“Brother Benito!” She greeted him in her booming baritone, so that his ears rang. “Greetings and congratulations! You will never regret this decision! Come, Brother.” The heavy hand moved down to close around his arm and, as she turned and began striding along the hall, he was jerked off his feet like a weed plucked from the potato patch. “I can’t wait to present you to our other members!”
“Señora …” he gasped.
“I am Eunice Barnshaw,” she informed him. “A widow—like Sister Cragg …”
Of course you are a widow, he was thinking. Naturally! Such a woman would damn soon scare her husband to death, no?
“You will march with us this night, Brother Benito,” she declared, “to another victory, another triumph …!” She gestured energetically with a furled umbrella, causing him to duck hastily. “Once again, Righteousness will defeat Evil! We will descend upon the dens of swill and iniquity as avenging angels …!”
These sentiments—or perhaps ‘war cries’ would have been a more apt term—were enlarged upon at some length in Mercedes Cragg’s parlor. Into this tiny room had crammed the ten members of Durrance’s most active reform group, the League of Loyal Abstainers, ten belligerent, respectable, excitable and completely sincere women determined to save mankind from himself. As fervently as Abe Lincoln had yearned to abolish slavery, these ladies hankered to abolish firewater—all varieties thereof.
And, hemmed in on all sides, with every avenue of escape cut off, Benito Espina could do naught but sit and listen and, join in obediently, when the ladies cried, “Hallelujah!” “Down with the Devil’s brew!” “Yea, Sister!” and other such interjections calculated to fire their righteous blood. Gradually, the little Mex came to understand exactly what was happening here—and what was about to happen. The League of Loyal Abstainers were warming up for one of their regular assaults on the fleshpots of this border town. Moreover, they expected their newest recruit—namely Benito Espina, thief, womanizer and drunkard—to march along with them!
~*~
Clay Morrow had arrived in Durrance.
The bay colt was hitched to the rack outside the Cimarron Saloon. Clay listened to the raucous laughter of the customers, the shrill giggling of percentage girls, the clink of bottlenecks, against glasses, the tinny music produced by Trantor’s piano player and the monotonous chanting of the dealers supervising the roulette, faro and monte tables. By glory, this was living! This joy house would bear little resemblance to that miserable excuse for a saloon in Ellistown.
He hadn’t shaved on the morning of his departure from his old hometown, nor had he shaved since. Consequently he now wore a dark stubble. And this, added to the fine layer of trail dust clinging to his riding clothes, gave him the look of one who has travelled far, seen much and done a great deal of living. When next he shaved, maybe he would slide his razor clear of his upper lip and cultivate a mustache. There would be other changes, too. He would cease to think like Clay Morrow; he might even use a different name, an alias.
Just as he was about to climb to the saloon porch, a local swaggered past and he observed that the man’s holster hung low on his thigh, the bottom of it tied down by a thong knotted on the inside of his leg. Just such a thong dangled from his own holster. He bent, secured it to his thigh, then ascended to the porch and walked to the batwings.
Few of Trantor’s customers paid any attention to the new arrival. He noticed Big Jim immediately. The tall hunter was standing over by the dice table, not playing, watching the play, working on a short shot of whisky. His broad back was turned to the entrance.
Clay adjusted his Stetson, gave his gunbelt a hitch, as he ambled to the bar and found elbow propping space. The barkeep’s greeting was no more than a raising of eyebrows, a query as to what he was drinking. He was just as pleased. It caused him a certain satisfaction that the barkeep considered him to be no different to any of the other patrons of this noisy joy house. At least he hadn’t been immediately identified as a no account from a small town.
“Rye,” he grunted. “A double shot.”
“Comin’ up,” grunted the barkeep.
And then, from right beside Clay, a woman drawled a greeting and an invitation.
“Howdy, stranger. You want to buy me a little drink?” In the mirror behind the bar they studied their reflections and sized each other up—Joanna Gifford, the most mercenary percenter in all of Durrance, and Clay Morrow, the small town storekeeper hungry for excitement. The barkeep paused, eyeing Clay impatiently. Clay shrugged and said, “Why not?”
“My usual, Mike,” drawled the redhead. With her right hand slipping through Clay’s left arm and her voice dropping, she asked, “What do I call you?”
“The name’s Cole Morrison.” The lie came easily. It had suddenly occurred to him that some of his gear might be initialed, so he chose an alias of corresponding initials. “And you?”
“Joanna Gifford. Friends call me ‘Jo’. That okay by you?”
“Jo it is.” He paid for their drinks, picked up his own and made to toast her. “Here’s to you, Jo.”
“Not here,” she frowned. “I see a table vacant. Why don’t we get a load off our feet? You look like you’ve ridden a long ways.”
“That’s true enough,” he assured her.
As they moved through the milling crowd towards the unoccupied table by the right side wall, Lee Burch glared at the woman and was offered an insolent smile. His blood boiled, as he dealt another hand and examined his cards. If that fire-haired tramp was trying to make him jealous, he reflected, she was certainly succeeding—and would live to regret it.
For Clay, this was a new experience, drinking and conversing with a woman who resembled Nell as a mountain lion resembles a house cat. He wasn’t so naive as to believe that this hard boiled saloon woman was smitten by his manly charms. Far from it. More likely she would endeavor to lure him to one of the games of chance, then stand by and watch, hoping the dealer would sharp him out of his last dollar so that she might collect her percentage. Realizing this, he was still enjoying the novelty of such company. He had nothing personal against women of her profession.
“My hunch about you, Cole,” she murmured, “is you’re on the run—but it don’t worry you—because you know how to take care of yourself.”
He felt a thrill of triumph. By glory, he had changed! If this world weary woman had formed such a conclusion about him, it went to prove that dust streaked clothes, a few days’ stubble and an impassive exterior could work wonders. How should he respond to such a comment? He thought about it while taking another pull at his drink, another drag at his cigarette. Then:
“I’m not on the run,” he muttered. And, with masterly timing, he added, “Not right now.”
“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” she confided. “Durrance is a safe town for any of your kind.”
“I’m sure glad to hear that,” he told her, yawning, frowning into his glass. “Never did take kindly to saddle sores—and I have ridden quite a stretch.”
He relaxed now, reveling in the redhead’s feigned admiration for him, never suspecting that her main purpose in conversing with him was to arouse the ire of the trigger tempered Lee Burch. He caught the barkeep’s eye, pantomimed for him to bring refills. They talked on, while …
The League of Loyal Abstainers marched out of the Cragg house and along to Main Street, toting their banners, lustily singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and with the hapless, badly scared Benito trudging along between Mercedes Cragg and the massive Eunice Barnshaw. The little Mex had not yet managed to escape, let alone steal a dollar. From the moment of their arrival at Mercedes’ home, it seemed the ladies of the League had hemmed him in on all sides. He was completely intimidated, and especially by Eunice Barnshaw, because this was the first time in his life that he had heard a woman singing baritone.
Into Main Street they marched, to advance on—inevitably—the Cimarron Saloon. Through the batwings they surged in a solid, unyielding mass of whalebo
ned righteousness and lavender scented evangelism, and Trantor’s customers raised groans of exasperation.
“Aw, hell!” scowled a barkeep. “Here they come again!”
“Tell ’em, Sister Barnshaw!” shrilled a bonneted banner bearer.
And big Eunice told them in no uncertain terms, her booming voice assaulting the eardrums of all present, as well as passersby outside and, for that matter, people two blocks away.
“Drink is the damnation of mankind! Whisky, beer, gin, rum and brandy are the tools of Satan! We are here to save you from yourselves …!”
Until this tense moment, with the women lined up on either side of him, Benito hadn’t understood the significance of the cloth-wrapped bundles toted by the Abstainers. Now, with frightening alacrity, the ladies unwrapped those bundles, and the heart of Benito Espina skipped a beat. Axes! Hatchets! ¡Caramba! He turned to make a dash for the batwings, but was firmly intercepted by a woman who shoved an ax into his arms and said:
“Here, Brother Benito. You start on the shelves behind the bar. Aim for every bottle—and the head of the bartender, if he gets in your way.”
The barroom was in uproar now. In their haste to get clear of the women barging towards the bar, men collided with each other, lost their tempers and began trading punches. Others tried to restrain the brawlers, only to become involved. In a matter of seconds, struggling men and screaming women were milling to right and left, and ‘confusion’ would have been an inadequate word to describe the melee.
Big Jim was surprised, intrigued and not a little amused. Never a man to involve himself in a pointless hassle, preferring to conserve his considerable muscle-power for such conflicts as were more vitally necessary, he retired to a vantage point near the bottom of the stairs. He could hear Trantor yelling curses from the gallery, demanding that somebody go fetch the marshal. All the raised voices were confused. There was much profanity, many a howl of pain, a great deal of screaming and, to his astonishment, a plaintive protest by a voice oddly familiar to him. With increased interest, he scanned the milling throng. Sister Barnshaw had scrambled atop the bar and was attacking the bottle-laden shelves with her ax; the barkeeps had despaired of stopping her and had run for cover. Sister Cragg was chanting a different hymn now, while happily demolishing a poker table. Other Abstainers were similarly occupied. It seemed every time one of those females swung her hatchet, something had to give.
Again that familiar voice reached Jim’s ears. He stared beyond an overturned table and, to his astonishment, caught sight of the little Mex—gripping an ax and looking acutely uncomfortable.
He began working his way towards Benito. A reeling man came to a halt in front of him and, although he had never seen Jim before, aimed a blow at him. Jim blocked it and retaliated; not a very hard punch, because he wasn’t particularly annoyed. The brawler hurtled four yards backwards, slamming into two others and carrying them to the floor with him. Jim shouldered his way between a tangled quartet of wild swinging locals, took a glancing blow to the side of his head and a kick that bruised his left thigh, paused only long enough to jab four hard blows. When he moved on, those four brawlers were horizontal.
At last he reached the Mex. Gripping one of the trembling arms, he demanded, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Is a long story,” groaned Benito.
“For a starter, get rid of that damn blasted ax,” advised Jim. “Trantor’s boys are too scared to fight these women, but they’d pound you to mincemeat.”
Benito dropped the ax, cringed against the big man and pleaded, “Help me, Amigo Jim! Take me away from these women!”
“This is the first time you ever asked to be rescued from a female,” grinned Jim. “Usually it’s the other way round.”
“Por favor …!” gasped Benito.
“All right—let’s go,” chuckled Jim.
Lifting the little man off his feet and toting him pick-a-back seemed easier than frog-marching him to any of the exits. He whisked Benito off his feet as easily as if he were a child, settled him on his broad back and started for the main entrance. The way was blocked by a dozen wild swinging locals. Such was the inflammable effect created by the Loyal Abstainers; if the indignant topers couldn’t vent their spleen on the women, they could relieve their feelings by trading blows with their own kind. The uproar was deafening now, and Jim doubted if the Cimarron would remain open for business much longer. The roulette, faro and monte tables had been overturned. Beer was cascading over the bar from a barrel smashed by one of the hatchet wielding harridans, and the bottled courage on the shelves behind the bar was being systematically destroyed, and with relish.
When he turned in search of the rear entrance, he spotted the red-haired percenter and her protector. Clay Morrow’s instinct for chivalry had compelled him to make some attempt at getting Joanna out of this turmoil—before a flying chair or some other missile struck her down. She had indicated that the easiest means of exit would be by way of the kitchen, so Clay was escorting her in that direction. Jim caught only a fleeting, glimpse of the unshaven man in the travel-stained range clothes. Where had he seen that man before? Well, no time for worrying about it now.
Struggling out from under a smashed table, Lee Burch saw Joanna and her escort disappearing through the doorway beyond the bar. A curse erupted from him. At some time during the melee, an airborne spittoon had raised a bump on his head and his mood was grim. So that fire-haired hellcat was deliberately defying him. He would punish her for this—her and the stranger. Barging between a couple of struggling brawlers, he began steering a course for the kitchen entrance. Two other brawlers collided with him, bearing him to the floor, causing him more than a little delay.
The nearest means of exit that Jim could see was an open side window. As he started for it, a flying bottle sped past his face. The party, he reflected, was getting rougher than rough—and still the women could not be intimidated; the hatchets were still swinging, and Trantor was still yelling, “Somebody fetch Lundy!”
Jim grinned again, trying to visualize how the flabby badge toter would cope with such a crisis. He couldn’t imagine Lundy attempting to remonstrate with those ten viragos. More likely he had heard of the fracas and was giving the Cimarron Saloon a wide berth.
“I don’t know that I blame you, Marshal Lundy,” he reflected. “I don’t know that I blame you at all.”
They reached the window. He bent, heaving the Mex over his shoulders and onto the window ledge. Benito was poised there, his rump towards Jim, when Jim said:
“Through you go, cucaracha.”
He planted a large hand against Benito’s rear section and shoved hard. Benito disappeared and, a moment later, Jim heard the Mex’s yell of rage and frustration, and concluded he had injured himself while falling into the side alley. Well, that couldn’t be helped. The alternative to a speedy exit was the possibility of tangling with some ax-toting reformer; somehow a speedy exit seemed infinitely preferable. He pulled himself up to the window ledge, thrust his head out and, upon noting Benito’s predicament, burst into laughter. From this angle, the top of the rain barrel, the lapping water and the Mex’s threshing boots were clearly visible. In shoving him through the window, Jim had pushed him into a filled rain barrel—head first.
He swung through, braced one hand against the side of the barrel and lowered himself to the ground. He then extricated Benito from the barrel and saved him from drowning by the simple expedient of rolling it over on its side. Water ran out across the floor of the alley. Like a half drowned rodent, the spluttering, saturated Mex crawled from the barrel and lurched to his feet. The sombrero, floppier than ever, had slipped down over his ears. The battered guitar, waterlogged now, still adhered to his back. He groaned, shuddered, dripped water, while Jim stood with arms akimbo, laughing unrestrainedly.
“Is not comical,” protested Benito. “Is a tragedia. I might have become rich this night!”
Five – The Gambler’s Last Hand
&nbs
p; Judging from the thumping, crashing, splintering sounds emanating from Trantor’s premises, the ladies were still visiting. The uproar gave no promise of easing. Chilled to the marrow and in somewhat less than his usual good humor, the Mex poured out his tale of woe. Jim, having heard him out, stopped laughing and opined:
“It ought to be a lesson to you, but it probably won't.”
“Such one placentero Señora,” bemoaned Benito. “So benigno—a very gentle woman, I tell myself. And then—¡caramba! These other women come. I am brought to the cantina as a member of their organization. I cannot escape. I think I will run to the door, but suddenly they give me one hacha—the ax—and …!”
“I know the rest,” grinned Jim. “I saw it all. Quite a performance, cucaracha.” As he spoke, he glanced towards the rear end of the alley, and just in time to see two people hurrying along the rear laneway, a man and a woman. Where had he seen that hombre before? “You head on back to the hotel,” he ordered the Mex. “Peel off those wet duds and wrap yourself in a blanket.”
The Mex quit the alley and, furtively hugging the shadows of Main Street, made his way uptown towards the Marris House. Jim sauntered to the rear end of the alley, still wracking his brain. It irked him to see a face that seemed familiar, and be unable to recall a name to fit the face, the circumstances of his having met that party.
Another man went striding past the rear end of that side alley a few moments before Jim reached it. He looked truculent and disheveled, and Jim easily recognized him as Burch, the poker dealer. It did not occur to him that Burch might be following the redhead and her escort. At the rear corner, he paused to roll a cigarette and to make another attempt at remembering. The din from the saloon was lessening, but only slightly.
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