Ranch War

by J. T. Edson

  “Damned if I don’t go out there and bust that blasted lamp!” she muttered, without any intention of doing it. “If this’s what living in——”

  A faint thud from outside the window brought her comments to a halt and caused her to sit up. Peering through the darkness, she could detect nothing to account for the sound. Deciding that it must have been imagination, she slumped back and turned on to her right side. Scowling across the bed, she eyed the door malevolently. Then an uneasy feeling that something was wrong began to seep through her.

  After a moment’s thought, she realized what was wrong. Looking again, she found that there was no longer an unbroken line of light at the base of the door. Instead, it had become split into three separate segments. Somebody was standing outside, his or her feet breaking the disturbing elongated glow. At first Calamity assumed that another of the hotel’s guests had come to her door by mistake.

  The assumption only lasted for an instant.

  Lifting herself on to the right elbow, she watched a sheet of newspaper slide through the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. Maybe her formal education had been neglected, but she understood the full implications of what she saw. Sufficiently well for her to take instant action.

  Rolling out of the bed on the side away from the door, she sank into a kneeling position by it. From there she watched the key, which the boy had brought inside and she had turned before undressing, begin to creep slowly backward from the lock. It fell with a gentle clink on to the sheet of paper. After a brief pause, while the intruder in the passage waited to hear if the room’s occupant had been disturbed and meant to raise the alarm, the paper started to move at a snail’s pace in the direction from which it had come.

  “If you’re fixing to come in here and rob poor, sleeping lil me,” Calamity breathed, “you’ve got one helluva surprise headed your way.”

  Chapter 2 HE SURE WON’T SMELL LIKE A ROSE

  EVEN AS THE SENTIMENT LEFT HER LIPS, CALAMITY realized that she had committed a serious error in tactics. Her Winchester carbine, with twelve flat-nosed Tyler B. Henry .44 cartridges in its magazine tube, was leaning against the head of the bed; but on the opposite side to her position. Worse than that; her gunbelt, holding the Navy Colt and coiled bull-whip, was draped around the bed-post above the carbine.

  About to rise and rectify the mistake, she heard another faint sound from outside the window. Turning her head, she found that she had a better view. What she discovered was not comforting. Two square-shaped knobs appeared to have sprouted above the straight line of the windowsill. Before a somewhat larger, more oval shape started to rise between them, she had identified the protuberances as the top end of a ladder. It most certainly had not been there when she had pulled the drapes. Nor did she need closer observation to know the rising shape was the head of a man.

  Taken with the disappearance of her key, riding slowly under the door on the retreating sheet of newspaper, the presence of a man ascending a ladder to her window rang a whole series of alarm bells for Calamity.

  Listening for the click that would warn her the man in the passage was making use of the key, Calamity watched the shape across the room develop into a bare head and wide shoulders as the second intruder rose higher on the ladder. Discovering that the window was open, the man came to a halt. From what Calamity could make out, he possessed a sufficiently hefty build for her not to relish the prospect of tangling with him barehanded. Slowly and carefully, he started to ease upward the bottom half of the window; which, Calamity recollected bitterly, she had obligingly opened just before she had climbed into that dad-blasted feather bed.

  “No!” she thought. “Not just before!”

  Between opening the window and climbing into bed, she had performed a natural function made necessary by consuming a bottle of wine and several cups of coffee in Freddie Woods’ private railroad car.

  Unlike her armament, the item she had used during her last act before climbing into bed was at the side where she now knelt. A grin of delight creased Calamity’s face as she thought of the elegant pot’s sturdy construction. Handled correctly, it ought to make a mighty effective deterrent against the man at the window.

  So far the intruder at the window showed no sign of knowing that his proposed victim was awake, alert and no longer in bed. Ducking his head forward, he prepared to enter the room. Luckily the second man had not unlocked the door. As long as she could take the first cuss out of the game, Calamity figured she ought to be able to reach her more conventional weapons. Holding the carbine, Colt or whip, she reckoned that she could then show her visitors a real hospitable welcome.

  Gripping the handle of the chamber-pot, she drew it from beneath the bed. At any moment she expected to hear the lock click and see the door open. There was no time to lose if she hoped to achieve her ambition regarding the big man.

  Swiftly Calamity thrust herself erect and into motion, darting alongside the bed and across the room. She heard the lock snap open mingled with a startled exclamation from the man on the ladder.

  “She’s awake, Otón!” the big intruder at the window bawled.

  Light flooded into the room as the door began to open. Calamity knew that there would not be time for her to reach the window and make the speaker a present of the chamberpot for a hat, then return to the bed and grab a firearm, before his companion cut in. So she did not try.

  Coming to a halt, Calamity hurled the contents of the chamber-pot into the face of the man at the window. While less permanent than her original intention, the result proved almost as satisfactory. Expecting to hear the occupant of the room start screaming fit to waken the dead, the man had already begun to snatch his head and torso back through the window. Caught in the face by the flood of urine, which stung his eyes and half-blinded him, he jerked to the rear at an even greater speed. So fast, in fact, that Calamity did not have a chance to study his features for future reference.

  Spitting out a flow of foul language, the man made his involuntary retreat with such force that he wrenched the top of the ladder away from the wall. Back it tilted until it stood almost perpendicular. Then it began to reverse its course. Aware of the ladder’s flimsy construction, the man doubted if it would stand up to the impact. Even if it did, the girl in the room might not restrict herself to the mere contents of the chamber-pot for her next attack.

  With that thought in mind, the man transferred his hands’ grip to the sides of the ladder. Jerking his feet from the rungs which had supported them, he started to slide down to safety. Before he had gone far, the top of the ladder crashed into the edge of the windowsill. Timber crackled as the center of the ladder buckled under the combined effects of the collision and his weight. Cursing even more wildly as a splinter of wood spiked into the palm of his right hand, the man fell. He landed with one foot crushing the crown of the hat he had discarded before climbing to the window.

  While falling, he heard a shouted curse, a shot and a crash from above him. The combined sounds would be enough to disturb the entire first floor and some of the guests were certain to investigate. Still cursing under his breath, he rubbed a hand across his face and blinked the tears from his smarting eyes. Then he turned and lurched hurriedly toward an alley between two of the buildings behind the hotel.

  Satisfied with the big man’s abrupt disappearance from the window, Calamity was granted no time for self-congratulation. Turning her head, she found that the door had opened sufficiently for her to look straight at the second intruder. While they remained staring at each other for only a moment, her mind registered a few significant facts about the figure in the doorway.

  Being situated behind him, the passage’s lights threw his features into such heavy shadow that she could not hope to identify him that way. Bare-headed, he had black hair and wore ordinary, undistinguishable range clothes. While his bandana, shirt and Levi’s pants offered little clue to the nature of his employment, the high-heeled boots on his feet and their large-roweled spurs suggested c
onnections with the cattle rather than railroad, freight-wagon, buffalo-hunting or other Western industries.

  In his right hand he held a long-bladed knife from the empty sheath at the left of his gunbelt. There was a gun at the right side; an 1860 Army Colt with fancy Tiffany grips instead of the usual hand-fitting curved butt. The holster it rode in attracted Calamity’s attention for three reasons: first, it hung on a slightly longer than usual belt loop; second, its tip was not fastened to the wearer’s thigh; third, its bottom was open and the Colt’s barrel extended an inch below it.

  “Hijo de puta!” the man spat out, surprised to find himself confronted by the victim he had assumed to still be in bed.

  Tossing the knife to his left hand, his right fist dropped to the Colt’s butt. Fast and practiced though the move had been, he did not complete it by raising the gun from the holster, which failed to lull Calamity into a sense of false security. Having associated with several notable members of the fast-draw fraternity and listened to them discussing the tools of their trade, she knew plenty about the methods of carrying a gun to facilitate its rapid withdrawal from leather. Although it was the first of its kind she had seen, she had heard mention of the type of holster worn by the intruder. Such a rig offered one major advantage. Its user did not need to draw the revolver before he commenced to throw lead.

  Thumb-cocking the Colt without drawing it, the man started to tilt up the bottom of the holster in Calamity’s direction. The girl did not hesitate in her reaction. Pivoting around, she swung and hurled the chamber-pot across the room with all the strength in her powerful young body. During her tomboy childhood, Calamity had won the reputation of being the best rock-pitcher around Princeton, Missouri, and had lost little of her ability while growing up. However, her unconventional missile did not lend itself to accuracy. Even as it left her hand, she knew instinctively that she would not make a hit.

  At the sight of the chamber-pot hurtling his way, the man responded involuntarily. Still gripping the hilt of the knife, his left hand hooked on to the edge of the door. He could not prevent himself jerking back and starting to draw the door between himself and the missile. In doing so, he turned the muzzle of his Colt out of line at the moment that he released his hold on the hammer. Flame spurted from the barrel and the detonation of the shot shattered the silence of the night. Then the chamber-pot struck against the upper edge of the door. Bursting apart by the force of the impact, it sprayed the man with fragments of broken pottery and caused him to accelerate his departure. He went knowing that his bullet had missed the girl.

  Jerking the door closed, the man swiftly assessed the situation. The speed with which the girl had reacted did not spring out of fright or panic. Instead, she had moved throughout with a grim, dangerous purpose that gave the man a warning. If he continued to force his attentions upon the occupant of Room Fourteen, he was likely to meet with a noisy, violent resistance. Immediately after throwing the chamber-pot, she had started to dart toward the bed. Most likely she went to lay hands on some more lethal and effective weapon. So she must be prevented from using it. Releasing the butt of his Colt, his right hand flashed across to lock the door.

  “Hey you!” yelled a male voice from along the passage, fortunately not in the direction of the stairs. “What’re you up to?”

  Swiveling his head around, the intruder saw the night-cap-topped face of a big, burly man peering cautiously around the door of Room Eighteen. Not only did the face show grim determination, but the barrel of a revolver extended beyond the door to prove he had the means of enforcing his demand for information. Pausing only to make sure his way was clear, the intruder spun on his heel and dashed to the stairs. More voices were raised along the passage and other doors opened. Ignoring them, the fleeing man bounded rapidly down the stairs.

  Awakened by the disturbance from the first floor, Philpotter emerged from his office. At midnight he had followed his usual procedure by leaving the desk, removing his collar and tie, unbuttoning his vest and settling down to rest. He came out, bleary-eyed but filled with indignation, just in time to see the intruder leap down the remaining stairs.

  “What——Who——?” Philpotter began.

  It proved to be a mistake. Hearing the clerk’s startled exclamation, the fleeing man turned his head that way and dropped his right hand to the gun’s butt. No fighter, Philpotter adopted the wisest course and ducked hurriedly behind the desk. Frightened and quaking, the clerk remained in concealment and listened to the other man’s running feet crossing the reception hall. Not until the thumping of the boot-heels died away along the sidewalk did Philpotter offer to raise his head. After making sure that the intruder really had left, he rose and hurried upstairs to investigate the cause of the upheaval to the hotel’s normal peace and decorum.

  Watching the door close as she darted across the room, Calamity reached the bed. She bounded over its end, landing and rolling across the mattress. Just before the door shut completely and blotted out the light, she stabbed forward her left hand to catch hold of the top of the carbine’s barrel. Never had the little saddle-gun felt so comforting to her touch. She tossed it upward and caught the wooden fore-grip in her left hand. Then the right’s fingers curled around the wrist of the butt. As she continued to roll from the bed, her right forefinger entered the trigger-guard and the other three found their way through the ring of the loading lever. Landing with her left leg bent and right knee upon the floor, she swung the brass butt-plate of the carbine to her right shoulder. Working the lever to feed a bullet from the magazine tube into the chamber, she took sight on the door.

  Before she could squeeze the trigger, she noticed that the segmented strip of light below the door had become a whole line once more. That meant the man on the other side was no longer standing in her line of fire. Give him his due, though, he was a cool son-of-a-bitch. She had heard him lock the door as soon as he closed it.

  For a moment Calamity considered shooting open the lock, then dismissed the notion as impractical and dangerous. Maybe the twenty-eight-grain load of powder in the .44 Winchester bullet lacked the long-range potential of a cigar-long buffalo rifle cartridge, but it packed enough power to pass through the lock, cross the passage and injure anybody unfortunate enough to be in its way in the room opposite. Nor would she be any better off if she burst open the lock. Clad only in a pair of drawers, she was not suitably attired to go chasing owlhoots around a fancy hotel—or any other place, come to that.

  Shouts rang out in the passage as Calamity came to her feet. Then she remembered her other visitor. Turning, she darted across to the window. At the sight of the man’s bulky figure heading for the alley, she knelt and rested her carbine on the windowsill. While not a particularly vindictive person, she figured that men ought to be dissuaded from the habit of attempting to break into harmless females’ rooms. Being of a blunt and forthright disposition, she reckoned that a .44 bullet in the hide ought to make a mighty effective dissuader.

  As Calamity only wanted to injure the man, she lined the carbine’s sights with extra care. Just as her forefinger started to depress the trigger, a thunderous knocking on her door caused her to jerk around. The carbine spat viciously, but its muzzle no longer pointed in the required direction. Instead of plowing into the man’s right hip, the bullet struck and threw a cloud of splinters from the corner of the left-side building.

  Again the fist pounded on the door and a worried male voice bellowed, “Are you all right in there?”

  A glance out the window told Calamity that the man had passed beyond any hope of immediate retribution. Straightening up, she turned and walked across the room. Approaching the door, she realized that she was no more suitably dressed for receiving visitors than for pursuing routed intruders.

  Before she could formulate any solution to the problem, the matter was taken out of her hands. The lock clicked and the door burst open. Revolver in hand, a big, burly man lunged into the room. From the way he entered, he had experience in such important ma
tters. Maybe not up to the standards of a trained peace officer, but adequate to offer him a chance of survival if there had been an enemy inside. Behind him, several other men clad in a variety of night-wear surged forward. They came to a halt, forced to it by the man in the lead. There was an air of hard-bitten authority about him that a night-cap and dressing-gown could not dispel. His entire attitude hinted that he was used to making decisions in a hurry—but he could be surprised.

  Embarrassment swept the grim, purposeful frown from the man’s face as he found himself confronted by a pretty, shapely girl who was naked to the waist, briefly clad below it and carried a smoking Winchester carbine. Exclamations of interest and approbation rose from the men who had followed him in.

  “Are you all right, young lady?” the big man demanded.

  “Sure,” Calamity replied.

  “Then we had better withdraw,” the man stated, in tones that brooked no objection. Backing toward the door, he forced the others to leave. Turning his head so that he did not look at Calamity, he went on, “If I might make a suggestion, ma’am, you should put on a robe. The marshal or one of his deputies will be around to find out what’s happening and he’s sure to want to question you.”

  “I’ll do just that,” Calamity promised. “Leave the door open a mite so’s I can find a match and light the lamp.”

  After the men had left, Calamity crossed to the wardrobe and took a box of matches from the pocket of her buckskin jacket. She lit the lamp and went to close the door, but could not follow the man’s advice. Her normal way of life precluded the need for possessing such high-falutin’ garments as a robe to wear over her sleeping clothes. However, she knew that he had been correct about the marshal or a deputy coming. So she slipped on her shirt and pants, then produced a pair of moccasins from her parfleche. Dressed adequately, if not conventionally, she walked from the room.