by J. T. Edson
The men closed in on Cousins’ body, keeping their weapons ready for use but they did not need the precaution, for the outlaw would never rise again, not after being torn almost in two pieces by three bullets from Mark’s Army Colt.
“Landsakes,” said Calamity Jane, looking at the circle of faces around the bar. “I was like to pee my pants when I jumped them Cousins boys. I wasn’t sure you get my meaning, Madam.”
“I wasn’t sure I had either,” Madam replied. “But I figured to take at least one of them with me.”
The time was half past ten and Tennyson lay peaceful again, the bodies of the Cousins bunch on slabs at the undertaker’s shop. Now a crowd of citizens gathered at the Bull’s Head and Mark Counter stood with his “deputies”, Madam Bulldog and Calamity Jane, talking over the events of the evening.
“You mean you aimed to get one of the Cousins boys even if Calam cut you down?” Hoscroft asked.
“Sure, way I saw it Sam there was all set to settle Calam,” replied Madam Bulldog calmly.
“You can’t trust nobody these days,” grinned Calamity, not at least worried by her narrow escape. “Like to say one thing though. Madam licked me fair and square at everything, including shooting, way I saw it. One thing nobody’s going to say is that lil ole Martha Jane Canary’s a poor lo—”
Madam Bulldog’s glass fell from her hand. She stared at Calamity’s face for a moment after the girl announced her full name. Then Madam’s hands shot out to grip Calamity by the shoulders.
“What did you say your name was?” she asked.
“Martha Jane Canary,” Calamity answered, lowering her fists which she had clenched ready to defend herself.
“Oh, my god!” gasped Madam Bulldog.
Her face lost its color, her hands dropped from Calamity’s shoulders and she went down in a limp heap on the floor. Mark bent and scooped the woman up while Viola dashed up and Sam came over the counter top in a bound.
“What happened?”
At least a dozen voices asked the same question. Calamity stared at Mark as he held the woman’s limp body in his arms.
“She fainted!” croaked Calamity. “Get her into her office, Mark.”
A pale faced Madam looked at Mark, Sam, Viola and Calamity in her office. She managed a wry smile.
“Sorry if I scared you. I’d like to see Calam alone for a few minutes, please. It’ll be all right.”
The few minutes lasted for half an hour and when Calamity came out of the office she looked strangely subdued. She crossed to where Mark stood and wiped a hand across her brow.
“Sure she’s all right,” Calamity replied to various inquiries. “The evening’s been a mite too much for her. Coming down to the hotel, Mark?”
“Yeah. I may as well.”
They walked along the street side by side and Calamity looked up at him as they passed the end of the Bull’s Head Saloon.
“When you riding out, Mark?” she asked.
“In a couple of days. Old Corky can keep things under till Uncle Tune gets back on his feet and there’s likely to be work waiting for me at the OD Connected.”
“I’m going in the morning.”
“Can let you have a couple of hundred to stake you until you get a start again,” Mark said.
“Thanks, amigo,” she replied. “Only Madam’s give me back all she won from me, so I don’t need it.”
“A fine woman all round,” Mark drawled.
“Real fine. We talked for a fair piece. I’m going to tell you something, Mark, only it’s something I don’t want to get out.”
“You know me, old Clam Counter they call me.”
Calamity laughed, then she hooked her hand under his arm.
“I should have figured it when she out-cussed me, licked me at poker, drunk me under the table and then whipped me,” she said quietly, looking more subdued than Mark could ever remember seeing her look before.
“Guessed what?” he asked.
“There could only be one gal who’s that much better than Calamity Jane. Madam Bulldog told me her name tonight. It’s been so long that neither of us recognized each other.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Growled Mark.
“Madam Bulldog. Her real name’s Charlotte Canary.”
Mark stopped in his tracks, turning the girl to face him. “C—Canary?” he gasped.
“That’s right as the Injun side of a hoss,” Calamity grinned. “The only gal who could whup me the way she did would have to be my mother.”
Part Two – The Gamblers
Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Waco had agreed unanimously that Mark Counter was the best man for the job although Mark objected most strenuously to getting it. They ruled out his objections on several counts. In the first place Mark’s sartorial elegance exceeded any of their own, which he could not truthfully deny. Secondly, Mark owned all the necessary items of clothing for such an occasion; so did both Dusty and the Kid, but they claimed Mark looked so much better in his. Waco said he did not own any such fancy low-necked clothes and hoped he never would, so that let him out of it. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, Dusty and the Kid had already sampled Brenton Humboldt’s hospitality and thought Mark ought to take his fair turn.
“It looks to me like you’ve caught it then, Mark,” said Ole Devil Hardin when the members of his floating outfit stopped their talking. “I’m sorry to land it on you and I never expected any of it when I put my money into Humboldt’s meat-packing plant. I hoped that finished me with it, apart from drawing in my share of the profits and never thought he’d write and ask me to send my representative along to his daughter’s wedding.”
“Maybe he wants backing in some other idea,” drawled the Kid who suffered no illusions about Brenton Humboldt’s true nature.
“You be sure to apologize for Lon and me, Mark,” grinned Dusty. “Tell Humboldt we’re both suffering the miseries through having a touch of the grippe.”
“It’ll be bad enough going there for you without telling your lies as well,” Mark answered. “I’ll pull out in the morning.”
“For a feller as doesn’t want to go up there, amigo,” the Kid put in dryly, “you’re sure in a tolerable hurry to get started.”
“Why sure,” agreed Mark. “I could make it in maybe four days’ hard riding. But I don’t aim to try. I’ve been sent out on this chore against my will so I aim to travel easy and sleep under a roof every night as I go.”
The others laughed. They knew all too well that Mark hated sleeping out of doors. Even the fact that he spent much of his life using the ground for a mattress and the sky for a roof did not make him like it any the more. So he planned to make a leisurely journey of it and spend each night in a town, ranch house or line cabin. To do so would need careful arranging and involve swinging and swerving instead of riding in a near enough straight line.
At dawn the following morning Mark rode away from the OD Connected house. In his war-bag, packed neatly and rolled in the protection of his blanket’s suggans and tarp, Mark carried his cutaway coat, white frilly bosomed shirt, town style trousers and shoes. If he must attend the wedding he intended to be dressed at his best.
Three days later, shortly after the sun went down, Mark hung his saddle on an inverted V-shaped wooden framework, known as a burro, in the stable of the Bella Union Hotel at Culver Creek. His big bloodbay stallion stood in a loose box and Mark glanced at the two fine looking harness horses standing in the adjacent stalls. He drew the Winchester Model ‘66 rifle from his saddleboot and threw a glance at the light two-horse carriage which stood at the side of the big stable building.
“Fine rig,” he said to the old-timer who slouched towards him, pitchfork on shoulder.
“Mighty fine picture it made coming in, too,” replied the man. “With them two high-stepping bays hauling it and that right pretty looking woman driving. She sure could handle them.”
“She staying at the hotel?”
“Sure,” answered the man, waving a ha
nd to the trunk lashed on the back, “I don’t know how long for though. Telled me to leave the trunk for today, so’s she could see how she liked the look of the town. Me, I says, ‘Lady’, I says, ‘happen you take time out to look at this here town you won’t stay at all.’ “
“What’d she say?” Mark asked, knowing stable workers to be inveterate gossips who could lick barbers for passing on information or news.
“Just laughed and walked off with one fair sized bag. Sure don’t know who she is or what she’s doing out here, but I never heard an accent like she’d got afore.”
“She a saloon gal?”
“What, with a rig and team like that?” scoffed the man. “Naw, she’s maybe some rich eastern gal out west looking for a husband. There’s a chance for you, happen you’d like a wife.”
“I wouldn’t,” grinned Mark.
“Or me—trouble is I’ve got one.”
Carrying his bedroll and rifle, Mark walked away from the chuckling man. At the hotel’s reception desk Mark booked a room for the night and took the key, then headed upstairs. He came to the passage with the hotel rooms on either side and saw from the numbers that he would be at the end of the passage, so he walked towards his room’s door.
The door facing Mark’s room opened just as he walked towards it and one of the most beautiful women Mark had ever seen stepped out. Mark was something of a connoisseur of female pulchritude and found nothing in the young woman’s appearance to offend his predilections. She had hair as golden blonde as his own, not too long or too short and neatly combed and cared for. The fact was as near perfection as a man could ask for, holding an intelligent, calm and somewhat regal expression, the blue eyes meeting Mark’s with neither shyness nor boldness, looking him over coolly. She wore a cloak which effectively hid whatever kind of dress lay under it, yet conveyed the idea that it would pay a man to unwrap the cloak and look.
Mark nodded a greeting. Carrying his rifle in one hand and bedroll in the other he could not remove his hat. She replied with a calm, grave “Good evening”, and carried on down the passage out of his sight. Mark watched her go before entering his room. It did not need a Comanche witch-woman’s powers to guess this beautiful blonde woman must be the owner of the carriage and pair of horses he had seen. He had heard only two words and yet he could near enough swear she spoke in the accent of an upper-class Britisher such as he had run across on a few occasions.
After washing and shaving in his room, and leaving his rifle by the bed, Mark headed downstairs to the hotel dining-room, hoping to see the woman again, perhaps even get to know her and satisfy his curiosity. In this he was disappointed, for the woman did not appear to be in the room. Mark asked the waiter and learned she left earlier bound on some business of her own.
So, after a good meal, Mark left the hotel and took his first look at Culver Creek. The first thing which struck him was the size of the town. Serving as a convenient fording spot of the Culver Creek of the Brazos River, the town found a lucrative source of income in trail herds headed north as well as being the center of a thriving cattle area and having a large, well manned Army post within easy distance of it. All this gave Culver Creek a more pretentious atmosphere than might be expected in a Texas cowtown. Certainly the General Hood Saloon looked more in keeping with one of the better areas of Dodge City than a small town.
On entering the saloon Mark found himself surprised at the trade it drew, for there appeared to be a goodly crowd enjoying themselves in the big barroom, a mixed crowd of cowhands and soldiers. Both the army post and the local ranches appeared to have paid their men on the same day and the same men vied eagerly with each other to get rid of a good portion of their month’s pay in one glorious night of fun and frolic.
Passing across the room, Mark came to a halt at the bar and a glass of beer slid along to his order. He took it up and spent a couple of minutes in looking around the room in the hope he might see someone he knew. However, the gambling tables, the groups of men gathered with the saloon girls in drinking, laughing and talking parties, failed to yield a friendly, or even a casual acquaintance to his gaze and so Mark, who never liked drinking alone, decided he would finish the beer then head back to his room. He did not care for the atmosphere of the place. It seemed to carry all the money-grabbing intensity of a trail-end town joint making hay while the Texas trail hand sun shone, and bore none of the homely feeling of a small town saloon which also served as an informal social club for the cowhands.
“Howdy friend,” said a voice from behind Mark.
Turning to see who addressed him, Mark found himself being favored with the attentions of somebody who must be either the owner, or floor manager, of the saloon. The man stood maybe two inches less than Mark, but looked like he would weigh a mite heavier, for although he had a spread to his shoulders he did not taper down to a lean waist. He wore expensive gambler style clothes, with just too much clashing color to them for Mark’s taste. His face was florid, jovial looking, yet there seemed to be a hardness under it, a kind of cold calculation as if the man would enjoy a good laugh only should it pay him to make it. To Mark’s eyes the man looked like a hard-case who had gradually run to fat but who could still handle himself in a brawl.
“Howdy,” Mark replied. The man looked too much like a trail-end town joint owner for Mark to take to him, but he felt he would lose nothing by being sociable.
“You’re new around here,” the man went on.
Even while he spoke the man’s eyes studied Mark from head to foot, pricing his clothing and noting the matched guns in the hand-carved holsters of the gun-belt. Mark could almost guess what the man thought. That Mark was rich, a rancher’s son maybe, possibly the owner of his own spread. A man who might have some influence or powerful backing, and a man who had it paid a saloonkeeper to know.
“I’m not old around anyplace,” drawled Mark.
The man bellowed out a real professional hand-shaker’s gust of laughter, the kind which could be turned on even at a feeble witticism, should the maker of the joke be someone worth knowing.
“I’m Homer Trent,” boomed the man, clearly having decided Mark suitable material for cultivation. “This’s my place. Say, have a drink on the house.”
“Take another beer,” Mark replied. “Did you ride under Hood in the War?”
“Huh?—Oh, the name of the place. Nope, I didn’t ride with him. But folks in town here think high of him. You ranching out this way?”
“Nope, not yet.”
Before he spoke again Trent threw a look at the wall clock. Then he grinned and dropped his voice in a confidential whisper:
“Say, if you feel like some real sport go sit in on the big faro table over there. It’ll be worth it.”
“Will, huh?”
“Sure,” grinned Trent. “I’ve got Poker Alice and Madam Moustache here and they both of them expect to be dealing the big table for me.”
Saying that Trent stood back a pace and grinned broadly, awaiting Mark’s reaction to his words. The names did not pass over Mark’s head, for he had heard them many times. Poker Alice and Madam Moustache had something of a name in western saloon circles. They were lady gamblers and almost unique. True there had been and probably still were saloon girls who handled a wheel-of-fortune, or maybe turned the cards at a vingt-un layout to draw in customers. But they offered only a come-on for the gullible and woman hungry male customers and remained no more than saloon girls throughout. Poker Alice and Madam Moustache were different. They did not work as saloon girls, but as professional dealers, highly skilled at their work and offered nothing more than a male gambler would under the same circumstances.
While Mark could see the reason for hiring such talent to deal faro, he could not see why Trent took on both women. Mark’s eyes went to the big table at which Trent pointed. This would be the house’s big game, the no-limit table where the high stake players gathered and as such be the place of honor in the professional dealer’s eyes. Both Poker Alice and Madam Mou
stache had handled such a table before and could do so with ease, so Mark wondered which of them would receive the honor, or if there were two high stake tables. His glance around the room saw two other tiger decorated faro layouts, but each bore a stakes sign restricting the level of betting.
“Ah!” Trent said eagerly. “Here comes Poker Alice.”
Mark turned to look in the direction which Trent stared. The man looked up at the stair which led to the upstairs balcony and rooms. The woman he had seen at the hotel came down the stairs slowly, drawing every eye to her. He could now see what she wore under her cloak and as he perceived that now discarded cloak concealed a figure well worth a second, third and as many other glances as a man could spare at it.
She wore a white dress which would not have been out of place at a high class New Orleans ball and which showed off her rich figure to perfection. Maybe Poker Alice stood just a little mite taller than most men would call ideal, but she was not skinny, her figure seemed to be just right.
Ignoring the envious glares of the saloon girls and the frank, pop-eyed staring of the customers, Poker Alice reached the foot of the stairs and swept majestically towards the faro table.
Excitedly Trent jabbed Mark hard in the ribs with his elbow and was lucky not to get tossed over the bar for doing it. If he noticed Mark’s angry scowl he ignored it in his excitement as he pointed to the other side of the room and whispered. “Look!”
Holding back his first instinct to remove Trent forcibly, Mark looked to where another woman also made her way across the room towards the main faro table. Mark studied her and decided that a man would be hard put to find two more beautiful women than the pair who converged on the dealer’s seat. Yet they were as unalike as night and day. The other woman had none of Poker Alice’s calm, regal detachment and cold aloofness. Her raven-black hair hung shoulder long and framed an olive skinned, beautiful face which radiated charm, vivacious love of life, merriment and a bold challenge. In height she stood maybe two inches shorter than the English woman, yet seemed much smaller. Her figure was ripe, richly curved, not quite plump but enough to give a man a good handful happen he took a chance and grabbed. Where Alice wore a sedate gown of white, cut in the latest eastern mode, the other girl had on a flame colored dress which clung almost like a second skin to her and had a slit from hem to well above the knee through which a black stockinged, plump and inviting leg peaked and disappeared at each step.
