Ranch War

by J. T. Edson

  “I knowed it!” Calamity wailed, turning to the grave-faced lady mayor. “I just knowed I’d get the blame!”

  An inch taller than Calamity, although looking more with her raven black hair taken up in an elegant pile on top of her head, Freddie Woods left the girl far behind in the beauty stakes. As always when attending to the affairs of mayor, or going about the town on business, Freddie wore a stylish black two-piece outfit that met with approval—and some envy—from even the most strait-laced of the “good” womenfolk. That her clothes showed off a magnificent figure could not be helped. The seamstress had yet to be born who could make clothes to conceal the curves with which nature had endowed the Right Honourable Lady Winifred Besgrave-Woodstole, to give her her full and correct title.

  “They do call you ‘Calamity,’” Freddie pointed out, her accents upper-class British. “There must be a reason for it.”

  “If there is,” Calamity sighed. “I sure never asked for it.”

  Returning from the alley, breathing hard, the two cowhands stated that there had been no sign of Calamity’s assailants.

  “Figured it’d be best to come back and leave the marshal do the going around and asking folks,” the shorter cowhand commented.

  “Thanks,” Beauregard answered, accepting the words as a tribute. There were trail-end towns where Texas cowhands would not have credited the local peace officers with the desire or ability to perform such a duty. “What happened, Calamity?”

  “It was that pair from the hotel,” the girl replied, touching her jaw gently.

  “They come after you again?”

  “Sure, Marshal. And, way I see it now, they was after me last night as well.”

  “Can you ask Calamity the questions somewhere that she can sit down, Kail?” Freddie put in. “That must have been quite a crack one of them gave her.”

  “Why sure,” Beauregard agreed. “I’m sorry, Calam. Walt, see to things here. Stan, Irv, take these two Texas gents with you and look for——”

  “A big, heavy-set bastard with a brand new black hat, wolf-skin jacket, tartan shirt, black pants tucked into flat-heeled boots. His holster’s empty, but he’s got a gun in his waistband. Right hand’s bandaged and his eyes’re a mite bloodshot for some reason I wouldn’t know about,” Calamity continued for the marshal, bringing chuckles from the deputies who had heard of her actions the previous night. “The other’s a tall, lean Mexican, without a mustache. I’ll bet he’s walking a mite scrunched up, though.”

  “How come?” asked the taller cowhand.

  “I let him feel my knee-bone,” the girl answered.

  “Where?” inquired one of the deputies.

  For a moment Calamity was on the verge of telling him. Then she saw Freddie watching her and assumed an expression of innocence almost equaling the Kid’s.

  “Let’s just say some place ’tween his neck and his knee,” she replied. “Happen you come across ’em, watch the Mex. He don’t need to pull his gun afore he starts to throw lead.”

  At that moment Freddie and the Kid saw the tall, well-padded, excellently dressed figure of Counselor Talbot coming through the crowd. While Beauregard went to look at the loafer’s body, Freddie and the Kid intercepted the lawyer.

  “Got a letter for you, Counselor,” the Kid greeted.

  “May we use your chambers, Charles?” Freddie interrupted, and pointed to the girl. “The marshal wants to question Calamity and she has to come and see you.”

  “You do, young lady?” Talbot asked, looking puzzled as the girl joined them.

  “Sure,” Calamity agreed. “I’m Martha Jane Canary, Counselor.” Reaching across with her right hand, she rubbed the material over the empty pocket. “Trouble being, I can’t come right out with any papers to prove it.”

  Chapter 5 THE ANSWER IS IN HOLLICK CITY

  “HOPE YOU DON’T MIND, FREDDIE,” THE KID SAID AS they followed Calamity, Beauregard and Talbot toward the lawyer’s office, “I left my hosses in your stable. I didn’t see nobody around to ask——”

  “It’s all right,” Freddie smiled. “How soon will the herd be here?”

  “A week, ten days, I’d say. Dusty sent me ahead with a letter from Ole Devil and I’ve been covering fifty miles a day to their fifteen to twenty.”

  “It’s fortunate for Calamity that Dusty sent you. I was just coming to see Charles Talbot, with Kail and his deputies, when we heard the shots.”

  “If you’ve all got business with him, along of Calam ’n’ me, he’s in for a right busy morning.”

  “My business wasn’t all that urgent,” Freddie admitted, dropping her voice so that the others would not hear. “But I couldn’t resist the temptation to come. I’m rather intrigued by why Charles should want to see Calamity.”

  “They do say all women-folk’s naturally nosy,” the Kid remarked with a grin.

  “I’ll treat that remark with the contempt it deserves,” Freddie smiled, then became serious as Calamity’s words drifted back to them.

  “I still reckon they’re the same pair’s tried to bust into my room last night, Kail!” the girl was insisting.

  “You said that the big feller called his pard ‘Houghton,’” Beauregard objected. “That’s not a Mexican name.”

  “Maybe he was shouting to that skinny-gutted cuss the Kid dropped,” Calamity suggested.

  “Was he there? The dead feller, I mean.”

  “If he was, I never saw him. It wasn’t him at the door, I’m sure of that. Should he’ve been there?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Beauregard admitted. “Looked him over, back there. His name’s ‘Smith,’ for what that proves. Been around town for a couple of months now. Never did a lick of work, but always seemed to have money. That sort of feller always interests me. Never heard him called ‘Houghton,’ or anything other than ‘Smith.’”

  “There must’ve been somebody born called ‘Smith,’” Calamity replied. “Anyways, I’m sure that big jasper said ‘Houghton.’”

  “If he did, his pard at the hotel wouldn’t be a Mexican,” Beauregard pointed out. “In which case, the two who jumped you aren’t the same pair as at the hotel.”

  “I wouldn’t be sure of that, Kail,” Freddie put in. “It could have been ‘Otón’, O-t-ó-n, he said. That’s Spanish for the name ‘Otto.’”

  “You could have it, Freddie,” the Kid enthused, surprised to discover that she spoke Spanish.

  “It could’ve been,” Calamity agreed, eyeing the marshal triumphantly. “I just knew I didn’t have two sets of folks riled up at me.”

  “You wouldn’t want to bet on that, would you?” drawled the Kid.

  “So you think they were after you for that letter they took?” asked Beauregard, before Calamity could give the Kid an appropriate answer.

  “That’s what I reckon,” Calamity replied.

  “Was it valuable, Miss Canary?” Talbot asked, having followed the conversation without joining in it up to that point.

  “Shuckens no!” the girl answered. “’Least, not to anybody else. It was only the stuff I showed you on the train last night, Freddie. My birth certificate and a letter Maw left with the sisters, telling who I am and why she was doing it. They weren’t worth a plugged nickel.”

  They had reached the door to the lawyer’s office by that time. The conversation lapsed until Talbot had escorted them into his comfortably furnished private room and seated them around his large, impressive desk. Watching him, Freddie knew that something was troubling the lawyer. With his visitors settled, Talbot gave a cough which Freddie recognized as expressing perturbation.

  “I’m afraid you’re wrong about the papers, Miss Canary,” the lawyer said. “If they establish your identity, they would have been comparatively valuable.”

  “How come?” the girl asked, sinking with relief into the comfortable chair.

  “Well,” Talbot replied, looking more worried, “I’m not sure that I can divulge——”

  Having the frontier man’s dis
trust for manipulators of the law, even when he knew them to be as trustworthy as Talbot, the Kid bristled indignantly and growled, “Losing them papers don’t change who Calam is. If you could’ve told her what it’s about after you’d read ’em, I don’t see why you can’t do it now.”

  “If it will help, Charles,” Freddie went on. “I saw the papers last night, and read them. I’m willing to swear an affidavit as to their contents.”

  “I don’t doubt that Miss Canary is telling the truth, Freddie,” Talbot answered. “However, in a court of law, your ability to recognize or detect forged documents might be called into question.”

  “Feller who did the calling wouldn’t do it twice, was we around,” the Kid remarked in that gentle, mild-sounding tone so well known and feared in the Rio Grande border country.

  “Let’s hear Charles out,” Freddie smiled, “shall we, Lon?”

  “I’ve no objection to telling Miss Canary the reason for her being asked to come here,” Talbot declared. “But——”

  “If it’s confidential, we’ll leave until you’ve told her,” Freddie promised and the marshal nodded his agreement.

  “That’s up to Miss Canary,” Talbot stated.

  “Stay put, all of you,” Calamity requested, eyeing the open cigar-box on the lawyer’s desk with interest. There had been one like it in front of her all through the interview with Grosvenor, but he did not offer her a smoke from it. “If whatever you’ve got to tell me ties in with those two yahoos stealing the letter, Kail’s going to hear about it anyways; and they’re all my friends. Tell ahead, Counselor.”

  For a moment Calamity thought that Talbot was going to offer the cigar-box around. Instead, he opened the desk’s drawer, fumbled inside and produced a sheet of paper. Calamity wondered if all the legal profession were so all-fired stingy with their cigars.

  “Three weeks ago,” Talbot announced, tapping the paper, “I received this letter from an old law-school classmate of mine, Orde Endicott. He is in practice at Hollick City, over in Nebraska, and asked me to assist him. It seems that your father bought the Rafter C ranch in your name in Hollick County——”

  “My pappy owns a ranch?” Calamity gasped.

  “No,” Talbot corrected. “You own the ranch. The deeds to it, properly registered, are in your name. So, legally, you own the Rafter C.”

  “Whee doggie!” Calamity ejaculated. “If that don’t beat all. So your pard asked you to find me for him?”

  “Not exactly,” the lawyer answered. “He said that arrangements had already been made for Pinkerton’s Agency to look for you. My share in the affair was to offer you the sum of six thousand dollars for the ranch.”

  “That’s a tidy sum of money,” Calamity remarked.

  “Or nowheres near enough, depending on the ranch,” the Kid went on.

  Freddie saw the worry and embarrassment grow on Talbot’s face and began to guess at the cause of the emotions. Once again Talbot coughed. Then he threw an imploring glance at the beautiful English girl and turned back to Calamity.

  “I’m afraid, as things now stand, that I can’t make you the offer, Miss Canary. While I accept your bona fides——”

  “I never knowed I had any of ’em,” Calamity put in. “What in hell’re they?”

  “While I accept that you are Robert Howard Canary’s daughter, Martha Jane,” Talbot explained, looking like a man sitting on a powder keg that was about to explode, “I can’t hand over the money for the ranch without seeing documentary proof that it is so.”

  “Is that the legal law?” demanded the Kid, scowling across the desk and looking as mean as a Pehnane Dog Soldier on the war trail.

  “I’m afraid it is,” the lawyer confirmed.

  “Then I’m pleased as hell’s I’ve never been——!” the Texan blazed.

  “I don’t know what you’re starting to paw and beller for,” Calamity interrupted. “Seeing’s how I’m not fixing to sell out anyways.”

  “You’re not?” Talbot asked, looking relieved.

  “Nope. Way I see it, if pappy bought me a ranch, least I can do is go over to Hollick City and take a look at it.”

  “It won’t do you any good,” Talbot warned. “You can’t establish your identity there any more than you can here.”

  “And it might be dangerous,” Beauregard went on. “If you’re right about them two fellers being after your letter, and it looks like you are, they’ll not take kind to you showing up in Hollick City.”

  “I don’t take kind to what they done to me out on the street!” Calamity replied, then winced and touched her jaw delicately with a fingertip.

  “How’d they know where to find you, Calam?” the Kid asked.

  “Now that’s a thing’s’s been bothering me,” the girl admitted. “The Railroad House’d be the last place anybody’s knowed me’d expect to find me in.”

  “They didn’t know you,” Freddie pointed out. “If they had known you as Calamity Jane, I doubt if they would have tried to break into your room last night.”

  “Perhaps I can explain that,” Talbot remarked. “According to his letter, Orde Endicott was under the impression that you had been left in the East by your parents. He didn’t know that the young lady he sought was Calamity Jane.”

  Always quick to jump to conclusions, Calamity snorted and asked, “You mean that your law-wrangling pard sent them two jaspers after me?”

  “I didn’t say that!” Talbot protested. “As far as I know, Orde Endicott is an honest, upstanding member of the Bar.”

  “Just how far do you know about him, Counselor?” inquired the Kid.

  “He was the brightest member of our class and had a brilliant career as a defense attorney in the East.”

  “Yet he wound up hanging his shingle in a one-hoss Nebraska cow-town?”

  “I believe he moved out there for health reasons,” Talbot answered, looking uncomfortable.

  “Right now,” Beauregard said firmly, before the Kid could speak again, “I’m more interested in those two fellers who jumped Calamity. Did they follow on the train, or from the depot, do you reckon, Calam?”

  “They didn’t,” Freddie stated emphatically. “Calamity traveled up here in my private car at the rear of the train. We left it clear of the depot and went the back way to the Fair Lady. After we parted, I was kept talking at the back door for a few minutes. I could see the street all the time and nobody went along it.”

  “Even if they had trailed her to the hotel,” drawled the Kid, “they’d still have to learn which room she was in.”

  “That’d be easy enough,” Beauregard told him. “The register’s always open on the reception desk and, after midnight, the clerk spends most of his time in the office. Calam’s name’d be about the last in the book——”

  “Only not as Calamity Jane,” Freddie concluded. “And, as Charles said, not many people know her as Martha Jane Canary.”

  “So they could’ve found out which room I was in,” Calamity said. “Why didn’t they both come upstairs, ’stead of one of ’em trying to get in through the window?”

  “To make doubly sure of reaching you,” Freddie guessed. “They couldn’t be sure of being able to open the door——”

  “And, like a blasted fool, I’d opened the window a mite,” Calamity continued and, in self-exculpation, went on, “Whoever was there afore me used some fancy perfume that stunk like a cat-house comes a hot summer——”

  “Nobody’s blaming you for opening the window,” Beauregard said gently. “But you did help them a mite by doing it.”

  “Ain’t that just like a man, Freddie?” Calamity asked. “‘Nobody blames you, but——!’ How was I to know they was after me? Do you reckon I sent up smoke-signals telling ’em I was coming?”

  “I talk too much ’n’ too loud when I’ve made a fool mistake,” drawled the Kid. “Don’t you, Kail, Counselor?”

  “Mistake!” howled Calamity, rocketing to her feet like a startled bobwhite quail rising from a corn-pa
tch. Then a spasm of pain contorted her features. “Damn it! Now you’ve started my hurts to aching again!”

  “Sit down, Miss Canary,” Talbot suggested, eyeing the Kid with disapproval. “Can I have my clerk fetch you a drink of water, or something?”

  “Nope,” the girl replied, dropping her rump to the chair. “They do say that cigar-smoke’s right good for taking the hurt out of a sore jaw, though.”

  “It’s a well-established non-medical fact,” Freddie confirmed with a smile. “Go ahead, Charles. Smoke doesn’t bother me.”

  Talbot let out an embarrassed sniff at the reminder of his lack of hospitality. Opening the cigar-box, he held it in Calamity’s direction. If he expected the girl to be bluffing, he was rapidly proven wrong. Taking a cigar, Calamity twirled it appreciatively between her forefinger and thumb, bit off the end and accepted a light. Watching the girl for signs of distress as she sucked in the smoke, Talbot presented the box to the Kid and Beauregard.

  “Now this here’s what I call a good cigar,” Calamity announced. “I can see why Lawyer Grosvenor didn’t offer me a smoke. If I’d got cigars this good——”

  “Who did you say?” Talbot interrupted.

  “Grosvenor. That fancy law-wrangler down to Topeka’s sent me to see you,” Calamity replied. “Didn’t he let you know I was coming?”

  “No,” Talbot stated. “I’ve not heard from him.”

  “Way you said that, Counselor,” the Kid remarked, “I’d reckon you don’t count this Grosvenor hombre what you’d call a honest, upstanding member of the Bar.”

  Before coming West, Talbot had believed its inhabitants were dull-witted, uneducated yokels. Since his arrival, he had discovered that many of them—despite lacking a formal education—could be remarkably shrewd and discerning. So he felt no surprise at the way the Kid had read the correct meaning to his words.

  For his part, the Kid would receive the answer to his comment at first hand while handling the law in a corrupt town.* Beauregard appeared to know it already.

  “He’s so crooked, he leaves a trail like a sidewinder,” the marshal declared.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Talbot said cautiously.