The Floating Outfit 15

by J. T. Edson

  Throughout the fight so far the bartender continued to lean on the counter and watch. Apart from one chair there had been no damage to the house’s property, and a fight relieved the boredom on such a dull night. While he found Red and Hans Soehnen’s part in the affair interesting, it lacked the novel aspects shown in Dusty’s handling of two larger men.

  Then the bartender saw something which caused him to intervene. Muttering bilingual curses, Fritz Soehnen rose from the shattered chair. The young German dipped a hand into his pocket and drew a folding dirk knife, opening its six-inch-long blade.

  ‘Put it away, Soehnen!’ yelled the bartender.

  A fist fight was one thing, but the introduction of the knife brought too serious an aspect into the affair for the bartender to remain silent.

  Hearing the words, Dusty concluded that his German opponent must be bringing some weapon or other into use. It could not be the other Soehnen doing so for he stood to one side, both big hands clamped on Red’s throat. Dusty knew better than wait for further proof. Freeing Finwald’s arm, he hurled the young man away from him and turned fast in Fritz’s direction.

  Even before he saw the knife, Dusty started his right hand flashing across to the butt of the left-side Colt and went into the stance rapidly becoming known as the gunfighter’s crouch. Legs apart and slightly bent, body inclined forward, the Colt finishing as the central point of his entire being, Dusty threw down on Fritz Soehnen. That knife the German held was not the kind of thing made to be carried in the pocket and put to general use, but a deadly weapon. No less so because its wielder could not be termed a master knife-fighter. Certainly Dusty did not intend to take chances.

  ‘Drop it!’ the small Texan barked, backing his words with the cocked and lined long-barreled Army Colt.

  Stopping dead in his tracks, Soehnen stared with an open mouth and his suddenly limp fingers opened to let the knife clatter to the floor. He could hardly believe his eyes, yet the small cowhand undoubtedly held a Colt in what, a bare three-quarters of a second before, had been an empty hand. And suddenly the cowhand was small no more. In some manner he appeared to have taken on size until he dominated the room, exuding a deadly menace that went beyond a mere cocked revolver.

  Satisfied that he did not need to worry further about Fritz for the moment, Dusty darted a glance in Red’s direction. It rapidly became apparent that Red needed no help in dealing with the second Soehnen. Clasping his hands together without interlacing the fingers, Red prepared to free himself from the powerful grip on his throat. Out lashed the redhead’s left foot, catching Hans Soehnen hard on the shin and drawing a yelp of pain. Driving up his hands, Red forced apart Hans’ arms but did not break the hold. So Red continued to raise his hands between Hans’ arms and then brought them down. The two hands thudded solidly on to the bridge of Hans’ nose and pain caused him to relax his hold. Pulling himself free from the German’s hands, Red glided in a pace and his clenched left fist sank almost wrist-deep into Hans’ belly. With a croaking gasp that expelled most of the air from his lungs, Hans doubled over. His face came down just right to meet Red’s other hand, which worked in concert with the left. A solid click sounded and Hans straightened out, struck the bar, bounced off to catch Red’s left fist solidly at the side of the jaw. Spinning around, Hans toppled to the floor, sighed once and went limp.

  With Hans disposed of without the kind of fight Red had hoped to enjoy, the redhead turned to see if he could be of any assistance to his illustrious cousin. While Dusty clearly needed none with the younger Soehnen, Finwald appeared to be taking advantage of the small Texan’s preoccupation. Being behind Dusty, the slim trouble-causer reached for the bottle from which he and his companions had shared drinks earlier. Cold anger glinted in Red’s eyes as he lunged by his cousin, clamped a hold on Finwald’s shoulder, turned and hit him. Finwald shot away from the bottle and landed in a sitting position on the floor. But not for long. Following him up, Red laid hold of his lapels and hauled him erect.

  ‘Don’t fuss me any more, boy!’ Red warned, slamming Finwald back against the bar. ‘My favorite lil cousin was in that room when Sarah Maybelle opened your present.’

  ‘Ho-Horned lizards are harmless!’ Finwald squawked.

  Which was the truth. Phrynosoma cornutum, known as a horned toad to most folks west of the Mississippi but, as Finwald correctly claimed, a lizard, might look revoltingly dangerous and be thought poisonous. It was not, being a harmless creature whose sole means of defense consisted of squirting drops of blood from the forward corners of the eyes.

  ‘Horned lizards might be!’ Red conceded. ‘But that damned rattlesnake sure as hell wasn’t.’

  No amount of college-educated superiority could give Finwald an argument to that statement. From the earliest days of its life, a rattlesnake carried sufficient venom in its poison sacs to be deadly dangerous. Popular belief even claimed that a rattlesnake killed at any time during the day could still strike and eject its venom until sundown. However, Finwald did not seem to know what Red meant.

  ‘Ra-Rattlesnake!’ he yelped. ‘What rattlesnake?’

  ‘The one in that basket!’ Red growled, drawing Finwald forward and backing him hard into the counter again. Releasing his hold with one hand, Red knotted it into a useful-looking fist. ‘I’ve a mind to—’

  ‘Don’t hit me!’ Finwald screeched. ‘My father’ll have the law on you!’

  ‘Ease off, Red,’ Dusty ordered, for the threat did not seem to be working. Holstering his Colt, he looked at Fritz. ‘Go tend to your brother.’

  Without a word and leaving his knife where it lay, Fritz obeyed. Then Dusty turned his attention to the cowering Finwald, who, on being released by Red, cringed against the bar.

  ‘It was only a joke!’ Finwald blubbered.

  ‘You call sending a rattlesnake in a basket to a roomful of girls a joke?’ Dusty demanded.

  ‘I suppose sending those two jaspers to gun Sandy McGraw down was to keep you laughing for a week,’ Red went on.

  ‘I—I don’t know what you mean!’ Finwald croaked, trying to sink into himself before the two pairs of coldly menacing eyes which bored into him.

  All former traces of Finwald’s self-opinionated superiority had left him and he could think of nothing coherent to say. No flow of wit to blast the two Texans into a sense of their inferior educational status left Finwald. Instead he just hung on the bar and muttered weakly.

  Rising from his brother’s side, Fritz Soehnen approached Dusty. The young German had heard enough to tell him that something had gone wrong with their stupid and thoughtless joke. Something serious that could bring back repercussions on those involved. While Finwald’s father might be ‘progressive’ and overlook his son’s bad behavior, the same did not apply to Papa Soehnen. There would be trouble enough when Soehnen senior heard his sons had been involved in a saloon brawl and the small Texan hinted at something even more serious.

  ‘Hans and me don’t know anything about Chester and Sandy McGraw, mister,’ Fritz stated. ‘But I do know there was only horned toads in the basket.’

  ‘You’re sure, huh?’ Dusty said quietly.

  ‘Hans and me helped Chester catch them.’

  ‘And the basket never went out of your sight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There was only a bunch of horned toads in it, Cap’n Fog,’ the bartender put in. ‘I saw ’em when they opened the basket one time.’

  Probably for the first time in his life Chester Finwald felt gratitude to another person. At that moment he could have fallen on Fritz Soehnen’s bull-neck with cries of joy and repeated it on the bartender. Then he realized that the two Texans would be a whole lot harder to convince than his doting father, who always treated complaints leveled against Chester as the bigoted persecution of opposing political views.

  ‘I couldn’t’ve carried a live rattlesnake under my jacket,’ Finwald began with just a touch of his old superiority. It died away again as Dusty swung to face him.

&n
bsp; ‘Maybe you saw one on your way to the Maybelle place and decided to change your wedding gift,’ Dusty suggested.

  ‘He couldn’t have, Cap—!’ Fritz began, then realized the meaning of the name he started to repeat. His eyes bugged out and he stared at the small Texan. ‘Did he say “Cap’n Fog”?’

  ‘That’s right, Fritz-boy,’ the bartender told him with relish. ‘You tried to pull a knife on Cap’n Dusty Fog.’

  Earlier that evening Fritz might have scoffed at the idea of such a small, insignificant young man being the almost legendary Dusty Fog. That would have been before he felt the strength in the small Texan’s hands, learned the other’s skill at barehanded fighting or witnessed the lighting speed with which the Colt came into Dusty’s hand.

  ‘I—I’m sorry, Cap’n,’ he apologized.

  ‘So all you took was a basket of horned toads?’ Dusty asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s all!’ whined Finwald.

  ‘It’s the cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die truth, Cap’n,’ confirmed Fritz.

  ‘Could anybody have changed the baskets without your knowing?’

  ‘Not unless they did it after Chester left it on the Maybelle’s porch.’

  ‘Who else’d know about this fool game of yours?’ Red demanded.

  ‘Nobody,’ admitted Fritz, looking deflated.

  ‘One feller would,’ the bartender put in. ‘He heard you talking right here.’

  ‘Who was he?’ asked Dusty.

  ‘A medium-sized hardcase, looked like a half-breed and a hired gun.’

  Chapter Five

  When giving the brief description, the bartender did not expect it to arouse such interest from his illustrious guests. Dusty and Red exchanged glances, and then directed a long, searching stare at Finwald.

  ‘How was this feller dressed?’ asked Red of the bartender.

  ‘Sombrero, charro jacket, string tie. Got him a low-tied gun.’

  ‘A Colt?’ Dusty inquired.

  ‘Naw. The butt wasn’t right.’

  Few contemporary revolvers carried butts with the smooth, hand-fitting shape of those produced by the Colt company. Already the products of Colonel Sam Colt’s Hartford factory had achieved such ubiquity throughout the West that any other type of revolver tended to catch the eye. While the bartender failed to recognize Murphy’s Allen & Wheelock revolver as such, he noticed it was not a Colt. The same fact struck Stormy Weather, to be mentioned in his description of the second of Red’s assailants.

  ‘Where is he now?’ growled Red.

  ‘Dunno,’ admitted the bartender. ‘He came in while this bunch were talking. I thought he’d come for the snake-fights and told him he was a day early.’

  ‘Snake-fights?’

  ‘Sure, Cap’n Fog. We hold ’em in the cellar every once in a while. When we can get enough snakes.’

  ‘You’ve enough now?’

  ‘Maybe a dozen rattlers and the same number of kings down there right now.’

  Once more Dusty and Red exchanged glances. Then the small Texan resumed his questioning. ‘What did this hardcase do?’

  ‘Had a drink and allowed to be going out back. He didn’t come back for a longish time, set up another drink or so, then left.’

  ‘He went out just before we left to deliver the present,’ Fritz elaborated and darted to his brother’s side as Hans showed signs of recovery. Dropping to one knee, he blurted a rapid mouthful of German at Hans, of which only the words ‘Capitan Fog’ sounded familiar to the listeners. Clearly Fritz gave warning of Dusty’s identity and explained the situation for, although he looked sullen and glared at Red, Hans offered to cause no trouble when he rose.

  ‘He sure did,’ agreed the bartender as Hans lurched to and leaned against the counter. ‘Fact being, he only come back after this bunch. I mentioned it’d taken him some time and he said he’d have to take croton oil.’

  ‘How many snakes have you down in the cellar?’ asked Dusty.

  ‘Couldn’t say for sure, Cap’n,’ the bartender replied. ‘The boss’d know.’

  ‘How’s he keep them?’

  ‘In baskets—Say, they’re just like the one Finwald had.’

  ‘So they should be,’ Finwald put in. ‘They come from my father’s store.’

  ‘Go ask your boss if he’ll count his snakes, friend,’ Dusty requested.

  Normally the owner of the hotel would have objected to being disturbed, or maybe refused to comply with the request for information. Knowing this, the bartender made sure his employer knew the identity of the man requiring the assistance. Within five minutes of hearing that Captain Dusty Fog required his services, the hotel’s owner stood in the bar and told that one of his snakes was missing.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it!’ Finwald wailed.

  Watching the Germans, Dusty concluded that they at least had no knowledge of any murderous intentions Finwald may have had. While Finwald’s protestations of innocence appeared genuine enough, Dusty wanted to make certain before accepting them.

  ‘Maybe you don’t,’ Dusty said. ‘But, was I you, I’d hunt a hole and hide in it until after the wedding’s over and Sandy McGraw’s headed for San Garcia.’

  ‘You do that,’ Red agreed. ‘Happen Sandy hears about that fool game you pulled, he’ll beat your brains back in.’

  Leaving the hotel, Dusty and Red made their way to the marshal’s office and arrived in time to find Dale just finishing tossing a drunken cowhand into one of the cells. On hearing of the incident at the Maybelle house, Dale replied that already a woman in the neighborhood had arrived with a complaint that somebody threw a basket containing half a dozen horned lizards into her front garden.

  ‘That clears Finwald,’ Red remarked, always willing to see good in everybody.

  ‘Or shows that he’s playing tricky,’ Dusty answered. ‘He could have hired those two jaspers who tried to kill you, and rigged the whole game.’

  ‘Look, Dusty,’ Dale put in. ‘I don’t like the Finwalds, father or son, but I don’t think Chester’d pull a game like that. A meanness like trying to spoil Sarah’s bridal-shower with the horned toads, sure, but not a killing, even by hiring it done.’

  ‘A man in love does mighty foolish and unusual things, so I’ve heard,’ Dusty replied.

  ‘All Chester Finwald ever loved was hisself,’ snorted Dale. ‘Sure it hurt his pride when Sarah picked a better man, but not enough for him to pay out good money hiring killers.’

  ‘I can’t think of anybody else who’d want Sandy dead,’ Dusty objected.

  ‘Sandy never owned a ranch before, either,’ Red pointed put.

  ‘There’s that,’ Dusty admitted. ‘Where’d be the most likely place for a half-breed hardcase to stay around town, Anse?’

  ‘Rosa Rio’s cantina,’ Dale replied.

  ‘Then let’s go pay her a visit,’ the small Texan suggested.

  Built on the edge of the Mexican quarter of San Antonio, Rosa Rio’s adobe cantina served as a kind of international melting pot. While she drew some trade from both Americans and Mexicans, the bulk of her customers were men of mixed racial blood. Unlike the Casa Moreno, the cantina had a good crowd inside. However, when Dale, Dusty and Red entered, the noise died away. Hard faces with cold, unfriendly eyes studied the trio suspiciously, or darted glances at the other exits from the room.

  ‘I’ve seen rattlesnakes that looked friendlier,’ Red commented quietly.

  ‘Rattlers’re nothing compared with some of this bunch,’ Dale informed him. ‘And Rosa Rio behind the bar there’s the worst of them all.’

  From her usual place at the cash-drawer behind the counter, Rosa Rio flashed Dale a gold-toothed smile which had no mirth and did not reach her eyes. In her youth she may have been voluptuous, but little of it remained. Drink and general dissipation had left her bloatedly fat and wiped all but the last traces of what had been a great beauty from her face.

  ‘Buenos noches,’ marshal,’ she greeted. ‘You want a drink?’

 
‘I thought we were friends, Rosa,’ Dale countered.

  ‘Oh, it won’t be the stuff I sell,’ the woman assured him, darting a glance in Dusty’s direction. ‘What else can I do for you?’

  ‘We’re looking for a man—’

  ‘I run a clean, respectable place here!’ Rosa squawked.

  ‘Why sure,’ said Dale, sounding almost as if he believed her. ‘He’s a half-breed, Rosa. Stocky, middle-tall, wears a sombrero, charro jacket, white shirt and string tie. Got a low-tied gun and a knife stuck down his boot.’

  ‘I’ve got a roomful like that,’ the woman giggled. ‘Most of my customers dress border style.’

  ‘We’ll take a look around then,’ Dale stated.

  ‘Feel free. You got new deputies?’

  ‘You might say that.’

  ‘San Antonio must be getting rich,’ Rosa grinned.

  ‘How’s that?’ Dale asked.

  ‘Taking on Dusty Fog and Red Blaze as deputy marshals,’ the woman explained. ‘Go anyplace you like and see what you want.’

  Turning from the bar, Dusty looked around the room. Despite Rosa’s claims, only three of her customers really fitted the somewhat scanty description on which Dusty’s party worked. While the majority of the bar’s occupants dressed in the fashion of Rio Grande dwellers, the trio alone possessed the necessary physical qualifications. One of them had a scar on his face which could not be missed and that eliminated him. Such an identifying mark must have been noticed by either Stormy Weather or the Casa Moreno bartender and been mentioned when giving their description.

  So Dusty started forward in the direction of the nearest suspect. To reach him, Dusty’s party had to pass probably the only two men in the room who did not interest the small Texan. Tall, lean, obviously Americanos del Norte, the pair wore clothing of the kind rarely seen in Southern Texas, hailing as it did from north country ranges. Unless Dusty missed his guess, the pair spent most of the time in the Dakotas, or maybe even Wyoming. They certainly would never have caused the experienced Stormy Weather to mistake them, either of them, for a half-breed of the Rio Grande border country.