by J. T. Edson
Coming around at a close to horizontal arc, instead of finding its target, the chair struck Stewart across the shoulders. However, although his shirt was released as the blow came and he was sent in a headlong staggering sprawl, he might have counted himself fortunate in one respect. Being all too aware that the Driven Spike Saloon’s reputation for brawls was well founded, its owner did not waste money by buying expensive furniture. While the kind he obtained was capable of standing up to ordinary use, it did not lend itself to being employed as a club. Therefore, the chair disintegrated on impact and inflicted far less damage than might otherwise have been the case.
Having had one assailant disposed of for him, Dusty gave his attention to the other. Before Stewart had alighted on the floor between two of the tables, the occupants having made no attempt to save him from falling, Bob received another indication that it did not pay to antagonize the big Texan. Swinging around, giving the older brother no time to recover from the shock caused by realizing how the attempted attack had gone badly wrong, Dusty knotted his left hand into a fist. Swinging it around and up, while stepping forward a pace to help achieve the full power of his iron hard muscles, he drove it full into the pit of the Irishman’s stomach.
Despite the fact that the way in which the small Texan wore his attire tended to distract from his physical development, there was the weight of a one hundred and eighty-five pound body—none of which was fat—with its fifty inch chest slimming down to a thirty inch waist set upon thighs and calves respectively twenty-six and seventeen and a half inches in circumference, behind the blow. On the knuckles burying deep into his unprepared stomach, all the breath was expelled from Bob’s lungs with a pain-filled ‘whoosh’. His eyes bulged and his mouth opened and closed spasmodically, but soundlessly. Although his torso remained erect, his legs buckled and he collapsed to his knees. From there, clasping his hands to the point of impact, he toppled face forward to the floor and lay writhing impotently.
‘Are they yours, Mr. O’Sullivan?’ Dusty inquired, waving at his victims in a derisory fashion.
‘That they are, Cap’n Fog, sir, to my everlasting shame,’ the massive Irishman replied. ‘But you’ll be after having to excuse ’em. They’re from County Mayo, not Donegal like me, so they don’t know no better.’
‘They can learn on the way back to the railhead,’ Dusty stated. ‘And, as the train pulls out in fifteen minutes, you’ll all just have time to take a final beer on me before you go to catch it.’
Eight – He’ll Be Ruined For Life
‘Asking your pardon, Cap’n, sir, and don’t be thinking we’re ungrateful for the offer,’ Shamus O’Sullivan said instead of going to the bar, after having told some of the gandy dancers to take care of the Molloy brothers. ‘But there’s still enough left over to buy us that last round and, if you’ll do us the honour, to get one for your good self—and Mr. Sangster.’
‘Enough left over?’ Dusty Fog queried, genuinely puzzled. Noticing that the inclusion of his companion had been an afterthought, it gave him an insight of how Raymond Sangster was regarded by the burly Irishman. ‘The railroad must be paying you right well to have money left over when you’ve been around town for a couple of days.’
‘The pay is all right, not that we couldn’t use a little more,’ Louis “Frenchy” Rastignac stated, darting a glance at the New Englander while making the second portion of the declaration. Being answered by a blank stare instead of a similarly light-hearted response, he swung his gaze back to the small Texan. ‘But you are right, mon Capitaine. It was little enough money we had left this morning.’
‘Most of us are so close to the blanket we can feel it rubbing against our hides,’ Fritz “Dutchy” Voigt supplemented.
‘I know the O’Toole’s a generous man,’ Dusty drawled, swinging a look around the room and finding the occupants resuming their interrupted activities. ‘But, judging by the whooping it up you sounded to be doing, I wouldn’t think he’d’ve let you have enough on the cuff until next pay day for there to be any over by this time.’
‘And so he didn’t,’ O’Sullivan confirmed. ‘Good man though he is, he wouldn’t let us go on the cuff for enough to make a bad dent in our pay next month. It’d be a round he’d give us, hearing how we was fixed, to take away the taste of the smoke from the engine on the way back and with divil the thought of being paid back. Only he wasn’t here to be doing it.’
‘Then who did,’ Raymond Sangster asked.
‘Some kind hearted gentlemen, m’sieur,’ Rastignac replied, but there was a noticeable difference in his tone and his use of “m’sieur” had the same connotation as a Texan continuing to say “mister” after having been introduced. The timbre of respect returned as, making it plain he was addressing Dusty, he continued, ‘When we called for a last beer, hopefully on the house, mon Capitaine, Ginty behind the bar told us a man had come in and left a hundred dollars, saying he had won a big bet on how far the spur-line had gone and wanted to stand treat for all the gandy dancers who helped him do it.’
‘What’d this man look like?’ the small Texan asked.
‘That I do not know,’ Rastignac admitted. ‘He had left before we got here. However, Ginty should be able to tell you.’
‘I’ll ask him,’ Dusty decided. ‘And I’ll buy the last round. You can let the O’Toole hold whatever’s left of the bet money until the next time you come to town.’
‘Whatever you say, Cap’n,’ O’Sullivan accepted, and his two companions signified their assent to the arrangement. Then he raised his voice to a stentorian bellow. ‘All right now, all of yez. We’ve had our fun ’n’ frolicking and now it’s time we was headed back to work. Cap’n Fog’s doing us the kindness of buying a last round, so we’ll be drinking his health with it and heading for the train like he’s told us.’
‘I hope this round counts as an expense and I get the money back,’ Dusty remarked to Sangster as the trio started encouraging the other gandy dancers to get and drink the beer he would be buying. ‘Us married men have to watch what we spend out of our own pockets, especially when it’s not spent in our wife’s saloon.’
‘I’ll see you get it refunded,’ the New Englander promised, but with none of the levity which had accompanied the request. ‘Damn whoever it was won the bet and left the money for them to start swilling down beer. ’
‘You should be grateful to Shamus, Frenchy and Dutchy for making sure it was only beer they were “swilling down”,’ the small Texan warned, realizing why Sangster had failed to establish any rapport with the gandy dancers if his attitude when in their company was always the same as it had been for the last few seconds.
‘They were drinking like the rest,’ the New Englander protested.
‘They were,’ Dusty conceded. ‘But it was only beer and they kept the others to the same instead of whiskey, or some other kind of hard liquor.’ Seeing Sangster looked skeptical, he elaborated, ‘I know those three. They’re as free with their celebrating as anybody has a right to be after working as hard as they do. But they never let the whooping it up they’ve done interfere with their chores.’
‘Huh!’ the New Englander snorted. They didn’t seem all that keen to get back to their work when I came to fetch them for the train!’
‘I didn’t say they were some kind of angels. Even though you’re the boss of construction, you can’t just walk in, start giving orders to gandy dancers and expect to have them jump to obedience, especially when there’s money behind the bar to keep them in drinks. As it is, happen those three hadn’t been on hand, you’d’ve had even more trouble in getting the rest to the work train.’
‘But—!’
‘I took out a couple of jaspers too drunk to fight properly is all.’
‘And after you did, nobody else has argued with what you told them!’
‘Nope,’ Dusty conceded, beginning to realize just how little the New Englander knew about the way the men he hired thought and how to deal with them. ‘But, happen Shamus, Fre
nchy and Dutchy hadn’t been willing to back me up—!’
‘None of them offered to help when you were attacked,’ Sangster interrupted.
They reckoned I could handle those two yahoos without needing any help,’ the small Texan replied. ‘And knew I’d get the rest’s attention real good by doing it. But I couldn’t’ve made what I said stick anywheres near this easy if they’d spoke out against it. As things stand, they’ll have all the rest on the work train and ready to go in just over a quarter of an hour.’
‘You have a lot of faith in them.’
‘And with good cause,’ Dusty declared.
‘You must know them pretty well,’ Sangster commented. Under the circumstances, the small Texan decided against telling the New Englander what had happened on his first contact with the trio. After they had tested him and he had won their respect by proving he was well able to defend himself without relying on guns, they had shown a willingness to remain on good terms. [22] However, although he had not seen much of them since that night, he was basing his conclusions upon his judgment of their respective characters and his summations with regards to their motives in behaving as they had since his arrival at the saloon.
‘Well enough well to figure I can count on them,’ Dusty answered and, sensing Sangster still was not convinced, explained the reason for his belief that they were willing to give him their support. ‘They figured I’d be interested to hear how they all came to be drinking so copious at the end of a trip to town, when they should have been short of cash. Which’s the why-all of Shamus offering to have the round paid for in the same way as the others had been instead of me doing the buying. He wanted us to know about the money that was left for them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s got a suspicious mind, like me.’
‘You think the man might have had some reason when he left the money other than feeling generous after winning abet?’
‘I’ve heard of fellers being generous to whoever they figured had helped when they’d won a big bet,’ Dusty drawled. ‘But I don’t rule out’s somebody might be wanting to delay work on the spur-line by keeping so many men here in town.’
‘And you think that Irishman shared your suspicions?’ Sangster inquired in tones of disbelief.
‘He’s not stupid and likely knows what’s been doing around town since the Railroad Commission pulled in,’ the small Texan asserted. ‘And, should they have thought on those lines, him and the other two would do everything they could to hold the whooping up at a level where the rest would be ready to head back once the money ran out. Which, had it been whiskey and not beer they was drinking, none of them would have been in any shape to do it until tomorrow noon at the earliest.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Sangster said, but did not look entirely convinced. ‘And I won’t be sorry to see them aboard and the work train going up the track.’
‘Or me,’ Dusty admitted. ‘So I’d best go pay for the drinks.’
‘I’ve never seen him afore, Cap’n Fog,’ the head bartender declared, after the small Texan had given him sufficient money to cover the cost of the round, and had then asked for information about the man who had been so beneficent. ‘But I mind thinking he didn’t look the kind to be tossing a hundred bucks around.’
‘How come,’ Dusty inquired. ‘Was he a cowhand, a soldier, or a buffalo hunter?’
‘Wasn’t none of ’em,’ Ginty denied and frowned pensively. ‘Fact being, ’cepting he looked like a townie and not a rich ’n’ at that, I’d be hard put to say what he was. Hell, he wasn’t the kind you’d look at twice. Not so big and hefty, nor so short growed, you’d notice him on account of either. ’Bout middle-sized and middle-built you could say.’
‘How about his face and hair?’ the small Texan asked.
‘His hair was brownish and kinda long, what I could see hanging from under his derby,’ the head bartender answered. ‘But all I can remember about his face was that he’d got him a beard’s covered most of it.’
‘I’ll tell you something else, though,’ put in a saloon-girl who was standing close enough to have heard what was being said. ‘When I saw him haul out that big thick wallet, I just natural’ went over to be friendly. He didn’t want no company, but we was talking long enough for me to reckon he was wearing a wig and the whiskers wasn’t his neither.’
‘Would the gal’ve been able to tell he was wearing a wig and false beard?’ Waco asked, having listened to an account of Dusty Fog’s activities on his return from the Driven Spike Saloon.
Arriving at the Fair Lady Saloon, after having seen the gandy dancers take their departure on the work train at the appointed time, Dusty had made another stop on the way, and had then found the other three members of the OD Connected’s floating outfit in the bar-room with his wife. All of the cowhands had expressed an interest in what had developed and wanted to know when they would be leaving for the railhead. On being asked how they had heard of what he was was planning to do, Waco had stated a ‘little bird’ had told them and, darting a pointed look at her vivacious little blonde maid—whose current attire was that of a saloon-girl rather than a domestic servant—Freddie had said dryly, ‘It must have been a Cockney sparrow.’ Business had improved since the small Texan left with Raymond Sangster, so Freddie had suggested they continued their discussion in the privacy of her living quarters on the first floor; to which access could only be gained from the rest of the building by a single door. Taking them to the luxuriously furnished sitting-room and telling them to sit down, she had supplied refreshments and listened to what her husband had to say.
‘She reckoned’s how she’d been in the theatre long enough to tell,’ the small Texan replied. ‘And Ginty backed her up.’
‘You can't be figuring this hombre down to the Driven Spike and the one’s took on those three yahoos to try and gun Dusty down’s one and the same,’ the Ysabel Kid put in, as if he did not have thoughts along the same lines. ‘Now can you, boy?’
‘Nope,’ Waco replied, but his tone was dripping with blatant sarcasm. ‘The whole god-dam—dad-blasted—State of Kansas’s just a-crawling with hombres who run ’round wearing wigs ’n’ false whiskers. Man can’t even walk a couple of yards without being hip deep in ’em. Why they’re thicker’n fleas—!’
‘I reckon you’ve made your point, boy,’ Mark Counter drawled from the comfortable armchair where he was lounging. ‘Don’t ride it from here to there and back the long way.’
‘Well now!’ Freddie put in, eyeing the youngster in mock gravity and amused at the amendment to his heated declaration made out of deference to her presence. ‘I didn’t think anybody else had noticed how you do tend to go on just a trifle when you’re excited, dear boy.’
‘Now me,’ the Kid supplemented. ‘I’d’ve thought everybody in these whole god-dam—dad-blasted—United States of America’d noticed that'
‘Like I was saying,’ Waco drawled with an aura of patient martyrdom, but alert to hurriedly leave the chair he had selected if any kind of physical objections should be taken against him. ‘It strikes a poor lil ole country boy like me’s mighty surprising’s two jaspers’d both be running around with wigs ’n’ false beards.’
‘Could be one of ’em didn’t want to be fixed so somebody could come up and say, “Howdy, you-all. Didn’t you take me on to go after Cap’n Dustine Edward Marsden “Dusty” Fog with a gun?” should the bushwhacking’ve come off,’ the Kid suggested. ‘And tuther wouldn’t be no more eager to have, “Howdy, you-all. Aren’t you the jasper’s handed over a hundred simoleons to keep some gandy dancers from going back to work on the railroad”, throwed at him.’
‘I always thought Indians were men of few words,’ Freddie commented with a sigh.
‘Lon sometimes is,’ Dusty informed his wife, knowing the Kid was proud of his Indian blood and never objected to it being mentioned in a seemingly derisive fashion by good friends.
‘But not often enough and they never make any sens
e, long or short,’ Waco asserted, despite realizing the black dressed Texan had made a good point. ‘They could be the same feller trying to make things go bad for the spur-line. With Dusty out of the way, those gandy dancers’d likely still be whooping it up at the Driven Spike no matter what Shamus O’Sullivan, Frenchy and Dutchy said or did to get ’em on the train.’
‘There’s just one lil thing wrong with that,’ the small Texan warned, pleased—as were Mark and the Kid—by the way in which the youngster was once again showing a capability for thinking matters out. It was a vastly different, greatly improved, outlook to that of their first meeting. [23] ‘I’d hardly said two words at a go to Ray Sangster, much less offered to help him out, when those three yahoos came after me. Top of which, having been riding the same trail as you on this disguise business, I called in at the jailhouse and talked to Meacher. He insisted that, while there wasn’t any reason actually given for wanting me made wolf bait, the hombre who took them on was taller and better built than him.’
‘Now to a poor lil ole part-Comanch’ boy like me,’ the Kid drawled, eyeing Waco sardonically. ‘It seems they’re either two different hombres, else it’s just one jasper’s’s found some slick way of growing bigger or littler as he’s so minded.’
‘By the way, dear,’ Freddie put in, before the youngster could think up a suitably sarcastic reply. ‘Does Meacher know you aren’t going to press charges against him and he’ll be released tomorrow?’
‘Released?’ Waco yelped, almost rising, and the other two cowhands came nearly as close to showing their surprise.
‘We’ve decided it’s for the best,’ Freddie explained. ‘I’ve seen him and, while I wouldn’t say he was over intelligent, I feel he’s smart enough to have learned his lesson from what’s happened. If he stands trial for attempted murder, the judge will send him to the State Penitentiary for quite a few years—!’
