They surveyed it from a distance, a lonely section of the regular trail winding around the base of a butte. Jim, his eyes slitted against the sun-glare, reminded the Mex: “Those four renegades never caught sight of you, so you’re safe enough. You can please yourself whether you ride in with me. For a starter, it might be wise for us to separate.”
“They did see you,” Benito pointed out.
“Just a glimpse,” shrugged Jim. “I’ve shaved off the beard. I’m dressed differently and I’m forking a different horse. Anyway, I don’t know that they’d be right there in town,”
“If they are,” frowned Benito, “they will not wear the uniform of the soldado.”
“I’d be mighty surprised if they did,” scowled Jim. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.” He nodded in farewell. “If you decide to pay this burg a visit, try to keep your nose clean—don’t pick any pockets—comprender?”
“Sí.” The Mex unslung his battered guitar, studied it sadly. “Do the people of this town love music? I hope so. Only by singing to them can I hope to earn a miserable peso or two.”
But mindful of the quality of Benito’s singing, and remembering that the battered guitar was almost as tuneless, Jim offered a word of advice.
“Maybe they do love music—so for Pete’s sake don’t sing to ’em.”
“I have no dinero,” shrugged Benito. “In this town, I will die of starvation or thirst.”
He arranged his unprepossessing features in an expression of pleading, held out a none too clean paw. Jim shrugged resignedly, fished out his wallet and extracted a ten dollar bill.
“This ought to hold you for a while.”
“Un millón de gracias!” beamed the Mex. In a positive fever of gratitude, he rose in his stirrups and leaned over sideways, not just to accept the ten dollars, but to attempt to embrace his burly traveling companion. “Es usted muy amable!”
“No hay de que,” growled Jim, thrusting him away. “My amigo!” enthused Benito. “My one true and loyal amigo!”
“I heard you the first time,” said Jim.
“Adios!” grinned Benito, as he made to turn the burro away. “Nos veremos mas tarde.”
“Hold it,” Jim coldly commanded. “Come back here, you flea-bit, pocket-picking son of a buzzard.”
“Me?” Benito eyed him reproachfully.
“You.” Jim’s Colt was out, cocked and pointed unerringly at the little man’s sunken chest. “Ten dollars—okay. You’re welcome. But all of it? Not so you’d notice.” He held out his left hand, gestured impatiently with his six-gun. “Hand ’em back, cucaracha.”
Even now, after so many months of his companionship, he could still marvel at the audacity, the sheer artistry with which the little Mex could relieve a victim of his valuables. Only through constant association—and instinctive vigilance—had he developed a counter-talent, an ability to forestall such attempts. He glowered, showed his teeth and repeated his demand.
“Is a tragedia,” Benito bitterly complained, “that you do not trust me. You—my close and dear friend.”
“You can keep the ten dollars,” said Jim. “I’ll take back all the other stuff—now.”
Again, Benito retreated into his native tongue. Shrugging and grinning, he triumphantly declared:
“No comprendo.”
“No?” Jim grinned wryly. “All right—lift ’em!”
Benito sighed heavily, raised his arms. Jim nudged the sorrel closer. Using his left hand and taking care to stay clear of those itchy, always-greedy fingers, he retrieved his wallet from the inside pocket of Benito’s chaqueta. He then made a careful check to assure himself that his kerchief, jack-knife, small change and personal papers were still with him. Yes. All accounted for. As a final precaution, he tallied the contents of his wallet. Bueno. The little ladrón had not had time to rifle it.
Unashamed, Benito acted out every last nuance of shabby deception from the little melodrama.
“How did that get into my clothes?” he demanded of the world at large. “I am confused. This is a mystery!”
“You never give up, do you?” sighed Jim. He holstered his Colt, gestured towards Brigg City. “Ride, cucaracha. You first. I’d as soon have you travel ahead of me than behind.”
“Not to be trusted,” lamented Benito, “by my close and dear friend who …”
“Vamoose!” barked Jim.
Benito shrugged forlornly, dug in his heels and started the burro plodding away along the town trail. For another quarter-hour Jim waited there. And then, adjusting his Stetson and squaring his shoulders, he began the last lap of his journey to Brigg City. Here in this sizeable frontier metropolis he would very soon know whether or not his masquerade was to pass muster, whether or not he could delude the denizens of the honky tanks and gambling halls into accepting him as a preacher of the gospel.
He was convinced that the houses of entertainment would be the likeliest places for the acquisition and assessment of information. Stage robbers or bank bandits, they were all tarred with the same brush, birds of a feather adhering to the same tastes in relaxation—liquor, cards, women. He might learn nothing of the bogus troopers at the livery stables or general stores, but a saloon was a different proposition, a potential mine of information and rumors. Traditionally, women were gossip-mongers, or thought to be so. But, to Jim’s certain knowledge, the male animal did more than his share of talking and bragging, especially when his tongue was loosened by whisky.
It was exactly 3.45 p.m. when he idled the sorrel into the east end of Brigg City’s main stem. Straight-backed in the saddle, black-garbed and impassive, he won the curiosity of quite a few passers-by, all of whom noted his sober rig and assumed him to be what he pretended to be—a drifting ‘sin-killer’.
By coincidence, he passed three saloons before he decided upon the establishment in which he would make his debut as a preacher—the Lucky Chance. He was impressed by this double-storied edifice, by the way it seemed to spread for a goodly section of that block. The barber shop and pool parlor to its right and the restaurant to its left seemed connected with the saloon. When he entered the bar-room, he observed that the connection was a reality; archways to either side led into those other establishments. Apparently a customer could drink, gamble, dance, dine, play pool or get a haircut and shave all without leaving the building.
The atmosphere was familiar to Big Jim. He savored it while maintaining an expression of sad distaste—the pungent odors of tobacco-smoke, liquor and sweating humanity. He got the impression that the Lucky Chance was a popular retreat of the local cowpokes; there were many men present wearing the rig of ranch-hands. Two barkeeps were being kept busy. All the gambling tables were being patronized. A good-looking, auburn-haired woman in a black beaded gown was supervising at the roulette layout. A never-to-be-forgotten Mex was strumming a guitar in a corner, trying to serenade a percentage-girl whose flashing eyes and raven hair indicated that her place of birth had been somewhere south.
Benito pretended not to notice the big man in black.
“Now or never,” Jim was thinking, as he strode resolutely to the bar. “I convince ’em—or get laughed out of the place.”
A barkeep eyed him warily. He met the beer-puller’s stare with a preoccupied nod and won sudden silence from every customer in sight of him by sweeping his coat-tails back and emptying his holster. From an inside pocket, he produced the dog-eared Bible loaned him by Arnie Flagg. The barkeep’s eyebrows were elevated to the vicinity of his hairline, as Jim placed the Bible and his long-barreled Colt .45 on the bar.
“Hold on now, preacher …” began the barkeep.
“Hold on indeed, friend,” drawled Jim. “Never abandon the Good Book and all the wisdom contained therein.” The cessation of talk in the region of the bar caused Cass Broderick to cast a glance in that direction. She noted the big, ivory-butted six-gun and the Bible, and jumped to the obvious conclusion. It wasn’t the first time that some black-garbed stranger had invaded the garish walls of the L
ucky Chance for the purpose of evangelism; she was prepared to be patient with any and all ministers of the gospel.
“Brother Musician,” Jim called to the derby-hatted piano-player, “I’ll thank you to desist awhile. Unless, of course, you know any hymns.”
The ‘professor’ won a burst of laughter with his reply. “Sorry, preacher. Nobody ever asks for hymns at the Lucky Chance.”
The chatter from the games of chance, the click of poker chips and the clink of glasses had ceased’. Jim was being accorded a moment of silence and would have to capitalize on it. If his preamble were too mundane, too banal, he would have failed. Was this important? Need he care a damn whether or not these people were impressed by his oratory? Suddenly, it was important, because he was experiencing a mild resentment of the derisive grins on the faces of these cowhands.
“Abandon hope,” he intoned, “all ye who enter here.”
“Aw, hell, here we go again!” scowled a bottle-brandishing drunk. “Another consarned sin-killer!”
“Moose—hold your tongue,” called Cass. She rose to her feet, an easy, simple movement that won her the attention of every man present, including the big stranger. “You know my rules, boys. It’s bad luck to cuss a parson. The least we can do is give him a hearing.” She surveyed the big man, showing him a companionable smile. “But could you make it brief, Reverend?”
Jim bowed to her. He wasn’t quite sure whether a preacher should bow to a saloonkeeper, but she was more than passably attractive and her tone was ladylike, so he bowed to her anyway. Then, in a parade-ground bellow that took the boozers, tinhorns, townsmen and cowpokes by surprise, he began reproaching them on the error of their ways.
“Hell fire awaits the libertine, the fornicator, the scarlet woman—those who willfully addle their brains with hard liquor—those who gamble away the coin that should be used to purchase food for starving children and neglected wives—those who live by the gun and worship violence …”
He capitalized on several minutes of shocked silence, developing every threat of retribution, emphasizing the fire and brimstone angle so beloved of all tub-thumping sin-killers, and little realizing the impact with which he was punching his points home. While his booming voice carried to every nook and corner of the bar-room, assailing ears, pleading, promising threatening, warning, hard-boiled men traded nervous glances and painted percentage-women flinched. One such female rose from the lap of a befuddled would-be Lothario, slapped his face and, with a fine show of injured righteousness, strutted to the stairs and hurried up to the gallery. Another, thoroughly intimidated by Jim’s description of Hades, burst into tears, flopped to her knees and screamed:
“I wanta be saved!”
A pudgy townsman of florid completion and glazed eyes upended his glass and mumbled:
“I’m goin’ back where I belong—back to the wife and kids.”
Interjections were coming thick and fast. Whatever else Jim had achieved, it was certain that he had impressed his audience. Some were all for him; others were just as solidly opposed to him, demanding that he be thrown out. A crying drunk stumbled over to the piano and begged the professor to play “Rock of Ages”. A drunk of different temperament urged a bartender to: “Use your shotgun! Blow that big killjoy outa here!” Jim tried not to notice, while enlarging on his threat of perdition for all evil-doers, that a certain buck-toothed reprobate was taking advantage of the prevailing situation; Benito Espina was slowly moving through the throng, taking up a collection; a useful quantity of hard cash was being dropped into the capacious crown of his sombrero.
His sermon had lasted a few seconds less than ten minutes. He was almost ready to end it, but two dissenters seemed determined to close the proceedings in their own violent fashion. Murle and Durango had come to town for a good time; not to have their souls saved. They were to the fore of the rowdy cowpokes yelling at Jim to desist.
“Last warnin’, preacher!” panted Murle, advancing on him with fists bunched. “Shuddup and skedaddle—and I mean now!”
“No rough stuff now,” cautioned a bartender, but his reprimand was ignored.
“… the only happiness,” Jim continued, “lies in true righteousness ...”
‘The hell with him!” snarled Durango. “He’s beggin’ for it!”
Cass Broderick was on her feet again, calling a protest but making no impression on the two Rafter 7 rowdies. Cursing, luridly, Murle stepped up to Jim and swung a hard blow at him, and the clamor abruptly abated. It was probably the first time that the local roughnecks had seen a sin-killer take a punch on the jaw.
The blow did no more than sting the rock-hard jaw of ex-Sergeant Rand, and he was somewhat at a loss as to how he should react. Should a genuine preacher retaliate—physically? While thinking about it, he gazed down reproachfully into the gunman’s upturned face. The crowd was watching him in fascination. How should he react? The question fretted him until inspiration came to his aid. Solemnly, he assured Murle:
“I forgive you—poor sinner—for that uncharitable act.”
Murle turned and blinked at Durango.
“Loco!” he complained. “He must be plain loco!”
“Or yeller,” jeered Durango. “Ain’t got the gizzard to hit back.”
“True righteousness, my good friends,” Jim continued, “is the key to the door through which only the chosen may pass ...”
“You didn’t hit him hard enough, Murle!” scowled Durango.
“Now just a doggone minute!” protested a barkeep.
“You’re going too far, you two,” chided Cass, moving towards them.
“I ain’t lettin’ up on this bull-roarin’ preacher,” asserted Durango, “till his big mouth is shut tight!”
With that, he swung two wild blows at Jim, a left that started his right ear smarting, a right that gashed his face. Jim stood his ground, eyed Durango thoughtfully and said, “Brother, I beg you to cease this violence.”
“You hear that, fellers?” guffawed Durango. “I got him beggin’ for mercy already!”
“Clobber him again, Durango!” urged Murle. “Clobber him harder! Make him bleed!”
It was fortunate for these two hardcases that, at this stage of the game, Jim was unaware of their connection with the bogus troopers. Had he suspected as much, his retaliation would have been more severe. As it was, he had wearied of their efforts to humiliate him.
“I beg you, brother …” he began.
But Durango was aiming another blow at him, and his patience was at an end. To the accompaniment of whoops of glee from the onlookers, he blocked Durango’s swing and plunged him into oblivion with a short, jolting jab to the jaw. His bunched left traveled no farther than seven inches to its destination, but the effect was catastrophic from Durango’s point of view; he went down quickly, thudding to the floor in an inert, untidy heap.
“As I was about to say,” Jim shook his head sadly, “I beg’ you both to cease this violence ...”
Again he was interrupted. Murle, enraged at the treatment suffered by his sidekick, had drawn his Colt and was throwing himself forward, lifting his right arm to strike at Jim’s head. An expert with firearms of every description, Jim wasn’t about to take a chance on that pistol being discharged by the impact of a blow; it could happen with a gun of faulty mechanism. Nimbly, he turned side-on to Murle. His left hand flashed up, the fingers closing over the gunman’s right wrist like a vice. Murle yelled, as his arm was forced upwards. He couldn’t thumb back the hammer of his Colt; so tightly did Jim grasp his wrist that his whole hand had gone numb. He gave vent to an obscene curse, clawed for Jim’s face with his left hand, aimed a kick at his shins. Jim knocked that clawing hand away, exerted pressure on the other and heard the gun drop to the floor. His right suddenly became a bunched, rock-like fist. It exploded in Murle’s face with the impact of a battering-ram, and Murle retreated in disorder, stumbling backwards for ten yards, colliding with two drinkers and knocking them to the floor, ending his flight slumped over
a card table. He was unconscious, sprawled in ungainly posture, arms and legs dangling..
The din of applause was deafening. Men hemmed Jim in on all sides, struggling for the privilege of pounding his back and shaking his hand. He had to wait for the uproar to subside before he could regretfully assure them:
“I come not to fight, brothers, not to do violence, but to preach to the ungodly.”
“Preacher, you do all right,” chuckled a bartender, “for a man that ain’t partial to violence.”
“I fear you’ve missed the point, my friend,” sighed Jim, as he watched Murle and Durango carried out. “I struck these unfortunate sinners, rendered them unconscious, only to demonstrate the futility of violence.”
“Well, you could’ve fooled me,” drawled Cass Broderick. She stood beside the big man now, studying him with keen interest, watching him retrieve the Bible and return his Colt to its holster. “The way you took care of Murle and Durango, I’d have supposed you were no stranger to a fist-fight.”
Jim turned for a closer and more appreciative scrutiny of this soft-spoken redhead. He was impressed by what he saw; an alert mentality was reflected in those quizzical green eyes, and he had a marked respect for women of superior intelligence.
“Ma’am,” he frowned, “I haven’t always been a preacher.”
“What were you before?” She flashed him a smile. “A bouncer?”
“You wouldn’t be interested, ma’am,” he shrugged.
“Don’t be too sure about that.” She offered her hand. He held it a moment, and her touch was firm. “I’m Cassandra Broderick.”
“Mrs. Broderick, ma’am …” He bowed over her hand. “James Carey Rand—your servant.”
“How did you know it was ‘Mrs.?” she demanded. “Most men, meeting me for the first time, assume I’m a spinster.”
“The gold band, ma’am,” he drawled. “Third finger of your left hand.”
“Mighty observant,” she commented. “Mighty observant indeed.” She took a step backwards, folded her arms and surveyed him pensively. “You’re a lot of man, Reverend, but …”
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