This Gun for Hire

by Jo Goodman

  Joe was still shaking his head when he turned. His lips curved downward at the corners. He pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, rubbed it while he closed his eyes. After a moment, he said, “Sweeney stopped me. He found Mrs. Fry out back of his saloon and took her inside. He had already fetched Doc Maine for her, and she was being tended when Sweeney pulled me in. She had trouble talking, what with her jaw being broken and her mouth all swolled up, but between her and Sweeney, I could understand enough to learn it was Chick Tatters and Amos Bennett who laid hands on her.”

  He pointed to the man lying facedown between Quill and Katie. There was blood on the floor, a small pool near the man’s right thigh, and another at his left shoulder. Two wounds, neither of them fatal, although given the man’s repetitive and annoying moaning, Joe found himself wishing one of the shots had finished him off.

  “Amos?” he asked. “Did you shoot him, Katherine?”

  Before she could answer, Quill said, “I knew you were not a Katie. Katherine. That suits.”

  Joe chuckled. “Like a hair shirt suits. I only call her Katherine or Miss Nash when I want to raise her hackles. Fair is fair since I am sincerely peeved. She prefers Calico.” He grinned toothily at her. “Isn’t that so . . . Katherine?”

  Quill turned sharply toward her. “Calico Nash? You are Calico Nash?”

  She gave Joe Pepper a withering look. “See? This is your fault. He said it did not matter if I was a whore, but this seems to matter.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “He would have come to it sooner or later.”

  “Calico Nash,” Quill repeated under his breath. “I always imagined you would be—”

  She grimaced. “A man?”

  “No. Taller. Amazon warrior tall.”

  Calico stared narrow-eyed at Quill while she held out a hand to the sheriff. “Give me your gun. Mine’s spent and the urge is back.”

  Now Joe Pepper laughed outright, and he admitted to himself that it felt good. Still, to be safe, he kept his gun holstered and waved at Calico to put her hand down. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  “We both shot him,” she said. “Shoulder’s mine. Mr. McKenna put his bullet in Amos’s thigh.” Hearing his name, Amos Bennett emitted a pitiful moan. Calico pressed the toe of her shoe close to the wound in his leg. “Will you stop that? It is unbecoming. You are not going to bleed to death.” She permitted him a short grunt when she toed him a little harder, but after that he was quiet and she removed her foot. “It was sorely tempting to kill him, Joe, after what he told us happened to Mrs. Fry, but you can see that it was more or less an eye for an eye.”

  “More or less,” Joe said dryly, his eyes swiveling to Quill.

  “Is that your story, Mr. McKenna?”

  “I was concerned about Mrs. Fry, but I shot him because he was attempting to draw on Miss Nash.”

  Calico snapped at him. “You want to raise my hackles, too? Call me Miss Nash again and see what happens.” Beneath her skirt, her toe started to tap. “Here’s how it is, Joe. Mrs. Fry hired me to remove Nick Whitfield as a threat to her girls. He is the one snoring on the bed, but you probably know that. He used his belt to beat Daria Cole within an inch of her life.”

  “I do know about Nick Whitfield. I know about Miss Cole, too.”

  “Mrs. Fry said you did. She also said you told her you could not do anything.”

  Joe Pepper shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Whit was already gone by the time I got wind of what happened. I could not spare a deputy at the time, and as you might imagine, there were no volunteers among Mrs. Fry’s regular customers to go after him.”

  “Couldn’t spare a deputy?” she asked. “What about you? Or didn’t you think a whore was worth the effort?”

  Joe’s chin came up and he gave her an eyeful of admonishment. “Careful, Calico. I still hold the keys to the jail.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We were dealing with an outfit of rustlers from over Shelton way, stopping trains by pulling up tracks and taking cattle directly from the cars. But I don’t suppose Mrs. Fry mentioned that.”

  “She did. She thought Daria should be your priority.”

  “Because Daria Cole makes money for her. Let me tell you something, Calico, the way Mrs. Fry looks at her whores is not so different than a rancher looks at his cattle.”

  “And ranchers vote.”

  “Yes, they do. It’s just the way things are. Now, if you want to change it, maybe you should carry a placard that reads ‘Votes for Women’ instead of a gun. Are we done?”

  Calico was not mollified in the least, but she agreed to end it with a curt nod.

  Joe continued, “I never told Mrs. Fry I wouldn’t do anything about what happened to Daria. I told her she would have to be patient.” He held up his hand when Calico would have interrupted him. “I will admit that I could have been more diplomatic. I couldn’t hear myself think for her screaming at me, the harridan. I stood it as long as I could and then I escorted her to the door. I spoke to Doc Maine later and learned for myself about the extent of Miss Cole’s injuries, and then I went to speak to Miss Cole herself. She was against me pursuing Whitfield. She hardly had any flesh on her back, but she was the one not in favor of bringing him in.”

  “She was afraid.”

  “Yes. Afraid he would blame her, come after her, beat her.”

  “Mrs. Fry told me Daria left town.”

  “That’s right. When she was well enough to travel, she took off. I don’t think she told anyone where she was going, or if she did, no one’s saying, which is just as well to my way of thinking. You see, Calico, Mrs. Fry hired you to remove Nick Whitfield as a threat to her future earnings, not to right the wrong that was done to Daria Cole.”

  “I know that, Joe. I am not naïve. I also know there is no righting that wrong, but avenging it appealed to me. That is why I took the job.”

  Joe Pepper was quiet for a long time as he judged Calico’s expression against the sincerity of her motives. “All right,” he said, satisfied with what he observed. “What’s the rest? And don’t leave him out.” He pointed to Quill in the event Calico had doubts about whom he meant.

  Calico touched the side of her head. “Do you mind? I want to take this wig off. It is giving me a headache.”

  Joe shrugged. “Fine. I figured it was part and parcel of your foray into whoredom.”

  “Whoredom, Joe? You are reading too many dime novels.”

  “Probably.”

  Calico sat down at the vanity and began plucking pins from under the ebony wig. She intercepted Quill McKenna’s frozen stare and heard the sheriff’s deep chuckle. She caught Joe’s eye in the mirror. “I guess he didn’t know.” She lifted the wig, tossed it on top of the vanity, and removed the thin white cap that held her own hair in place. She shook out her hair, raked it with her fingers, and then pulled it forward over her right shoulder and began to plait it.

  “It’s red,” Quill said. “You’re a redhead.”

  Calico said to Joe, “He and I established earlier that not much gets past him, but I suppose he felt the need to prove it to you.”

  That made Joe’s grin deepen. He almost felt a little sorry for Quill McKenna. The man still had not made a full recovery. “Close your mouth, Mr. McKenna. There’s no telling what you’ll trap there. Besides, with Calico it’s mostly better to go along with what comes along.”

  Quill nodded slowly. “I suppose.” She was a redhead. Here was the final proof that she was genuinely outside his usual tastes. The fact that she was carrying a pocket pistol did not set him back on his heels as much as discovering she was a redhead. And not just any shade of red. Not a shade that might be mistaken for auburn, nor one that might highlight a chestnut. No, her hair was Irish red. Bright. Coppery. The flame atop a candle taper.

  He watched her open a pot of cream, d
ip a fingertip inside, and swipe it across the edge of her brow. She used a scrap of linen to remove the black and reveal eyebrows every bit as vivid as her hair. When she batted her eyelashes at his reflection, he knew what was coming. She wiped away the black there also and fluttered them again. A shade darker than her hair, Quill saw, but still unmistakably ginger. She chose a new cloth, dabbed cream on her forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin, and removed the last vestiges of rouge and powder.

  “Freckles,” he said under his breath. “Of course there would be freckles.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, swiveling on the stool to face him. “You have to speak up.”

  “Nothing.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Joe Pepper was manfully trying to suppress laughter. He gave the sheriff a sour look. “It was nothing.”

  Joe distracted himself by going over to Amos and hunkering down beside him. “Don’t start caterwauling again. I’m going to have a look at your shoulder and leg.” He probed both wounds. He was not as gentle as he would have been with an innocent. “Well, you’re lucky, Amos. You have hardly more than a graze on your thigh. That bullet’s lodged around here somewhere. It’s Calico’s slug that’s buried in your shoulder, but since that came from her peashooter, it didn’t do much in the way of damage. Doc might not even want to take it out.”

  “I want it out,” Amos whined.

  “You’re not going to get weepy, are you? I hear some commotion downstairs. That’s probably the doctor now with Mrs. Fry. We’ll get him up here directly. In the meantime, you are sprawled on the floor like a cheap rug. One of us is bound to trip over you. How about you get yourself to that corner by the window where you will be out of the way?”

  “It hurts to move.”

  “It will hurt worse if Mr. McKenna moves you. I would do it, but my knee aches something fierce and it’s making me cranky. There is no telling how badly I would hurt you. Now get.”

  Amos pushed himself onto all fours, listing heavily to the side of his uninjured shoulder, and half crawled, half dragged himself to the corner. He sat up, drew his good leg toward his chest, and dipped his forehead to his knee.

  “Good,” said Joe. “Stay there. You have no friends in this room that can help you.” Joe put out a hand for Quill to help him to his feet. His knee popped as he rose. “Thank you, Mr. McKenna.”

  “Quill.”

  “Thank you, Quill.” Joe moved to the opposite side of the bed so he could get a better look at Whit and Chick Tatters. They were a sorry sight. “I am still waiting, Calico.”

  “Well, Mrs. Fry knew that Whit was partial to a particular kind of girl. Daria told her about a photograph that he showed her. He was real taken with the girl in it—who it turns out might be his sister—and said he wanted Daria to be more like her. Dark hair, shy smile, slim. Daria could not be any of those things, and when he had enough of what she could offer, he took his strap to her.”

  Joe darted a look at the wig. “And you could be all of those things to him.”

  “After a fashion. Mrs. Fry let it be known she had a new whore and waited for word to reach him.”

  “So you reeled him in. How long have you been hiding out here waiting for him?”

  “A week. No, eight days. You have no idea how glad I was to hear he had arrived and to finally catch sight of him from my window. You also cannot imagine the boredom. They do not even have any books here. And I displaced Marisa Shreve so she had to share a room with Onisha Gilbert, and that did not endear me to either of them, no matter that I was here to help.”

  “All right,” said Joe, striving for patience. “So he came, you brought him up here, and then . . .”

  She pointed to the bedside table. “The whiskey’s fine if you want a drink. Use the glass on the left. There might be a little chloral hydrate in the other.”

  “Ah. You drugged him.”

  “I might have hit him on the head a couple of times.”

  “A couple of times?”

  “Um, let me think. Twice with the butt end of the whiskey bottle to put him out when the drops only knocked him to his knees, and two more times later with the butt of his Remington when he started to thrash around on the bed. See? A couple of times. Twice.”

  “Interesting ’rithmetic.”

  She laughed softly, shrugged helplessly.

  “And Chick and Amos?” asked Joe.

  “Mrs. Fry never told me about them.”

  “They weren’t with Whit the last time he was here, but I knew they ran with him, which I would have shared with you if you had stopped by my office and told me what you were up to.”

  Calico went on as if he had not spoken, which she found was a better strategy in dealing with Joe Pepper than entertaining an argument. “They showed up after they heard someone at Sweeney’s talking out of turn. That’s what I got from what they said. There were a fair number of men here when Whitfield arrived. They did not all stay afterward.”

  Quill said, “I heard it was a stampede to get out.” He shrugged when they both stared at him. “At least that’s what one of the girls told me.”

  Calico gave her attention back to Joe. “I imagine one of the girls said something about what was going on, maybe to calm some nerves, and it was repeated at Sweeney’s. Amos and Chick overheard, decided to see for themselves, and bumped into Mrs. Fry when they left the saloon. They obviously have been here before because they knew who she was, and that got her taken off the street and beaten in the alley.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “She didn’t tell you? She was looking for you.”

  Joe scratched his head. “To take Whitfield off to jail?”

  “We-l-l,” Calico said, drawing out the word. “Eventually.”

  “Eventually?”

  “She went for you before she was certain I had Whit in hand.”

  Quill raised his hand a fraction, drawing the sheriff’s attention. “I believe Mrs. Fry wanted you to take me away,” he said. “I admit I am still in the dark about that. I followed Miss Nash, er, Calico, to her room after she took Whitfield upstairs.”

  “You know him?” asked Joe. “His reputation?”

  “No. Never heard of him.”

  “But you were concerned?”

  Quill nodded, pleased that he was understood at last. “Exactly.”

  Joe cocked an eyebrow at Calico. “I guess he really didn’t know who you were.”

  “Exactly,” she said, echoing Quill. “He was interfering. That’s why Mrs. Fry went to get you. When he followed me upstairs and carried on outside my room, I can assure you that is when the menfolk scattered. They did not want to be seen in the house if Whit got out.”

  “Understandable.” He looked down at Whit. “He has been known to rampage. Kind of sorry looking now, what with Chick pinning him down like an unnatural lover.” Joe knuckled his chin, thoughtful as he regarded Quill. “Good intentions don’t precisely excuse your interference, although they do explain it. Maybe if Mrs. Fry had reached me before we arrived at this juncture, I might have been moved to take you in for a spell, just to keep the peace with her, you understand. I believe I mentioned she’s a harridan.”

  Quill was sympathetic. “You did.”

  Joe’s chest swelled as he filled his lungs with a deep breath. He released it slowly, heavily, as if it had weight and consequence. “Well, we are at this juncture, and I am inclined to let your interference pass. That all right with you, Calico?”

  “It will have to be. You are the sheriff.”

  “So you do remember. I am never sure.” He pointed to Chick. “What did you do to him?”

  “Beat him about the head with my peashooter.”

  Joe laughed. “Well, he’s twitching now. Quill, how about you pull him off Whit? Did I see a rope on the floor somewhere?”

  “It’s over here,” said Quill. “Enoug
h length to bind them both, separately or together.”

  “Oh, together. Yes, I like that. I surely do.”

  * * *

  It took some prodding to bring them around, but eventually Nick Whitfield and Chick Tatters were on their feet, and after a humiliating shuffle down the main street of Falls Hollow, they were untethered so they could stumble into their individual cells.

  Quill accepted a whiskey from the sheriff when it was offered. He was concerned that Joe Pepper’s mood was too self-congratulatory, but when the man raised his glass and spoke, what he said was, “To Calico Nash. She does not disappoint.” Quill tapped his glass to Joe’s and they both drank.

  “Another?” asked Joe.

  Quill shook his head. “I’ve had enough.”

  “You staying in town tonight? It’s getting late for you to be moving on.”

  “I hadn’t planned on it, but now . . .” He nudged his hat back with a fingertip and regarded Joe thoughtfully. “Recommendation?”

  “Hartford House. Nothing fancy, but the rooms are clean and they serve good food if you’re inclined to eat breakfast there.”

  “All right.”

  Joe gave him directions. “You are leaving in the morning, right?”

  “That is my intention.”

  “Yes, well, we’ve seen where intentions get you. Passing through, remember?” He leaned back in his chair and absently rubbed his knee. “What made you stop here in the first place?”

  “I wanted a drink.”

  “That’s what Sweeney’s saloon is for.”

  “And the company of women.”