air. Drunk as they were, the Panther City Boys didn’t pay his move any heed but the regular bartender, a long-faced man well used to witnessing shootings and cuttings, knew what his boss was about and allowed a smile to touch his lips.

  The bigger of the two men, a violent, profane brute called Whitey Dowell, grinned and said, “Ladies? They’re whores and they belong on a hog ranch.”

  “That,” Short said, “is a matter of opinion.”

  “It’s my opinion,” Dowell said. “And it’s the only one that matters in this dump.”

  “You tell him, Whitey,” said his companion, a vicious, slack-mouthed youth named Dopey Dawson, who was wanted for murder and rape in half a dozen states and territories. He slammed his glass on the bar. “Fill this, bartender,” he said.

  “Dopey, you’ve had enough,” Short said. “And that goes for you as well, Whitey. Come back tomorrow when you’ve both sobered up.”

  Now, that was a reasonable request, but Dowell and Dawson were not reasonable men, not that night or any other.

  “You throwin’ us out, Luke?” Dowell said. His face was stiff, his carrion-eater eyes glittering. He wore a holstered revolver as did Dopey Dawson, and they had both killed men before.

  “No, Whitey, I’m just politely asking you to leave,” Short said.

  “Go to hell, you little runt,” Dowell said. And Dawson smirked as they both turned to the bar and loudly demanded whiskey.

  Short waited for a few moments then said, “Turn and face me, gentlemen. I have something to say.”

  Whitey turned, looking down on Short from his great height as though he were a dog turd on the boardwalk. “Then say it,” he said. “And be civil or I’ll tear this stinking whorehouse down around your ears.”

  Dopey Dawson, being of somewhat low intelligence, merely smirked again.

  Luke smiled, always a bad sign. “I’ll be as courteous as I can, boys,” he said. “Now I’m not asking you to leave, I’m telling you.”

  In later years wise men talking around potbellied stoves in the dead of winter opined that Whitey should have remembered that Luke had gunned Jim Courtright and nobody thought Jim was a bargain.

  Maybe Whitey did remember but didn’t give a damn. We’ll never know because he made the fatal mistake of drawing down on Short, so no one got a chance to ask him.

/>   Whitey Dowell was good, fast on the draw and shoot, and actually got off the first shot. But he fired while his Colt was coming up and he missed low and to the left. Luke returned fire. It was said of Short that he was the undertakers’ friend, because he shot his opponents where it didn’t show. Maybe that’s why he shot Whitey in the belly. Hit hard, Dowell took a step back, his mouth quivering. Luke directed his attention to Dopey Dawson, whose Remington was still clearing leather. He fired. The bullet hit Dopey’s trigger finger and then ranged wild. Horrified, Dawson dropped his gun and stared at the bloody stump of his mangled digit. Luke saw he was out of it for now and he and Whitey exchanged shots. Neither scored a hit. The shock wearing off, replaced by pain, Dowell thumbed off three more rounds. One tore through the loose cotton of Luke’s shirt but the other two were wide. Steadying himself, concentrating on the sights and trigger, Luke fired and his aim was true. The bullet hit Whitey high in the forehead and the man dropped, blood already staining his face.

  “I’m done, Luke!” Dopey said. He had his hand on his right wrist and held up the gory stump of his finger for Short to see.

  “Damn you, this is a shooting scrape,” Luke yelled. “Pick up the gun in your other hand and get to your work.”

  Lily La Royale, formerly Bessie Baggett from Coldwater, Kansas, decided it was time to sum up the matter. She drew a Remington derringer from her garter and at a range of three feet shot Dopey Dawson in the head.

  Big Sal later displayed both corpses in the window of her premises and expressed her irritation that Lily and Luke had shot them where it showed.

  During those moments of ear-ringing unreality that follow a gunfight, Luke Short was appalled. The shooting deaths of two of his men was not a thing that Kurt Koenig would overlook or be inclined to write off as a misunderstanding. Now if Luke wanted to hang on to the White Elephant he’d have to fight for it.

  * * *

  Kurt Koenig stepped into the White Elephant just as Big Sal was leaving, a dead man in each arm. “They’re yours, Kurt,” she said.

  “I know,” Koenig said. “Whitey Dowell and Dopey Dawson, two good men shot down like dogs.”

  Big Sal hefted Whitey’s bloody corpse higher under her hairy armpit. “They’ll be sadly missed,” she said. “Heaven has two more angels.”

  Angry as he was, even Koenig saw the humor in that. “I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, Sal,” he said.

  “Nor me, either,” the woman said.

  Koenig stepped to the bar. He had four Panther City Boys with him, each wearing a deputy’s star. “Where is he?” Koenig said.

  The bartender thumbed over his shoulder. “Back room. He’s expecting you.”

  “I bet he is,” Koenig said. He turned to his men. “One of you boys go get Sheriff Casey and bring him here. You others stay here at the bar, but I want you sober. Luke can be almighty sudden.”

  “I guess Whitey and Dopey learned that the hard way,” one of the men said.

  “And they’re not the first,” Koenig said.

  He rounded the bar, ducked through a bead curtain, passing a half-naked girl on the way, and walked to the heavy walnut door facing him. “Luke!” he yelled. “It’s Kurt Koenig. I’m coming in, so don’t make any fancy moves.”

  “The door’s open,” Short said. “I want to see empty hands and a smile, like you were visiting kissin’ kin.”

  “After what’s happened I don’t feel much like smiling, Luke,” Koenig said.

  “Then empty hands will do,” Short said. “And remember, I can drill ya.”

  “I’m coming in, Luke.” Koenig opened the door and stepped inside.

  Short sat behind a massive oak desk facing him, a Colt steady in his hands. “They drew down on me, Kurt. I got five witnesses who’ll say Whitey, God rest him, skinned his piece first.” The Colt didn’t waver. “That’s how it was and I’m through talking about it.”

  “Do you ever offer a man a drink?” Koenig said.

  Luke’s Colt motioned to a row of crystal decanters on a table pushed against the far wall. Above the table, draped in black crepe, was a portrait of the gallant Custer. “Help yourself,” he said.

  Koenig nodded to the picture. “Looks like our new sheriff.”

  “Don’t it, though,” Luke said.

  “I’ve sent for him,” Koenig said as he poured himself a drink.

  “Why’s that?” Luke said.

  “Keep him busy and out of my hair.”

  Koenig returned to the desk and sat in the overstuffed chair opposite Short. “I could burn this place down, Luke,” he said. “With you inside it.”

  “You could try,” Short said.

  “Put that damned gun down and listen.”

  Luke opened a drawer, laid the Colt inside, then said, “I’m all ears, Kurt.”

  “I have a plan and we can avoid future unpleasantness if you’ll agree to work with me,” Koenig said.

  “Jim Courtright wanted protection money,” Luke said. “I refused to work with him.”

  “Nothing that crude, Luke. Come now, we’re both businessmen.”

  Short sighed and said, “Then let’s hear it.”

  “The White Elephant is not within the limits of the Half Acre, properly speaking,” Koenig said. “It doesn’t have the same, shall we say, stigma, of the Silver Garter. In other words, respectable folk come here.”

  “Most of them are, I guess. That is, until your ruffians showed up tonight and scared them off.”

  “A misunderstanding, obviously,” Koenig said, waving a dismissive hand. He smiled like a cobra. “That is, if you agree to my proposition.”

  “Are you trying to blackmail me, Kurt?” Luke said.

  “Yes.”

  “I figured that. So what’s your proposition? If I dare ask.”

  “I want to sell opium in the White Elephant.”

  “Huh?” Luke said, shocked. “You mean turn my place into an opium den?”

  “Yes. For the respectable folks of Fort Worth. And ‘opium den’ is so coarse, Luke. The upper classes prefer to call it a relaxation parlor. Before you object, let me say that with my funding we can renovate this place, plenty of brass and red velvet, gambling table, a score of pretty girls on hand, and we’ll stock the bar with the best wines, spirits and cigars in Texas.” Koenig leaned forward in his chair. “Now what do you say?”

  “I say, what’s in it for me?” Luke said.

  “Forty percent of all monies taken,” Koenig said. “Luke, I’m talking more than a hundred thousand a year. You’ll be a rich man.”

  “What about the product?” Luke said.

  “Opium arrives in San Francisco by sea from India and Burma and is distributed from there. Our supply is assured for years to come.”

  Luke Short rubbed his temples, then said, “Let me study on it for a few days, Kurt.”

  “I’ll wait five days for an answer, Luke,” Koenig said. “If you say yes, then we will become friends and business partners.”

  “And if I say no?” Luke said.

  “Then we will be the bitterest of enemies.”

  “You sure lay it on the line, don’t you, Kurt?”

  “With so much money at stake, is there any other way?”

  Luke said, “I reckon that’s so.”

  He caught a glow of triumph in Koenig’s eyes and it troubled him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “It’s all over, Sheriff,” Luke Short said. “The city marshal was here and agreed that it was self-defense. I’ve got five witnesses who will swear to it.”

  “City marshal. You mean Kurt Koenig,” Jess Casey said.

  “Marshal Koenig, yes,” Short said. His eyes slid from Jess’s face.

  “What happened?”

  “Two troublemakers drew down on me and I had to kill them both,” Luke said. He said nothing about Lily’s role in the affray, fearing that she might become a target of Panther City Boys out for revenge.

  “Cut-and-dried, huh?” Jess said.

  “I�
��m afraid so,” Short said.

  “Then why did Koenig want me here?”

  “To carry out an investigation, I suppose,” Short said. “I guess you’ll want to talk to the witnesses.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Jess said. He had been wakened from bed and he was fatigued, his shirt hanging out of his pants and a two-day growth of stubble on his chin. “I’m sure Koenig covered everything.”

  “He did,” Short said. “He’s a very thorough man.”

  Jess looked at the little gambler as though seeing him for the first time. Short seemed agitated. Something was troubling him. Was he holding something back about the killings?

  “Maybe I will talk to the witnesses,” Jess said.

  “My girls were four of them, but they’ve all gone to bed,” Short said.

  “Who is the fifth?”

  “My bartender. His name is Gus Kelly.”

  Jess said, “Then I’ll talk to him first.”

  * * *

  “Whitey Dowell threw down on Mr. Short first, Sheriff,” Kelly said. “Then Dopey Dawson—”

  “Dopey? That was his name?”

  “That’s what folks called him on account of how Dawson was a little slow. Nobody knows what his real given name was. Anyhoo, Dopey pulled his gun and Mr. Short killed them both. It was a fair fight, Sheriff, if you consider two against one fair.”

  Luke stepped beside Jess. “Do you want me to wake the girls?” he said.

  “I reckon not,” Jess said. “They’re all going to say the same thing.”

  “That’s because they all saw the same thing,” Short said.

  Jess nodded. “Yeah, I guess they did at that.”

  * * *

  Jess Casey made his way along the boardwalk, eager to return to his cot. A horned moon rode high in the sky and the coyotes yipped among the warehouses and yards along Houston Street where the rats lived. He had almost reached the sheriff’s office when footsteps pounded behind him. Jess turned, his hand on his gun, but it was a woman who faced him, thin as a bed slat in a shabby cotton dress.

  “Sheriff, you must come,” she said.

  “What’s happened?” Jess said.