Then suddenly, even as Belle watched, the volume of shouting began to die down and their faces turned away from the house. She saw a man gesticulate towards the road, then caught a glimpse of Matilda Carbrook standing there with her big fat face hanging open in astonishment. What on earth was going on?
She spun on her heel as Benedict shouted excitedly from the window at the far end of the corridor. “Belle, come here quick!”
Gathering up her skirts she ran the length of the hallway, reached Benedict’s side and looked out. Her heart skipped a full beat and tears of relief burst from her eyes.
Reining in at the hitch rack out front in his bright purple shirt, was Hank Brazos. And the posse was behind him.
For a mob that just minutes ago had been making more noise that night than Daybreak had ever heard before, the hundred and fifty citizens that comprised that crowd were astonishingly subdued as Mayor Humphrey Carbrook swung down from his saddle, tugged ominously at the lapels of his old-fashioned frock coat and made a bee-line directly for his wife.
Or was that his wife? Surely this fat, uncertain little woman wasn’t the same blustering Matilda Carbrook who had led them all down here and given them the catch-cry that had shaken Daybreak from end to end a hundred times over the past hours: “Burn the Bordello. Burn the Bordello!”
Yes it was, but it wasn’t a Matilda Carbrook that Daybreak knew. Nobody would have believed that Matilda Carbrook could look so guilty.
“Now, Humphrey,” she stammered, trying to muster some of the old authority as he came to a grim-jawed halt before her. “Before you lose your temper, I insist—”
“Matilda Carbrook, get yourself home immediately!”
Matilda quivered in the full blast of husbandly wrath. She felt a little frightened, but also a little thrilled; she’d never known Humphrey quite so dominating.
Even so, she felt she must try and save some face, as she made an attempt to draw herself up with some dignity. “Humphrey, I warned you before you left on that ridiculous posse that—”
“That ‘ridiculous posse’ as you so term it, Matilda,” her masterful husband overrode her, “has been instrumental in ridding this country once and for all of the Scourge of Calico Valley!”
This was the first intimation that the crowd had had of Sprod’s death. Up until that moment, they, like Matilda Carbrook herself, had been somewhat caught on the wrong leg by the return of the posse, but they still had some ideas about carrying on with what they’d begun. But this news was something immeasurably bigger and more important than any brick bordello.
“You mean Ben Sprod’s done for, Mayor Carbrook?” a man in the crowd called wonderingly.
“Done for,” Carbrook confirmed. “Along with Frank Piano and Dick Grid. The three of them were gunned down by Hank Brazos and Surprising Smith not an hour ago in Cripple Canyon.”
A mighty cheer went up, hats sailed in the air and carried away by the news, Harp Moody filled his lungs and bellowed:
“Free drinks at the Bird Cage, boys. If this don’t call for a celebration I don’t know what does!”
“Stop!” Matilda Carbrook cried as they started to stream away “Stop I say! What about this house of sin?” Nobody heeded her, except her husband. Wearing the long-suffering look of a man who has finally run completely out of patience, Humphrey Carbrook seized his wife in a powerful grip, sat himself down on the fence and proceeded to paddle her ample bottom.
A dozen solid whacks later, he sat her back on her feet and struck a pose, hands on hips. “Well, Matilda?”
The posse men and the watchers from the house waited expectantly for the explosion. None came. Matilda Carbrook had just received what she’d badly needed for fifty years and felt a better woman for it. “I’m sorry, Humphrey,” she said meekly. “I really am.”
“And so you should be. Now, on your way home, that is of course after you’ve apologized to Belle for the trouble you’ve caused...”
Matilda looked across at the house where Belle Shilleen, Duke Benedict and the others had come out onto the flame-scarred porch. Then she looked back at her husband who was frowning mightily. She sighed and went across to the gallery.
“I’m very sorry, Miss Shilleen. Can you forgive me?”
“I suppose so,” Belle replied stiffly. Then relaxing, “Sure, why not? Only don’t try nothin’ like this again, will you, kid? I might have to take it personal next time.”
“Oh no, no,” Matilda said hastily. “I give you my word. I realize now I was very foolish.” She turned and looked adoringly at her husband. “Humphrey made me realize that. Are you going to walk me home, Humphrey?”
Humphrey Carbrook bowed courteously, extended his arm. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said to his posse men, “and in particular, thank you, Mr. Brazos and Mr. Smith. Come along, my dear.”
They went off arm in arm down the street and the posse started to break up. Brazos dismounted, tethered his horse to the tie-rack and ambled through the gateway “Well, some openin’ night, eh, folks?” he grinned.
“Oh, Hank, you wonderful man,” Gypsy cried, rushing out to throw her arms about him, almost knocking him off his feet. “We knew you’d make it, we just knew!”
“Yeah, well I just about didn’t,” Brazos drawled. “Not in time that is,” he added, then went on to tell them how he and Surprising Smith had caught up with the posse south of Cripple Canyon after the shootout with the Sprod bunch. The posse had heard the gunfire, and guessing Smith had flushed the outlaws, had headed north for the canyon but had been delayed a dozen times by the rugged terrain of the badlands. “Seems as well we bumped into ’em when we did,” Brazos concluded, eyes going over the scene of battle. “By the looks of it you wouldn’t have held out too much longer.”
“Well I mightn’t have held out much longer myself,” grinned Benedict, able to joke about it now, “but I’m damned if I think the girls would have quit.” He looked around at the girls gathered about him. “I think now is the appropriate time to commend each and every one of you young ladies for your courage. You did yourselves proud.”
“Oh, don’t he talk lovely though,” Floralee sighed.
“He certainly does,” Belle Shilleen said affectionately, slipping her arm around the gambler’s waist. “And never mind about you thankin’ us, Duke, it’s we should thank you—you and Hank.”
“My pleasure, Belle,” Brazos replied gracefully.
“Well, are we goin’ to just stand around all night being polite?” Gypsy wanted to know. “Or we goin’ to start cleanin’ house?”
“The house-cleanin’ can wait,” declared Belle Shilleen. “This is still Friday night, and Friday night’s openin’ night for Belle Shilleen’s new house and by golly we’re goin’ to have ourselves our openin’ night party regardless.” Everybody thought Belle was crazy at first. Yet it was astonishing how better things looked when they got the lamps lit again, straightened up the furniture and swept the glass from the main parlor. Little Bob French, who’d spent the entire period of the siege crouched down behind his bar, bobbed up and started serving drinks again with a will, while Benedict got the steam piano playing once again. The girls cleaned up hurriedly, put on fresh, pretty gear and started dancing—for the second time that night—with the Big 6 cowboys.
Ten minutes later a couple of the posse men wandered in and joined the fun. The piano built up a head of steam and the music carried all the way down Johnny Street and the word went swiftly around that there was open house at Belle Shilleen’s. Within thirty minutes the place was packed. Harp Moody closed the Bird Cage and came down with his wife and his percentage girls and a load of free liquor. The Reverend Martin arrived with his wife, to apologize to Belle for their part in what had happened earlier, and stayed on to demonstrate to all and sundry the new dance step they’d learned in Denver while on vacation.
It was without question the greatest party in Daybreak’s history. The Ben Sprod bunch was finished, and the attack on the bordello earlier had somehow b
rought all the meanness of the town to the surface, then got rid of it. People who hadn’t spoken to one another for years, drank together with their arms about each other. Matilda Carbrook arrived with a huge cake and was promptly whisked off to dance with Henry Peck who’d never been known to dance a step in his life. Music, dancing, pretty women, gaiety, and a feeling that they were burying old times and beginning afresh. What more could a party want to make it truly memorable?
Nothing, one would have guessed. Yet at dawn the thing happened that would positively guarantee against anybody ever forgetting the great night of the party at Belle Shilleen’s. That was when Surprising Smith showed up in his neat black shirt and his tight black pants and his low-crowned black hat to challenge Duke Benedict to a duel to the death.
Thirteen – Very Surprising
Benedict came out of the bordello with the revelers filling the doors and windows behind him. The gambling man had thought Flash Jimmy Chadwick might be putting him on when he told him Surprising Smith was waiting for him out front. But Smith was there right enough, a dark, neat little figure on the plank walk, silhouetted against the dawn-washed gray of the street.
Benedict walked slowly out onto the walk followed by a babble of excited speculation. Some thought this must be part of the entertainment.
“So, at least you had the guts to come out,” was Surprising Smith’s grating greeting. “Well, just as well you did, tinhorn, on account I’d of come in after you right smart.”
“What’s on your mind, Smith?” Benedict wanted to know. The gambler looked much bigger than the little bounty-hunter standing there with the chill early morning wind fluttering his black four-in-hand tie. He also looked far more formidable with his unbuttoned coat revealing the polished black gunbelt slanted across his hips and the big white-handled Colts. His teeth flashed in a grin that sent a flutter through the women in the watching crowd.
“Flash Jimmy told me as how you wanted to gunfight me, but of course I know he made a mistake.”
“I am here to gunfight you, tinhorn.”
“You must be loco. Why would we want to fight?”
“You know only too damned well, blast your eyes.” Smith’s mouth twisted. “You dirty wife-stealer!”
It was seldom that Duke Benedict was genuinely innocent where the pretty wives of irate husbands were concerned, but this was one of them. Innocent only perhaps because of a combination of bad luck and lack of opportunity, but innocent nonetheless.
“Now see here, Smith,” he protested, “I haven’t—”
“They told me up at the saloon that you been hangin’ about her while I been gone,” the jealous little man-hunter cut him off. “I gave her a good larrupin’, but she still wouldn’t admit you seduced her. But I know her, and I know your smooth-talkin’ tinhorn breed—and that’s why I aim to put you in the ground.”
Benedict’s face turned cold. “You beat up on Honey?” Before Smith could reply, Hank Brazos loomed up behind Benedict.
“What’s eatin’ you, Smith?” the big man demanded. “You likkered up?”
“Better stay out of this, Reb,” Benedict said.
“Yeah,” Surprising Smith agreed. “I got no beef with you, Brazos, just your fancy-fingered, high-rollin’ friend.”
“Now just a dad-blamed minute—”
“Back off, Brazos,” Benedict commanded. “This is my card game.”
Brazos grumbled and moved back. Benedict turned back to Smith, making one last effort to avoid gunsmoke. “Now look, Smith, can’t we talk this over?”
“Go for your irons you philanderin’, wife-stealin’ son-of-a-bitch!”
Those harsh words brought a sudden hush to the crowd that watched, as motley and colorful a crowd as Calico Valley had ever seen. They were lining both galleries of Belle’s house now, hanging out of windows and doors for a better view and with a score or more grouped about in the littered front yard.
“All right, bounty-hunter,” Benedict said coldly, flipping the panels of his coat back behind his gun butts. “If you’re bound and determined to die a fool ... draw!”
Surprising Smith delayed just a moment to get himself set, and in that moment, each man became aware of the rapid pitter-patter of high heels on the boardwalk. Other heads turned to see Honey Smith running down the street with her long black hair flying behind her, but not Benedict or Smith. Their eyes were locked on each other, they were as still as death.
And then they drew.
Flashing hands drove downwards, and as he came clear, Benedict noted with ice-cold professional interest that Surprising Smith was surprisingly fast. But as skilled hands slapped bone and thornwood grips, and the deadly guns leapt, a piercing cry broke the electric hush.
“Cedric! Cedric, no!”
The voice registered with Benedict, but not the name Cedric. But both registered with Surprising “Cedric” Smith, and for a split-second the little bounty-hunter’s concentration was affected by his wife’s voice, robbing him of that razor edge of speed that could mean the difference between life and death.
It would have been death, if Duke Benedict were a killer. But the gambler didn’t really want to kill this cranky little gamecock, and the bullet that snarled from his right hand Colt didn’t rip through the bounty-hunter’s heart as it might have, but through his right hand, sending his six-gun spinning into the dust.
A great sigh of relief came from the watching crowd as Duke Benedict lowered his smoking gun. Surprising Smith gasping, clutched at his bloody hand and turned to face his wife. Honey’s hair was disheveled, she was sporting a black eye, but still looked pretty as a heart flush to Duke Benedict.
“Cedric Smith,” she stormed, disgusted, “I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you you’d be a fool if you didn’t believe I’d been true to you, and a double fool if you called Duke out over it.”
She paused for breath, put her hands on her hips and regarded him sternly. “Now just take a look at yourself, Cedric. You’ve gone and got yourself hurt, and you’ve made a fool of yourself and me in front of the whole town. Aren’t you ashamed?”
Relieved, trying not to grin, Duke Benedict waited for Honey’s words to strike sparks off Surprising Smith’s flinty temper. But Cedric Surprising Smith just stood there looking smaller and more foolish by the moment as his furious wife continued to chew him out. He took his medicine like any ordinary house-broken husband, and suddenly, almost in the same moment, Benedict and the crowd sensed the truth about the bounty-hunter. Surprising Smith’s pride and courage had all hinged on one thing; his gun speed. Now he’d tasted defeat and injury, he was revealed for what he really was. A very little man. Surprisingly little in fact.
Chuckling as Honey’s tirade continued, Hank Brazos ranged up at Benedict’s shoulder.
“You know, right about now, Yank, ole Surprisin’ is wonderin’ if it wouldn’t have been better if you’d got him right twixt the eyes instead of just wingin’ him.”
Benedict smiled openly. Then feeling just a little sorry for Smith now, elected to intervene.
“I think he’s got the idea he was a little hasty, now, Honey,” he said, stepping forward. Then to Smith, “You’re a good hand with a gun, er, Cedric. But you’re not any world-beater. I would have beaten you whether your lady wife had distracted you or not. Take a tip from one who knows... learn a lesson and give up gun work before you cross trails with somebody faster than me.”
“Mebbe I will at that, Benedict.” Smith was humble as a saint.
“There is no maybe about it, Cedric Smith,” declared Honey, who was showing an assertiveness new both to Benedict and her husband. “I’ve had more than enough of this ridiculous way of life we lead. We’re taking the first stage back home to Dog Hollow and I’ll open up my dress shop again and you’ll return to your rightful trade as a pastry cook.”
Deadly Surprising Smith the bounty-hunter, actually Cedric Smith, pastry cook from Dog Hollow? A titter ran through the crowd as they say in burlesque houses. The titter became ope
n laughter when the ex-bounty-hunter just said meekly, “All right, dear.”
“Well, at last you’re showing some sense,” Honey sniffed, and watching her, Duke Benedict had a vision of Honey in ten years’ time, thirty pounds heavier and bossy as a trainload of Irish railroad foremen. Poor Cedric, he remembered thinking, but put on his best smile as Honey ran to him with a softened expression.
“Thanks, Duke. I’ll never forget you spared my Cedric’s life.”
“My great pleasure,” Benedict murmured, giving a little bow. “Au revoir, Honey. And goodbye to you, Cedric.”
Honey smiled farewell then as she took her husband by the arm. But there were no goodbye words from Surprising Smith, as he took one last woebegone look around the colorful scene under the rays of the rising sun, then like a weary little old man, let himself be led down Johnny Street, first to the hotel, then to the Stage Depot, and from there out of Daybreak, never to be seen or heard of in Calico Valley again.
“Now, Belle?”
“What’s that, honey?”
“Are you ready to tell me where Rangle is now? I mean you promised you would if I stuck by you, and I did.”
“Sure, why not? You’ve earned it, honey.”
Benedict leant eagerly forward on the edge of the chaise lounge in Belle’s upstairs room. It was an hour since the “showdown” with Surprising Smith. The revelers had gone home and the officially-opened bordello was quiet.
Except for that furtive creak outside the door.
Benedict jumped up, strode to the door and flung it open. Hank Brazos stood there with an unlit cigarette dangling from his bottom lip.
“Howdy-do, Yank.”
“What the blue blazes are you doing listening at the door?” Benedict said angrily.
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