by J. T. Edson
“I surely hope not, Miss Calamity,” he said. “I surely do. I’ll tell him right off.”
Left alone in the jail, Calamity gripped the bars of the cell and clung to them. Then she regained her self-control. Turning, she went to the hard bunk and sat down. A shudder ran through her as she stared at the bars. Never before had she been confined and she found the sensation unnerving. Fighting down her concern, she tried to concentrate on thinking who might have killed Joan.
Just how long Calamity sat in a half-daze, she could not say. The sight of the front door opening brought her back to reality. Wearing a hooded cloak over her dress, Velma entered the office. She darted to the desk, picked up the keys and walked over to Calamity’s cell.
“I’ve come to help you!” the blonde said, trying a key in the lock. “I heard they’d arrested you for killing Joan. Then Rachel came to see me. She said I should tell the deputy that it was you who knocked me out—”
“Who did hit you?” Calamity demanded, watching Velma try another key.
“I—I don’t know. There was a knock at my door. I opened it and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor with all my clothes and things thrown all over the room and the marriage lines gone.”
“Why’re you helping me?” Calamity asked as the lock clicked and the cell door opened.
“I-I’m scared of what Rachel will do to me. You can handle her. You’re tough enough to make her leave me alone.”
Deciding to make the most of her chance, Calamity left the cell. One glance at the desk told her that she could not hope to force it and obtain her weapons. However, the carbine was at the hotel. So she started making for the right side door as being farthest away from possible witnesses leaving the Big Herd Saloon.
“This way!” Velma hissed urgently, making for the opposite side of the room.
A thought suddenly struck Calamity while following the blonde. What lay behind Velma helping her to escape? Surely she did not think that Calamity could stay in town to protect her from Rachel? It seemed very unlikely. Nor would the blonde be likely to hold kind-hearted feelings toward her after the incident at the hotel.
Reaching the side door, Velma drew it open. Then she paused, turned and looked at Calamity.
“You’d better slip my cloak on,” she said. “That way if anybody sees you, they won’t recognize you.”
Smart thinking—maybe just a mite too smart for a girl of Velma’s intellect; although Calamity did not put the thought into those exact words. Every action the blonde made seemed to be part of a careful, conceived plan. Yet the last bit appeared to come as an afterthought; almost as if she had only just remembered it in time.
Suddenly, giving no warning of her intentions, Calamity shot out her hands. Catching Velma by the shoulder, while the blonde was still fumbling with the cloak’s fastenings, she turned her and thrust her through the doorway. A frightened gasp broke from Velma and she started to say something. Two shots cracked from the rear end of the alley. Calamity heard the sound of bullets driving into flesh and chopping off the blonde’s words. Even at such a moment she automatically noted the shots came from a carbine, not a revolver.
Instantly Calamity slammed the door and closed the top bolt. There was no time to consider that she had sent Velma out to be shot. Everything leapt into focus like the rod of the bolt slipping home. Instead of trying to rescue her, Velma had planned to send Calamity to her death.
Working at racing speed, Calamity’s brain saw the plan and realized that the danger had not ended. While outside the cell she could still be regarded as escaping. So she turned and ran back to it. Just as she entered and closed the door, she heard a man’s voice outside. The carbine spat again, from nearer the door, followed by the deeper bellow of a revolver. A sharp cry of pain, feminine in its timbre, came on the heels of the second shot and something crashed into the jail’s wall. Boots thudded as the man with the revolver ran down the alley toward the side door.
All this registered in Calamity’s subconscious mind as she entered the cell and closed the door. Reaching through the bars, she turned the key in the lock, removed it and tossed the ring on to the top of the desk.
Trying the side door and finding it fastened, the man in the alley ran back the way he came. Calamity saw him pass the front window, then the door opened and he entered. It was Like-His Rigg, face showing bewilderment and strain.
“I heard shots!” Calamity said.
“Yeah!” he replied, crossing to the cell and looking at the key-ring on the desk in passing. “I was coming back here and heard some up the alley. When I got to the comer, I saw Mrs. Velma down and somebody standing over her. So I yelled and—and got shot at. So I cut lose fast—Calamity—It was that other Mrs. Banyan!”
“Which one?” Calamity demanded, seeing the shock on the deputy’s face.
“The one you tangled with at the Harem.”
“Sal!”
“That’s her. She’d shot Mrs. Velma. Lord! I can still see her sprawled there with her hair all white over her face.”
Calamity could see everything. Waiting in the dark at the rear of the building, Sal had shot at the cloaked figure which emerged. In falling the hood had slipped back to show Velma’s long blonde hair and tell Sal of the terrible mistake she made. Then she had heard Rigg’s voice and either panicked or acted smart. If she had heard the door’s bolt go home, she would guess at Calamity’s next move. So, instead of receiving acclaim for stopping a jail-escape, she stood a chance of being arrested for murder. Sal would know how damning the appearances must be. Rather than take a chance, she had shot at the deputy and missed.
“Let me out!” Calamity snapped. “One of ’em might talk.”
“They won’t!” Rigg answered, looking badly shaken. “Mrs. Velma died just as I got to her—and I didn’t have time for fancy shooting.”
Which meant, as Calamity guessed, that he had shot to kill and succeeded.
“She’d’ve killed y—” she began.
Slowly the dazed expression left Rigg’s face and Calamity saw him making a visible effort to regain control of his shaken nerves. Turning the key in the cell door, he opened it.
“I reckon I called things wrong, Calamity,” he said. “Mrs. Sal’s wearing a buckskin jacket, bandana, pants and boots too.”
“Where’s Derry?” Calamity asked as she walked from the cell.
“That’s what brought me back here,” the deputy replied. “When I got to the Big Herd and asked, damned if I don’t get told that Lawyer Gilbert’s clerk just a bit back come in to say Calamity Jane’d met with an accident down to the Harem. Now I ain’t smart, but that sure as hell didn’t sound right to me, seeing’s how I’d done got you down here. So I come back.”
“Derry’s gone to the Harem?” Calamity gasped, making the words more statement than question.
“Him and Gilbert both—And I minded something else. That there clerk of Gilbert’s. He’d fit your description of the feller who sent you off to look for that place real good.”
“Damn it, we’ve got to—” Calamity started.
Then they heard the sound of voices coming from the direction of the Big Herd. Somebody had heard the sound of the shots, possibly thought about it and finally decided to investigate. Once again Rigg proved equal to the occasion. Stepping across to the desk, he opened the drawer and removed Calamity’s weapons.
“Here,” he said. “You go down there and see if Derringer’s all right. I’ll stop here and tend to things.”
“Thanks, Like-His,” Calamity said sincerely, making for the door at the right side of the building. “I didn’t kill Joan.”
“Right now, that’s just what I’m thinking,” he replied. “Or I’d not be turning you free.”
Slipping out of the door, Calamity darted along the alley. She thrust the Colt into her waistband, retaining the whip in her right hand as the better weapon for use on a dark night. To avoid attracting attention, she stayed at the rear of the buildings during the walk to th
e Harem. She saw nobody until turning into the alley by the saloon. A light glowed in the barroom, just one lamp, not the whole system of illumination. Starting toward it Calamity saw a shape rise from sitting on the stairs running up to the balcony and first-floor rooms. With a touch of satisfaction Calamity identified the small man whose false information had set her up to be charged with murder and possibly hung.
Clearly the man did not recognize her; a puzzling aspect until she remembered how Sal had been dressed. His opening words confirmed Calamity’s summation of the situation.
“That you, Mrs. Sal? The boss and the other’s insi—Hey! You’re n—”
Only the discovery came too late. By that time Calamity was close enough to take the necessary action. Gliding forward, she drove the whip up. Its handle—which had looked enough like a carbine’s barrel in the poor light to increase the likeness to Sal—drove butt-first with sickening force between the man’s legs. Numbing, unmentionable agony ripped into the clerk, rendering him speechless and without the ability to think. As he doubled over, Calamity raised the whip. She was human enough—and woman enough—to feel satisfaction as the loaded handle crashed down on to the man’s head and dropped him unconscious to the ground.
“And that was a good five bucks worth, I’d say,” she mused, transferring her whip to the left hand so as to draw the Colt with her right.
Silently she went by the still shape of the clerk, moving toward the side window. Before she burst into the barroom, she wanted to discover what she would be up against. On looking, she saw the wisdom of her caution. Derringer was sitting on the edge of a table, left leg swinging and cane-gun by his right side. For a moment Calamity thought all must be well. Then she saw the menacing way in which Gilbert confronted him. Nor was the lawyer alone with Derringer. Rachel stood at Gilbert’s side and beyond her Turnbull glowered from one to the other of them. Adams in hand, Claggert leaned against the bar in a position from which he could cover the gambler.
It all amounted to higher odds than she could buck by bursting in through the front or side door. Then she remembered something and a cold, hard grin twisted her lips. Turning, she went to the stairs and climbed them fast. On the balcony, she took a key from her pocket and unlocked the door to the private office.
Pausing to ease off her boots, she advanced on bare feet to the safe. The two Ketchum grenades and box of percussion caps stood in their usual position and Calamity’s hands went to them. Then she foresaw the difficulty. While Sharp had taught her to prime the grenades, the lessons did not include doing so in the dark.
Turning, she crept silently back to the desk. Cautiously her reaching hands found the lamp on the desk’s top and drew it toward her. Then she raised the glass and sucked in a breath. Taking a match from her pocket, she rasped its head on the seat of her pants. As she applied the flame to the lamp’s wick, her ears strained for the first warning sound that the glow had been noticed from below. None came and she adjusted the wick to give just the bare amount of light necessary for her purpose.
With even that small amount of illumination Calamity could walk straight to the safe and not worry about colliding with something that might make a noise. At the safe, she placed the lamp on top and picked up one of the grenades. Then she paused to collect her thoughts. One mistake could cause a premature explosion.
“Which won’t do Derry any good at all,” she told herself silently. “And me a damned sight less.”
Taking hold of the base flange, she drew it and the firing plunger from the tube. That left the way clear for inserting the percussion cap. Calamity’s hands felt hot, wet, but steady enough, as she moved the deadly little copper cup into place. With it in position the thing in her hands was no longer inert, harmless, but a lethally dangerous explosive device. More so as she eased the plunger rod back up the recess. Pushed too far, it would crush the percussion cap and ignite the charge. If not far enough in, it might slip out or fail to drive home on impact.
Satisfied at last, she glanced at the second bomb and decided not to waste more time. So she went to the door, whip and Colt in her belt, bomb in hand. The same key opened both the room’s locks and she turned it. Hardly daring to breathe, praying that the click of the lock had gone unnoticed, she eased open the door. Voices came from below, talking in normal tones. It seemed that nobody suspected her presence, or they concealed it well.
Stepping as if walking on eggshells, she reached the edge of the stairs. Then she remembered Claggert standing at the bar. From the stairs she could not see him, for the balcony extended too far. And Claggert was the most dangerous of them all. Calamity could recall how fast he had drawn and with what little compunction he shot Woodley dead.
Then the matter was taken from Calamity’s hand. Looking up, Rachel stared at the stairs.
“Up there!” the woman screamed, pointing. “It’s Canary!”
Sixteen
Just ten seconds too late Frank Derringer realized he had walked into a trap. When Gilbert’s clerk came to him at the Big Herd and whispered that Calamity was hurt down at the Harem, Derringer left immediately. Accompanied by Gilbert and the clerk, he went along the back streets to the Harem. Doing so took them by the rear of the jail at the time when Like-His Rigg was escorting Calamity in through the front. The fact that Turnbull and Claggert had left the wake earlier failed to register any alarm for Derringer. To the best of his knowledge, neither man knew that he suspected them of being involved in the abortive marked cards swindle. So he saw no reason to worry over their absence, which could be accounted for in so many innocent ways.
Even the fact that the saloon lay in darkness failed to ring a warning in his haste to learn what happened to Calamity. The clerk could only say that he had found her lying by the open side door and had taken her into the building before hurrying off in search of help.
Leading the way, Derringer walked through the still-open door into the barroom. Although Gilbert followed, the clerk stayed outside and drew the door closed. That was when Derringer began to get suspicious. He sensed rather than saw the other shapes in the room. A shaft of light lanced into his eyes as somebody unhooded the front of a bull’s eye lantern.
“Stand right there, Derringer!” ordered Turnbull’s voice from behind the light. “Lean on your cane and keep the left hand high.”
There could be no arguing with the order under the circumstances, so Derringer obeyed. Standing in such a manner, he could not hope to raise and fire the cane-gun. Even if he did, it held only one bullet and at least two people stood before him. So he kept still and allowed Gilbert to pat over his body in search of weapons.
“He’s not armed,” Gilbert announced. “I didn’t think he would be.”
A match rasped and Derringer saw Rachel lighting a lantern on a table. In its glow, Derringer studied the situation. Keeping well clear of the gambler, Gilbert moved around and joined Rachel and Turnbull. The saloon-keeper closed the hood on his lantern and placed it on the table. However, he still held a Colt Pocket Police revolver. Across the room Claggert leaned on the bar, Adams in his right hand and a bottle of whiskey open in his left.
“What the hell—?” Derringer snapped, acting as they might expect him to do.
“We’re going to kill you,” Gilbert replied. “Upstairs, trying to break into the safe.”
“That’ll take some explaining away.”
“Not so much. Calamity Jane has been arrested for the murder of Joan Banyan and will soon be shot trying to escape. Turnbull and I missed you at the Big Herd and came here to investigate. We found you trying to open the safe, you pulled a gun and we had to shoot in self-defense.”
“And Mrs. Banyan there?” Derringer asked, holding down his anxiety for Calamity’s welfare.
“Oh, she’ll be leaving here as soon as we hear the shooting from the jail,” Gilbert replied.
“Doesn’t trust you to handle it, huh?” Derringer grinned. “What’re you getting out of this, Turnbull?”
“Control of this pl
ace, on shares with Mrs. Banyan here.”
Wanting time desperately, Derringer played for it as he never played out a weak, shaky hand of cards. While he could not understand how Calamity could have been arrested, he recalled that she had never come to the Big Herd. So the lawyer must be telling the truth. Nobody that Derringer knew of was aware of why he had left the wake—Rigg only found out by chance from a waiter who overheard the conversation in passing—so his disappearance would arouse no comment. Once the double killing had taken place, he did not doubt that a suitable story would be arranged. Yet Rigg was no fool. Given time, he might draw the right conclusions. All that remained was to stay alive long enough for that to happen.
“So you didn’t tell him all of it, Counselor,” Derringer said.
“Shut your m—!” Gilbert barked.
“All?” interrupted Turnbull. “Is there something you left out, Lawyer?”
“Nothing!” Gilbert answered.
“Except about the Russians’ jewelry that disappeared in the War,” Derringer put in, watching anger darken Gilbert’s features and interest flare in the saloon-keeper’s eyes.
“Close your mouth, Der—!” Gilbert snarled, taking a Smith & Wesson revolver from under his coat.
“No, Derringer, you keep on talking!” Turnbull corrected. “Kill him if he tries to shoot, Ted.”
“Easy enough done, even from here,” Claggert answered, not moving from the bar.
Sitting on the edge of a nearby table, Derringer rested his cane against it. Clearly the men did not know of the cane’s second purpose, for he had never advertised it. So he kept the weapon close to hand, ready for use if the chance arose. He could see that the mention of the Russians’ jewelry had attracted both Rachel’s and Turnbull’s attention. Suspicion showed on their faces as they studied the lawyer.
“What’s all this ab—” Rachel began, but the sound of two shots along the street chopped her words off. “That’s Canary’s finish, I should say.”