by Matt Braun
“See it?” McCluskie’s grin broadened. “That’s a damnfool question. What was it I taught you, anyway?”
That the hand’s faster than the eye.”
“Well you’ve got your proof right there in that mirror. The fellow you’re lookin’ at didn’t even see it. He’s still blinkin’.”
While it was a slight exaggeration, McCluskie’s comment wasn’t far wide of the mark. The truth was, he hadn’t seen the kid draw. Nor did it surprise him. Not after the last couple of days in the gully north of town.
The swiftness with which the kid learned was nothing short of incredible. In two weeks he had mastered what some men never absorbed in a lifetime. Part of it was the will to learn, and some of it was McCluskie’s dogged insistence on practice. But most of it was simply the boy’s hands. Slim and tapered, hardened from work, but with a strength and quickness that was all but unimaginable. What those hands knew couldn’t be taught. It was there all along, waiting merely to be trained. Reaction and speed was a gift. Something a man was born with. The rest was purely a matter of practice.
Kinch wasn’t as good as he would be. Or as yet anywhere close to McCluskie. But he was fast. Even too fast, perhaps. The best score he’d racked up so far was three out of five cans. While he was fairly consistent, and improving every day, he still hadn’t overcome a tendency to rush. Quite plainly, despite the Irishman’s constant scolding, he had been bitten by the speed bug.
Still, this obsession with speed wasn’t what troubled McCluskie the most. That would pass soon enough. As the kid got better, and gained confidence in himself, he would see that sudden beat fast everytime. The worrisome thing was Kinch’s attitude. He still looked on the whole deal as one big game. Just a lark. A sporting event of some sort where the only casualties were a bunch of tin cans.
McCluskie wasn’t completely unaware of what lay behind the kid’s lighthearted manner. Perhaps any man, faced with the prospect of his own death, would have reacted the same way. Yet it was hard to accept, for it overlooked a salient detail. Places like Newton often pitted a man against something besides tin cans. Something that could shoot back.
Thinking about it now, as Kinch preened in front of the mirror, he wondered if he had done the right thing. Maybe giving the kid a gun wouldn’t change anything. That remained to be seen. But one thing was for damn sure. It had put a spark in his eye that wasn’t there before, and for the moment, that in itself was enough.
When they left the hotel dusk had already fallen, and the southside was a regular beehive of activity. Trailhands thronged the boardwalk, drifting from dive to dive with the rowdy exuberance of schoolboys playing hooky. Along the street rinky-dink pianos tinkled in witless harmony, and over the laughing and shouting and drunken Rebel yells, it all came together in a calliope of strident gibberish. Every night was Saturday night in Newton, and so long as the Texans’ money held out, they flung themselves headlong into a frenetic swirl of cheap whiskey and fast women.
McCluskie angled across the street toward the Gold Room. That seemed like as good a place to start as any, but by no means would it be their last stop. Before introducing the kid to Belle’s girls he figured to hit at least three or four dives. Somehow he just couldn’t picture the youngster waltzing into a whore-house stone-cold sober. Better to float his kidneys first, and then let the ladies instruct him in the ancient and noble sport of dip the wick.
They came through the door with Kinch hard on his heels and headed for the bar. Every couple of steps the youngster took a hitch at his gunbelt, as if checking to make sure it was still there. The pistol felt strange and somehow reassuring on his hip, and the temptation to touch it was too much to resist. Had it been a wart between his eyes he wouldn’t have been any less conscious of its existence.
Pony Reid greeted them at the bar. “Evenin’, Mike. Kinch. You boys are gettin’ an early start, aren’t you?”
“Pony, we’re out to see the elephant.” McCluskie clapped the kid across the shoulders. “Not that you’d remember back that far, but Kinch just turned the corner on eighteen. He’s ready to cut the wolf loose and let him howl.”
By now everyone in town knew the story on the Irishman’s young assistant. They had become all but inseparable, and it required only a moment’s observation to see that the kid idolized McCluskie. In the manner of rough-natured men, the sporting crowd had adopted Kinch as one of their own.
“Hell’s bells, that calls for a drink!” Reid signaled the barkeep. “Set ’em up for my friends here. Celebration like this has to get started off proper.”
The bartender poured out three shots and Reid hoisted his glass. “Kinch, here’s mud in your eye. Happy days.”
The gambler and McCluskie downed their whiskey neat. Kinch hesitated only a moment and followed suit. When the liquor hit bottom it bounced dangerously, exploding in a series of molten eruptions. His eyes watered furiously and he felt sure smoke would belch out of his ears at any moment. But somehow he managed to hold it down, and after a couple of quick breaths, he gave the older men a weak smile.
“Mighty good drinkin’ whiskey. Next one’s on me.”
“The hell you say!” The Irishman slapped a double eagle on the bar and winked sideways at Pony Reid. “Treat’s on me. The rest of the night. Barkeep! Set ’em up again.”
Kinch had the sinking sensation that another round might just paralyze him, but he merely grinned and bellied up closer to the bar. This was the first time the Irishman had allowed him anything stronger than a warm beer, and he wasn’t about to back off now.
Then, as he lifted the glass again, his nose twitched. Cripes! No wonder they called it coffin varnish. That’s what it smelled like. Only worse.
* * *
They came through the door of Belle’s house arm in arm. Kinch was listing slightly, but still navigating under his own power. This, along with his clear eye and steady speech, had the Irishman a little puzzled. After a whirlwind tour of three saloons in the past two hours he’d fully expected to have the youngster ossified and walking on air. But it hadn’t worked out that way.
Apparently the kid had a greater tolerance for whiskey than he’d suspected. That or a hollow leg.
Halting in the entranceway to the parlor, they surveyed the room with a look of amused dignity. McCluskie swept off his hat and made a game try at what passed for a bow.
“Ladies, we bring you greetings.” Straightening, he gestured toward the boy, who was propped up against the doorjamb. “This here is Mr. Kinch Riley, sportin’ man supreme.”
Everything in the room came to a stop. Belle, along with three cowhands and five girls, stared back at them as if man and boy had suddenly sprung whole from a crack in the floor. Kinch pulled his hat off and grinned like a cat with a mouthful of feathers. But he had a little trouble duplicating McCluskie’s bow. All at once his joints seemed limber as goose grease and he couldn’t quite manage to peel himself off the doorjamb.
Belle crossed the room and planted herself directly in their path. She looked them both up and down, shaking her head ruefully. Then she sniffed, as if one of them had broken wind, and her gaze settled on the Irishman.
“Just proud as punch, aren’t you? Finally managed to get him drunk.”
“Drunk?” McCluskie tucked his chin down and gave her an owlish frown. “Who?”
“Him!” Belle’s finger stabbed out and Kinch jerked back, banging his head against the door frame.
McCluskie’s frown changed to a sly smirk, as if he had just heard a lie so preposterous it defied belief. “Goddamn, Belle, he’s sober as a judge. You better get yourself some specs.”
“You really are thick, aren’t you?” Her words came clipped and sharp, like spitting grease. “You big baboon, you’re so drunk he looks sober. And him sick, too. Just wait till Doc Boyd gets wind of this.”
“Cough syrup,” Kinch muttered.
They both blinked and gave him a peculiar look. Belle shrugged, not sure she had heard right, and after a moment McCl
uskie bent closer. “How’s that, bud?”
“Cough syrup.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Tastes just like cough syrup.”
“You mean the whiskey?”
“Just like what they gimme at the hospital.”
“What them doctors gave you back in Kansas City?”
“Only better. Lots better.”
McCluskie sifted it over a minute and all of a sudden the kid made perfect sense. Canting his head back, he gave Belle a crafty look. “Thick, huh? Case you hadn’t noticed, he’s not coughin’. Matter of fact, he hasn’t since we started drinkin’. What d’ya think of that?”
“Oh, pshaw!” she informed him. “That’s no excuse to take a boy out and get him drunk.”
“Belle, you’re startin’ to sound like a mother hen. Besides which, we didn’t need an excuse. This is his birthday. Or maybe you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget and you know it very well. But he was supposed to get his birthday present here, not soaking up rotgut in some dingy saloon.”
“Well Jesus H. Christ! Whyn’t you quit makin’ so much noise, then, and do somethin’ about it? Hell, he’s been standin’ here five minutes and you haven’t even introduced him to the girls.”
Belle started to say something, but thought better of it. She pried Kinch off the doorjamb and waltzed him out to the middle of the parlor. The girls had watched the entire flurry with mild wonder, and now, as she graced them with a dazzling smile, they sensed that something unusual was brewing.
“Girls, you’ve all heard me talk about Kinch. Well, tonight is his birthday and he’s come to spend it with us. Whatever he wants is on the house, so whoever gets picked, make sure he has a good time.”
Nothing about her smile changed, but something in her eyes did. “Understand?”
The girls got the message. They dropped the three cowhands like so many hot rocks and came swarming over the kid. A henna-haired redhead reached him first, and wedged herself up next to his chest like a mustard plaster. Close behind came a blond with soft, jiggly breasts the size of gourds. She latched onto his other arm and started running her hand through his hair. Another blond and a mousey brunette charged into the melee, and before he had time to take a deep breath, Kinch was up to his ears in squealing females.
“Sweetie, do you like Lulu?” purred the redhead.
Kinch cast a trapped look back over his shoulder at the Irishman. But he got no sympathy there. McCluskie and Belle were going at it hammer and tongs. Evidently their little spat had only just started.
The blond stuck her melons under his nose and whispered a blast of hot air into his ear. “Ditch these others, honeybunch. Let Francie give you a trip around the world.”
The boy felt as though he were drowning in a sea of arms and bosoms and clawing hands. Every time he struggled to the surface they dragged him under to the floor. Suddenly he pitched forward, spun completely around, and broke clear. Dazed and still somewhat numb from the whiskey he’d absorbed, he lurched away and almost plowed over the fifth girl. Drawing back, he swayed dangerously and tried to bring her into focus.
She was smaller than the others, just a little sprite of a girl. Her hair was black as tarpitch, and she had large almond eyes that stared out wistfully from a kewpie-doll face. Just at that moment he thought she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. More importantly, if it came down to it, he thought he could whip her in a fair fight. The others he wasn’t too sure about.
“Hi.” Her mouth dimpled in a smile. “I’m Sugartit.”
That threw him off stride and for an instant he couldn’t get his jaws working. Then he felt the pack closing in behind him and he grabbed her hand.
“Let’s go!”
Kinch didn’t know where they were going, but right about then his choices seemed pretty limited. He reeled forward, head spinning crazily, aware of nothing but the girl before him.
Sugartit clutched his hand and took off toward the rear of the parlor. The thing he always remembered most afterward was her laugh as they went through the door.
It was like the patter of rain on a warm spring night.
CHAPTER 9
KINCH WAS having a hard time looking at the girl. But-toning his shirt, he kept sneaking peeks at her out of the corner of his eye. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything, but he found nothing unusual in that. Anybody with a name like hers was probably used to being stared at. Maybe even liked it.
Watching her dress gave him a strange sensation down around his bellybutton. It was almost as if he could see straight through her clothes. The way she’d been in bed, soft and naked and cuddly warm. All of which was in his mind’s eye, of course. He kept telling himself that as his hands fumbled with the shirt buttons. But it made the image in his head no less real.
What he saw wasn’t so much the girl as the sum of her parts. Brief flashes that came and went, like lightning bugs in a dark room. Her impish smile and those big, waifish eyes. The delicate buttercup of her breasts. The gentle swell of her hips. And most of all, somehow flickering brighter than the rest, the soft black muff between her legs. That came strong and clear, sharply in focus.
It was something he would never forget. The warmth and pulsating throb and pleasure so sweet it became almost pain.
What he felt just then was so distinct and real that his mind turned inward, living it over again. Suddenly something touched him and a shiver rippled along his spine. He blinked, awareness returning in fits and starts, much as a dream fades into wakefulness. Then, all in a rush, he saw Sugartit standing before him. She was buttoning his shirt, her mouth dimpled with that small enigmatic smile.
His hands were motionless, frozen somehow to his shirtfront, just where they were before his mind wandered off. All at once he felt green as grass, clumsy and very foolish, and he quickly lowered his hands.
Sugartit finished the buttoning and began tucking his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. He just stood there watching her, gripped by a sensation so acute he couldn’t put a name to it. Goosebumps popped out on his skin and a static charge brought tingly little prickles to every nerve in his body. Curiously, he was overcome by a feeling of utter helplessness. As if this mere slip of a girl, through some witchery he failed to comprehend, had cast a spell and turned him into a bumbling jackass incapable of the simplest thought.
The girl ran her arms around his waist and pressed herself close to his chest. He could feel the taut little nipples of her breasts through his shirt, and his mouth suddenly went thick and pasty. Mechanically, like some wooden Indian come to life, he put his arms around her. He felt light in the head, queer somehow, as if he were standing off in a corner watching it happen to someone else.
“There’s sure not much of you.” Sugartit ran her fingers over his ribs like a piano player testing chords. “You’re just all bone and gristle, aren’t you?”
Kinch swallowed a wad of paste. “I guess.”
“Well, don’t worry about it, lover.” Her head arched back and the almond eyes seemed to soak him up in great gulps. “Maybe you got shortchanged on muscle, but you’re all bearcat where it counts.”
Suddenly he felt about eight feet tall. “You ain’t exactly tame yourself.”
She laughed softly and snuggled closer. “Did you like it?”
“Better’n a duck likes water.” Curiously, his tongue had come unglued and he felt slick as a street-corner pitchman. “What about you?”
“Silly, of course I did. Couldn’t you tell?” She gave him a tight little squeeze. “I’ve had it lots of ways, but never like that. Not even once.”
The scent of her hair was like perfume and for an instant he couldn’t get his breath. “You’re joshin’ me.”
Sugartit put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down. Her lips came over his mouth, soft and warm, and her pink little tongue started doing tricks. Then her hips moved, undulating and hungry, and a jolt of lightning hit him just below the belt buckle. She pulled b
ack and searched his face with a devilish smile.
“Still think I’m joshing?”
Kinch bent and lifted her in his arms. She was surprisingly light, and it pleased him that he could heft her so easily. As he carried her toward the bed, Sugartit laughed that soft laugh again and began nibbling on his ear.
* * *
When they entered the parlor some time later everything was back to normal. Belle and the Irishman were wedged into a settee like a couple of lovebirds, and from the looks they were giving one another, it was clear that a truce of some sort had been negotiated. The girls had themselves a fresh batch of Texans, and they were paired off around the room making sweet talk. Everybody knew that this was what made Belle’s prices so stiff, all the sugar and spice that came beforehand. But the cowhands didn’t seem to mind in the least. They were lapping it up as fast as the girls could dish it out.
So far as the kid could see, it was business as usual.
McCluskie spotted him first and gave Belle the high sign with a jerk of his head. She looked around and then they both stood up, waiting for Sugartit and Kinch to cross the room. Belle whispered something and the Irishman smiled, but oddly enough, they had the look of expectant parents. Almost as if they were awaiting news of a blessed event.
“Bud, I’d just about given you up for lost,” McCluskie grinned and tried to make it sound offhand. “Enjoy yourself, did you?”
Kinch flushed despite himself. “Yeah, sure. Best birthday I ever had.”
The girl giggled and Belle eyed her speculatively. “Sugartit, I hope you showed our young friend a good time.”
“Why, Belle, I just put the frosting on his cake. I taught him the French twist, and the half-and-half, and—”
“Whoa, Nellie!” McCluskie threw up his hand. “All that racy talk is liable to give an old man like me dangerous notions. C’mon, sport. Let’s go get ourselves a drink. After a workout like that I’ve got an idea you need fortifyin’.” He dropped an arm over the kid’s shoulders and headed for the door. “Belle, I’ll see you later. And if I don’t, you’ll know ol’ hollow-leg here had put me under the table.”
