Sidewinders:#3: Cutthroat Canyon

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Man’s got a right to protect his property and the folks who work for him,” Tragg said.

  “Ain’t you been listenin’?” Scratch said. “Davidson’s forcin’ those folks to work for him. And it’s not just the men who dig the gold out of that mine neither. He’s got himself his own private whorehouse, too, and the gals from the village have to work in it.”

  Jackman said, “I wouldn’t act so high-and-mighty if I was you, Morton. You’re standin’ in the middle of a whorehouse your own self, right now, and from the sound of the conversation that was goin’ on when we came up the hall, you’re pretty friendly with that fat madam, too.”

  Luz said, “If I had known what cabrones you are, I would have had Pepe throw you out on your ears as soon as you got here!”

  “Shut up, mamacita,” Jackman snapped. “You were quick enough to take our money, and glad to get it.”

  One of Luz’s pudgy hands came up and delved into the deep valley between her huge breasts, which hung halfway out of her low-cut blouse. When she brought her hand out, she flicked her wrist and sent coins spinning through the air at Jackman and Tragg. “There!” she screamed. “Take your filthy dinero back!”

  The coins pelting them made the two men grimace and step back. Tragg yelled, “Shit!” and brought his free hand up to his left eye, which had been hit by one of the coins. With his other hand he swung his gun toward Luz. “You bitch! I’ll—”

  What he was going to do remained unknown, because in moving as they had, Jackman and Tragg had brought themselves within reach of Magdalena and Helen, the two whores sitting on the divan. Both women lunged to their feet at the same time, and the lamplight flickered on cold steel as they each plunged a knife into Tragg’s back. Tragg howled in pain and stumbled forward. The gun in his hand roared as his finger involuntarily jerked the trigger, sending a bullet into the floor.

  At the same time, Bo and Scratch slapped leather. Even though Jackman’s gun was already in his hand, he got only one shot off before Bo’s Colt and Scratch’s twin Remingtons blasted. The explosions came so close together, they sounded like one shot and were deafening in the relatively close quarters.

  Jackman was thrown backward by the impact of all three slugs smashing into his body. He hit the divan where Magdalena and Helen had been sitting and flipped over the back of it to thud to the floor. Bo took a couple of swift steps that brought him around the piece of furniture so that he could cover Jackman.

  That caution wasn’t necessary. Jackman had dropped his gun, and his shirt was already soaked by the blood that welled from the wounds in his ruined chest. Eyes wide, he turned his head and stared at Bo in shock for a second before his features went slack in death. The stench of voiding bowels mixed with the acrid reek of burned powder.

  “Damn it!” Luz screeched at Bo and Scratch. “It always winds up smelling like shit and gunpowder in here when you two show up!”

  “We’re mighty sorry about that,” Bo told her. He glanced at Scratch. “What about Tragg?”

  The gunman had fallen on his face so that the handles of both knives protruded from his back as crimson stains bloomed around them. Keeping Tragg covered with both Remingtons, Scratch hooked a boot toe under his shoulder and rolled him onto his side, then let him flop on his face again.

  “Dead,” Scratch announced. He looked at Magdalena and Helen. “Where’d you gals come up with them pigstickers anyway?”

  The two women smiled, and Helen said, “It’s probably better that you don’t know, Mr. Morton. Trade secrets and all that.”

  Scratch grunted. “Sure. I reckon you’re right.”

  Magdalena said, “We would not have killed that man if he had not threatened Luz. We could not let him shoot her.”

  Bo finished thumbing fresh shells into his Colt and snapped the cylinder closed. “That’s all right, ladies. I reckon we would’ve had to kill ’em both sooner or later anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Scratch agreed. “They weren’t gonna turn on Davidson. They would’ve sold us out to him if they got a chance.”

  Luz had calmed down a little. She said to Pepe, “Haul this carne muerta out of here.” She turned to the other hallways leading off this central room and spoke to the frightened women who peered through the beaded curtains. “Go back to your customers. The trouble is over.”

  “If they got any customers left,” Scratch said to Bo from the corner of his mouth. “When them shots went off, I’ll bet most of the hombres in here crawled out the nearest window and lit out for the tall and uncut.”

  “More than likely,” Bo replied with a nod.

  Pepe dragged the bodies of Jackman and Tragg out of the room, leaving smears of blood on the floor. Bo and Scratch didn’t know how Luz’s bodyguard would dispose of the corpses, and neither of them particularly wanted to know.

  Luz motioned to the Texans. “Come into my office.” With a nod toward Teresa, she added, “Bring the girl with you.”

  Teresa didn’t look shocked by the violence she had just witnessed. She had probably seen enough during the past six months of Davidson’s reign of terror in the valley to be hardened to most such displays, although she had been shaken by the deaths of José and the other men on the mesa earlier that day. She went with Bo and Scratch into Luz’s office without objection.

  The madam sat down behind a desk on which a ledger book lay open. There was only one other chair in the room, and she said to Teresa, “Have a seat, Señorita.”

  Teresa did so, but rather gingerly, and that brought a laugh from Luz. “Do not worry, little one,” she said. “Nothing improper has ever taken place in that chair. Although one cannot say that about very many places in this house.” She turned her attention to Bo and Scratch. “You want to leave this one here with me, you said?”

  “That’s right,” Bo said. “As long as you understand that you can’t, uh, try to put her to work.”

  “Food and a place to sleep cost money…”

  “We’ll pay for her keep,” Scratch said.

  Luz laughed. “I would never force a girl to work for me. I am not like this man Davidson you spoke of. He sounds like a vile creature.”

  “He is,” Teresa said. “That is why we must defeat him.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Davidson thinks that we’re working for him,” Bo explained. “Scratch and I figured to join up again with the other men who came here with those wagons of ore and head back to the valley to see what we can do from inside Davidson’s camp.”

  “Wagons of ore?” Luz said with growing interest. “You must tell me about this. Start from the beginning.”

  Bo did so, going back to the night they had met Porter Davidson in August Strittmayer’s Birdcage Saloon and then saved his life during the ruckus with Little Ed Churchill and the rancher’s men.

  Scratch put in, “I reckon if we’d known then what we know now, we might’ve let Little Ed ventilate the son of a bitch.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Bo said. He resumed the tale, sketching in what they had discovered in Cutthroat Canyon and the adjacent valley, as well as the events of the trip to El Paso with the gold wagons and the attempted holdup that afternoon that had backfired on Teresa and her companions.

  “Poor little one,” Luz murmured as she looked at the young woman. “You are all alone now. Your amigos are either dead or have abandoned the fight.”

  “She’s not alone,” Bo said. “We’re on her side now…and I hope you are, too.”

  Luz shrugged. “I have no stake in what goes on down in that valley. I am a businesswoman, as you well know, Señor Bo.”

  “Don Alviso had no family,” Teresa said. “The mine rightfully belongs to the people of San Ramon now. If you help us, a share of it could be yours.”

  “You have no power to make such an arrangement,” Luz said with a shake of her head. “This man Davidson still holds the mine, and until it is otherwise…” She shrugged again. “Anyway, I deal in what is, not what might be. Cash, in othe
r words.”

  Bo said, “All we want is a safe place to leave Señorita Volquez. Scratch and I can come up with enough money to pay you for that.”

  “And for cleaning the blood off my parlor floor? And for getting the stink out of the air?”

  “Name your price,” Bo said.

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Scratch let out a low whistle. “That’s a heap of dinero.”

  “We don’t have anywhere near that much,” Bo said. “Might be able to get it, though.”

  “You have until tomorrow,” Luz declared. “For tonight, I will keep the girl here and personally guarantee her safety. This much I will do out of the goodness of my heart, but no more.”

  Bo thought calling it the goodness of Luz’s heart was stretching it a mite, but he didn’t say that. He just nodded and said, “We’ll see you tomorrow then. Right now, there’s one other thing you can do for us that won’t cost you anything.”

  “What is that?”

  “I’d like to talk to the girls who were with Jackman and Tragg.”

  “The two men you killed?” Luz thought it over and nodded. “I think I can do that. Wait here.”

  While the madam was gone, Teresa turned in the chair to look at Bo and Scratch. “Why are you doing this for me?” she asked. “You never even knew I existed until earlier today.”

  “I reckon we knew Davidson wasn’t telling us the truth, though, even if we didn’t have the proof yet,” Bo said.

  “And we don’t take kindly to bein’ lied to,” Scratch added. “We don’t cotton to hombres who try to take advantage of other folks neither…and I’d say Davidson qualifies, in spades!”

  “I guess you could say that we’re just natural-born meddlers,” Bo went on.

  Teresa looked at them for a long moment, then said softly, “At first I did not want to believe you. But now I see that you are telling the truth. You want to help because it is the right thing to do. You are like the knights in the old stories.”

  “Oh, Lord, don’t go callin’ us knights,” Scratch protested. “If we were, our armor’d be so tarnished by now…Shoot, we just can’t go too long without gettin’ in some sort of scrap. We’d get bored otherwise.”

  “Say what you will,” Teresa said. “Now I know the truth.”

  Luz came back to the office a moment later with two of the young women who worked for her, one Mexican, one Chinese. The Chinese girl didn’t seem to speak any English or Spanish, so Bo hoped that the other whore could tell them what they needed to know.

  “Did you have a drink or anything with those two hombres before you took them back to your rooms?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Sí. They passed a bottle of tequila back and forth and drank half of it.”

  “Did they say anything about the men they came with to El Paso? Were they supposed to meet the others anywhere in particular?”

  The girl frowned in thought as she tried to recall. “I am not sure,” she said slowly. “They talked and laughed a lot, but I did not pay too much attention.” She shrugged, making her breasts move under the silk wrapper she wore. “Men prattle all the time. Most of it means nothing.”

  “Try to remember,” Luz urged. “I may have money riding on this.”

  “I think they said something about a place called…Encinal’s. That was it.”

  Bo and Scratch looked at each other. The name meant something to them.

  “Encinal’s is a café across the river in El Paso,” Bo said. “Davidson’s men must be planning to get together there in the morning before they start back to the mine.”

  “Makes sense,” Scratch said. “They got to El Paso all right, Wallace and the other fellas with the wagons delivered the ore wherever it was supposed to go, and the rest of the bunch split up to have themselves a good time tonight. That’s got to be the way it is.”

  “So we can catch up to them at Encinal’s first thing in the morning, I reckon.”

  “And my money?” Luz asked.

  “That gives us tonight to lay our hands on it.”

  “You are sure you would not want to lay something else?”

  “Some other time,” Scratch said. “I don’t reckon we can afford it tonight.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Coming up with the five hundred dollars to pay Luz for looking after Teresa was surprisingly easy. Bo had figured that an all-night poker game and a lot of luck would be required, but all it took was a visit to the Birdcage.

  August Strittmayer greeted them heartily when he spotted them coming across the saloon’s big main room toward him. “Herr Creel! Herr Morton! I did not expect to see you two fellows again so soon. Didn’t you leave town with Herr Davidson just a few days ago?”

  “We did,” Bo agreed. “We’re back. You haven’t happened to see Jim Skinner in here tonight, have you?”

  Strittmayer made a face, as if a bad taste had suddenly come into his mouth. “That one! I don’t want him in here. He’s nothing but trouble. I heard a while back that he was in El Paso, but I have not seen him.”

  “You know a big Swede named Hansen?” Scratch asked. “Or a Britisher called Lancaster?”

  “Nein,” Strittmayer replied with a shake of his head.

  “A baby-faced kid with killer’s eyes?” Bo asked. “He goes by Douglas, but I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last.”

  “Now, him I have heard of, but he has not been in here.” A frown creased Strittmayer’s broad face. “You are looking for these men because there is trouble between you and them? The bullet holes in my walls are just now patched!”

  Bo chuckled. “Don’t worry, August. We won’t be starting any trouble. We’ve got some business to discuss with those hombres, that’s all.”

  “I would not do business with Jim Skinner. That man is no good.”

  Scratch said, “You won’t get any argument from us on that score.”

  Bo looked around the room at the gambling tables. “Have you got a high-stakes game going on tonight, August? Scratch and I need to come up with some money as quickly as we can.”

  “How much do you need?” the German asked.

  “Five hundred bucks,” Scratch said.

  Strittmayer inclined his head toward the door that led to his office. “Come with me. I will let you have the cash.”

  Bo and Scratch glanced at each other. “We couldn’t take your money like that, August,” Bo said.

  “Then consider it a loan. I will even charge you interest, ja?”

  “Why would you want to help us out that way?” Scratch asked. “It ain’t like we’re old pards or anything.”

  “Of course we are friends,” Strittmayer insisted. “Little Ed Churchill came in here and caused trouble every time he visited El Paso from his ranch. His men were just as bad. Now he is no longer a problem.”

  “So what you’re talking about is blood money,” Bo said flatly.

  “Nein, nein. You were friends as well with Three-Toed Johnny. That is the main reason I wish to help you. And I know your reputation. The law may consider you scoundrels, but if you say you will pay back the money, I know it is true.”

  “Unless we go off and get ourselves killed first,” Scratch muttered.

  “That is a gamble I am willing to take. Come with me to my office. I give you the money.”

  “You don’t even want to know what it’s for?” Bo asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well…I reckon not.”

  Bo would have told Strittmayer about Teresa if he’d needed to, but it was better this way, he thought as he and Scratch followed the German into his office. The fewer people who knew where Teresa was—the fewer people who even were aware of her existence—the safer it would be for her.

  Strittmayer opened a bulky safe in his office, using his body to shield the combination from view as he spun the dial. He might feel indebted to Bo and Scratch, but that gratitude only went so far, especially balanced against his natural caution. He took a wad of cash from th
e safe and counted out five hundred dollars onto the desk. Then, after a second’s hesitation, he added another hundred to it.

  “In case you need some for anything else,” he said.

  “We could use some more supplies, I reckon,” Bo said as he picked up the money, folded it, and stuck it in a pocket inside his black frock coat. “We’re much obliged to you, August.”

  Strittmayer waved a hand. “De nada, as our friends across the border say. What else can I do for you?”

  “We ain’t had any supper yet,” Scratch said.

  “That can be remedied. Come with me. I take you to the best German restaurant in El Paso!”

  “I only know of one German restaurant in El Paso,” Bo said.

  Strittmayer grinned and slapped them both on the back. “That is why it is the best!”

  Figuring that Davidson’s men would want to get an early start, Bo and Scratch were at Encinal’s Café before dawn the next morning. Strittmayer had let them borrow a spare room at the Birdcage, and they had slept soundly, full of beer and bratwurst and potatoes. Both of the Texans were still a little sluggish from all the food, in fact.

  Bo recognized some of the horses tied at the hitch rack in front of Encinal’s as they walked up, and so did Scratch. Skinner and the others were here. Scratch said, “I’ll go back to the livery stable and get our horses, too.”

  Bo nodded. “All right. I’ll go inside and talk to them.”

  “Don’t you reckon it’d be better if you waited until I got back, so we can brace ’em together?”

  “I don’t think anybody’s going to slap leather in the middle of breakfast.”

  “You better be right about that,” Scratch cautioned. “If you ain’t, you’re liable to get some hot lead with your coffee.”

  He headed for the livery stable where they had left the dun and the bay, while Bo stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the café.

  As soon as Bo went inside, he spotted Lancaster, Hansen, and Douglas at one of the tables. Skinner was alone at another table, brooding over a cup of coffee as he sat with his back to the wall so that an enemy couldn’t come up behind him. Encinal’s was a fairly popular eatery, and despite the early hour, several other customers sat at the tables with their blue-checked tablecloths, as well as at the counter, behind which the menu was chalked on a board.