by Len Levinson
But a worm gnawed the apple. She knew what Randy did for a living, but never dwelled on it He always came home, except once. Now she knew more about John Stone. He arrived in Lodestone, threatened to expose a mining swindle, and Randy was hired to kill him. John Stone was a former West Pointer and Confederate officer, not the fool she’d imagined.
‘He’ll die anyway,’ she mumbled, clenching her small fists, bolts of lightning shooting from her eyes.
They came to the Hampshire House. The driver carried her luggage to the front desk. ‘Hope you enjoy your stay with us, Mrs. LaFollette.’
The bellboy carried her valise to the second floor, overlooking the street. She told the maid to prepare her bath, then sat at the desk and wrote a note.
Dear Chauncy:
I’m in town. Need to speak with you at once.
Amanda LaFollette
The bellboy carried the note to the lobby, where he passed it to the messenger. Meanwhile, Amanda paced back and forth, hands clasped behind her back, nervous, jumpy, anxious to get on with the business of finding someone to kill John Stone.
She wasn’t even sure Stone was in town. So many imponderables. You can't let a man shoot your husband and get away with it
Amanda’s father had been a schoolmaster who’d served as a foot soldier during the Mexican War. He’d filled her with military virtues, death before dishonor, go down fighting.
Randy believed the same things. That’s what drew them together, plus physical attraction and the thrill of shared danger. Whenever he left on an assignment, her life was on the line too, because she had nothing without him.
She looked in the mirror, dark rings beneath eyes glowing like hot coals. She undressed, slipped into the tub. Her muscles unknotted, she closed her eyes. When Randy was alive, baths woe part of their lovemaking. Now she cleansed herself methodically and toweled dry. The messenger returned.
Stop by my place at eight o’clock tonight.
Look forward to seeing you. -
Chauncy
Amanda drummed her fingers on the desk. Three hours to kill, what should I do? She tried to sleep, but anxiety wouldn’t permit her to sink away. Only John Stone's death will set me free. She couldn’t concentrate on reading, didn’t want to stroll the streets of San Francisco alone, wondered what to do with herself, then remembered Randy.
Whenever upset, he cleaned and oiled his guns. She reached into her valise and pulled out the Smith & Wesson plus a small leather kit Randy gave her, containing cleaning implements. She sat at the desk, disassembled the gun, rammed the rod and a square of cotton down the barrel, then held the smooth rifling to the light
The activity settled her down. What a beautiful thing a gun is. She admired the functional lines, lethal, exciting, dangerous, her closest connection to Randy. How he loved his guns. On an impulse, she raised the weapon and touched her lips to the barrel.
~*~
Stone opened his eyes. Still in jail, no way of knowing if it was morning or night or how much time passed. He tried to move. A slice of bread appeared before him, in the hand of Slim Simpson.
‘You been asleep fer nearly two days.’
Stone munched the bread hungrily. Slim passed him a canteen of water. The lizard slunk across the floor. ‘Figgered you’d be back. Hus time, you won’t git out so fast fer beatin’ up police. About the worse thing you can do, outside killin’ a baby .’
Stone’s eyes fell on Ronnie Dossick, imprisoned one year for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his children. ‘How come you’re still here?’
Dossick threw out his hands. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here? My time ain’t up yet!’
‘I paid a lawyer fifty dollars to get you out!’
‘Never seen no lawyer.’
You can't even trust your own lawyer in Frisco. Everybody's a crook. Stone arose and walked stiffly toward the front of the cell. His ribs felt as though knives ware inserted at numerous points. Patches of dry blood encrusted his face. He held the bars and said to the guard: ‘How can I see a lawyer?’
‘Search me.’
‘Don’t I have the right to counsel?’
The guard ignored him, returning his eyes to the magazine.
Stone raised his voice. ‘I just asked you a question!’
‘How’d you like to git the shit beat out of you?’
Stone sat with his back against the wall. Who could help him? He glanced at crime-hardened faces in the dim light of the dungeon. A man could spend twenty years in a place like this, and no one would ever know.
~*~
Muggs roved the streets of San Francisco, sniffing for John Stone. They’d got separated last night when Muggs found a bitch in heat He screwed her brains out in an old toolshed.
He checked the Bedford Arms Hotel, no sign of Stone. Nothing at Miss Donahue’s either. The cowboy disappeared off the face of the earth. But Muggs was part bloodhound, on his father’s side. His keen sense of smell never faded.
He caught a whiff of Stone in mi alley. The earth churned, a huge battle had taken place. Muggs followed the smell into the street, where it disappeared. He saw wagon tracks, and determined which way they went. The squat animal with squashed face and down turned eyes slogged down the street, following the wagon trail through the crisscrossed maze of other wagon trails, snorting happily with the thrill of the chase.
~*~
Chauncy Blaine, a heavyset man in his fifties, opened the door. ‘Amanda, so sorry to hear what happened to Randy.’
She entered his not very luxurious suite of rooms. Retired from gun fighting, Chauncy had developed a paunch and soft jowls. They sat in front of the fireplace, logs crackling and sputtering.
‘What brings you to Frisco?’ he asked.
‘The man who shot my husband is here. His name’s John Stone. Hear of him?’
‘I was in a saloon the other night. A feller said he drinks like he’s got a hollow leg.’
‘I want him dead.’ Her eyes glittered wildly in the firelight. ‘Who’s the fastest gun in San Francisco?’
Chauncy shrugged. ‘Hard to say.’
She gazed intently at his face. ‘On many occasions I heard you ask my husband for his professional opinions. Now I’m asking you his name: Who’s the fastest gun in San Francisco?’
Chauncy puffed his cigar thoughtfully. ‘You put it that way, Amanda, I’d have to say Frankie Bendigo.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘Frankie Bendigo isn’t a gentleman like your husband, or even me. Frankie’s a rough-houser, dirty, nasty, some folks say he’s crazy.’
‘You’re saying I’ve got to go to the Barbary Coast?’
‘Not alone. I’ll go with you.’
‘This isn’t your fight.’ She appeared on the edge of hysteria, eyes bursting out of her head. ‘I’ll go myself. I have this to protect me.’ She reached into her purse and yanked out her Smith & Wesson.
He’d never seen her in such a state. She appeared half-insane. ‘Amanda, are you all right?’
She hissed, ‘Of course I’m not! My husband has been killed, and he was everything to me. The man shot him will die, so help me God!’
She pounded her fist on the table with such force the silver coffeepot rattled. Chauncy appraised her calmly. He lived alone, because he couldn’t handle women. Their lack of self-control horrified a disciplined man.
‘If we find Frankie Bendigo,’ he said, ‘no telling what he might do. Could call me out. Might say something disrespectful to you. Perhaps you’d be better off with the Pecos Kid. Some say he’s faster’n Frankie Bendigo.’
‘The only man whose opinion I trust is you, Chauncy. Which is it?’
‘Frankie Bendigo.’
‘Know where he lives?’
‘There’s a few saloons where we might find him this time of night.’
Chauncy Blaine pulled out the bottom drawer in his dresser, removed his Remington, gunbelt, holster. Standing before the mirror, he strapped the weapon on and tied the bottom of the holste
r to his leg. Then he took his gunfighter’s stance, legs slightly bent, hands hanging loose. Suddenly his hand darted down, slapped iron, the barrel swung up, click. Still got the speed, he tried to convince himself. He loaded the gun, filled the empty places in his cartridge belt. ‘Let’s go to the Barbary Coast.’
~*~
Slipchuck sat on a chair in the backyard of Rosie’s house. San Francisco stretched before him, downtown sparkling with light, an enchanted land beckoning, but he didn’t want more knots on his head.
His head hurt from the clubbing, he had double vision. Every time I see a purty woman, got to crawl inter bed with her. All his life he dreamed about coming to Frisco. Now he felt misled, deceived, bamboozled. They said the whorehouses were the best in the world, but you had to have mucho dinero, and you might get killed.
He heard the familiar barking of a dog in front of the hotel. Johnny’s comin’ home at last. Muggs stood alone on the lawn, howling and leaping into the air. Slipchuck put on his wide-brimmed hat.
‘Where the hell you think you’re a-goin’?’ asked Rosie.
‘Johnny’s in trouble, an’ I gotta help out.’
‘Remember what happened last two times you went out. Try it again, you might not come back.’
‘This time I won’t make no mistakes.’ He pecked her cheek. ‘I’ll see ya when I see ya.’
‘God only knows what he’ll look like when he comes home this time,’ she said to the ceiling.
Muggs barked excitedly as he headed down the hill toward the center of town. Slipchuck followed dutifully, hoping the last stop wouldn’t be the coroner’s office or a tomb.
~*~
A prisoner received a gift of tobacco, which he generously shared with fellow inmates. Stone rolled a thin smoke in old newspaper, accepted a light from Slim Simpson. Rock walls, ceiling, and floor. No windows. Cell door locked except when a prisoner is brought in or taken out. Maybe if we all rushed the door at the sometime.
He ran it through his mind. Guards would open fire. A massacre. Maybe I can escape when they take me to court, but they might never put me on trial. I’ll rot in this goddamn hole, and nobody’ll know.
‘Slim,’ he said, ‘if you ever get out of here, get me a lawyer. And I’ll do the same for you.’
Slim spat bitterly. ‘Neither of us is a-gittin’ out, so fergit it.’
‘You only punched a bartender.’
‘His brother is an alderman.’
Across the cell came the sneering voice of the lizard. ‘The accommodations ain’t to your liking, gentlemen? I’ll end your misery.’ He laughed maniacally and flashed his new blade through the air. ‘Cut your throat like a chicken.’
~*~
The carriage rumbled over the muddy streets of the Barbary Coast. Amanda gazed out the window at the most fearsome hell she ever witnessed. Dark, dismal, filthy, one saloon after the other, houses of prostitution, crowds of brutish-looking men, fights, screams, gunshots, a place where you have to know somebody or bring your own protection.
Hank Nichols, professional gunfighter, rode shotgun. Deke Hardesty, also a professional gunfighter, held the horses’ reins, a shotgun propped near his right leg. Hoodlums wouldn’t attack fusillades of buckshot, yet Amanda felt unsafe any way.
This was the world her husband had ruled supremely. No matter how fearsome the beasts on the sidewalks, none dared stand up to the fastest gun alive. She wondered whether John Stone had an inkling that his life soon would be over. Did the fool really think he got away with shooting Randy LaFollette? The carriage stopped in front of a saloon that had no sign. Chauncy patted her hand. ‘Sit tight. Be right back.’
He climbed down from the stagecoach, cast meaningful glances to Nichols and Hardesty, and strolled through the front door of the saloon. He stepped out of the light, hand hanging casually near his gun. They called him the master of the quick toss. One moment you don’t see it, next moment you do.
Too many people knew who he was, and he wasn’t fast as during his salad days. But he couldn’t let Amanda LaFollette down. Some danger a man has to face if he wants to call himself a man. He scanned from left to right, but no Frankie Bendigo.
In the carriage, Amanda watched a ragged man collapse onto the sidewalk. Others similarly inebriated stumbled over him. A miner in knee-length boots kicked him into the gutter. An unshaven face with ghoulish eyes appeared in the window. ‘Bet you charge a lot,’ he said to Amanda.
The twin barrels of a shotgun came to rest against his skull. ‘Keep it movin’, bub.’
The maniac pulled back. Chauncy emerged from the saloon. ‘Driver, the New South Wales Saloon!’ He climbed beside Amanda. ‘Bartender knew where he went.’
The carriage rolled down the street, stopped in front of another chinking establishment. Tough-looking men stood near the door. Chauncy walked past them. One hoodlum winked at Amanda, she drew her head into the shadows.
The New South Wales Saloon was small, smoke-filled, crowded with dangerous characters, one with a skull and crossbones tattooed on his forehead. Silver flash from Frankie Bendigo’s hatband caught Chauncy’s eye. Bendigo sat with his arms around a young blond prostitute, while a Mexican prostitute perched opposite them, talking and gesticulating wildly. Chauncy moved closer, Bendigo felt a new presence encroaching. He gazed at the oncoming gunfighter.
Chauncy stood at the edge of the table. ‘Want to talk business with you.’
Bendigo made a crooked half smile, eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘If it ain’t the great Chauncy Blaine. You afraid, comin’ into a place like this?’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘An old man might not be able to defend himself.’
‘Don’t know what old man you’re talking about. I can handle anybody in this pighole, including you.’
Bendigo burst into laughter. Chauncy stood steady as a rock. The blond prostitute grinned. ‘You got sand, old man.’
‘On business,’ Chauncy said to Frankie Bendigo. ‘A lady wants to hire you. She’s in a carriage outside and wants to negotiate personally. Would you come out?’
Frankie Bendigo raised his glass of whiskey, took a sip, leaned back. Tufts of hair grew out of his nose, bad intentions radiated from his heart. ‘She wants to palaver, let her come in here.’
‘They’ll rip her apart before she gets past the door. This is the wife of Randy LaFollette. Wants you to kill the man who shot her husband.’
Bendigo sneered. ‘They called Randy LaFollette the fastest gun alive, but he weren’t shit far as I’m concerned. If the great lady wants to cut a deal, she’ll come in here. Now get away from me. You done wore out yer welcome.’
A few eyes smirked. Somebody said, ‘Trip ’im, Mack.’ A boot appeared. Chauncy hopped over it and continued toward the door. Somebody jostled him, the last straw. He yanked out his gun and aimed it at a bearded man with the face of a monkey.
‘Push me again.’
Monkey face smiled. ‘Weren’t me, mate. Must’ve been that man over there.’
Chauncy backed away, holding his gun level. Amanda made room for him in the carriage. ‘Forget Frankie Bendigo,’ Chauncy advised. ‘We’ll find the Pecos Kid. He’s just as good, and maybe better. You can’t do business with Frankie Bendigo.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He says you should go in there, but you’ll never make it. They’re the lowest bunch of hoodlums I ever seen.’
Fiendish men passed a bottle around, glancing at the carriage. If I turn back now, it's me saying my marriage didn't mean anything, and neither did my life. She pulled the Smith & Wesson out of her purse.
‘What’re you going to do?’ he asked.
‘I’ve come too far to stop now.’ She took off her hat and veil, revealing lustrous black hair. ‘What does he look like?’
‘You’re crazy!’
She gazed into his eyes. Devils danced around a cauldron of fire. ‘I’d let nothing stand in my way.’ She stepped to the boarded sidewalk. Men in front of the saloon turned
toward her.
‘What we got here?’ one of them asked.
‘Pretty bit of fluff, eh?’ said another, twirling his mustache. ‘Hey, lady, come ’ere. I got somethin’ fer you.’
Cold as ice, she aimed her gun at him. ‘And I’ve got something for you.’
Chauncy walked behind her as she moved toward the door. He smelled trouble and folly expected to be killed within the next three minutes. Rough-looking hoodlums formed a barrier, grinning at the lady with the gun.
‘You best put that thing away, ma’am,’ one of them said. ‘Liable to shoot yerself.’
‘Step to the side.’ She held the Smith & Wesson with both hands, sighting down the barrel to the middle of his chest.
‘That gun loaded, ma’am?’
‘Want me to show you?’
She raised the barrel and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into wood above the door: Ex-soldiers in the vicinity hit the dirt.
‘Next one goes in the middle of your chest, and don’t underestimate me. I’m not afraid to die.’
The hoodlum tried to be debonair, though his cheeks paled. With a deep bow, he opened the door to the New South Wales Saloon. Bodies writhed in the glow of lamps. A few hoodlums saw her coming. ‘What the hell’s this?’ Gun first, Amanda entered the saloon, nearly overcome by smoke, whiskey fumes, and the stench of unwashed bodies.
‘Over there,’ said Chauncy, pointing toward a table against the right wall.
Her eyes fell on Frankie Bendigo’s swarthy features. He lounged in the booth and drank whiskey, arm around the blond prostitute’s shoulders. A soldier, his blue tunic half unbuttoned, loomed in front of Amanda. ‘Plannin’ to shoot somebody, ma’am?’
‘If I have to.’ She aimed the gun at his nose, he stepped graciously aside. Men crowded around, gazing lustfully at her. One lifted the back of her skirt with his cane. Livid with rage, she spun and aimed the Smith & Wesson at him. The man with the cane saw death staring him in the face.
‘Sorry,’ he said with a nervous smile and faded into the crowd.
She turned toward Frankie Bendigo, but he was blocked by a wall of men. ‘Out of my way!’
