The Backstabbers

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Soon a circle of men formed and to the cheers, clapping, and laughter of the crowd, Daphne was thrown from man to man like a ragdoll. At first she laughed, thinking it was all part of the fun, but then it began to hurt. The game got rougher, more violent and bruising. Strong fingers dug into Daphne’s arms and shoulders, tugged at her breasts, and Koerner, his face a vicious mix of cruelty and amusement, slapped her around.

  Suddenly for Daphne Dumont, the game wasn’t fun any longer.

  * * *

  Ira Cole was playing poker with some other old-timers when the horseplay on the dance floor began. He watched for a while, but when he saw the girl who’d come in with Buttons Muldoon and Red Ryan being abused, he threw in his hand and quietly slipped out of the saloon door.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  When Ira Cole stepped into the Patterson stage depot, Red Ryan lay on his back in his cot and Buttons Muldoon sat at the table playing solitaire, a glass of whiskey beside him.

  “Sorry to intrude, gents,” Cole said. “But that little gal you brought in with you—”

  “What about her?” Buttons seemed absorbed and didn’t look up from his cards.

  “She’s being slapped around in the One Note by Barney Koerner and them,” Cole said.

  “She’s learning to be a whore,” Buttons said. “What does she expect?”

  “This ain’t whoring. They’re throwing her around and beating her up.” He hesitated and then said, “Well, anyway, I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Ain’t our concern.” Buttons slapped down a card with the flat of his hand and made the table jump.

  “The hell it ain’t.” Red rolled out of the cot and got to his feet. “She was a passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company and is still under our protection.”

  “Red, she wasn’t a fare-paying passenger,” Buttons said. “We owe her nothing.”

  “We still owe her twenty dollars, or did you forget about that?” Red buckled on his gun belt and holster and then put on his hat. “Buttons, you coming?”

  “Maybe. When I finish this game. We’ll pay her back the twenty, you know.”

  “If she lives that long,” Cole said, “After Koerner gets through with her.”

  Red said, “Ira, take me there.”

  After Red and Ira Cole left, Buttons stared at his cards for a while and then shook his head. “Damn it all. We’ll pay her the twenty dollars,” he said to no one but himself. He sighed, used both hands to mess up his cards, and stood. Like Red before him, he put on his hat and gun belt and walked out the door.

  * * *

  When Red Ryan stepped into the One Note, he at first saw no sign of the incident Ira Cole had witnessed. The floor was crowded with slow dancers, every table in the place hosted cardplayers or dedicated drinkers, the bar was lined with noisy men, and the guy at the piano played, “Juanita.” Red moved here and there through the smoke, his eyes searching, the smell of stale sweat, cheap perfume, and spilled beer so familiar to him.

  Then he saw Daphne . . .

  She sat at a table on the edge of the dance floor and a blonde woman sat next to her, holding a bloody rag to the girl’s nose. When Daphne saw Red, her eyes lit up and she managed a weak smile. A man vacated a seat at the table and Red drew the chair over and sat. He saw bruises all over the girl’s neck, shoulders, and upper arms. Someone had spilled beer over the front of her dress. Daphne’s nose was bloody and swollen, and she had the suggestion of a black eye.

  Red decided to confine himself to two questions. First he asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Mr. Ryan, I don’t want to be a whore anymore,” Daphne said, her bottom lip trembling.

  He pointed to her nose and asked the second. “Who did this to you?”

  The blonde woman answered that question. “See the big, towheaded feller standing at the bar? His name is Barney Koerner and he did it . . . and a lot more.”

  Red nodded. “I’ll talk to him. Daphne, stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  Red Ryan crossed the dance floor and stepped behind Koerner. The big man’s back was to him, so Red tapped him on the shoulder.

  When Koerner turned, Red smiled and said, “Care to dance?”

  The man was immediately belligerent. “What the hell?”

  “Oh, you want to be a wallflower. Too bad.” Red hit him smack on the chin with a straight right. Anyone who’s been punched in the mug by a man trained as a prizefighter knows how Barney Koerner felt that night. Red had lost strength, but his wallop was still a force to be reckoned with.

  Koerner took the punch flatfooted, and it staggered him. On rubber legs he stumbled backward, his arms cartwheeling, and he crashed into the saloon wall, dislodging a sign that read, HAVE YOU WRITTEN TO MOTHER? that fell neatly across his chest.

  Red, used to men with sand, expected Koerner to come up fighting, but the man stayed down. Then an attack came from his right. The man with the rodent eyes charged at him swinging, but Red blocked his clumsy right hook and countered with a left cross of his own that slammed the puncher against the bar and dropped him to the sawdust. Ellis’s legs twitched, saliva leaked out of his bloody mouth, and then he took a nap.

  Red turned and glared at Koerner. “On your feet. We got a Pecos promenade to finish, and I’m not a little girl you can slap around.”

  Koerner wiped blood from his nose, leaving a scarlet smear on his mustache, and held up a hand. “I’m done. I’m not fighting you.”

  A gawking crowd surrounded the two men, and everyone knew that Barney Koerner was finished in El Paso . . . and Koerner knew it, too.

  Suddenly Red was angry. “You stinking piece of trash. I ever hear of you abusing a woman again, I’ll pin your dirty hide to the outhouse door.” He waited a moment. “Do you understand?”

  Koerner made no answer.

  “I said, do you understand?” Red bunched his fists.

  “I understand,” Koerner said, hatred burning in his black eyes.

  Red gave the man a final, contemptuous look and turned away. At the same moment Koerner got to his feet and pulled a Webley Bull Dog revolver from his pocket. He went after Red and two things happened . . . a man in the crowd yelled, “Here, that won’t do!” and a bullet kicked up splinters an inch in front of Koerner’s right boot.

  Buttons Muldoon’s voice was loud in the ensuing silence. “You got a choice to make, mister. Drop the stinger, or I’ll ventilate you.” The stage driver stood with his legs apart, stern, stocky, and significant, his gun in his hand.

  Koerner wanted no part of him. He dropped the revolver.

  Buttons said, “Now git the hell out of here and don’t come back.”

  His head hanging, Koerner left the saloon to a chorus of jeers and cheers from the sporting crowd. He fled the town of El Paso and was never heard of again, though it’s believed he died of yellow fever in 1904 while working as a laborer during the construction of the Panama Canal.

  * * *

  Daphne Dumont quickly referred to herself as Daphne Loveshade and insisted on changing out of her saloon finery and into her own clothes. Buttons and Red took her to Dr. John McKenna. Irritated at being awakened after midnight, he nonetheless gently treated Daphne for a broken nose and cuts and abrasions.

  “She can stay here tonight where I can keep an eye on her,” the doctor said. “She’s in considerable shock.”

  Red nodded. “We’ll look in on her in the morning.”

  Dr. McKenna said that was just fine by him and pointed out that it already was morning.

  But come the gray dawn, Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon found themselves in the El Paso hoosegow after being arrested for disturbing the peace. Acting Marshal Thomas P. Moad indicated darkly that other charges of a more serious nature could be pending.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Buttons Muldoon planned to spend the morning yelling protestations of innocence through the bars of his cell, but he decided to eat first after breakfast turned out to be coffe
e, beef and beans, and a chunk of good rye bread. Chewing, he said, “Hell, Red, I just thought of something.”

  “What is it?”

  “We can’t pay a fine. What does that mean?”

  Red looked grim. “It means we’ll be writing our names on the walls of this cell for a long time.”

  Buttons poised a forkful of beans between his plate and mouth and said, “Well, you can always sell your belt gun. But not the Greener. We need that.”

  “If we both sold our belt guns, I reckon we still wouldn’t have enough money to pay our fines.”

  Buttons chewed, thinking, and then said, “It would probably be enough for one fine.”

  “Which one?”

  “Mine, of course. I have to take care of the team.”

  “Ira Cole is taking care of the team,” Red said.

  “I know he is. But I don’t trust him with my horses.”

  Red shook his head and was silent, unable to find a way around Buttons’s logic.

  A loud voice from the office out front said. “This is an outrage! Bring those two scoundrels to me.”

  Then came Moad’s soft drone that neither Red nor Buttons could hear, and then again, an angry bellow. “My dear sir, you are talking to Abe Patterson of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, and I have some mighty powerful friends in this town. Now release my driver and shotgun guard instanter!” A pause as Moad spoke, and then, “Yes, I’ll pay the fine, although after I’m through with them, you might well find those miscreants back in your dungeon.”

  “I thought I recognized the voice,” Buttons said. “That’s ol’ Abe.”

  “And he sounds like he’ll be real happy to see us.” Red said.

  Buttons scraped his plate, scraped Red’s, and then stood. “Make yourself look presentable,” he said around a mouthful of beef and beans. “Comb your hair.”

  “I already look presentable. And I don’t have a comb.”

  “Well, stand up straight,” Buttons said.

  * * *

  “Two horses dead, all my money lost. I should have you two hung,” Abe Patterson said.

  Moad smiled. “That could be arranged.”

  “Mr. Patterson, I told you what happened.” Then with a suitable note of pathos in his voice, Buttons added, “It wasn’t our fault.”

  “It was all your fault. Every bit of it was your fault,” Abe Patterson said. He was a short, wiry, feisty, banty rooster of a man in a black ditto suit, the bottom of the pants tucked into a pair of embroidered boots. He wore a revolver of the largest size on his hip and a wide-brimmed Stetson that made him look like a poisonous mushroom. “After you delivered Morgan Ford to the Talbot ranch, you should’ve immediately turned around and headed for El Paso.”

  “Mr. Patterson, Morgan Ford was a stiff,” Red said.

  “What difference does that make?” the little man said. “Dead or not, he was a fare-paying passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company.”

  Buttons said, “We were trying to make more money for the company by getting involved in Luna Talbot’s troubles, but it didn’t work out the way we planned.”

  “Like gallivanting around, searching for a gold mine.” Patterson shook his head. “The height of folly that almost got Ryan killed. I’ve wrote down eight more rules to the book because of you two.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Patterson,” Buttons said.

  “Sorry doesn’t even begin to describe how you should feel,” Patterson said. “Cuthbert said, ‘Pop, you should fire those two,’ and I was inclined to agree with him. But seeing the pitiful state you’re in, I reckon you’ve suffered enough. Besides, I have a job for you both.”

  Buttons smiled, thinking that he should shoot fat Cuthbert Patterson the first chance he got. “You can rely on us, boss.”

  “No, I can’t, but you’re the only men I have available for the task I have in mind.” After a last, scathing, sidelong look at Buttons and Red, Patterson said, “Come now Marshal Moad, how much to spring these wretches?”

  “The bail for disturbing the peace is set by the city,” Moad said. “At twenty dollars each, that will be—”

  “I know how much it is,” Patterson said. “Too much.” He took a fat wallet from the inside of his coat and thumbed a pair of twenties onto the marshal’s desk. Then to Buttons and Red, “You two retrieve your guns and come with me.”

  “You’re getting off light,” Moad said. “Grisome Bell, the owner of the One Note, wanted you hung for putting the crawl on Barney Koerner. Seems he was a big spender.”

  Buttons opened his mouth to speak but abruptly shut it again when the door opened, and Daphne Loveshade stepped inside. She quickly crossed the floor to the desk and put her arm around Buttons’s shoulders. “I heard you’d been arrested. And I was so worried about you and Red.”

  Daphne had a plaster across her nose and both her eyes were swollen and bruised, making the homely girl homelier still.

  “My God, what happened to you?” Moad said.

  Red said to Moad, “Your big spender did that to her.”

  “I didn’t know . . .”

  “So now you do know, lawman. Give Mr. Patterson his forty dollars back.”

  Moad ignored that, and Abe Patterson said, “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Daphne Loveshade, sir.”

  “Good, good. A well-mannered girl. I like that,” Patterson said. “Were you beaten?”

  “Yes, sir, by Barney Koerner. I wanted to be a whore, but after last night I don’t want to be a whore any longer.”

  “Good decision, my dear. The oldest profession offers steady employment, but it can be a hazardous occupation at times.” Patterson studied the girl closely and then said. “Tell me, have you any desire to be a nun?”

  Daphne shook her head. “No, sir. I’ve never thought about being a nun.”

  Patterson smiled. “Good, good. Have you had any thought about getting wed?”

  “I am married, sir, but I’m separated from my husband, the Reverend Loveshade. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t much care, either.”

  “Splendid!” Patterson said. “The nunnery holds no attraction for you, and since you are already married, neither do the joys of matrimony.”

  “Why are you asking me all these things, sir?” Daphne said.

  “Because I need a private secretary, now more than ever since I’ve recently entered the railroading business. I’ve had two already. One ran off to the nunnery and the other surrendered to the lure of wedded bliss.”

  “Mr. Patterson, are you offering Miss Loveshade a job?” Buttons said.

  “I have been trending in that direction and being the soul of discretion at the same time. But, in short . . . yes, I am. Miss Loveshade, I’ll be frank. I don’t want a pretty private secretary who will attract scores of ardent young suitors and leave at the first sign of an offered wedding ring. Though, and I must be careful what I say, with you I don’t see that being much of a problem. Do you?”

  “No, sir. I know I’m not pretty,” Daphne said. “Gentlemen callers will not be a problem.”

  “Good! Then, we are in complete agreement,” Patterson said. “I will pay you the handsome salary of twenty dollars a month and board, and an additional daily allotment of sugar, coffee or tea, and beer.” The little man sat back in his chair as though he’d fairly stated his case. He then said, “Now, young lady, do those generous terms of employment please you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Daphne said. “And I am most happy to accept. Where will I be working?”

  “Mostly at my home in San Angelo, but you can expect some train and stage travel.” Patterson suddenly sat upright as though a dreadful thought had just dawned on him. “Here, you can read and write and do your ciphers?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I had a good teacher in my mother,” Daphne said.

  “And you read your Bible?” Patterson said.

  “Yes, I do,” Daphne said. “The Reverend Loveshade taught me much about the Good Book.”
/>
  “Then we will be perfect friends,” Patterson said. “I will introduce you to my son, Cuthbert.”

  “I look forward to meeting him, sir,” Daphne said.

  Abe Patterson smiled. “Apart from his sheer size, there’s very little else to meet.”

  Buttons and Red’s eyes met . . . each telling the other that Cuthbert was short in the brains department and a walking, talking tub of lard who never ate in a restaurant he didn’t like.

  “Now we’ll find you some decent clothes, Mrs. Loveshade,” Patterson said. “I’ll deduct the cost from your wages.” He clapped his hands. “Right, this was an excellent morning’s work, apart from bailing out a couple of rapscallions who will also find the cost of lost fares and two dead horses deducted from their future wages.”

  Buttons opened his mouth to object, but Patterson held up a silencing hand. “Ah-ah, no more from you, Mr. Muldoon, or you either, Mr. Ryan. Let’s hope in the course of future events you can redeem yourselves.”

  “What’s the nature of those future events, Mr. Patterson?” Red was reluctant to put his entire trust in the little man.

  “I cannot reveal them right now, but they will be perilous . . . oh, yes, mighty perilous.” Patterson smiled with all the warmth of cobra rising from a snake charmer’s basket. “There’s a cannonball coming in from Kansas at four o’clock this afternoon. Meet me at the station at three-thirty and all will be revealed. And be armed.” He softened his tone. “I know that deep down you boys are true blue and that you’ll come through this with flying colors.”

  Buttons was suspicious. “Come through what, boss?”

  “You’ll find out,” Patterson said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Shortly after noon, another Patterson stage carrying two army officers en route for the Arizona Territory arrived at the El Paso depot to change horses. The driver was a talkative man named Hynick Pruitt who’d driven for Wells Fargo as a teenager. He and Buttons Muldoon went back a ways.

  “Buttons, I seen not hide nor hair of anybody the whole trip from Fort Concho,” Pruitt said, helping himself liberally from the company’s whiskey jug. “Seen a buffalo, though, where once I seen thousands.”