Hell's Half Acre

by William W. Johnstone

“Nate tried to save me,” Zeus said. “But he didn’t stand a chance. Is he . . .”

  Jess said, “He’s badly beaten, old fellow, but he’s still alive.”

  “Help me to my feet,” Zeus said. “I have to go to him.”

  “I don’t think you can stand,” Jess said.

  Zeus said, “I can stand.”

  A couple of stray dogs tangled with a coyote in the darkness beyond the alley. The coyote screamed and ran and the dogs took off in growling pursuit. Somewhere close a piano played “Lardy Dah.”

  Zeus kneeled beside Nate Levy and held the little man’s head in his arm. “Nate, can you hear me?” he said. There was no answer and the big fighter said, “I’ll take him to Dr. Sun. His house is close by.”

  “Hey, Sheriff,” a man said. He held a lantern high as he stared down at the muscular man’s body. “This here is Max Major.”

  Jess nodded. He felt weary. “That’s his name, huh?”

  “You don’t know?” the man said. He had a florid face framed by great muttonchop whiskers.

  “Not until you told me,” Jess said.

  Muttonchop said, “He was one of the Panther City Boys, Kurt Koenig’s hard crowd.”

  The girl placed her hand on Jess’s arm, shock in her voice. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. She saw blood on her hand and said, “And you’re wounded.”

  “The lady has a right to be sorry, Sheriff,” Muttonchop said. “You better leave town when you still can. Them Panther City Boys are nothing to mess with.”

  Zeus carried Levy in his arms and stopped beside Jess. “You better come with us,” he said. “Don’t let Koenig’s boys find you here. There are a whole lot of them.”

  The girl looked distressed. “Do that, please,” she said. “Dr. Sun will see to your wound.”

  Lantern light guttering around him, Jess said, “What’s your name?”

  “Lillian. Lillian Burke. My father owns the Black Horse brewery in town.”

  “Then I’ll see you again, Lillian,” Jess said.

  “Yes, perhaps. Now go.”

  Jess said, “I look forward to it.”

  Then Zeus motioned with his head. “That way, Sheriff. You don’t want to die in an alley.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dr. Sun’s home and surgery was located on Main Street, a converted general store that still boasted a false front with the faded name GEO. GRANT & SON still readable. A brass nameplate on the door said only DOCTOR SUN, and the window above it was boarded.

  Jess knocked on the door and after a while it opened, wafting incense from inside. A slender young girl stood in the doorway. She wore a blue silk dress embroidered with flowers and her face was in shadow.

  “Come inside,” she said. “Dr. Sun is expecting you.”

  Jess Casey had no time to wonder at that because of the shock of seeing the girl’s face in the hallway lamplight. Her long hair framed horrific features that were scarred almost beyond recognition, as though she’d been burned in a raging fire. Yet her shoulders and beautiful arms were untouched, as smooth as silk.

  Jess knew he’d gaped and was instantly embarrassed. But the girl, no doubt used to this kind of reaction from strangers, seemed not to notice.

  “This way,” she said.

  Jess followed, Zeus carrying the unconscious Levy behind him. In her tight dress the girl had a figure a man would dream about at night, a tiny waist and swelling, shapely hips. But her ravaged features destroyed her beauty completely. Like a rock thrown through the face of a Gainsborough portrait her disfigurement made a slum of her body.

  The girl opened a door and bade Jess and the others enter.

  The room was small, smoky with incense, lit by lanterns that threw a crimson light. In the middle of the floor, bowing, stood a small Chinese man, much wrinkled, wearing a gorgeous black robe embroidered with silver dragons. On his shaven head was a small round hat with a tassel and there was a faint, elusive smile on his lips.

  “I am Dr. Sun. Welcome to my humble abode,” he said. Then to Zeus, “Put the wounded man on the table over there by the wall, my gigantic friend.”

  Zeus gently laid the groaning Levy on the leather examination table. But Dr. Sun took time to look at Jess’s shoulder. “Ah, a bullet wound,” he said. “But slight. Would the honorable gentleman mind waiting until I see to his friend, who is hurt more seriously?”

  “You go right ahead, Doc,” Jess said.

  The little man bowed. “You are most gracious.” He kowtowed to Zeus in turn. “And you, too, must pause for my administrations, I’m afraid.”

  “See to Nate, Doctor,” Zeus said. “I think he’s hurt real bad.”

  The little man nodded. “We shall see.”

  Jess watched Dr. Sun as he examined Nate Levy. His hands were as small and delicate as a woman’s yet they looked strong, especially his right, the hand and forearm banded with muscles like steel cables.

  After a few minutes, the little man said, “Your friend will live. He has three broken ribs from powerful blows, but I will bind him tight and that will help. I can give him something for pain and to help him sleep. Does he live close by?”

  “At the National Hotel,” Zeus said. “I’ll take him there.”

  “Then you must do so,” Dr. Sun said. “He will stay in bed for several days to let his body recover. He is a Child of the Book?”

  “Yes, he is,” Zeus said.

  “Good. Then his will is strong.”

  Dr. Sun declared that Jess’s wound was little more than a bullet burn and he applied a salve that was purple in color and smelled of wood smoke. It removed the pain almost instantly.

  “Doc, who is the girl who met us at the door?” Jess said.

  “Ah, her name is Mei-Xing. In Chinese that means Beautiful Star. I have made her my ward.”

  “Her face . . . I mean . . .”

  “In China, Mei-Xing was once the concubine of a powerful warlord who lived in a fortress tower in Guangdong,” Dr. Sun said. “The warlord was old and very fond of Mei-Xing and this made his wife jealous. Zhuo, for that was her name, had one of the fortress guards shove a flaming torch into Mei-Xing’s face so that her husband would never again be enthralled by her rival’s beauty. Zhuo then had Mei-Xing sold into prostitution and by various and devious means she arrived on American shores. But what man would wish to pay for a whore with a scarred face? Mei-Xing’s descent into despair and degradation ended here, in Hell’s Half Acre. I found her living on the streets and took her in and made her my ward. When I die, all I have, she will have.”

  “I hope . . . what’s the wife’s name?”

  “Zhuo.”

  “Yeah, her. In the end I hope she got what she deserved.”

  “No, to this day Zhuo thrives as a great warlord’s number one wife and her beauty and riches grow.” Dr. Sun smiled. “Do not think that all evil is punished, young man. Here in Hell’s Acre it walks among us daily and prospers.”

  Jess would have liked to talk more about the city and its evils, but the little physician turned away to concentrate on Zeus’s battered face.

  Jess rose from his chair and said it was time he sought his cot at the sheriff’s office. “How much do I owe you, Dr. Sun?” he said.

  The little man smiled, his face forming a network of wrinkles. “I’ll send you my bill, Sheriff,” he said.

  “It’s a long time since I’ve had one of those,” Jess said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “You’ve had a busy day, Sheriff,” the girl said. “I spoke to Big Sal and she says she’s got two dead men lying on slabs in her morgue with your bullets in them.”

  “You’d better come in,” Jess Casey said. The girl’s knock on the door had wakened him from sleep and he wore only his hat and long johns.

  “Do you often greet female callers in your underwear?” the girl said.

  Jess beat a hasty retreat behind his desk and sat. “I didn’t expect a female . . . I mean a woman . . . I mean . . .”

  “I’m catc
hing your drift, Sheriff. I didn’t know that grown men could blush.”

  The girl laid the bundle she’d been carrying on the desk. She smelled like flowers.

  “Pillows, clean sheets and a blanket,” she said. “Compliments of Kurt Koenig. He likes the way you handle yourself and means to keep you cozy.”

  “Thank him for me,” Jess said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to bed.”

  The girl ignored that and pulled up a chair and sat opposite Jess. “I could use a drink,” she said. “After I talk with Big Sal I can always use a drink. She says both men you shot were dead when they hit the ground. The whiskey is in the bottom drawer right.”

  “I know where it is,” Jess said. In his underwear and bare feet he felt vulnerable and ill at ease.

  “Well?” the girl said.

  Jess produced the Old Crow and glasses and poured for both of them.

  “Cheers,” the girl said. She sampled the whiskey, then said, “Name’s Destiny Durand, by the way.” She was pretty in a blond and blue-eyed way and her clinging red silk dress left little to the imagination.

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Durand,” Jess said. “Now if you will drink up I must be getting back to my bunk. Thank you again for the bedding.”

  “Hold on, cowboy,” Destiny said. “I have something for you from Kurt.”

  “You work for him?” Jess said.

  “You could say that.”

  The girl reached between her breasts and produced an envelope. “Open it,” she said. “It’s a love token.”

  Jess opened the envelope and let its contents drop to the desk. It was ten twenty-dollar bills.

  “In addition to your salary you’ll get that amount every week to keep your nose out of Kurt’s business,” Destiny said. “He’ll tell you who to arrest, who to shoot and who to ignore.” The girl looked intently into Jess’s eyes. “You catching my drift?”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then the same thing that happened to Sheriff Hank Henley will happen to you, only a sight more sudden.”

  The bribe, for that’s what he reckoned it was, had come as a shock and Jess hadn’t had even a moment to collect his thoughts. Playing for time he said, “What will the city marshal think of this?”

  Destiny smiled, her scarlet lips slightly moist. “Why bless you for a pilgrim,” she said. “Kurt Koenig is the city marshal.”

  “I don’t want this money,” Jess said. “I plan to ride out of Fort Worth come morning.”

  “And then do what?” Destiny said. “Go back to nursing cows for thirty a month? You fool, stick with Kurt for a few years and you can buy your own spread. Then find yourself a sweet little gal who says her prayers at night and who will cook and sew for you and be content to live happily ever after like happens in the picture books.”

  Jess stared at the two hundred dollars on his desk and said nothing. But his mind was racing. The money was either the down payment on the future J-C Ranch or a vile payoff to be ignored.

  Destiny rose from her chair, her dress rustling. “You’ve had long enough, cowboy. I tell you what, you saddle up tomorrow, ride the grub line and then die like a dog from bad whiskey in some dunghill town west of nowhere.” She smiled. “It’s a pity because you’re a right handsome young feller. You look like General Custer. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  Jess shook his head.

  “And you got about as much sense as him, too,” Destiny said.

  She reached for the money, but Jess said, “Leave it.”

  “Money talks, huh?”

  “The J-C Ranch talks.”

  Destiny said, “Yeah, for Jess Casey. It’s a good brand. So I can tell Kurt you’ll stick and you swear that you’ll do no more revolver work unless he gives you the say-so.”

  “Yes, tell him that. Tell him anything the hell you want.”

  “Don’t take it hard, cowboy. A lot of people draw wages from Kurt Koenig. You’ll find that he’s a generous man.”

  Destiny stepped to the door and her pretty face hardened. “Just think of cows with the J-C brand on their rumps and do as you’re told. Learn to live with it, cowboy. Like me, you’re now officially bought and paid for.”

  * * *

  After Destiny Durand left, the memory of her perfume lingered but there was now only empty space where a beautiful woman had been.

  Jess sighed and got to his feet. He left the money where it lay on the table and made up his bed with the clean sheets and pillows. The mattress was still lumpy and hard, but it was an improvement.

  To his surprise Jess slept well and didn’t wake until a gray dawn light filtered through the office windows. The dressing on his shoulder had worked loose in the night, uncovering an angry red scar that hurt to the touch. He rose quickly, stripped to the skin, then put on his hat and slicker to cover his nakedness. A bar of lye soap lay next to a scrap of towel in the office and he grabbed both and took the back door to the outside. As Jess expected, there was a water pump that dripped into a full horse trough. He stripped off the slicker and washed himself thoroughly. It was still early and there was no one about, though a small calico cat with amber eyes sat and watched his every move, wondering at this latest evidence of human weirdness.

  Jess dried himself as best he could and stepped back into the office, where he shaved, combed his wet hair and dressed again. He buckled on his gun belt and left in search of coffee.

  Along the boardwalk a ways a hanging wooden sign said:

  MA’S KITCHEN

  HOME COOKING

  AT ITS FINEST

  And indeed the place emitted odors of coffee, frying steak and grilling bacon and Jess, his stomach growling, made a beeline. After the events of last night he had some thinking to do, but a man can’t study on things with an empty stomach.

  Jess stepped inside and found himself a table in the corner near the kitchen. A pretty young waitress took his order for coffee, steak and eggs and when it arrived, the food was good and the coffee better.

  After eating, Jess burped his satisfaction and concentrated on building a cigarette, his first of the morning.

  “Remember me?”

  Jess glanced up and beheld the small, dapper form of Luke Short. Unfortunately the fat bandage wrapped around his head and the precarious perch of his plug hat thereon somewhat spoiled his sartorial splendor. In addition, Short’s face was sour.

  “Sure, I remember you,” Jess said. “You tried to pick a fight with me and then pissed on my boots.”

  “I did that?” Short said.

  “Sure did. That’s why I put that bump on your head.”

  A scholarly-looking man sitting within earshot turned in his chair and said, “A gent should never touch another gent’s hat or piss on his boots. Now, that’s a natural fact.”

  Short glared at the man but then turned his attention back to Jess.

  “You got something that belongs to me,” he said.

  Jess said, “It’s back at the sheriff’s office. If you care to accompany me I’ll give it back to you.” He rose to his feet, towering head and shoulders over the diminutive gunman. But Jess wasn’t fooled. Sometimes big trouble comes in mighty small packages.

  “After you, Mr. Short,” he said, motioning to the door.

  “Don’t trust me, do you?” Short said.

  “Should I?”

  “No. You shouldn’t,” Luke Short said.

  * * *

  Jess took Short’s Colt from the desk drawer and passed the revolver to the little man. Short immediately checked the piece and scowled his annoyance.

  Jess smiled and said, “You didn’t think I was going to give you a loaded gun, did you?”

  Short shoved the Colt into his waistband and said, “I heard your name is Jess Casey and that you killed two men last night.”

  “You heard right. I will never boast of it.”

  “And why should you? Taking the life of another human being is not something to be proud of.” Short turned to go, but stopped a
nd said, “I don’t like you, Jess Casey. I’m letting last night go because I pissed on your boots. Another time I will not be as contrite.”

  “Obey the law, Mr. Short, and there won’t be another time.”

  The little man’s smile seemed genuine. “There is no law in Fort Worth. That’s why I’m here.”

  “And that’s why I’m here,” Jess said.

  “How do I take that?”

  “Take it that I’ll uphold the law.”

  “You mean Kurt Koenig’s law, don’t you?”

  Jess had no ready answer for that and Short said, “I thought so. He’s already got you in his pocket.” He shook his head and then regretted it, wincing slightly. “A word of advice, Sheriff—stay the hell away from me and the White Elephant. Understand?”

  “I’ll do my job, Mr. Short.”

  Luke Short smiled. “Anybody ever tell you that you look like George Armstrong Custer?”

  “The resemblance has been noted before.”

  “Well, remember what happened to him when he took on more than he could handle and maybe you’ll keep your hair.”

  Then Short did something that shocked Jess Casey to the core.

  The little gunman drew his Colt from his waistband, thumbed back the hammer and aimed the revolver right at Jess’s head. He pulled the trigger and the hammer snapped on an empty chamber.

  “Bang,” Short said. “You’re dead.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Big Kurt Koenig looked at Jess Casey and then at the desktop in front of him. “You haven’t picked up the two hundred dollars I paid you,” he said. “What’s the matter, Sheriff? You don’t like money?”

  “Sure, I like what money can buy,” Jess said.

  “There’s a lot more where that came from,” Koenig said. “Stick with me and I’ll put you on easy street.” Then, slowly, his great muscular bulk looming large in the small office, “Pick . . . up . . . the . . . money.”

  “I need to think this through, Mr. Koenig,” Jess said.

  “Call me Kurt. Destiny told me you want to buy your own ranch someday. Is that right?”

  “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a younker, I guess.”