Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  I then stalked forth in silent majesty and gained the street. As I went I was filled with bitterness. Of all the dirty, contemptible tricks I ever heered of, that took the cake. And I got to thinking maybe they was right when they said I was a sucker. Looking back, it seemed to me like I’d fell for every slick trick under the sun. I got mad. I got mighty mad.

  I shook my fist at the world in general, much to the astonishment and apprehension of the innocent by-passers.

  “From now on,” I raged, “I’m harder’n the plate on a battleship! I ain’t goin’ to fall for nothin’! Nobody’s goin’ to get a blasted cent outa me, not for no reason what-the-some-ever—”

  At that moment I heered a commotion going on nearby. I looked. Spite of the fact that it was late, a pretty good-sized crowd hadst gathered in front of a kinda third-class boarding-house. A mighty purty blonde-headed girl was standing there, tears running down her cheeks as she pleaded with a tough- looking old sister who stood with her hands on her hips, grim and stern.

  “Oh, please don’t turn me out!” wailed the girl. “I have no place to go! No job — oh, please. Please!”

  I can’t stand to hear a hurt animal cry out or a woman beg. I shouldered through the crowd and said: “What’s goin’ on here?”

  “This hussy owes me ten pounds,” snarled the woman. “I got to have the money or her room. I’m turnin’ her out.”

  “Where’s her baggage?” I asked.

  “I’m keepin’ it for the rent she owes,” she snapped. “Any of your business?”

  The girl kind of slumped down in the street. I thought if she’s turned out on the street tonight they’ll be hauling another carcass outa the bay tomorrer. I said to the landlady, “Take six pounds and call it even.”

  “Ain’t you got no more?” said she.

  “Naw, I ain’t,” I said truthfully.

  “All right, it’s a go,” she snarled, and grabbed the dough like a sea- gull grabs a fish.

  “All right,” she said very harshly to the girl, “you can stay another week. Maybe you’ll find a job by that time — or some other sap of a Yank sailor will come along and pay your board.”

  She went into the house and the crowd give a kind of cheer which inflated my chest about half a foot. Then the girl come up close to me and said shyly, “Thank you. I — I — I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

  Then all to a sudden she throwed her arms around my neck and kissed me and then run up the steps into the boarding-house. The crowd cheered some more like British crowds does and I felt plenty uplifted as I swaggered down the street. Things like that, I reflected, is worthy causes. A worthy cause can have my dough any time, but I reckon I’m too blame smart to get fooled by no shysters.

  I come into the American Seamen’s Bar where Mike was getting anxious about me. He wagged his stump of a tail and grinned all over his big wide face and I found two American nickels in my pocket which I didn’t know I had. I give one of ’em to the barkeep to buy a pan of beer for Mike. And whilst he was lapping it, the barkeep, he said: “I see Boardin’-house Kate is in town.”

  “Whatcha mean?” I ast him.

  “Well,” said he, combing his mustache, “Kate’s worked her racket all over Australia and the West Coast of America, but this is the first time I ever seen her in South Africa. She lets some landlady of a cheap boardin’-house in on the scheme and this dame pretends to throw her out. Kate puts up a wail and somebody — usually some free-hearted sailor about like you — happens along and pays the landlady the money Kate’s supposed to owe for rent so she won’t kick the girl out onto the street. Then they split the dough.”

  “Uh huh!” said I, grinding my teeth slightly. “Does this here Boardin’- house Kate happen to be a blonde?”

  “Sure thing,” said the barkeep. “And purty as hell. What did you say?”

  “Nothin’,” I said. “Here. Give me a schooner of beer and take this nickel, quick, before somebody comes along and gets it away from me.”

  * * *

  TEXAS FISTS; OR, SHANGHIED MITTS

  First published in Fight Stories, May 1931. Also published as “Shanghied Mitts”

  THE Sea Girl hadn’t been docked in Tampico more’n a few hours when I got into a argument with a big squarehead off a tramp steamer. I forget what the row was about — sailing vessels versus steam, I think. Anyway, the discussion got so heated he took a swing at me. He musta weighed nearly three hundred pounds, but he was meat for me. I socked him just once and he went to sleep under the ruins of a table.

  As I turned back to my beer mug in high disgust, I noticed that a gang of fellers which had just come in was gawping at me in wonder. They was cow- punchers, in from the ranges, all white men, tall, hard and rangy, with broad- brimmed hats, leather chaps, big Mexican spurs, guns an’ everything; about ten of them, altogether.

  “By the gizzard uh Sam Bass,” said the tallest one, “I plumb believe we’ve found our man, hombres. Hey, pardner, have a drink! Come on — set down at this here table. I wanta talk to you.”

  So we all set down and, while we was drinking some beer, the tall cow- puncher glanced admiringly at the squarehead which was just coming to from the bar-keep pouring water on him, and the cow-puncher said:

  “Lemme introduce us: we’re the hands of the Diamond J — old Bill Dornley’s ranch, way back up in the hills. I’m Slim, and these is Red, Tex, Joe, Yuma, Buck, Jim, Shorty, Pete and the Kid. We’re in town for a purpose, pardner, which is soon stated.

  “Back up in the hills, not far from the Diamond J, is a minin’ company, and them miners has got the fightin’est buckaroo in these parts. They’re backin’ him agin all comers, and I hates to say what he’s did to such Diamond J boys as has locked horns with him. Them miners has got a ring rigged up in the hills where this gent takes on such as is wishful to mingle with him, but he ain’t particular. He knocked out Joe, here, in that ring, but he plumb mopped up a mesquite flat with Red, which challenged him to a rough-and-tumble brawl with bare fists. He’s a bear-cat, and the way them miners is puttin’ on airs around us boys is somethin’ fierce.

  “We’ve found we ain’t got no man on the ranch which can stand up to that grizzly, and so we come into town to find some feller which could use his fists. Us boys is more used to slingin’ guns than knuckles. Well, the minute I seen you layin’ down that big Swede, I says to myself, I says, ‘Slim, there’s your man!’

  “How about it, amigo? Will you mosey back up in the hills with us and flatten this big false alarm? We aim to bet heavy, and we’ll make it worth yore while.”

  “And how far is this here ranch?” I asked.

  “‘Bout a day’s ride, hossback — maybe a little better’n that.”

  “That’s out,” I decided. “I can’t navigate them four-legged craft. I ain’t never been on a horse more’n three or four times, and I ain’t figgerin’ on repeatin’ the experiment.”

  “Well,” said Slim, “we’ll get hold of a auteymobeel and take you out in style.”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t believe I’ll take you up; I wanta rest whilst I’m in port. I’ve had a hard voyage; we run into nasty weather and had one squall after another. Then the Old Man picked up a substitute second mate in place of our regular mate which is in jail in Melbourne, and this new mate and me has fought clean across the Pacific, from Melbourne to Panama, where he give it up and quit the ship.”

  The cow-punchers all started arguing at the same time, but Slim said:

  “Aw, that’s all right boys; I reckon the gent knows what he wants to do. We can find somebody else, I reckon. No hard feelin’s. Have another drink.”

  I kinda imagined he had a mysterious gleam in his eye, and it looked like to me that when he motioned to the bartender, he made some sort of a signal; but I didn’t think nothing about it. The bar-keep brought a bottle of hard licker, and Slim poured it, saying: “What did you say yore name was, amigo?”

  “Steve Costigan, A.
B. on the sailing vessel Sea Girl,” I answered. “I want you fellers to hang around and meet Bill O’Brien and Mushy Hanson, my shipmates, they’ll be around purty soon with my bulldog Mike. I’m waitin’ for ‘em. Say, this stuff tastes funny.”

  “That’s just high-grade tequila,” said Slim. “Costigan, I shore wish you’d change yore mind about goin’ out to the ranch and fightin’ for us.”

  “No chance,” said I. “I crave peace and quiet... Say, what the heck...?”

  I hadn’t took but one nip of that funny-tasting stuff, but the bar-room had begun to shimmy and dance. I shook my head to clear it and saw the cowboys, kinda misty and dim, they had their heads together, whispering, and one of ’em said, kinda low-like: “He’s fixin’ to pass out. Grab him!”

  At that, I give a roar of rage and heaved up, upsetting the table and a couple of cow-hands.

  “You low-down land-sharks,” I roared. “You doped my grog!”

  “Grab him, boys!” yelled Slim, and three or four nabbed me. But I throwed ’em off like chaff and caught Slim on the chin with a clout that sprawled him on the back of his neck. I socked Red on the nose and it spattered like a busted tomater, and at this instant Pete belted me over the head with a gun- barrel.

  With a maddened howl, I turned on him, and he gasped, turned pale and dropped the gun for some reason or other. I sunk my left mauler to the wrist in his midriff, and about that time six or seven of them cow-punchers jumped on my neck and throwed me by sheer weight of man-power.

  I got Yuma’s thumb in my mouth and nearly chawed it off, but they managed to sling some ropes around me, and the drug, from which I was already weak and groggy, took full effect about this time and I passed clean out.

  I musta been out a long time. I kinda dimly remember a sensation of bumping and jouncing along, like I was in a car going over a rough road, and I remember being laid on a bunk and the ropes took off, but that’s all.

  I was woke up by voices. I set up and cussed. I had a headache and a nasty taste in my mouth, and, feeling the back of my head, I found a bandage, which I tore off with irritation. Keel haul me! As if a scalp cut like that gun- barrel had give me needed dressing!

  I was sitting on a rough bunk in a kinda small shack which was built of heavy planks. Outside I heered Slim talking:

  “No, Miss Joan, I don’t dast let you in to look at him. He ain’t come to, I don’t reckon ‘cause they ain’t no walls kicked outa the shack, yet; but he might come to hisseIf whilst you was in there, and they’s no tellin’ what he might do, even to you. The critter ain’t human, I’m tellin’ you, Miss Joan.”

  “Well,” said a feminine voice, “I think it was just horrid of you boys to kidnap a poor ignorant sailor and bring him away off up here just to whip that miner.”

  “Golly, Miss Joan,” said Slim, kinda like he was hurt, “if you got any sympathy to spend, don’t go wastin’ it on that gorilla. Us boys needs yore sympathy. I winked at the bar-keep for the dope when I ordered the drinks, and, when I poured the sailor’s, I put enough of it in his licker to knock out three or four men. It hit him quick, but he was wise to it and started sluggin’. With all them knockout drops in him, he near wrecked the joint! Lookit this welt on my chin — when he socked me I looked right down my own spine for a second. He busted Red’s nose flat, and you oughta see it this mornin’. Pete lammed him over the bean so hard he bent the barrel of his forty-five, but all it done was make Costigan mad. Pete’s still sick at his stummick from the sock the sailor give him. I tell you, Miss Joan, us boys oughta have medals pinned on us; we took our lives in our hands, though we didn’t know it at the start, and, if it hadn’t been for the dope, Costigan would have destroyed us all. If yore dad ever fires me, I’m goin’ to git a job with a circus, capturin’ tigers and things. After that ruckus, it oughta be a cinch.”

  At this point, I decided to let folks know I was awake and fighting mad about the way I’d been treated, so I give a roar, tore the bunk loose from the wall and throwed it through the door. I heard the girl give a kind of scream, and then Slim pulled open what was left of the door and come through. Over his shoulder I seen a slim nice-looking girl legging it for the ranch-house.

  “What you mean scarin’ Miss Joan?” snarled Slim, tenderly fingering a big blue welt on his jaw.

  “I didn’t go to scare no lady,” I growled. “But in about a minute I’m goin’ to scatter your remnants all over the landscape. You think you can shanghai me and get away with it? I want a big breakfast and a way back to port.”

  “You’ll git all the grub you want if you’ll agree to do like we says,” said Slim; “but you ain’t goin’ to git a bite till you does.”

  “You’d keep a man from mess, as well as shanghai him, hey?” I roared. “Well, lemme tell you, you long-sparred, leather-rigged son of a sea-cock, I’m goin’ to—”

  “You ain’t goin’ to do nothin’,” snarled Slim, whipping out a long- barreled gun and poking it in my face.

  “You’re goin’ to do just what I says or get the daylight let through you—”

  Having a gun shoved in my face always did enrage me. I knocked it out of his hand with one mitt, and him flat on his back with the other, and, jumping on his prostrate frame with a blood-thirsty yell of joy, I hammered him into a pulp.

  His wild yells for help brought the rest of the crew on the jump, and they all piled on me for to haul me off. Well, I was the center of a whirlwind of fists, boots, and blood-curdling howls of pain and rage for some minutes, but they was just too many of them and they was too handy with them lassoes. When they finally had me hawg-tied again, the side wall was knocked clean out of the shack, the roof was sagging down and Joe, Shorty, Jim and Buck was out cold.

  Slim, looking a lee-sore wreck, limped over and glared down at me with his one good eye whilst the other boys felt theirselves for broken bones and throwed water over the fallen gladiators.

  “You snortin’ buffalo,” Slim snarled. “How I hones to kick yore ribs in! What do you say? Do you fight or stay tied up?”

  The cook-shack was near and I could smell the bacon and eggs sizzling. I hadn’t eat nothing since dinner the day before and I was hungry enough to eat a raw sea lion.

  “Lemme loose,” I growled. “I gotta have food. I’ll lick this miner for you, and when I’ve did that, I’m going to kick down your bunkhouse and knock the block offa every man, cook and steer on this fool ranch.”

  “Boy,” said Slim with a grin, spitting out a loose tooth, “does you lick that miner, us boys will each give you a free swing at us. Come on — you’re loose now — let’s go get it.”

  “Let’s send somebody over to the Bueno Oro Mine and tell them mavericks ‘bout us gittin’ a slugger,” suggested Pete, trying to work back a thumb he’d knocked outa place on my jaw.

  “Good idee,” said Slim. “Hey, Kid, ride over and tell ’em we got a man as can make hash outa their longhorn. Guess we can stage the scrap in about five days, hey, Sailor?”

  “Five days my eye,” I grunted. “The Sea Girl sails day after tomorrow and I gotta be on her. Tell ’em to get set for the go this evenin’.”

  “But, gee whiz!” expostulated Slim. “Don’t you want a few days to train?”

  “If I was outa trainin’, five days wouldn’t help me none,” I said. “But I’m allus in shape. Lead on the mess table. I crave nutriment.”

  Well, them boys didn’t hold no grudge at all account of me knocking ’em around. The Kid got on a broom-tailed bronc and cruised off across the hills, and the rest of us went for the cook-shack. Joe yelled after the Kid: “Look out for Lopez the Terrible!” And they all laughed.

  Well, we set down at the table and the cook brung aigs and bacon and fried steak and sour-dough bread and coffee and canned corn and milk till you never seen such a spread. I lay to and ate till they looked at me kinda bewildered.

  “Hey!” said Slim, “ain’t you eatin’ too much for a tough scrap this evenin’?”

  “What you cow-pilots know a
bout trainin’?” I said. “I gotta keep up my strength. Gimme some more of them beans, and tell the cook to scramble me five or six more aigs and bring me in another stack of buckwheats. And say,” I added as another thought struck me, “who’s this here Lopez you-all was jokin’ about?”

  “By golly,” said Tex, “I thought you cussed a lot like a Texan. ‘You- all,’ huh? Where was you born?”

  “Galveston,” I said.

  “Zowie!” yelled Tex. “Put ‘er there, pard; I aims for to triple my bets on you! Lopez? Oh, he’s just a Mex bandit — handsome cuss, I’ll admit, and purty mean. He ranges around in them hills up there and he’s stole some of our stock and made a raid or so on the Bueno Oro. He’s allus braggin’ ‘bout how he aims for to raid the Diamond J some day and ride off with Joan — that’s old Bill Dornley’s gal. But heck, he ain’t got the guts for that.”

  “Not much he ain’t,” said Jim. “Say, I wish old Bill was at the ranch now, ‘steada him and Miz Dornley visitin’ their son at Zacatlan. They’d shore enjoy the scrap this evenin’. But Miss Joan’ll be there, you bet.”

  “Is she the dame I scared when I called you?” I asked Slim.

  “Called me? Was you callin’ me?” said he. “Golly, I’d of thought a bull was in the old shack, only a bull couldn’t beller like that. Yeah, that was her.”

  “Well,” said I, “tell her I didn’t go for to scare her. I just naturally got a deep voice from makin’ myself heard in gales at sea.”

  Well, we finished breakfast and Slim says: “Now what you goin’ to do, Costigan? Us boys wants to help you train all we can.”

  “Good,” I said. “Fix me up a bunk; nothing like a good long nap when trainin’ for a tough scrap.”

  “All right,” said they. “We reckons you knows what you wants; while you git yore rest, we’ll ride over and lay some bets with the Bueno Oro mavericks.”