Thinking of the double-barreled shotgun under the counter, she decided that if she could get to it, she’d shoot him down. She turned to Gladys as she opened the door. “Go upstairs and tell Blossom. Tell her to get my rifle and find herself a place to hide. Hurry!” She pushed her out the door when Gladys did not move at once. Gladys moved then, but not in time, for at that moment, Tex, with Blossom right behind him, appeared at the top of the stairs and started down. “Oh no, honey!” Bertie muttered in despair, and pushed by Gladys on her way to distract Dubose. Reacting at once, Gladys hurried across the room to the stairs.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, showin’ your face around here?” Bertie yelled as she hurried to the bar. “Didn’t you learn your lesson last time? I’ve already sent somebody to get the sheriff!”
Dubose turned to face her, an evil sneer rapidly forming on his rough face. “Hello, Bertie,” he drawled slowly, obviously enjoying her distress. “I’ve been missin’ you and your lovely daughter. If you sent for the sheriff, I hope you sent a wagon to get him outta his bed. It’d pleasure me to put another bullet in him—finish the job Red started.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about Porter Willis,” Bertie retorted. “I’m talkin’ about the new sheriff.”
“Is that a fact?” Dubose responded, confident in the knowledge that there was no new sheriff. “Well, when he gets here, I’ll buy him a drink.” The few patrons in the saloon at this time suddenly became aware of the trouble brewing at the bar. So they began to draw away from the center of the room, creating a wide stage for the drama. In an effort to draw Dubose’s gaze away from the stairs behind him, Bertie hastened to the bar. Dubose never took his eyes off her, so he was unaware of the frantic scene at the top of the stairs when Gladys intercepted Blossom and hustled her back down the hallway. Left standing on the stairs, confused by the obvious distress apparent in the two, the young cowhand descended the stairs, astonished to see the people scattering.
His confidence growing by the minute, Dubose got the feeling he could take over the whole town, if he chose. Watching Bertie carefully, aware that in all probability, there was a shotgun or handgun under the counter, he said, “I’ve come to fetch my wife. Where is she?”
“Halfway to Bozeman by now,” Bertie lied. “She left here yesterday.”
“Well, now, why don’t I believe that?” Dubose smirked, still enjoying her efforts to bluff. “She don’t go nowhere without you lately. I expect I’ll have to go upstairs to make sure she ain’t slipped back in without you knowin’ it.”
Aware now that her bluff wasn’t working on the belligerent outlaw, Bertie dropped the pretense. “You low-down son of a bitch, Blossom don’t want no part of you, so you’d just better get on your horse and leave this town before a deputy marshal shows up to arrest you.” She moved around the end of the bar to stand beside Dewey, who was still struck motionless.
Dubose dropped his hand to rest on the handle of his .44. “You’d both best step back away from that counter,” he warned. “’Cause I’m gonna figure the first one that reaches under there is comin’ up with a shotgun and I ain’t gonna wait to see it for sure.” Dewey stepped back immediately, but Bertie hesitated, reluctant to move away from the shotgun she could see no more than three feet away from her. Dubose knew what she was thinking. “Go ahead, Bertie,” he challenged. “Make a try for it.” Still she hesitated, so he continued to dare her. “I thought I mighta knocked some sense into your head the last time I was here, but I reckon I was wrong. You gonna reach for that shotgun or not?”
“Don’t you do it, Bertie.” This came from Daisy, who had heard the confrontation from the kitchen. “He’s just looking for an excuse to shoot you.”
The one person in the saloon who had been mystified up to this point finally realized what was taking place. “Hold on there, mister,” Tex called out from the foot of the stairs. “You got no call to talk to Bertie like that.”
“Who the hell are you?” Dubose demanded. He shifted his eyes quickly toward the young cowhand, then back again to Bertie.
“I’m just sayin’ there ain’t no reason to threaten this lady,” Tex said. “We’d do better to calm down and I’m sure whatever your complaint is, you and Bertie can talk it out.”
Dubose almost laughed at the cowhand’s naïveté. “You need to learn to mind your own business,” he said. “And this ain’t none of your business, so sit down over there and keep your mouth shut.” He was about to return his full attention to Bertie, but Tex refused to back down to the bully.
“I asked you nice,” Tex said. “Now I’m gonna tell you to walk on outta here and let these folks drink in peace.”
Dubose couldn’t believe the young man’s innocence. With a shake of his head in wonder, he casually drew his .44 and shot him down. An instant murmur of shock was heard from the stunned witnesses before the room returned to total silence. Turning quickly in time to stop Bertie from reaching for the weapon under the counter, Dubose demanded, “Where’s Blossom?”
“Where you can’t find her,” Bertie spat, hoping with all her heart that her daughter had fled down the back steps.
With his pistol trained on Bertie, Dubose looked at Dewey. “What about you? You wanna do somethin’ about it?” Dewey didn’t answer, but shook his head and backed away until stopped by the shelves underneath the giant mirror on the wall. Dubose walked around the end of the bar then and shoved Bertie aside. He reached under the counter and pulled the shotgun out from under it, broke it open, dropped the two shells on the floor, then threw the shotgun toward the other end of the bar. Then he stuck his face inches from Bertie’s and shouted, “Where’s my wife?”
“Go to hell,” Bertie retorted, only to receive a sharp blow across her temple from the barrel of Dubose’s pistol. She slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Dubos pointed his .44 at her, but decided not to kill her, thinking he might need to get information out of her yet. He turned his attention to the stunned witnesses of the murder. “Get the hell outta here,” he roared, and fired a shot into the far wall to hurry them. A frantic rush for the door resulted immediately and he walked out from behind the bar to fire another round over their heads. Then, suddenly aware of someone at his back, he whirled around to discover the cook behind him.
“Come, Dewey,” Daisy Smith said to her husband, showing no regard for the fearsome outlaw. Dewey responded at once to her call, following her dutifully toward the door, aware of Dubose at his heels.
When they were out the door, Dubose closed it and dropped the heavy bar to secure it. “Now, by God,” he swore, and headed for the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, he charged up to the second floor to the rooms above the saloon. Kicking open every door he came to, he stormed down the hall, finding no one in any of the rooms until the last one. When that door was slammed back against the inside wall, it revealed a terrified Gladys Welch seated on the bed, her knees drawn up under her chin protectively. Dubose glanced quickly around the room, expecting to find Blossom hiding somewhere. There being no place to hide except under the bed, he grabbed the side of it and turned it upside down, dumping the frightened woman on the floor. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Gladys answered between trembling lips. “She’s not here. She’s gone.”
“Yeah, but you know where she went,” he threatened, pointing his pistol at her face. “And if you don’t tell me pretty damn quick, I’m gonna put another eye between them two on your ugly face.”
“I swear, I don’t know where she went,” she cried. “She just ran down the back stairs. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Damn,” he swore, but pulled the pistol away from her face while he thought about where Blossom could have run to. And the most important thing in his mind now was to catch her before she got too far, or found a good hiding place. So he ran for the door and headed toward the steps that led down to the backyard, leaving a limp and fearful Gladys to recover from her fright.
She sat t
here for only a moment, however, before scrambling on her hands and knees to the window before getting to her feet. She started to raise the window, but on second thought, ran to close the door before returning to the window. As fast as she could, she raised it then and stuck her head out. “Come quick, he’s gone down the stairs!”
Blossom needed no encouragement. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold on to the ends of the roof rafters that extended over the wall above her head. Already, her bare toes were threatening to fail her as she strained to press them into the rough wood siding to support her weight. Gladys reached out to help her, knowing that it would take no more than an upward glance from Dubose, once he was outside, to see the desperate woman clinging to the side of the building. When at last she was inside, Blossom almost collapsed, but Gladys told her there was no time for that now. She had to run. They would both be targets for Dubose’s ire now. “It’s a good thing he was too mad to notice that one pair of shoes lined up under the bed were smaller than the others,” she said as she watched Blossom hurrying to put them on. “Where are you gonna run?”
“I don’t know,” Blossom answered. “There isn’t anyplace in this town.” She knew that there were very few people who would place themselves or their families in danger to protect a common whore.
While this was taking place, Bertie was struggling to regain consciousness downstairs behind the bar. When she managed to get on her hands and knees, she picked up the shotgun shells on the floor and crawled to the end of the bar to get the shotgun and load it. On her feet then, she hurried as much as she was able to get to the stairs, stepping around the young cowboy’s body on the way. Unaware of what had just taken place upstairs, she held her shotgun ready to pull the trigger as soon as she saw Dubose. Blossom and Gladys were startled again when she suddenly opened the door. “Mama!” Blossom cried out when she saw her mother with a dried trickle of blood on the side of her face.
“Thank the Lord,” Bertie exclaimed when finding her daughter safe. But that joy lasted just a second, before recalling the threat still in their midst.
At that moment, that threat was in the street after having checked the outhouse behind the saloon. Like a mad dog, he stalked his intended victim, going from shop to shop as he progressed up the street, daring anyone to stop him. Someone would surely try to kill this mad dog, and finally someone did. Chad Benton, who ran the general store, strapped his Colt .44 on and stood behind the corner of his building, watching Dubose’s progress as he came up the street. When it became obvious that Dubose was not going to skip his store, Chad waited until he was closer before stepping out from the corner and firing at him. Due to frayed nerves, Chad’s shot was wide, costing him his life. That incident discouraged everyone else from attempting to stop the fearsome-looking outlaw challenging the town unafraid.
When the three women over the saloon heard the shot that killed Chad, it only increased the level of anxiety that was already intense. Bertie ran to the front room, which had a window facing the main street. From there, she could see Dubose in the street as he walked past the post office. There was a body lying in the street, but she couldn’t tell who it was. A moment later, she saw Betty Benton run out of the store and fall on her knees beside her husband’s body. “That mad dog is shootin’ anybody that gets in his way,” she said to Blossom. “He just killed Chad Benton. We’ve got to get away from here. He’s gonna look in every crack and corner till he finds us.” She turned to Gladys and said, “Or till he finds for sure that we ain’t here.” She looked back out the window to make sure Dubose was still walking toward the store at the far end of the street. “We gotta go,” she repeated, certain now that it was their best chance. “Gather up whatever you need for a few days. I’ll do the same. While he’s still up at that end of town, we’ll run to the stable and get our horse. Gladys, you’ll have to tell Sam what happened when he gets back from Bozeman and tell him we’ll be back when it’s safe for Blossom. You and Dewey will have to run things till he’s back.”
Gladys nodded excitedly, then asked, “What if he comes after me?”
“He ain’t got no reason to hurt you—or Daisy and Dewey, either. Just don’t do nothin’ to make him mad. When he finds out for sure that Blossom ain’t here, he’ll be comin’ lookin’ for her again.” She glanced at Blossom. “And he’ll be our problem again. So let’s get goin’.”
They hurried to make their getaway, with some essential belongings in a cotton sack and Bertie’s Henry rifle. Out the back of the saloon, they ran behind the few buildings between the saloon and the stable. When they ran in the door of the stable, they found the owner, Frank Bowen, talking to a young man wearing a buckskin shirt, who had a horse saddled and one he was planning to lead. “Thank goodness you’re here!” Bertie exclaimed.
Startled, Bowen reacted in surprise. “Good gracious, Bertie, what are you women doin’ runnin’ around out there with that wild man tearin’ up the town? He’s done shot Chad Benton. You need to find you a hole somewhere till he’s gone.”
Bertie wasted little time telling him the cause of Dubose’s behavior and the reason why she and her daughter had to run. “We need our horse. Will you saddle him for us?”
“Well, sure,” Bowen said, hesitating. It was an opportunity for a man to come to the rescue of two women in danger. However, he was not inclined to go looking for trouble, so he had just as soon they didn’t want to hide in his stable. That was the reason he was staying put in his stable with his rifle at hand. If Dubose showed up at his stable, he wouldn’t put up any opposition unless it came down to saving his life. So he decided he would settle for helping them saddle that one horse they owned and speed them on their way. They were only whores, anyway, he thought.
The young man standing there said nothing, but listened with interest as Bertie told Bowen of the danger threatening her and her daughter. When Bowen hurried off to fetch the horse, he asked Bertie, “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know,” Bertie replied. “Just somewhere to hide in the mountains, I reckon. A woman don’t usually prepare for something like this.”
“Do you have food?” he asked. Bertie shook her head, all the while looking frantically for Bowen to return with her horse. “You have a rifle. Do you have anything to cook with?”
At this particular moment in her and her daughter’s life, Bertie was distressed by the young man’s pointless questions. Looking at him a little closer, she decided he was probably a half-breed. “No, we don’t,” she answered impatiently. “We just wanna get the hell away from here to keep from gettin’ killed.”
“Maybe you should come with me,” the young man said. “My father has a trading post on the Clark Fork River, one day’s ride from here. I am on my way there now. I think you would be safe there.”
Bertie hesitated. His offer sounded like an answer to their problem, but she could not help but be suspicious of his real motives. Why would he want to risk his life to help someone like her and Blossom, who were complete strangers to him? Hearing the young man’s suggestion as he was leading the horse out, Frank Bowen spoke up. “This here’s Robert, Rubin Fagan’s son. You don’t have to worry, you can trust him. And what he said don’t sound like a bad idea at that. Like he said, Rubin’s place ain’t but a day’s ride from here, and I don’t know anywhere else you two women can go, except up in the woods somewhere. And I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’d be a lot better off at Rubin’s.”
The offer sounded good again after Bowen’s assurance that Robert could be trusted. “Well, we appreciate your offer,” she said. “It’s mighty kind of you, but I reckon I oughta tell you the man lookin’ for us won’t hesitate to kill you if he knows you helped us.”
“I figured,” Robert said.
“If you still wanna help us, then I say thank you very much, and let’s get started,” Bertie said. Blossom, who had been silent up to that point, stepped forward and thanked him as well. She tied the sack with their belongings on the saddle horn while Bo
wen helped her mother up into the saddle.
“You don’t have to ride double,” Robert said to Blossom. “You can ride my extra horse if you want, she’s got a bridle on her—if you don’t mind riding bareback. I can tie those two small packs behind my saddle. Or I can ride her and you can ride in my saddle.”
“I can ride bareback,” Blossom quickly informed him, and went to climb on. She hiked up her long skirt, and, holding it with one hand, hopped up to straddle the mare with Robert’s helping hand.
“You want me to lead her, or you want the reins?” Robert asked.
“Give me the reins. Let’s just get the hell outta here.”
Robert jumped up into the saddle and led them out the back door of Bowen’s stable, swinging around the back of the corral to keep the buildings of Helena between them and their stalker in the street. Once they were safely away from the town, he headed west toward MacDonald Pass to follow a winding trail that would lead them to the Clark Fork River.
CHAPTER 13
Even in the growing darkness, young Robert knew the trail he followed well enough to lead the women along at a reasonable pace. “It will be better when the moon rises,” he told them, sensing their concern. He had been deciding whether to stay in Helena that night or head back home right away. The plight of the woman and her daughter made his decision for him. And it made no sense to be in Helena that night with a crazy white man roaming the streets looking for someone to shoot at, anyway. He would stop to rest the horses in MacDonald Pass and make some coffee and roast some deer jerky for the women. He knew for sure they had nothing to eat with them.
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