Waco 4

by J. T. Edson

  Minutes dragged by and the clerk entered with a woman who carried a doctor’s bag in her hands. The woman who had entered the upstairs room came into sight at the head of the staircase and yelled: “Where’s the doctor?”

  “Out on a call,” the doctor’s wife replied. “How about the one who sent that list for me?”

  “He’s a cowhand—”

  “Anyone who can make out a list the way he did can do all that needs doing, I reckon. Who sent it?”

  “My partner, Doc Leroy, ma’am,” Waco replied. “He’s the Arizona Ranger who broke the typhoid outbreak in Canvas-town last year.”

  “I’ll get on up then, he can handle this.”

  Before the woman could move toward the stairs Doc appeared at the top and his irate bellow came down. “Waco! Where in hell’s name’s that gear I sent for?”

  “He sounds just like my husband,” the doctor’s wife remarked, and strode forward in the purposeful manner of one long used to dealing with this sort of situation.

  Doc met her halfway up the stairs, listened to her explanation, and saw he must handle the confinement himself. His temper, never too certain with outsiders when handling medical work, evened a little, for he knew the doctor’s wife would be a great help to him.

  “Waco,” Doc called as he turned. “The gal wants her husband. She won’t rest easy until he comes. Go get him.”

  Waco turned and left hurriedly. The cool night wind, even tainted by the smells of what he regarded as a big city, calmed him. He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, thinking of where he could find Elwin. There could only be one place. He had left the theater to have a meal with Lily Carlisle in her room, and a star of her magnitude must room at the Grand Hotel.

  So Waco headed for the elegant portals of the hotel. He passed through the door, crossing the ankle-deep carpet and halted by the desk. The clerk of the Grand was a different type than the Creed’s man. He wore a neat suit and his cravat looked tight enough to choke him. Raising a supercilious eye, the clerk studied the young Texan, then looked down once more at the newspaper before him.

  Two hands slapped down hard on the paper. The clerk looked up to meet a pair of blue eyes that were as cold and threatening as the full blast of a Texas blue-norther storm.

  “Miss Carlisle’s room,” Waco said quietly.

  “Why?” purred the clerk, recovering his aplomb and preparing to handle a familiar situation.

  Waco did not waste time. His hands shot up, bunching the clerk’s lapels and hauling him halfway across the desk. Thrusting his face up close, Waco growled, “I said where’s Miss Carlisle’s room?”

  Then he thrust the man back again, realizing strong-arm tactics would only cause delay. He slid his hand to a concealed pocket under his shirt and brought out a card, which he laid on the desk. The man glanced down, looked again hard, and gave a gulp of surprise.

  “Yes, sir,” he gasped, watching the Ranger’s identification card disappear again. No man in Arizona Territory liked to cross one of Mosehan’s boys. “First floor, the suite facing the stairhead.”

  Striding up the stairs, Waco looked along the empty passage. The Grand had rooms to spare on the first floor and only one showed signs of life. Waco crossed to this door and knocked; one of the muscular young men looked out from a two-inch crack.

  “I’d like to see Elwin,” Waco said politely.

  “Sorry, cowboy, we don’t want any.”

  With that, the man closed the door again. At the well-set table Elwin looked around. He had heard the voice and recognized it, guessing what brought Waco after him and wanting to leave. Yet Lily had been a gracious hostess, champagne flowed freely, and she appeared to be taking a genuine interest in improving his act. He started to push back his chair as Philip closed the door while Harry, the other strong-man member of Lily’s act, opened another bottle of champagne. Lily glanced at the door, making an annoyed gesture.

  A crash sounded and the door burst open. Waco stepped inside fast; his kick had been delivered with precision and in a manner learned in more dangerous conditions than these.

  “Elwin,” he said, ignoring the others. “You’d best get back to Janice; it’s near her time.”

  Even as Elwin pushed back his chair, Lily Carlisle came to her feet, pointing at Waco, her voice a hag-ridden screech. “Throw that bum out!”

  Phil stepped forward, arms spread, meaning to encircle Waco from behind and hold him while Harry worked him over. They had operated the same trick before on cowhands. Only Waco was no cowhand. He had learned frontier brawling under a good master and was fully capable of handling the situation.

  Driving back hard, Waco’s elbow smashed into Phil’s body just under his breastbone. The big man let out a croak of agony and stumbled back, hitting the wall, holding his body as he doubled over in pain.

  Throwing himself into a pugilistic posture, Harry started forward but came to a sudden halt. Waco’s left hand dipped and brought out the staghorn-butted Colt from its holster, aiming it and drawing back the hammer with an audible click.

  “Hold it, hombre!” he barked. “I’ve no time for fussing. Elwin, that gal wants you. Do you walk or get carried?”

  Elwin came to his feet, head spinning with the effects of the champagne, but he could still think for himself. He looked at Lily, seeing the anger on her face but more concerned about his wife’s well-being.

  “It’s Jan, Lily,” he said. “I told you we were expecting a baby. I’ll have to go to her.”

  Watching the woman, Waco could never remember when he saw so much concentrated fury and hatred on a face. He moved back so he could watch both the musclemen, for Phil had made it to his feet and stood scowling at him.

  “I’m sorry to bust your party up, ma’am,” Waco said. “It wouldn’t look too good for either of you happen word got out Elwin was here with you when his wife needed him.”

  Saying that, Waco bolstered his Colt. He had given Lily the one argument that would make her see reason. All too well did Lily Carlisle know the value of newspaper publicity. She also knew nothing would ruin her image quicker than having it said Elwin was with her at a time when he should have been with his wife.

  She watched the door close, then snatched up a bottle and hurled it across the room to shatter on the wall by Phil’s head.

  “A lot of good you were!” she screamed as the man ducked to avoid the flying splinters of glass. “I had him eating out of my hand. I could have made him change his act and ruined him. But you two had to let that damned cowhand take him out of the room. Get out of my sight, both of you!”

  The men slunk from Lily’s presence like cur dogs after a whipping. She stood at the table, her beautiful face twisted into an expression of rage and her hands clenched into fists. Suddenly the beauty had all gone, leaving only a vicious shrew who felt the touch of age upon her. She hated Elwin’s youth, his popularity with the audiences. She hated the fact that he gained more applause than she did, that his act attracted more customers than did her own. Lily Carlisle, once at the top of her profession, the darling of two continents, now played a circuit of western towns. True, she only played the biggest and best houses, but no longer did New York, London, Paris clamor for her. A trip like this, with an unknown topping her act on the stage, if not her billing, could ruin her. For that reason and no other she lavished charm and attention on the young juggler, preparing to ruin him, spoil his popularity.

  Now there would be no chance. Elwin was a good husband and would be too engrossed in his new family to accept for dinner engagements. In her rage Lily gripped the tablecloth and tore it from the table, sending the dinner service, glasses, and bottles smashing to the floor.

  Waco and Elwin walked from the hotel and along the sidewalk. The juggler looked at the grim-faced young Texan.

  “Is she all right?”

  “Doc’s with her,” Waco growled. “If you care.”

  “Lord, what a fool I’ve been,” Elwin groaned, ignoring the last words. “I ought to have go
ne straight to her after my act. I should have—”

  “Don’t cry on my shoulder. You’re a man grown and likely to be a father come morning.”

  “You don’t understand,” Elwin replied. “Lily Carlisle’s big, she’s a star. She’s topping the bill in the big time and could see my right—”

  “Way I see it, you’re doing all right,” Waco interrupted. “Considering two years ago you were selling dishes in a general store. I saw you when you headed the bill in Tombstone.”

  “Tombstone—”

  “Don’t sell it short. Cap’n Bert took me backstage one time to meet Eddie Foy; he reckons to be big on the stage. He was leading at Tombstone and reckoned it was one of the top-grade houses.”

  The discussion ended there, for they had reached the Creed Hotel and Elwin darted upstairs fast. Waco followed at a more leisurely pace, halting by the closed door and listening to the low mumble of voices. He hand-rolled a cigarette, lit it, then drew in the smoke.

  Time dragged by, then the door opened. Doc came out followed by Elwin, who stared back in a distracted manner toward the bed. Doc eased him out and closed the door gently.

  “This’s going to take longer than I thought,” Doc remarked with the casual ease of one who had seen and done it all before.

  “Don’t you worry none. I never lost a father, mother, or child yet and this’s my fourth try. You’d best bunk down with Waco for the night and don’t bother us in there. We’ll tell you soon enough when it’s over.”

  With that gentle warning Doc turned on his heel to enter the room and close the door again. Elwin stared at it, taking a step forward, but Waco caught him by the arm and held him.

  “You go in there and ole Doc’s like to pitch you through the window, which same he’s the only doctor in town, so that’ll make him more work and he won’t be fit to talk with for a week.”

  Elwin stared at Waco in the distracted manner of every father while waiting for the arrival of his firstborn. Waco could see sleep would not come to Elwin, so suggested they take a walk.

  The streets of Bisbee were quiet and almost deserted. Only a few lights remained glowing and few places were open. Waco saw a small saloon still open and steered Elwin into it, putting him at a table and crossing to the bar.

  “Two beers, Colonel, and take something yourself,” he said.

  “You or him?” asked the bartender, pouring the drinks.

  “That went right by me,” Waco drawled. “I never saw it at all.”

  “Who’s the father?” The bartender grinned. “I’ve seen the sign too often not to know it.”

  “Elwin is.” Waco grinned too. “Do I look like the marrying kind?”

  “None of us do-until we’re caught, stretched, and hung on the wall.”

  “We’re not keeping you open, are we?” asked Waco, seeing only one other customer, a tallish, wizened old man who sat in a corner nursing an empty glass and muttering to himself in the manner of one long drunk.

  “Nope, the boss wants the place keeping open in case any trade comes in. I get paid and don’t have more’n a lick of work to do, so why should I beef about it?”

  Waco took the two glasses across the room, sat at Elwin’s table, and the bartender followed. He was bored, could see Elwin needed the confidence of a man who knew what the first child meant.

  The man in the corner of the room came to his feet. He stared around in the bemused manner of a drunk, then started forward on unsteady feet toward the door. However, before he reached the batwings he stopped, peering toward the three men at the table. He changed direction and headed for the table.

  Studying the man, as he always studied anyone who came toward him, Waco made a quick assessment of his character. Tall, with bowed shoulders, a parchment-like face, the skin white with an unhealthy pallor, a face that might once have shown some character, not handsome perhaps but strong and virile. It was the sort of face that might slide fast if once it lost its grip. The man’s thinning white hair shed dandruff onto his threadbare black coat. His shirt might have been clean the day the Appomattox Court House saw the end of the Civil War, but had not been washed since from the look of it. He wore patched and threadbare trousers, scarred and dirty shoes that looked too large for him. His hands caught Waco’s eye, being in fact the first thing at which the young Texan looked. The hands were grimy, dirt ingrained into them, and with filthy long fingernails, yet they were long, thin, and restless hands. To Waco’s eyes those hands had once been dexterous and fast, the kind of hands that could manipulate a deck of cards, play a piano, or maybe even throw shots from a real fast-drawn Colt. Such hands had Doc Leroy and he had skill in all those matters.

  “So, my young friend,” the old man said, leaning forward on to the table and peering owlishly down at Elwin. “You have escaped from the cave of Circe without being turned into a swine.”

  The men at the table looked up, Waco frowned. “Who’s this Circe?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Elwin answered.

  “Circe, daughter of Helios,” put in the bartender. “Some Greek gal used to turn men into animals. Had an old pianner player used to come here and was always telling me things about them Greeks, right lively crowd they looked to be.”

  “You escaped from her net, young man,” the old drunk muttered, swaying on the table. “How did you slip from her mesh?”

  “If I knew who you were talking about, I might explain,” Elwin answered with a smile. “Does Lily know you’re in here and drunk like this?”

  Leaning forward, the old man’s eyes fixed on Elwin. “Lily, the incomparable Lily. Circe with her potions ready to destroy men. And you are to be destroyed, my boy. You are to be destroyed.”

  Elwin shoved back his chair, glancing at Waco, then giving the old man his attention. “I reckon you’d better get back to the theater and sleep it off, Reuben,” he said.

  “Hold hard, let him set and take a drink,” Waco interrupted.

  “A drink?” The old man sank into a chair, his body smelling of whiskey and dry sweat. “You, sir, are a gentleman of some taste and refinement. Had I not, inadvertently, left my wallet in my dressing room, I would never permit you to pay.”

  “You’ve landed a good one here, friend,” said the bartender, with a knowledge of drunken moochers behind him.

  “Get him a drink, will you,” Waco replied.

  Taking a pull that all but emptied the four-finger whiskey glass, the old man sank back in his chair.

  “You are a strong man, sir,” he told Waco with drunken gravity. “A man of prompt action and some strength of character. I was such a man when your age. A man of some ability. So also was the Great Rube, the Tramp Magician. I will tell you of the Great Rube and hope the parable of his sad tale will serve to save another from going his way.”

  Catching Waco’s nod, the bartender poured the old man another drink, then sat down. Serving drinks throughout the west had made the bartender something of a student of men, and his every instinct told him the old drunk might have an interesting story to tell. If not, all the bartender wasted was his time and he would get paid for the same time anyhow.

  “The Great Rube,” the old man sighed out the words. “There was a name to conjure with, my friends. You won’t have heard of him. He never played the hinterland, only the best of eastern houses. He performed feats of prestidigitation which held audiences spellbound. Do you know he could take an ordinary, unprepared deck of cards and cut any number called for by the audience and also cut any card named.”

  Waco, no mean hand with cards, thought of all the gamblers he had known, men who could perform feats that would baffle a stage sleight-of-hand showman, but not one of them could perform the tricks the old man spoke of.

  “Now, this Great Rube was a man with a roaming eye for the ladies, a gallant with a flair for attracting the beauties of his day. Quite a fine figure of a man, except when on the stage. There, well, magnificent is too small a word. He had a genius all of his own. He could evoke laughter and sympath
y as the ragged and unkempt clown. So the audiences loved him, his act stood at the top of the bill, a place no other sleight-of-hand man ever attained. And he met a girl. A beautiful girl. He found her singing in an obscure bar in New York, a waif with a beautiful face. He took her from that drab setting and brought her into his own act. Then started her on her own, having her voice trained by a European master. Soon she rose up the scale, taking her place on the bill beneath his own. They toured the world, playing the best houses, and all the time this girl kept at the Great Rube to change his act. It was undignified, she told him. He should throw off the tramp’s rags and show himself as a true performer.”

  Here the old man paused and replenished his glass. The bartender sat back and watched the other men. He recognized both Elwin and Waco, wondering what strange circumstances brought the young juggler and the tough young Arizona Ranger together. He also mused about the strange ways of men, which led the three of them to sit in the bar at midnight, listening to the mutterings of a drunken old man.

  “So, gentlemen, where was I?” the man went on. “I remember. The Great Rube took the girl’s advice. He shed his tramp costume and came out onto the stage with his evening suit. And died. The audience did not come to see a man perform card tricks. They came to be entranced by the wizardry of a tramp. He would not admit they could be right and, encouraged by that woman, tried to force them to accept his act. He forgot that a performer is nothing more than a storekeeper, selling his wares. He talked of art, of not wishing to be remembered as nothing but a tramp. He did not sell the public what they wanted and his popularity waned. With the wane came the bottle, the all-night drinking, the mornings after when his hands would no longer obey the dictates of his mind. He fell below his protégé in billing and tried to fight back. She helped him, with kind words, soothed him by talk of the stupidity of the fools who wouldn’t see his act was better, and consoled him with whiskey. So he declined, gentlemen, and she rose higher, dragging the crumbling wreck of the Great Rube behind her, ever sinking him lower until he became—”