E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  His lariat, let down into the whiskey-scented darkness, was as good as a portable stairway. In a moment, Grimes was down in the stockroom.

  He struck a match, lighted a candle stump, and with hat and bandanna, shaded the flame. Along the wall furthest from the door was a row of barrels which were marked “proof spirits.” On a table was a plane, some paint, and a stencil which read, “RED QUILL BOURBON.” There were several empties, freshly stenciled. But what most interested Grimes was the cabinet in the corner.

  There he found a bucket of stewed prunes, some one-pound plugs of chewing tobacco, and a jug of wine vinegar. Also, there was a pail of beef blood. Hanging from a nail was a paper bound book entitled, AMERICAN BARTENDER’S GUIDE. A glance at this last item confirmed his suspicions; he read, “To one hundred gallons of proof spirit, add four ounces of pear oil, two ounces of pelargonic ether, thirteen drachms oil of wintergreen, and one gallon of wine vinegar; color with burnt sugar.”

  But what prodded Grimes to a high fury was “Recipe 309; Bead for Liquor. For every ten gallons of spirit, add forty drops sulphuric acid and sixty drops of olive oil previously mixed in a glass vessel.”

  “There ain’t no Red Quill Distillery,” he said to himself. “There ain’t any likker hauled to Stinking Springs. That sculpin makes it right here, outen chemicals and acids.”

  Such being the case, how could the daughter of a local hero be dependent on dividends from Red Quill shares? Instead of setting the warehouse afire, it would be far better to expose the fraud and drive Red Quill forever from the market.

  CHAPTER III

  A Risk To Be Taken

  There was a lot of excitement in Stinking Springs when two horses came into town without riders. Grimes, going from bar to bar, drank Red Quill and listened to the news. Dusty and Pecos, gunslingers protecting the whiskey market, had heard that a rash freighter was heading for Stinking Springs, and they had gone to meet him.

  And now this.

  Most of the population galloped out to investigate. They found, after chasing away the buzzards, enough odds and ends to identify beyond any doubt the remains of Dusty and Pecos.

  Thereafter, when Colonel Delevan appeared in public, he had Buckshot Frost at his heels. Grimes, barging into a saloon, caught a snatch of conversation: “That long lanky galoot that don’t look like he had sense enough to come in outen the rain…”

  Silence. Dripping silence. Then the boys began whooping it up again. They could not believe that he had cut down the two gunslingers, and yet, there was something odd about it all. So Grimes began to cat-walk about town. People were wondering about his protests on the whiskey question.

  Stinking Springs got another sensation when a shapely blonde came driving down the main street in a rattling buggy. She looked sweet and helpless. Her somber mourning accented the pallor of her face and the pale gilt of her lovely hair. Grimes, sitting with the hotel lobby wall at his back, heard her say to the cowpoke who carried her carpetbag, “Thank you so much! Never mind the things in the buggy, it’s just a sewing machine, would you mind taking the rig to the livery stable?”

  She signed the register. Then, to the clerk, “Oh, what is that horrible smell?”

  Grimes chimed in, “M’am, that there is Red Quill Bourbon.”

  The girl was Melba Hanford. Her dainty nose rose a degree or two, and she sniffed. The clerk said, “M’am, that there is the hot sulphur spring, it ain’t bad when you get used to it.”

  * * * *

  The hours dragged. Grimes watched Melba come down the stairs and sweep past him, head high. He watched her return from the restaurant. He heard the muttered speculations of the cowpunchers who lounged on the board walk.

  “Widder-woman… Sure looks like a lady…proud as a queen…hell no, she ain’t fixing to work in the dance hall, not that gal…”

  * * * *

  That night, Grimes went to bed with his boots on. But the real novelty was that he did not sleep. He was on edge, alert, and at the first faint scratch at the panel, he was on his feet. Just for luck, he had a gun ready.

  Melba edged in when he opened the door. “Simon, it’s the craziest thing, I nearly died when I came to town, with everyone eyeing me.”

  “How’s your pappy?”

  “He’ll pull through, though I hated to leave him. What have you found out?”

  Once Melba had found the settee in the darkness, he seated himself on the floor at her feet. “Honey, it’s thissaway—”

  He told her everything and concluded, “The hull dang town’s against us. I’d figgered a gal like you might have a chance pertending you was a orphan or widder, but that there Doreen Hopkins is mighty purty for a old woman dang nigh thirty; these jaspers worship the ground she walks on, account her pappy, and I jest don’t know what to do next.”

  “You mean, if you did prove that Red Quill is just chemicals and acids, you’d be casting reflections on a hero’s daughter, and that would not help us?”

  “Correct, honey.” Grimes sighed gustily. “But there’s sumthin’ salty about it all. That Mis’ Hopkins looks like a honest woman. She don’t look like the kind that’d have cowpunchers drinking sheep dip and soldering acid and sechlike. This here Red Quill musta once been fitten to drink, account they nearly lynched Wing Lee for offering them ng ka pay on Chinese New Year.

  “And this Colonel Delevan, you call on him, tearfullike, and whilst he’s listening to you sobbing, I’ll sort of make a pasear around the house, he’s a bachelor.”

  * * * *

  The following evening, Grimes lurked in the shelter of a weeping willow until Melba drove up to Colonel Delevan’s big white house. He came from cover when the colonel went to admit his lovely visitor.

  “Good evening, m’am. What is your pleasure, Miss Hanford? You had scarcely arrived in town when I took the liberty of ah…inquiring at the hotel.”

  “You’re very kind, colonel. I hardly know where to begin—

  Grimes crept to the window. Delevan was stamping down the hallway and bawling, “You, Tomas! Paca! Where are you?”

  The only answer was echoes; then, returning, he said to Melba, “I had hoped to have one of the servants offer you refreshments, m’am, but the scoundrels have, so to speak, folded their tents like the Arabs. But I make a very tolerable mint julep.”

  Grimes grinned. Delevan had merely made a loud show of assuring Melba that they could have a cozy chat. And when he went to the rear to prepare juleps, Grimes tapped gently at the window, and whispered, “Do your best, and if he gits familiar, I’ll pistol-whip him.”

  Delevan lost surprisingly little time in coming back with a silver bowl and tall glasses.

  Melba said, hesitantly, “Colonel, I hope I don’t seem rude, but I don’t drink strong liquor. I might take a sip of Madeira, though I really shouldn’t—” She dabbed her eyes with a lace edged handkerchief. “Not so soon—after—poor father’s death.”

  As he poured Bourbon and added sprigs of mint to garnish his tall glass, Delevan said solicitously, “M’am, it was all too evident from your mourning—ahem, if you’ll forgive my saying so, it is most becoming—you remind me of the late Mrs. Delevan, when her distinguished father passed away.”

  He sighed gustily. “I am a very lonesome man and have been for many years now. Pray accept my heartfelt sympathy, m’am, for I also have been bereaved.”

  The man was magnetic. Grimes’ trigger finger began to itch. He said to himself, “That goat-bearded sculp-in’s got a routine for widder-women and orphans, I ’low he ain’t ever asked Mis’ Hop­kins to marry him, not with them notions for preying on bereaved gals.”

  The colonel was on the sofa beside Melba. He barely touched her further shoulder with his fingertips; he was waiting for her grief to get out of control before he offered consolation.

  “You’re so kind, colonel. I almost hate to bring up a matter of b
usiness—”

  “Consider me your servant, m’am.”

  “It’s about—whiskey.”

  “Whiskey, m’am?”

  The lovely blonde head inclined in a nod. “My poor father, practically ruined by railroad competition, was freighting a number of barrels of OLD VICKERY BOURBON into new territory, and—and—”

  Her voice broke. He patted her shoulder. Melba went on, “Bandits—road agents—held us up. There were two of them—I begged him not to resist—but he fought like a lion—he killed them both—but his wounds—he succumbed, and here I am, trying to sell—that whiskey—and I’ve been told—that nothing but Red Quill is allowed in Stinking Springs.

  “They gave me to understand, Colonel Delevan, that you are a stockholder in the Red Quill distillery, and that this ban on other liquors is to—well—protect your interests.”

  She eyed him reproachfully; but the colonel’s glance did not waver. “M’am, I have been put into a false position. Pray let me convince you. The truth is, I am protecting the interests of a widow, the daughter of that gallant hero, the late Cyrus Barlow.”

  Melba rose. “Colonel Delevan, it is not gallant to put the blame on a widow!”

  The colonel’s face became red. “Madam, I have been put in a false light! I shall challenge the dastard who put me in such false light! Pray let me convince you.”

  The colonel stalked out, and in a moment came back with a tin box which he unlocked. He took from it various papers, and began, “M’am, this should convince you that years ago, as a gesture of gratitude, I conveyed to Mrs. Hopkins’ gallant father every share of my Red Quill whiskey stock.”

  “I know so little about business—” Melba wavered, her knees buckled; she would have fallen had he not caught her. “Oh—I’m sorry—I’m dizzy—I think I’m about to faint—”

  The colonel scooped her up in his arms. “Let me make you comfortable in the late Mrs. Delevan’s room—there are some smelling salts—”

  Melba protested feebly, but the masterful colonel insisted that no­thing was too much trouble. And he had barely started up the stairs when Grimes tiptoed into the living room.

  Melba’s voice filtered down from the upper darkness: “Oh, colonel, I’m so confused and worried and lonely… I don’t know whom to believe… I’ll be all right in a moment—”

  Grimes scooped up the papers. The first one seemed to bear out Delevan’s contention, but as he riffled his way through the file, Grimes found a letter of earlier date, on the stationery of the Red Quill Distilleries. The colonel’s thousand shares were to be assessed $5 each, and in return he would get one thousand new shares. Grimes muttered, “Participating perferred, gosh it sounds worsen the time Uncle Jason got hornswoggled outen that mine in Arizony.”

  Another paper: a notice of bankruptcy, dated a year after the assessment. Grimes, listening to the murmuring upstairs, was assured that Melba was holding her own. Delevan, while a scheming scoundrel, was in his own way a gentleman. And so Grimes hurried out to make a move which neither he nor Melba had planned.

  There wasn’t and there had not been any Red Quill whiskey for some years, except in Stinking Springs. Bit by bit, Delevan had cut the stock of Bourbon, so that the local cowpunchers had gradually become accustomed to rotgut bearing the label of a once drinkable brand. And he had used Doreen Hopkins as a front.

  Exposing Doreen as a crook would be tough work. It might end in an all around shooting scrape which would not help the sale of Old Vickery. But Grimes had to risk it.

  CHAPTER IV

  Challenge!

  When Doreen Hopkins came to the door, the lamplight put a flame-gold halo about her red hair; it played tricks with her white robe, which had been made out of an embroidered Chinese shawl.

  “I rarely have visitors—if I’d been expecting you—”

  “M’am, you look scrumptious thatta-way. And if you ain’t too busy with your embroidering, I’d admire to talk business with you.”

  He thumped a buckskin poke of gold pieces into the heap of embroidery silk. “It’s about your pappy’s Red Quill shares. The Old Vickery Distillery craves to buy your interest and good will.”

  “It’s paid such splendid dividends, I’d have to consult Colonel Delevan. He’s advised me ever since father died.”

  “How many shares you got?”

  She shrugged. “Good heaven, I don’t know! But wait a moment.”

  When she returned, she had a thousand-share certificate made out in her father’s name. The date was prior to the dates of the letters announcing the assessments. Grimes, scrutinizing the late hero’s name, saw what only a keen eye could have noted: there had been an erasure, and Cyrus Barlow had been written, letters widely spaced, in the space once occupied by, as a good guess, Worthington Delevan.

  “M’am, when’d you know your pappy had it?”

  “Colonel Delevan found it among father’s papers, after the estate was settled. I guess it hadn’t paid dividends for some time, but soon after the colonel found it, I began getting checks, in my own name, he said he’d written the company that I’d inherited the stock.”

  Grimes picked up the poke of gold. “Thank you kindly, m’am, but that there certificate ain’t wuth the paper it’s printed on.”

  “How can you say that?” she flared up, “when the dividends have kept me in comfort? I’d never believed you to be a slicker, trying to cheat a widow out of her legacy, trying to tell me it’s worthless, so I’d accept an absurd offer.”

  “Ma’am,” he persisted, “there ain’t no distillery, it’s jest a fraud Colonel Delevan’s worked up to palm off pizen likker on poor, honest cowpunchers, keeping good whiskey like Old Vickery out of town. I come here to see you account of a orphan lady whose pappy was shot down by gunslingers the colonel sent out to keep him from bringing honest Bourbon into Stinking Springs. If you got any conscience, let it guide you, m’am.”

  “You wait till I get dressed, I’ll see if you dare repeat that statement to Colonel Delevan!”

  That was just what Grimes wanted. Catching Colonel Delevan consoling Melba would drive a wedge into Doreen’s trust and admiration. Hearing Melba’s story of her father’s death would finish the job.

  “That there stock is wuthless,” he repeated.

  “It’s been keeping me in comfort!”

  “What you mean is, Colonel Delevan’s been keeping you in comfort,” Grimes retorted.

  “You dare say such a thing!”

  She slapped him, one-two-three. And as he recoiled before her sting­ing blows, he tried to amplify the statement she had interrupted. “M’am, what I meant—”

  * * * *

  Then the door slammed open. Colonel Delevan, with several peculiar and long scratches on his handsome face, stamped into the room. “I heard my name bandied about, and fortunately I did not enter until I heard the atrocious reflection you cast on Mrs. Hopkins! Please stand aside, m’am, do not sully your hands, I’ll shoot him down like a dog!”

  Grimes yelled, “Go for your guns when this lady’s outen the way. Or keep your hands in sight whilst I tell you what I was aiming to say when she started slapping my teeth loose!”

  “That vicious slander can’t be explained! Doreen—”

  Then Doreen, who now clung to Grimes with both arms, cried over her shoulder, “Colonel Delevan, I am surprised that you would want a gun fight in my house! Need I remind you of the light in which that would put me?”

  Delevan bowed. “M’am, my indignation made me forget myself. Mr. Grimes, if you have any manhood left, you will not precipitate a shooting array in this house.”

  “I’m agreeable.”

  Flushed and breathless, Doreen broke away.

  Grimes went on, “M’am, what I was starting to say wasn’t a reflection on you, if’n I’d said all of it.”

  “Silence!” the colonel thu
ndered. “My seconds will wait on you. We shall arrange this so that I can demand satisfaction, and without any slurs on a lady’s name. Your remarks, made in several bars, casting aspersions on the integrity of Red Quill Bourbon, are ample cause. Good evening, sir.”

  * * * *

  On his return to the hotel, Melba was waiting for Grimes in the doorway of her room. “I couldn’t help it, darling,” she said, “but I simply had to claw him crosseyed, the old reprobate!”

  “And then he come over to the widder-woman’s house, and we had words.”

  Melba’s eyes narrowed. “Simon, someone has been clawing your face,” she said coldly. “Am I to understand that you were making love to that middle-aged creature.”

  “Honey, when I kiss ’em, they don’t kick and claw.”

  Melba rose. “You do take things for granted! I didn’t claw or slap you, did I, which makes me—oh, get out! You and your fool ideas, putting me in such a humiliating position.”

  She flung herself face down on the sofa and began to sob. When he patted her hair, she cried, “Get out, or I’ll scream!”

  So he got.

  * * * *

  He was ready to shake the dust of Stinking Springs from his boots. “Every dang time I open my mouth, I put my foot in it,” he muttered, and he stamped his way down the hall. “The gent that said silence is golden was speaking gospel.”

  After having risked his life in a gun fight, after having defied an entire town, he’d been misunderstood by the very girl he was trying to help. And with an impending challenge, he could not run out.

  That challenge would settle everything. Smoking out the colonel would only confirm Doreen’s grudge; Delevan’s cronies would continue making Red Quill using the lovely widow as a front. One remark with an unintended double-meaning had killed his chance of appealing to the widow’s better nature. Then he remembered the bottle of Old Vickery which the marshal had seized for testing. He went down the backstairs and down the alley.