by J. T. Edson
Without appearing to, Mark watched the man walk out of the barn. Caution paid when a proddy hardcase like that feller prowled around holding a scattergun in his hand. The man did not look back, but walked out into the street and started across its wheel-rutted width.
“Ain’t sorry to see him leave.”
The words came from a door at the side of the building. Turning, Mark saw a leathery old-timer stumping towards him.
“You know him?” the old-timer went on.
“Nope. Should I?”
“Not less’n you got a wanted poster on ye some place. And you ain’t, or likely one of you’d be dead by now. That there was Jubal Framant, mister.”
“Is, huh?”
Once more Mark turned to look after the hardcase. He stood on the far side of the street, talking with a big, burly man who wore a marshal’s shield on his vest and carried a heavy old Colt Dragoon hung low at his right side. Mark did not look down on a man who carried one of the old four pound, one ounce thumb-busting Colt giants. The Ysabel Kid toted one and could handle it with some precision when needed.
“Yes, sir. That’s Framant,” the old-timer went on, following Mark’s gaze. “Wonder what brings him to Elkhorn?”
“There’s only one thing takes him any place,” Mark replied.
Framant’s name was not unfamiliar to Mark. The man was a bounty hunter, said to be as mean as a stick-teased rattlesnake. Roaming the range country like a buzzard circling in the sky, Framant hunted down men for a price on their heads. Rumor had it that Framant had killed fourteen men and claimed the bounty their scalps bore.
A man like Framant usually came to a town for the purpose of finding some wanted outlaw. When he found his man he would kill, for Framant never took in a living prisoner.
“Who’s the feller with him?” Mark asked.
“Joel Stocker, town marshal. Real nice feller,” replied the old man and turned his attention to the blood bay stallion. “R over C. I never saw that brand afore.”
“Nope?”
“Know every danged brand within five hundred miles.”
“Maybe the R over C’s five hundred and one miles away.”
A cackle left the old-timer’s lips. “Must’ve moved South Texas north a helluva ways if that’s how close the R over C is.”
“It’s Rance Counter’s spread.”
“Tall feller, that Rance Counter, so they say. Likely sire tolerable tall sons.”
“I’m the little one of the family.”
“Mark Counter, huh? Pleased to know you. Pop Larkin’s the name. I keep this place, leastways, it don’t keep me.”
“You look right poorly done by,” Mark drawled, following his horse into the stall. “Wonder what Framant wants here?”
“I asked you first, and it ain’t what he wants, it’s who.”
Mark turned to his horse and started to remove the saddle. A shadow fell across the doorway and feet crossed the barn to halt behind Mark at the gate of the stall.
“Howdy, mister,” a gentle voice drawled.
For a big man Joel Stocker moved light on his feet, Mark thought, turning to look at the marshal as he leaned a shoulder against the stall’s gatepost and chewed in meditative manner on a plug of tobacco. There was a deceptive lethargy about the marshal which might have fooled some folks, but not Mark Counter.
“Howdy,” Mark replied, continuing the off saddling.
“New around here?”
“Only just now rolled in.”
“With Calamity Jane?”
“Sure.”
“She’s Wild Bill Hickok’s gal, way I heard it.”
“Has Wild Bill heard it?” Mark drawled.
“Don’t reckon it’d scare you none happen he had,” Stocker replied in his sleepy voice. “It’d worry me some, though. I’m a duly appointed officer of the law and duty-bound to keep the peace. Which same I don’t want no bulls locking horns in my town.”
“Reckon Calam and me’s just passing acquaintances. We met on the trail in and I’ll likely see her tomorrow—if I’m still here then.”
“Might not be, huh?”
“Not if I see Tom Gamble.”
The look of watchful suspicion left Stocker’s face. Straightening up, he held out a big hand and raised his eyes a couple of inches to meet Mark’s, something he rarely needed to do with any man.
“Sorry, friend,” Stocker said. “Reckon Framant being in town’s got me spooked up a mite. Are you Cap’n Fog?”
“Mark Counter.”
“Cheez! If Cap’n Fog’s got more heft than you, he’s a tolerable tall gent.”
Mark let the remark pass. He felt no resentment at the words and it had been many years since he last felt surprised that anybody should mistake him for Dusty Fog, or persist in thinking of Dusty as a tall man. Maybe what caused the confusion was Mark looking like the kind of man one expected somebody of Dusty Fog’s reputation to be. Mark did not know if this was true, and was not worried.
“Do you always look your visitors over like this?” he asked.
“Find it saves fuss to know who-all’s in town,” Stocker replied. “And I’m a man who likes to save fuss. There’s some less welcome here than others.”
“Like that bounty hunting Jubal Framant, heh, Joel?” asked the old-timer. “Are ye running him out of town?”
“Nope. I ain’t saying I’m not doing it ’cause he scares me, even if he do. But he’s got his rights under the Constitution—and knows ’em. I can’t run a man out of town just ’cause I don’t like his line of work.”
While the men talked, Mark tended to his horse. He removed the saddle and bridle, then hung a hay-net on the hook over the manger. Larkin ambled off to return carrying a bucket of clean water and another full of grain. Showing sound horse-savvy, he did not enter the stall, but handed the buckets over the gate.
“Got me a burro in the back if you’d like to leave your saddle,” he said.
“Thanks, I’ll do that. Thought you didn’t have one when I saw Framant tote his rig out of here.”
“There’s them who I’d let use me burro, and them I wouldn’t,” grunted the old man. “Tote her this way.”
Following the old man, Mark entered the storeroom at the rear of the stable and hung his saddle on the inverted V-shaped wooden rack known as a burro. If possible a cowhand would rather leave his saddle on a burro than lie it on its side, especially when among people which brought the danger of some heavy-footed yahoo stomping on the laid-aside rig.
Mark took his bedroll from behind the cantle and the rifle from the saddleboot. Not that he mistrusted the owner of the barn, but his change of clothing, spare ammunition and toilet articles lay in his warbag within the bedroll; and a man did not leave a loaded rifle in a saddleboot where kids might get at it.
After paying for the stabling and keep of his stallion, Mark joined Marshal Stocker at the door of the barn.
“Which’s the best hotel in town?” he asked.
“Ryan’s Bella Union down there, right next to the Crystal Palace. Say, Tom bust a leg riding a bad one. Sent word down that somebody from the O.D. Connected’d be along and for them to ride out and see him.”
“How far out is it?”
“Two, three hours’ steady ride. Could make it by nightfall.”
Mark grinned. “I’ll leave it until morning. What’s the Crystal Palace like? Speaking as a duly appointed officer of the law, that is.”
“Fair place, well-run, got some purty gals in there, and you’ll walk out with any money you don’t spend, or lose trying to lick the blackjack game.”
“My mammy told me never to buck the dealer’s percentage at any game, especially blackjack.”
“It’s not the game you buck in there, it’s the dealer.”
“What makes him so special?” Mark inquired.
“Being a her,” grinned Stocker. “And a mighty purty lil her, too. Was I not a married man, which I ain’t, I’d sure admire to stake a few myself on beating her g
ame.”
“As good as that, huh?” drawled Mark, ignoring the left-handed statement made by the marshal.
“Better. Not the kind you’d expect to find working a table even in a decent saloon like the Palace.”
“They never are. See you, Marshal.”
“I’ll be around,” Stocker answered and slouched away, looking like he was about to fall asleep on his feet.
Mark booked a room at the Bella Union hotel and a boy in a fancy bellhop’s uniform shot forward to grab his bedroll. The boy escorted Mark up to his room, frank hero-worship plain on his face as he lugged the heavy bedroll.
On seeing his room, Mark decided it would be worth the money. The bed had a comforting thickness and would lick using the world for a mattress and sky for a roof. For the rest of the furnishing, the room had a table and two chairs, a clothes-closet with a key in its door; a wash-stand that had a large pitcher of water on top and a couple of clean white towels hanging on its rail.
Tossing the boy a coin, Mark told him to find a shoeshine man if the town had one. The youngster replied that he doubled in shoe cleaning and said he would be back as soon as he got rid of his dad-blasted, consarned monkey-suit the boss made him wear.
Mark took a bath in the hotel’s private bath-house, had his hair trimmed, a barber’s shave, changed his clothes, ate a good meal and then rested in his room until after dark. From the noise outside, he judged the town had woken up and begun to howl, so he rose from his bed, doused the light, put on his hat and gunbelt, then headed from the hotel, making for the Crystal Palace.
~*~
The girl caught Mark’s eye as soon as he entered the saloon. Not because she had blonde hair that curled its ends under neatly and framed a truly beautiful face, for there were three other blondes almost as beautiful among the female workers of the saloon. Nor was it because she wore a daring and revealing costume. Compared with the others she looked demure and modest, for she did not wear the glistening, knee-long red, green, yellow, blue or other shade of dresses which clad the others, cut low on the bosom and leaving, apart from the supporting straps, the shoulders and arms bare. Her white blouse had full-length sleeves, a frilly front and buttoned up to the neck. Although it tried, the blouse could not hide the rich fullness of her breasts or the slim waist, any more than the shoe-length plain black skirt concealed the fact that under it lay richly curving hips and shapely legs. Her attitude did not draw attention to her. Unlike the other girls she did not pass among the customers, laughing, joking and making herself pleasant. Standing at the busy blackjack table, she looked calmly detached, smiling at one of the players and yet not offering him any come-on encouragement.
Yet, of all the girls in the room, she took Mark’s eye the moment he entered. Any way a man looked at her, she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, five foot seven of undiluted voluptuous femininity trying to hide itself under those plain clothes.
For a moment Mark thought of crossing to the table and trying his luck—with the cards, not the dealer. He decided to take a drink first. If the liquor should be in keeping with the rest of the furnishings and equipment of the room, it would satisfy even the most discriminating taste.
At the bar Mark ordered a whisky, ignoring the invitation flashed in his direction by one of the girls. The drink proved to be mellow, of good standard and in keeping with the look of the saloon. From all appearances, the owners had put plenty of money into the furnishing, equipping and stocking of the place. Mark hoped the town stayed booming long enough for them to show a profit. From the look of the crowd inside, they would likely make it.
A long board, nailed to the wall opposite to the main batwing doors, attracted Mark’s attention, so he strolled over to examine it more closely. Reward posters were thumbtacked to the board and the central sheet caught his eye.
WANTED
$5,000 REWARD
ALIVE ONLY
BELLE STARR
There followed a drawing of a beautiful woman with shoulder length black hair framing her face, a Stetson hat perched on the back of her head, and a tight rolled bandana knotted at her throat. Beneath this followed a brief description. Mark wondered how accurate the drawing and description were, for he doubted if Belle Starr had ever been captured to be measured or sketched and nobody was likely to do it while she stayed free.
Under Belle Starr’s name on the poster, and over the drawing, somebody had scrawled the words, “The Toughest Gal in the West” in a sprawling hand. Mark grinned as he read the comment, wondering what Calamity Jane would say when, or if, she read it.
As he turned away from the board, Mark became aware of somebody watching him. His instincts told him at least two sets of eyes, one on either side, studied him with more than casual interest.
To Mark’s right, seated alone and ignored even by the girls paid to entertain the guests, Jubal Framant, the bounty hunter, dropped his eyes towards his whisky glass as Mark glanced in his direction. The watcher at the left appeared to be one of a quartet of scrubby-jawed, gun-hung hardcases who wore cowhand clothes but who, in Mark’s considered opinion, had never worked cattle—at least not for their legal owner. On seeing Mark turn towards them, the four men resumed their drinking and talking.
Wondering a little at their interest, and not attributing it to admiration of his upstanding, manly figure, Mark walked on. He had not failed to notice that Framant had the ten gauge lying on the table before him and wondered if the man always carried the gun with him.
Putting aside thoughts of Framant’s habits, Mark headed for the blackjack table. Before he reached it, Mark saw the blonde signal and a man wearing a dealer’s eye-shield, white shirt, black open vest and black pants, crossed the room to take over her seat. Giving the players a dazzling smile, the blonde crossed the room towards where a door led out to the alley between the saloon and the hotel, and a flight of stairs rose to the upper part of the building.
Mark watched her go, then he saw the four hardcases also watching. As the blonde approached the side door, one of the quartet thrust himself up, but sank back into his chair as she walked by the door and up the stairs.
Interest in the blackjack game waned and the swarm of players faded away to leave only a handful of devotees around the table. Mark himself lost his desire to sit in on the game, and strolled over to the chuck-a-luck table where he won three dollars, took them and lost them at faro. Approaching the poker game at one of the high-stake tables, he studied the play for a time. For all he could see the game, like the others, was run fairly and the house relied only on the percentage to show them a profit.
Sitting in on the poker game, Mark played until nine o’clock. He held his own even though the company consisted of talented players, for Mark was no mean hand at the art of poker.
The blonde came into sight at exactly nine o’clock and walked down the stairs. Shoving the pile of chips to the cashier of the game, Mark told the other players he was finished. A man wearing the dress of a professional gambler gave a grin, for he had seen the direction Mark looked before making the decision.
“How can the simplicity and crudity of blackjack appeal to a man of refinement when he could have the pleasure of our company, the fascination of mathematical studies and the employment of the art of bluffing while playing poker?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Mark replied to the gambler’s flow of rhetoric. “If you gents looked like that blackjack dealer, I’d stay on.”
“Philistine,” sighed the gambler. “Meaning no disrespect, sir. My dear mother always told me never to make unfavorable comments about a man as big as you, and I believe her words. But you’ll never get rich playing blackjack.”
“Who wants to get rich?”
“The poor people do,” the gambler replied. “Good luck with Miss Marigold Tremayne, sir. In every way.”
“I might even need it,” Mark replied, picking up the money the cashier passed to him. “My apologies for leaving, gents.”
Crossing the room, M
ark halted at a vacant place by the blackjack table and looked down at the familiar layout with the legend “Blackjack Pays 3 to 2. Dealer Must Stand On 16 and Draw to 17”; followed by a list of bonuses which could be won by holding various combinations of cards which added up to no more than twenty-one; and finally came the warning, “All Ties Stand Off,” meaning that if the dealer and the player held the same score on their cards the bet did not count.
“What’s your limit, ma’am?” he asked, buying a stack of chips and thrusting his wallet back into the pocket built on the inside of his shirt.
“Twenty-five cents to twenty-five dollars, sir,” she replied. “This-all’s a friendly little game.”
Her voice held a gentle Southern drawl which conjured up a hint of blooming magnolias, mint juleps on the lawn of some plantation mansion and colored folks singing their plaintive songs.
“You-all from the South?” Mark asked.
“From Memphis. And you?”
“Texas, ma’am. Or may I call you Miss Tremayne?”
“Feel free,” she said, flipping the cards out to the seven men fortunate enough to get seats. “Make your bets, gentlemen.”
A couple of saloon men moved in to take seats on either side of Marigold, acting as her lookouts and pay-off hands. Not only would the seven men be playing, but the kibitzers and onlookers could join in, betting on the players’ hands although having no say in the way the hands were played.
Watching the girl’s hands flip out the cards, Mark could see no hint that she might be trying to manipulate matters in her favor. Her fingers were innocent of rings which might have tiny mirrors attached, through which she could see the value of each card as she dealt, or a spike with which to mark the cards during play. A black satin vanity bag stood on the table by her right hand, it looked a trifle larger than a lady usually carried and its jaws were open.
For a time Mark played, winning a couple of dollars, losing a couple. A plump, attractive brunette came to his side and slipped an arm around his neck, leaning on to him.
“Let me bring you some luck, handsome,” she suggested.
