Hell's Half Acre

by William W. Johnstone

  After the doctor left, Koenig nodded in the direction of the dead man and said, “Look at the little runt. Where did he find the cojones to cut up a three-hundred-pound whore?”

  “I don’t know,” Jess said. He felt sick.

  Koenig shook his head. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s a mystery. Come on, Archibald, I’ll buy you that drink I promised.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jess Casey avoided having to drink with Kurt Koenig by pleading tiredness and a desire to see the sheriff’s office. For his part, Koenig didn’t seem in the least disappointed, dismissing Jess with, “Well, maybe some other time, Archie.”

  There was plenty about the big man that troubled Jess—his involvement with hard cases and prostitutes and the cold-blooded killing of Andy Smith. The little man would have died anyway when they hung him again, so it was hardly murder.

  Then what was it?

  Jess had no answer for that other than it was a casual killing by a man he suspected had killed many times before. Koenig said that he’d gotten his start on the hell ships that sailed out of the Barbary Coast with sadistic, murderous captains and shanghaied crews who lived a life of “hell afloat and purgatory ashore.”

  The big man admitted that he’d sent many a poor sailorman to Davy Jones’s locker, so he was no stranger to shipboard murder where men were killed with marlinespikes, belaying pins or the bare hands of the captain and his equally brutal officers.

  And he told Jess that Fort Worth must be run the same way as the hell ships, with brute force and iron discipline.

  Even as he stepped into the sheriff’s office, Jess began to doubt that he was the right man for the job.

  The office was like any other on the frontier, a desk, a couple of rickety wooden chairs and an empty safe with its door hanging open. A door to the rear led to two cells, one furnished with only a single iron cot. The adjoining cell was fixed up like a bedroom. It had a brass bed with a mattress but no sheets or pillows, a dresser, and a bookshelf that held three volumes, The Rudiments of Texas Law, Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens.

  Jess made a mental note to read the law book when he had the time and inclination—if he stayed in town that long.

  Despite his misgivings he tried the chair behind the desk for size, sitting slowly as though there were tacks on the seat. A tall, rawboned man who was as lean as a lariat, the chair still creaked under Jess’s weight and he figured it was probably older than the town itself.

  He built a cigarette, flamed it into smoke and then bent over in the chair to check the contents of the desk drawers. That move saved his life.

  A rifle bullet crashed through the office window and thudded into the wall behind the desk. If Jess hadn’t leaned down when he did his head would have stopped the shot and exploded like a ripe watermelon.

  He didn’t take time to feel afraid.

  Jess dived to his right and both he and the chair hit the floor at the same time. He kicked his tangled legs free, jumped to his feet and drew his Colt. His anger flaring, knowing that he was making himself a target, he ran for the door, threw it wide and stepped onto the boardwalk.

  Darkness was crowding close but the street lamps hadn’t yet been lit along Main Street. Jess stepped into shadow, away from the light of the office, and his eyes searched the opposite walk.

  Bam! Bam!

  A muzzle flared in an alley between a couple of stores and bullets probed the gloom close to where Jess stood, slashing through the air mere inches from his head.

  Instinctively Jess fired twice into the smoke drifting like a gray ghost in the entrance to the alley. His first shot drew a yelp of pain. The second was followed by the heavy fall of a body and the clank of empty bottles.

  Feet pounded on the boardwalk and Jess turned, his gun coming up fast. It was Kurt Koenig and a couple of hard cases.

  “I heard the shooting,” the big man said. “You all right, Archie?”

  “Somebody tried to kill me,” Jess said. “He was in the alley over yonder and I think I may have winged him.”

  “You sure?” Koenig said, drawing a Colt from his waistband. “That’s a fair piece.” He turned to his men. “Go see if there’s anything in the alley.” Koenig shot Jess a hard, calculating glance. “It’s all of sixty feet.”

  “I never shot at something that far before,” Jess said. “Not even a coyote.”

  “Maybe you got lucky,” Koenig said. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “Yeah, maybe I did.”

  “Hey, boss!” a man yelled from the alley. “There’s a dead ’un here.”

  “Who the hell is it?” Koenig said.

  “I dunno. Wait till we drag him into the light.” Then, a few moments later, “It’s Porry McTurk. Shot twice in the brisket.”

  “You sure he’s dead?” Koenig said.

  “As he’s ever gonna be.”

  Koenig was suspicious. “Anybody else shoot at Porry?” he said.

  Jess said, “No. Just me.”

  “Mighty good shooting for a puncher,” Koenig said.

  “As you said, I got lucky.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Koenig said. “You ever work as a lawman before?”

  “Nope. Never did. Went up the trail when I was fourteen and I’ve been cowboying ever since.”

  It was that twilight hour in the Acre when the respectable element had left the street and the sporting crowd was only now beginning to stir in their beds. Gunshots were common enough that they wouldn’t have attracted a crowd anyway.

  But a scrawny old-timer in greasy buckskins, a brand-new, pearl gray John B. on his tangled mane, had watched the proceedings with growing interest. Now he said, “Here, Kurt, didn’t ol’ Porry work for you?”

  Koenig glanced quickly at Jess, then back at the old man. “He did, until I fired him for thievery.” He reached into his pocket then spun a silver dollar, which the old-timer caught deftly. “Go buy yourself a drink, Jed.”

  The old man’s toothless mouth stretched in a grin. He held up the dollars and said, “Thankee, Kurt, an’ I’ll be sure to drink to your good health.”

  Without a word, Jess left Koenig and walked across the street, his head spinning with conflicting thoughts. He’d killed a man, taken a human life, but it was in self-defense, there was no question about that. But he never wanted to kill another.

  Porry McTurk’s body was sprawled on the street. The man’s eyes were wide open, staring at the last, tattered banners of the red and jade sky. Koenig’s men stood staring at Jess. No strangers to violence and death, they grinned and slapped him on the back.

  “Good shootin’, Sheriff,” one of them said. “Two shots right where he lived.”

  “He isn’t living now,” Jess said.

  “Nope, he’s as dead as a rotten stump,” the man said. “Just as well, I reckon. Porry never amounted to much.”

  Jess said, “Why would he want to kill me?”

  “Because you’re the new sheriff. That’s pretty plain. Porry wrote his name on the wall of your cell more times than I can remember.”

  “He was a drunk,” the second man said. He was tall and angular. “Had a wife once and four young ’uns but about a year ago she took the kids and left him.”

  This man carried what looked like a brand-new Winchester.

  “Was that his?” Jess asked.

  “Sure was. But it’s mine now.”

  Jess said, “Let me see it.”

  Reluctantly the man handed over the Winchester and Jess examined it. “This is an expensive rifle,” he said. “How did a penniless drunk afford a Winchester like this?”

  “Maybe he stole it,” the tall man said.

  Jess said, “I’d say that ain’t likely.”

  He took a knee beside the dead man and searched through his pants pockets. He was rewarded with the chink of gold, two double eagles.

  “Damn,” the tall man said. “I w
ish I’d known he had money.”

  Jess rose to his feet. “It’s evidence. And so is the rifle.”

  An hour before, the tall man would have argued the point. But two shots fired into a man’s chest at twenty paces spoke loud . . . and for the first time in his life Jess Casey knew what it was like to be considered a dangerous shootist.

  He knew he’d been lucky, it seemed, but nobody else did.

  Emboldened, he said, “Will one of you boys get the undertaker?”

  “Clem, go get Big Sal.” This from Kurt Koenig, who had stepped silently behind Jess, startling him.

  After the man called Clem left, Jess said, “Koenig, have you seen this rifle before?”

  The big man glanced at the Winchester. “I don’t know. I’ve seen a hundred just like it.”

  “But not this one?”

  “One Winchester pretty much looks like another.”

  Jess showed the double eagles. “I found these in the dead man’s pocket.”

  Koenig smiled. “Seems like somebody thinks your life is worth forty dollars, Archibald.”

  “The name is Jess. I’d be obliged if you’d use it.”

  Koenig sensed that Jess Casey had grown a backbone and he began to wonder if making him sheriff had been a mistake. But he covered his doubt with a grin. “Sure, Jess, sure. I was only funning.”

  “Who would want me dead, Koenig?” Jess said. “You’ve got your finger on the pulse of this town.”

  The gas lamps were being lit along Main Street, spreading their strange blue light, and shadows hollowed Porry McTurk’s dead face.

  “If I was a betting man my money would be on Luke Short. He owns the White Elephant saloon up on Exchange Avenue. Luke has no liking for lawmen.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Jess said.

  “Then talk real low and don’t say too much,” Koenig said. “A former Fort Worth city marshal, feller by the name of Long-Haired Jim Courtright, said some harsh words to Luke and Luke killed him.”

  “Seems as though a man like that would do his own killing. Why send a drunk?”

  Koenig shrugged. “Hard to fathom what Luke’s thinking. He’s a close one and no mistake.” He turned. “Ah, here’s Big Sal, as prompt as ever.”

  “Another one of yours, Koenig?” Big Sal said.

  “His,” Koenig said, nodding in Jess’s direction.

  “You payin’, cowboy?” the woman said.

  Big Sal stood well over six feet and Jess figured she must tip the scale at four hundred pounds. Her hair was cut short and she wore a man’s broadcloth suit and collarless shirt. She was somewhere in her early forties.

  “Well?” she said. “Who’s paying the tariff?”

  “I’ll pay for his funeral,” Jess said.

  Big Sal looked Jess up and down from the crown of his battered hat to the run-down heels of his boots. “I guess you’ll want the Ten Dollar Ordinary,” she said. “Pine box and no refreshments served afterward.”

  “Dead men come expensive in Fort Worth,” Jess said.

  “It’s a case of supply and demand, sonny,” Big Sal said. “Do you want the Ordinary or should I let the city throw the dear departed in a hole and use him for coyote bait?”

  “Bury him decent,” Jess said. He reached into a pocket, thumbed out a ten from his thin supply of folding money and passed it to the woman.

  Big Sal took the ten, stepped past Jess and glanced at the dead man. “Hell, it’s Porry McTurk. I knew he’d come to a bad end some day.”

  She picked up the body and effortlessly tucked it under her left arm. McTurk’s arms and legs flopping fore and aft, she stood in front of Koenig and snapped the fingers of her free hand.

  The big man reached inside his coat and produced a silver cigar case. He let the woman choose a cigar then said, “You ever think of smoking your own, Sal?”

  “I can’t afford these, Koenig,” Big Sal said, allowing the man to light her cigar. Then, “Some of us are forced to make an honest living.”

  Koenig grinned. “Better take Porry home with you, Sal. Don’t drop him on the way.”

  “I’ve carried them two at a time and never dropped one yet,” the woman said. She turned her attention to Jess and the dead man’s head bobbed, his hair hanging. “Come over and have a drink with me sometime, cowboy,” she said. “I’ll show you a good time.”

  As befitted a Texas gentleman of the time, Jess touched his hat and said, “I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

  After the woman left, Koenig said, “She’ll break your back.”

  “I think I’m fully aware of that,” Jess said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a little talk with that Luke Short feller.”

  Koenig’s smile was slight and without humor. “Don’t take this job too seriously . . . Jess. Hank Henley did and look what happened to him.”

  “When a man tries to kill me, I take it seriously,” Jess said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The White Elephant was a block north of Hell’s Half Acre and Jess Casey decided to walk and see the sights. He unpinned the star from his shirt, thought better of it and put it back again.

  He was the law in Fort Worth and folks should know it. Or was he? Koenig told him that Jim Courtright had been the city marshal but Hank Henley had been a sheriff. Did that mean Jess had a boss somewhere and that his own jurisdiction began and ended with the few city blocks that comprised the Acre? Or had the title of city marshal died with Courtright?

  Jess figured he needed those questions answered, and pretty quick. He’d ask Harry Stout, the mayor, first chance he got.

  It was still early evening but the saloons and dance halls along Main Street were coming to life as the sporting fraternity trickled inside. Tin-panny pianos played in the smaller establishments but some of the larger saloons with dance floors boasted five- and six-piece orchestras. No one took any notice of Jess as he made his way along the boardwalk, passing punchers in big hats, sallow gamblers, shifty-eyed men on the make, a few prosperous businessmen in broadcloth and the usual flotsam and jetsam of the frontier, hollow-eyed men who did not fit into any category. Girls in candy cane dresses stood on balconies above the saloons and dance halls and urged the passersby to come inside for a hell of a good time. Those whores past their prime, their naked shoulders scarred from bite wounds, steered clear of the big establishments and did their business transactions in the street. A dull roar of a thousand voices filled the Acre from dusk until dawn. It was a bustling, hustling annex of hell, bursting at the seams, a place where sin came easy but never cheap.

  Jess’s attention was drawn to the Light Fantastic dance hall across the street. Inside a lively crowd yelled, cheered and jeered but there was no music playing and no sign of female dance partners. Puzzled, he crossed the busy, jostling street and stepped inside and was immediately hit by a wall of cigar smoke, the smell of male sweat and the faint but unmistakable odor of piss and stale vomit.

  A boxing ring had been set up in the middle of the floor. A tall, muscular black man stood in one corner, and opposite him glared a white man with a thick neck, sloping, hairy shoulders and a chest like a beer keg.

  “Sheriff!”

  Jess looked around and spotted Kurt Koenig beckoning to him behind the smoke fug. Jess made his way through the jam-packed crowd and Koenig grinned at him and slapped his back. “Surprised to see you here, Jess, but you’re just in time to see the fight,” he said. “Put your money on Dave ‘Killer’ Kick there. He’s the best damned street fighter in Fort Worth. In his time he’s killed more than his share with his bare hands, ol’ Dave has, and he was a shipmate o’ mine on the old SS Spindrift, Captain Zack Irons commanding, when we sailed out of the Barbary Coast.”

  “Which one is Kick?” Jess said.

  “The white man, of course.”

  “Is the black man a sailor?” Jess said.

  “Nah. Of course I’ve seen many a big buck wearing sea boots in my time, but never sailed with one.”

  A man in a
plug hat and sporting a pencil mustache held up a wad of notes and yelled, “Kurt! I’m giving ten-to-one on the black.”

  “Not a chance,” Koenig said, grinning. “My thousand stays on Kick.”

  That last occasioned a roar of approval from the other patrons.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Jess said. He pulled out his last crumpled twenty, elbowed through the crowd and passed the money to the bookmaker.

  “Ten-to-one on Zeus for the man wearing the star,” the man said. “He sure knows a good bet when he sees one.”

  This drew more laughter and some jeers. Lawmen of any stripe were unpopular in the Acre, especially one who was so stupid he’d bet against Killer Kick.

  Jess didn’t blame them. His only reason for betting on the black man was to spite Kurt Koenig . . . and now his little fit of pique would cost him almost all he had. Jess glanced up at the elevated ring and saw the black man staring at him, a bemused light in his eyes.

  And then Jess saw something else that gave him a sudden chill—the black man’s right arm was tied behind his back.

  “Koenig, I’m going to stop this fight,” Jess said.

  The big man’s eyebrows lifted and there was disbelief in his voice. “You’re going to do what?”

  “They’ve tied the black man’s right arm behind his back.”

  Koenig grinned, as did others in the crowd close to him. “But that’s the whole point,” he said. “See that little bald feller talking to Zeus?”

  “I see him,” Jess said.

  “Well, that’s Nate Levy, Zeus’s manager. He said his boy would fight anyone in town with one arm tied behind his back for a five-hundred-dollar purse, winner take all. Well, Mayor Stout put up the prize money and Dave Kick took up the challenge. And that’s why you’ll lose your twenty-dollar bet.”

  Jess was lost for words. He could kiss good-bye to his money, and all because he hadn’t noticed the rope. It was a lawman’s job to observe things like that, even one new to the job, and he’d failed miserably.

  With considerable difficulty Mayor Stout clambered under the rope, held up his hands for silence and then intoned in a gloriously commanding voice, “My lords, ladies and gentlemen . . .”