Devil's Brand

by Len Levinson

  Stone held his shirt and pulled him onto the sidewalk, through the crowd, and into the Last Chance Saloon, a long rectangular room with a bar to the left, tables to the right, and above the bar a painting of three naked women cavorting in a meadow dotted with flowers.

  It was crowded with men in suits, cowboy outfits, and everything in between. Women in low-cut dresses worked the floor, delivering drinks, sitting with the men, accompanying them upstairs to the private rooms. In back, through clouds of tobacco smoke, were roulette wheels and monte games, and somebody hollered: “’Round and ’round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows!”

  Stone and Duvall bellied up to the bar, and Duvall looked as though he were going to faint. His eyes rolled around in his head like two loaded dice, and he licked his lower lip nervously. His shirt was buttoned to the top, so the rope scar wouldn’t show.

  The bartender, a short mustachioed Mexican in a white shirt, stopped in front of them. “Your pleasure, señor?”

  “Two whiskeys and do you have dancing girls?”

  “The next show starts in an hour.”

  “I don’t see the stage.”

  “There is none.” The bartender dropped two wet glasses on the bar and filled them with amber fluid, then moved down the bar to a slender man wearing glasses and a suit, who looked like a professor.

  “How’re you doing?” Stone asked Duvall.

  “Not so good.”

  Stone raised his glass in the air. “To the dancing girls!”

  He raised the glass to his lips and drank off the top, savoring the hickory flavor, the smooth bouquet, and then it hit, rotgut frontier whiskey that could take paint off wood.

  Duvall stared at his glass, fighting with himself. One side said go to your cave and meditate, and the other said drink it down, what the hell are you afraid of? Duvall sighed, sucked wind through clenched teeth, and opened his mouth, pouring the entire glass down his throat.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, placed the glass on the bar, and his face turned red as a beet. He coughed a few times, swallowed, then turned to Stone. “I don’t know who you are, or what purpose you have in my life, but it looks like a night of hard drinkin’.”

  Stone reached toward him, and they shook hands. Then Stone drained his glass and called the bartender again. “Two more whiskeys, governor, when you’ve got time!”

  Duvall hadn’t touched a drop in three years, and already the room was rocking. He gazed through the smoke and saw gamblers, freighters, drunken cowboys, horse traders, bankers talking deals, Mexican vaqueros with guns and knives, but somehow it didn’t seem so threatening now. A woman bent over a table in front of him, and he admired her hindquarters. An old urge came over him, an urge he’d thought he’d conquered, but it was insistent and unsettling, and he became afraid.

  “What’s wrong?” Stone asked.

  “That woman ...”

  Stone reached into his pocket and took out all the money he had. “You want her—take her. On me. Don’t deprive yourself. It’s not worth it.”

  Duvall stared at the woman, a buxom redhead with freckles on her shoulders, and a hefty bottom a man could use to anchor his most ambitious efforts.

  “Go ahead,” Stone said. “Every man needs to stand on that mountain once in a while.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’ll go right after you’re finished.”

  Duvall counted the coins and looked at the buxom redhead, imagining how it’d feel to hold her robust naked charms in his arms. Then, bent forward like a hunter, he moved toward her, his eyes glittering brightly, licking his upper lip.

  Stone watched him go, and felt as if he’d accomplished something significant. He’d brought the man out of the cave and back into the mainstream of life, reclaiming him for society, transforming him into a productive worker and patron of the erotic arts.

  “Whiskey!” He shouted to the bartender.

  The bartender poured the glass, and Stone turned toward the back of the saloon, where men tossed chips on gaming tables wreathed in tobacco smoke.

  A slim figure loomed up in front of him, wearing a blue shirt and a blue Union Army forage cap with a black visor. The man had black hair on his chest and stopped cold in his tracks when he saw Stone’s Confederate cavalry hat.

  Both men jerked their hands toward their guns, then froze and glowered at each other. Men in the vicinity got out of their way. The former Yankee soldier was five feet ten, flat-stomached, compactly built, solid in his aspect.

  Then they smiled sheepishly at each other, and broke into laughter.

  “By God,” Stone said, “I don’t even know you, and I was ready to shoot your lights out!”

  “You don’t know how close to the grave you were,” the Yankee said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “No, I’ll buy you one.”

  “I insist.”

  “So do I.”

  Again they glowered at each other, then burst into laughter again. The Yankee held out his hand. “Name’s Calvin Blakemore.”

  “John Stone, and you’ve got a lot of guts, walking around Texas in that hat.”

  Blakemore shrugged. “Mr. Colt has always taken care of me in the past, and he’ll take care of me in the future.”

  “What’re you doing out here?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. How about you?”

  “I’m trying to break into the cattle business.”

  “Supposed to be a lot of money in it, but men have lost their asses too.”

  “It’s that way with anything. I’ve just signed on with an outfit leaving for Kansas in about a week, and they’re looking for men, if you’re interested. They pay thirty dollars a month, plus your chuck, and everybody says the cook is a wizard, although he hates my guts.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I used to own the son of a bitch, and it sticks in his craw.”

  “I guess you’re plannin’ to lose some weight, him bein’ the cook and all.”

  “He tries anything with me, I’ll hand him his black head on a platter.”

  The bartender filled their glasses with whiskey, while Stone and Blakemore argued who was going to pay.

  The bartender asked, “Why don’t you flip a coin?”

  Blakemore tossed one behind his back, caught it in his teeth, and dropped it into his open palm. “I pay,” he said, dropping some coins on the bar. Then he lifted the glass in his hand and delivered the toast: “Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money!”

  They touched the rims of their glasses, and tossed the whiskey down. Then Blakemore looked at Stone. “You know, you and I might’ve met during the war, and I would’ve shot you off yer horse, because I’ve done that to men who wore hats like your’n, but instead here we are in San Antone, drinking whiskey together, and I heard they got dancing girls.”

  “And if I saw you in those days,” Stone replied, “I’d cut you down, because I’ve done it before to Yankees in blue hats, but thank God we didn’t kill each other, because the bartender told me the dancing girls come out in a few minutes.”

  The bartender poured two more whiskeys, and Stone felt his head floating in the air above the bar, like a hot-air reconnaissance balloon. Billy Yank and Johnny Reb raised their glasses and gulped the whiskey down.

  “I’m tired of the damned war!” Stone said. “Let’s talk about anything except the war!”

  “They can shove the war up their ass, for all I care,” Blakemore replied. “Only damn fools talk about the war, and the more they talk about it, the farther they were from the front. You been upstairs yet? They say it’s a hot place.”

  “After I finish this drink, I’m going.”

  “You can take the whiskey with you.”

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  “I was born in a hurry, and I’m in the mood for a woman. See you down here later, and maybe I’ll take that cowboy job, but if I don’t see you again, I’m glad I never shot you off’n yer horse
.” Blakemore drained his glass, winked roguishly, and strolled into the teeming crowd, heading for the wide staircase.

  For five years, Stone saved himself for the woman he loved, and now had to adjust to his new freedom. He could do all the things he’d dreamed of, and nothing would stop him.

  There was no point keeping his distance from women anymore, never daring to touch those delicious curves, the napes of their necks, those supple legs that wrapped around a man and twisted him into ecstasy.

  Now he could do it all. Marie, wherever you are, you‘d better get yours, because from now on I’m getting mine. Opening his shirt pocket, he took out her picture. She looked at the photographer, a faint smile on her face, and she was a dead ringer for Cassandra Whiteside. “So long, kid,” Stone said. “It’s been good to know you.”

  He poised the photograph in his fingers, ready to chuck it into the filthy spit-encrusted spittoon next to the rail, when something stopped him. He wouldn’t want her to do that to his picture, and he had no right to be mad at her, people can’t help who they fall in love with. She’d always been straight with him, except for a few episodes here and there, but nobody’s perfect, and she deserved better than a spittoon. He returned the photograph to his shirt pocket, buttoned it, and drained his glass.

  Sometimes a man can drink for hours, and then take a gulp that will floor him. The last swallow had that effect on Stone, and his head swam with images of Marie, Cassandra, his parents, Yankees in blue coats charging at Sharpsburg. He gripped the bar for support and closed his eyes. This stuff is killing me.

  He knew if he held on long enough, his mind would come back. Gradually the saloon cleared and he felt strong again. He reached into his pocket for money to buy another drink.

  There wasn’t much left, and it annoyed him that he was always counting pennies. Insufficient funds forced him to lead a cramped miserable life, and it was getting on his nerves.

  “Bartender—where the hell are you!”

  The Mexican in the white shirt was working the other end of the bar, and didn’t pay any attention to Stone, who felt blind rage coming over him. Nothing turned out right, he’d searched for a ghost, and what did he have to show for it? Not a goddamn thing. His emotions boiled like soup in a pot as the bartender approached. “¿Señor?”

  Stone reached over the bar and grabbed the front of the bartender’s shirt. “Let me tell you something. I don’t like it when I call a bartender, and he ignores me. Don’t let it happen again. Do we understand each other?”

  The Mexican’s eyes stared into Stone’s. “We understand each other, señor.”

  “Fill this glass with whiskey!”

  Something hit Stone like a longhorn steer on a rampage, flinging him through the air. He bounced off a pillar, sprawled onto a table, knocked it over, and landed in a pile of ashtrays, glasses, and playing cards.

  Stone climbed to his feet, whirled, and saw a stocky Mexican in a wide white sombrero, tight-fitting brown vaquero pants that flared at the bottoms, and high-topped, well-worn black riding roots.

  “Fill your own glass with whiskey, gringo,” the Mexican said. “A man does not talk that way to another man.”

  Stone realized the Mexican was right, and a man doesn’t talk to another man like that, but you can’t back down from a Mexican in a Texas saloon. He moved his hands over his guns, but didn’t feel confident, because he was in the wrong.

  “There is no need for any of that, gringo. Apologize to the bartender, and I will forget everything. But if you want to be ridiculous, I will kill you.”

  Stone spread his legs apart, loosened his fingers, and got ready for the quick-draw that would send one of them to hell, because he was too angry at the world to apologize to a Mexican in a Texas saloon.

  A figure moved between them, and it was Luke Duvall, arms outstretched in supplication. “Don Emilio,” he said, “have pity on this poor dumb gringo! He was hurt in the war, and his woman has just left him. On top of that, he drinks too much, and he was un poquito loco to begin with. He meant no harm— just a lost caballero like all the rest of us here.”

  Don Emilio shrugged. “He cannot be so bad, if he has a friend like you to speak for him. I will forgive him this time. But next time, God will have to forgive him. ¡Vamanos, muchachos!”

  A crowd of vaqueros gathered around Don Emilio, and they walked toward the swinging doors. They numbered nine men, armed with guns in holsters and knives in belts.

  Duvall walked toward Stone. “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, but that time I believe you took it about as far as you’ll ever take it. That’s Don Emilio Maldonado, and he lives in the brush country down by the Nueces, and nobody ever, I repeat ever, messes with him.”

  Stone felt as if a tornado had thrown him into the air, and just had let him down gently. He took a deep breath and pushed his hat back on his head. “Maybe I’d better stop drinking. Hey— wait a minute! You’re back! How did it go?”

  “There ain’t nothin’ like a real woman with a real ass, so we’re plannin’ to git married as soon as we find a preacher man, and we want you to be best man!”

  Stone stared at him. “Now let me get this straight. You just spent three years in a cave, and now, your first day back at the rodeo, you’re getting married?”

  “I know it has a certain ring to it, but that’s the way it is.”

  “When do I meet the bride?”

  “Soon as she goes on her break.”

  “You mean she’ll continue working at her profession?”

  “Both of us savin’ our pennies, we’ll have our own herd in two years, but you almost just got yerself killed, whether you realize it or not.”

  Stone smiled grimly. “He would’ve done me a favor.”

  “You sound like me before I went to the cave.”

  “Since you’re leaving the cave, I guess I should move right in before somebody else finds it.”

  Duvall pointed his finger at him. “I told you when we first met—you’ll end up in a cave.”

  They laughed, wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders, and shuffled toward the bar. In the corner, a man in a striped shirt, with red garters around his biceps, fingered the keyboard of a piano. Stone placed one foot on the brass rail and said in a moderate tone, “Bartender?”

  The Mexican man in the white shirt walked toward him. “¿Señor?”

  “Two whiskeys, and I’m sorry if I insulted you, but I got bad news today, and you know how it is when you get bad news.”

  “I understand, señor. One day my wife told me her mother is coming to live with us, and I throw the table out the window.”

  The bartender poured the whiskeys, and at that moment Calvin Blakemore appeared beside Stone, and Blakemore’s Yankee forage cap was low over his eyes. “Pour one for me too,” he said in a deep voice, standing tall and lean, one foot on the rail.

  He had a calm, satisfied expression on his face, and so did Duvall. Stone knew it was his turn, and he thought: What the hell. He had the money, he had the time, and all he had to do was walk upstairs, pick one out, and cut loose.

  He heard a drum roll, and turned toward the far corner of the saloon. A band had set itself up around the piano player, and the trumpet began to play. Everybody applauded, and one of the vaqueros shouted, “¡Arriba!”

  Every eye in the saloon turned to the top of the staircase, and standing there were five women in purple and gold tights, and the one in the middle, with long, straight black hair parted in the middle, sang, in a German accent:

  “I’m chust a little cowgirl

  Alone in the barn

  Von’t you come undt play vith me?”

  Stone stared transfixed. She was nearly six feet tall, supple as a gazelle, with substantial breast development, and a throaty smoky voice that said whiskey drunk here.

  The dancers descended the stairs while the tall one continued to sing:

  “I’ve got my saddle

  And bridle

  But nothing to ride
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  Von’t you come undt play vith me?”

  She threw a flower into the audience, and the men cheered. She and the other dancers waved their fans, casting naughty glances at the lust-maddened cowboys, whose tongues hung out of their mouths, like cattle.

  Stone watched her with the eyes of a connoisseur of women. If a man was going to get laid, after five years of nothing, he should have something like that. The band picked up the tempo, and the women broke into a dance, moving saucily among the tables. Stone touched his hands to his guns, to make sure they still were there, because he expected trouble.

  Miraculously no one grabbed the dancers, and the tall one moved seductively to the bar, singing to each lovesick fool standing with a drink in his hand, and she blew kisses to them as she sashayed along.

  She came abreast of Stone, and he blew her a kiss back. Calvin Blakemore snorted beside him. “You never made enough in the best year of yer life, to pay for a night with that one.”

  “I think she likes me,” Stone replied.

  “You and every other man in this shithouse.”

  Stone watched her arch her shapely back, and then she was swallowed up by the smoke at the rear of the saloon.

  Stone sighed as he rolled a cigarette and listened to the lilt

  Of her voice:

  “I’m chust a little cowgirl

  Vaiting for the man

  Who lives in my dreams

  Vhy don’t you come undt play vith me?”

  Her voice became fainter, and Stone heard Duvall clear his throat next to him. Stone turned in his direction and saw him standing beside a redhead.

  “I want you to meet Miss Eulalie Parker,” Duvall said stiffly.

  Stone tipped his hat. “Pleased to meet you.”

  She looked at him boldly, and her expression said: I know what you think of me, but say it and you’ll have this tray of drinks in your face.

  “Your prospective husband has asked me to be the best man at your wedding,” Stone said to her. “I find this remarkable, since you two only met an hour ago. I can understand his decision, because you’re a lovely woman, and he’s been living in a cave for three years, but tell me—why in the hell are you marrying him?”