Rides a Stranger

by Bill Brooks

  Most of them whooped and called out to me when I passed by. I made it a point to pass by slowly.

  “Hey cowboy, come on in!”

  “Hidey Lonesome.”

  “I could sure use a good man like you, honey.”

  “Hey you tall drink of water, come and see Alice!”

  Some stuck their rumps out and slapped them just to show me the product. I let it cross my mind briefly that whoremaster might not be a bad profession.

  I smiled and touched my hat brim and tried not to think of all that temptation as I rode down to the end place with the mansard roof. There were girls lounging around on the porch there too, four or five of them, and one had a black cat sitting on her lap she was petting. When I dismounted and tied off my horse at the hitch post and stepped up onto the porch she lifted her sloe eyes to me and said, “You like my pussy, honey?” The cat purred contentedly, its eyes closed.

  “It’s a real fine-looking pussy, ma’am,” I said, and the other girls laughed and so did the one holding the cat.

  “I’m here to see Pink Huston,” I said.

  “Pink’s inside. But he can’t do you half as much good as these girls can.”

  I leaned over and scratched the cat’s head and its ears twitched and I said, “Probably not,” and went inside.

  It was like something out of the Arabian nights—lots of red damask and heavy wine-colored drapes, settees with carved wood feet, and even a crystal chandelier. A man in spats was sitting at a small burl-wood desk counting money.

  “You Pink Huston?”

  “Who’d be needing to know?” He had an English accent.

  “Barkeep over at the Bison Club said you might need a bouncer.”

  “You any good with your dukes, mate?”

  “I’ll find out just how good tonight,” I said. “I’m going down to Bucky’s Corral and sign up to fight Gentleman Harry Ford.”

  The man stopped counting. “You ever see that bloke fight—Gentleman Harry?”

  “No.”

  “He’s a first-class pugilist,” he said. “D’ya even know what a pugilist is, lad?”

  “I’m from Nebraska, not China,” I said.

  His laugh sounded like someone strangling a chicken, and he went back to counting.

  “What about the job?” I said.

  “We’ll see how ya do tonight, then I’ll decide whether you’re the bloke for me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “How much for the one out front with the cat?”

  “Lorri? She’s not fer sale, laddie. She’s me personal snatch.”

  “We’ll talk later then,” I said. “After I knock out the Gentleman.”

  “Yar,” he said. “After you coldcock him, eh.”

  I went out and got on my horse and Lorri stroked her pussy while giving me that look you’d expect a woman with her talents would give and I touched my brim and said, “Destiny is a funny thing, ain’t it, ma’am?”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I think you and I have a date with destiny—that it’s something that was bound to happen since before either of us was born.”

  “Careful, cowboy, Pink is a jealous man, especially when it comes to smooth talkers.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said, and reined the horse around and headed back across the tracks.

  I killed the rest of that afternoon by taking a long soak at a small bathhouse run by a Celestial while waiting to get my clothes cleaned at his laundry in back. Then I got a shave before heading back to the saloon, and nursed a beer or two until the evening hour of seven o’clock, when I walked down to Bucky’s Corral. A sizable crowd had gathered.

  I stepped up to the corral, which was set up as a boxing ring, and saw the touted Gentleman Harry Ford standing on the other side wearing tight britches with a red sash around his waist. He was bare-chested, no doubt to show off his muscular frame. He had short-cropped black hair and black handlebar moustaches and looked cool as a block of ice as his gaze swept the crowd, no doubt seeing future broken noses, split lips, and busted teeth. A short bald man stood next to him, rubbing Harry’s upper arms and shoulders and talking to him, the fighter tilting his head to hear better what the man was telling him, rolling his broad shoulders. Another man stood in the middle of the corral with a megaphone, telling everyone that Gentleman Harry was ready for the first challenger and anyone who had not yet signed up should see him.

  “Come on, now, who will be the first to challenge the champeen?” the fellow with the megaphone asked, and a well-built man climbed over the top of the corral and jumped down into the dust and said, “Me.”

  Somebody standing next to me said the challenger was the town blacksmith—Andy Toe.

  “Old Andy will hit him like a mule kicked him,” the fellow said. I sure as hell hoped old Andy wouldn’t knock the Gentleman out before I got my chance to win the fifty dollars.

  “I’ll take five on the champeen,” I said, and the fellow said, “You’re on.”

  The two fighters were called to the center of the ring while the megaphone fellow gave them instructions about no hitting below the belt, no gouging of eyes or biting off ears. Then he nodded at the bald man who rang a dinner bell, and the blacksmith rushed out to meet the champ and threw a haymaker that the Gentleman ducked easy and as he came up, slammed a right hand to the side of the smith’s head that collapsed him like he’d been shot. The megaphone man who had now turned referee counted the smith out, and some other men came and dragged him out of the ring by his arms. I took my five dollars from the kid next to me. He didn’t look quite so sure now.

  “Who’s next?” the referee said.

  The kid raised his hand, then got into the corral. He was tall and wiry as a terrier, with little blond hairs on his upper lip.

  “Yer mudder know yer fighting?” the referee said jokingly. The boy nodded, and you could see he was nervous the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot like he was dancing on a dime, trying to make it give change.

  The man with the dinner bell struck it with a hammer and the boy began to dance around the Gentleman, who more or less stalked the kid, waiting for him to throw a punch. The crowd began to boo the poor exhibition, and the Gentleman stopped and stood there waiting for the kid to do something, to come close enough. Finally the kid got up nerve enough to throw a long looping right hand that hit the Gentleman on the side of his face. They both seemed surprised.

  It went like that for a few minutes or so—the kid dancing, throwing slaps against the placid face of the Gentleman, the Gentleman standing there taking it, letting the kid get more and more confidence up until at last he moved in close enough and the Gentleman snapped a straight right hand that landed flush in the center of the kid’s puss, snapping his head back like he’d been assassinated. The blow knocked him straight back and dumped him into the trampled dirt and horseshit. The kid sat with his legs splayed out in front of him and spit teeth and waved his feeble hand in resignation. The crowd laughed and booed at the same time.

  “Next!” came the call, and a succession of local oafs took their turn with the Gentleman, who knocked each one out, or hit them so hard they quit.

  Finally I figured it was as good a time as any and climbed over the top rail and dropped down and paid my money to the referee as he gave me the same instructions about not biting or gouging or hitting in the nutsack. I took off my clean shirt and hung it on the top rail and waited for the dinner bell to ring.

  I noticed Pink Huston and Lorri, the cat woman, in the crowd; I wanted to ask if she’d brought her pussy along but this was no time for joking around. I looked down just then and saw some bloody teeth lying in the dirt.

  The bell rang and I came in fast and low and popped Gentlemen Harry Ford with a couple of hard left hooks to his short ribs and moved out just as he dropped his own left hand down, grazing my ear and causing it to feel like it had been stung by a wasp.

  “Ah, we’ve got a true lad, now don’t we?” he said, grinning so some of his gold teeth
showed.

  I feinted with a right and threw another hard little hook into his ribs sameplace and saw how that affected him. Some of the smile went off his face. Everybody wants to knock you out in a fistfight, so they try and hit you in the head. But the body is a bigger target and can’t move out of the way easy as the head does. A lot like when you have to shoot a man—you aim for the biggest target.

  The Gentleman was quick of foot and moved well and came in and hit me with a couple of shocking blows that mostly glanced off my arms, which helped to soften their power, and several off my shoulders as I turned to give more of an angle. I knew I couldn’t go long with him; he was a pro and would figure me out, and my teeth would end up with those of the others.

  He moved in, his hand already cocked, and I sidestepped just as he threw a fist that whistled past my face. I bent and hooked two more hard lefts into his ribs, same place as before, and I thought I heard something crack. He threw a wild overhand that clipped the back of my head and bounced off my shoulder blade. I staggered like I was hurt and he moved in fast, ready to make the kill, and I brought a right uppercut from down near the border that caught him just under his chin. I put my full weight behind it and it was like hitting rock and I heard him give a hard grunt as his teeth clashed. The blow had caught him completely unawares and stopped him in his tracks, which was all I needed as I smashed a sharp left cross to the bridge of his nose, smashing it like a strawberry hit with a hammer.

  He staggered back and I moved in fast, hitting him with as many rights and lefts as I could wing, driving him back and back and back until he was up against the railings and I could feel that handsome face giving way, bones and flesh softening—like hitting a grapefruit—with every blow. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and I stepped back and watched him collapse to his knees before falling facedown in the dirt.

  The referee took his time about counting the Gentleman out but the crowd got on him and finally he did and then reached in his pocket and gave me the fifty dollars. I went and put it in my shirt before realizing I had a cut over my left eye that dripped blood, which I temporarily stopped by pressing the heel of my hand to it.

  Pink Huston came up then and said, “I lost a hundred dollars on you. Come around later and we’ll talk about your job duties.”

  Lorri slipped me a silk hankie when Pink turned his back to walk away. She gave me a wink. “Mr. Destiny,” she said.

  City Marshal Chalk Bronson found me as I was holding Lorri’s hankie to my face and feeling flush with the new money and the scent of her whorish perfume. Something about a good fight makes a man want to drink and have sex.

  “Hell of a fight,” he said.

  “You lose money on me too?”

  “No,” he said. “I bet on you.”

  “Why?”

  “I get hunches about people,” he said, and then, “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink at the Bison. I’ve got something I want to discuss with you.”

  Chapter Three

  He’d been a worried man looking for an answer he did not think existed. Then he saw the stranger and took note of him and as soon as the stranger started to speak, saying how he was looking for work, and Chalk began to have hope, that this man might be the answer.

  So he took careful study of him there in the Bison, saw the way he carried himself, the way he seemed to take note of everything in the place, unafraid to state his case. And the lawman noticed something else too—the bulk that was under the linen duster riding the stranger’s right hip.

  And when Bill mentioned about the fight, the stranger didn’t hesitate. A man like that, who doesn’t hesitate, was just the sort of man Chalk figured he needed. Lately he had felt very alone. Saddled with a problem he couldn’t tell anyone about, even his Nora. A secret about a woman you once loved was not something you talked to your wife about. And this particular secret was full of danger for everyone.

  So he went on about his business after observing the stranger and suggesting directly that the stranger would be smart to save his money and not put himself in the ring with a professional prizefighter, because more than anything he wanted to see how the stranger would react to such negative comments. It hadn’t even fazed him. And so Chalk Bronson thought there was one more test before he made his pitch to the stranger—to watch him actually fight.

  That little traveling show had come into town the night before and set up a tent just outside the town’s limits, and he had gone out and looked them over. The fighter, himself, this Gentleman Harry Ford, sat eating an apple as calmly as a horse while his manager scurried about directing the local men he’d hired to put up the tent, his face red as the apple his fighter was eating.

  Chalk warned them both not to skin the locals and that he expected everything to be on the up and up. Sure, sure, the little man said. “My boy’s a pro. We don’t need to skin nobody.”

  Chalk told them both he’d be at the fight keeping an eye on things, and the little man did not object, but seemed rather pleased that the local law itself would be in attendance and said, “I don’t suppose you’d be putting up the dukes with the Gentleman here?”

  “No,” said Chalk. “I only fight when it is necessary and not for the sport of it,” and went home with his mind still troubled about what had happened earlier in the day when the two punchers had ridden out from Johnny Waco’s with the letter of demand that said he had till Friday to make it happen. The letter fully stated what the consequences for him and the town were if he failed to deliver. They were dusty, horse-smelling punchers, the sort he was more used to arresting and throwing in jail for drunk and disorderly than from taking any sort of orders from. But they were fully aware of their own immunity, being the hires of Johnny Waco.

  So he went down the night of the fight to watch the stranger, to see if his backbone and fists matched the rest of his confident manner, and placed a ten dollar side bet on him, believing himself a better judge of the human character than most. Then he stood and watched as the Gentleman quickly dispatched his first half-dozen opponents, if they could even be called that, with professional ease and blows that struck the unschooled like hammers.

  Then the stranger got into the ring and it was a different story, and Chalk felt vindicated and blessed all at the same time when he saw the stranger was no stranger to using his fists and nerve, and he went home that evening feeling the slightest ray of hope in an otherwise dark world.

  Chalk convinced himself that the stranger had arrived when he did for a reason. What else could explain it? Chalk Bronson was not a God-fearing man in the normal sense, but he didn’t disbelieve in good fortune either. He believed it was more than just dumb luck that had thus far kept him from getting assassinated in a profession where assassination was not uncommon.

  And so he had approached the stranger after the fight and offered to buy him a celebratory drink and then lay out his proposal.

  The stranger listened as Chalk told him the deal.

  The stranger listened with interest.

  “A job’s a job,” he said to the stranger.

  “No it isn’t—not always.”

  “You need money, I’m offering you a good bit of money. More than you can make prizefighting or doing anything else this little burg has to offer.”

  For Chalk Bronson knew one thing that was common to most men—money, and that everyone had a price. All you had to do was learn what their price was.

  The stranger didn’t seem to be any different in that way.

  Chapter Four

  The barkeep chipped me off a chunk of ice from a block he kept out back to keep his beer barrels cold and put it in a cloth and I held it against my face.

  “You knocked that sucker out like you owned him,” he said.

  “Trick is to keep moving and keep throwing punches,” I said. “Some days you get lucky.”

  Marshal Bronson stood sipping his coffee and listening.

  “You said you had something you wanted to discuss with me,” I said.

  �
��You found work yet?”

  “Yes, I think so. Pink Huston offered me a bouncer job at his hog farm.”

  “Let’s set over there,” he said, pointing with his chin to an empty table.

  We carried our drinks over and set down and he took off his derby and set it on the empty seat between us and I could see he was losing his hair though still a young man, younger than me, I guessed, by a few years.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I need me a man to do me a special ser vice.”

  “What sort of ser vice?”

  His eyes glanced up toward the bar and then around the room—the place was nearly full that hour, men still talking about the prizefight, working girls, horses, their wives, the weather.

  “What I’m going to tell you, you need to keep to yourself. Can I trust you on that regard?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He reached in his waistcoat pocket, took out a folded piece of paper and unfolded it and said, “You learn to read somewhere along the line, did you?”

  It wasn’t an insult the way I saw it, just a legitimate question. Lots of fellows dropped out of school before they learned to read, and some never went.

  “This arrived yesterday in the noon mail,” he said.

  I read what was written:

  You have one week to return my Antonia or I will come with plenty enough men and burn your town and kill anyone who tries to stop me. J.W.

  “Who is she?” I asked. “Who’s he?”

  “He is Johnny Waco—biggest damn rancher in this part of the state. She is his wife and currently an employee of Pink Huston—your future employer.”

  “Why doesn’t he just come and get her, he wants her back?”

  “Long story,” he said. “Just that it is my town and I’m responsible for seeing it doesn’t get burned down. It’s what I get paid to do.”