Quiet Town

by J. T. Edson

Without another look at the man Dusty went on up the stairs. The bouncer turned, his hand going towards his gun. Doc Leroy came gliding in, his boneless-looking right hand making a flicker of movement as his Colt cleared leather, rose then thudded down on to the bouncer’s close cropped head. The man went down as if he was boned and in the same move Doc came round, his gun swinging in an arc which froze the hostile moves contemplated. Bearcat Annie’s men halted their course of action. They had seen the speed and the way this pallid, studious-looking young man drew and handled his gun. He might not look much but he was the peer of any man in the room.

  Dusty carried on up the stairs, ignoring what was happening behind him. He knew Doc Leroy was behind him and was confident in the slim cowhand. That left Dusty free to give, his full attention to the man at the top of the stairs. The bouncer watched Dusty and, lifting his foot, tried to stamp at Dusty’s head. Then he yelled, two hands caught his ankle, his leg jerked up, twisting it. He yelled again, lost his balance, hitting the banister and going over. Dusty gave no thought to the man, not even looking as the bouncer crashed to the floor below and lay writhing in agony, his leg broken. It was hard and savage but Dusty knew that in a town like this the law must be as tough if not tougher than the other side.

  “Where was the shooting?” he asked, seeing the respect in the eyes of onlookers as they moved back to allow him passage.

  Bearcat Annie stood watching Dusty go towards the room where the shooting happened. Then she looked at Doc Leroy who was standing with his gun back in leather again. “You boy badges are starting to rile me,” she snapped. “You won’t be so uppy if I have the boys throw you out.”

  “That’s right, ma’am.” Doc’s voice was mild. “I wouldn’t. But do you reckon your boys could do it—before I send a couple of forty-four balls through that fancy ole chandelier up there?”

  The blonde woman’s eyes left Doc Leroy and went to the magnificent crystal chandelier in the centre of the room. It was her pride and joy, the finest of its kind in Montana. She thought of what a couple of .44 would do to it and of how fast he could draw his gun. She might get her men to try to throw him out. However she knew that not one of them could move fast enough to stop him sending lead into the chandelier and bring it down in a shattered mass.

  Dusty opened the door of the room and entered. Some ten or so men were standing around one side of the long table in the centre of the room. On the other side facing them was a tall, lithe gambler with a keen, tanned face that was at odds with his profession. On the vingt-et-un layout, near his right hand, lay a Colt Army revolver. At the right of the table, face down and still, lay the body of a short, heavily-built man, a Smith and Wesson revolver clutched in his right hand, a pair of glasses by his side. There was not a mark on the man to show how he came to die.

  “Tell it, one of you!” Dusty ordered, glancing at the window behind the gambler and the star-shaped hole where a bullet went through.

  “He lost some,” the gambler replied, indicating the body. “Was a poor loser. Started yelling that the deck was marked and went for his gun. Got off a shot and missed. I didn’t.”

  “That’s right, marshal,” a storekeeper who Dusty knew slightly agreed. “This’s Frank Derringer, he’s a straight gambler.”

  “Call my deputy up here,” Dusty ordered, looking at the small, light calibre Smith and Wesson then at the Army Colt. His eyes went to Derringer as a man left to carry out his orders. “Open your coat, Mr. Derringer.”

  The gambler opened his coat. He did not wear a gunbelt but under his arm was a device Dusty knew of although this was the first he had seen. The shoulder clip was made on a leather harness and with two U-shaped metal clips which would hold the chamber and the barrel of the gun. One glance told Dusty the clip was made for the Army Colt. Also that the harness would not fit the other man, so Derringer could not have changed weapons.

  Doc Leroy came in, followed by Bearcat Annie. The woman looked around then snapped, “Keep your mouth shut, Frank. I’ll get a lawyer here.”

  Dusty ignored her, pointing to the blue backed deck of cards on the table. “Check the cards, Doc.”

  “I run a straight game here, Marshal!” Bearcat Annie objected and there was no doubting her sincerity for once.

  Ignoring her, Doc took up the cards, holding them to the light and looking at the backs. He tossed three cards on to the table by Dusty’s hand. “They’re marked. Look at the centre, the ink’s darker there. It’s real hard to see unless you look real careful.”

  Taking up the cards Dusty examined them. At first he could see nothing, then he made out the slight darkening in the centre. A man would have to be real keen eyed to see those marks unless he knew where to look.

  “That’s what they call daubing, isn’t it?” Dusty inquired. “Hold out your hands, mister.”

  Obediently Derringer held out his hands, showing the fingers for, although he was honest, he knew how daubing was done. He also knew how easy a dauber could be identified. Dusty glanced at the thumbs, they were clean and unmarked so he went and rolled the body over, glancing at the bullet hole in the chest. Then he turned the left hand, on the thumb was a faint blue stain. Doc Leroy picked up the glasses, the lens were powerful, too powerful for any normal use. Handing the glasses to Dusty he pulled the man’s waistbelt and exposed a thimble-sized metal pot filled with a thick blue paste.

  “This’s the dauber, Dusty,” Doc said and went on to the gambler, “Reckon I was wrong about you, mister. I’d heard that Smith & Wesson go off first and when I saw the bullet hadn’t gone through this hombre I figured you’d swapped guns with him afore we got here so it’d look like he started throwing the lead.”

  “So did I, at first,” Dusty admitted. “Then I figured you’d not be using a full powder charge in your Colt, Mr. Derringer.”

  The gambler was at a loss to know what to make of Dusty. When he had seen the arrival of the marshal, Derringer expected either to be thrown in jail or run out of town. He knew his boss was not the best friend Dusty Fog possessed in town and would have expected the Texan to take advantage of this to get back at her. Instead Dusty seemed to have been working just as hard to find him innocent and justified in defending himself. He never loaded his Colt with the full, forty grain charge for use in the confines of the saloon. It would be dangerous to do so for the Colt would throw a bullet clear through a man and still retain enough power to go through the thin partition wall and damage anyone it hit on the other side.

  Bearcat Annie was also surprised by Dusty’s attitude. He turned to her. “I’ll send the undertaker along, ma’am, unless he’s here already. How about your two men?”

  “The doctor’s tending to them. You play some rough, Marshal. We were only funning.”

  “Yes’m. I appreciate a sense of humour. Happen there’s a next time I’ll laugh good and loud. Then I’ll close you up.” Tipping his hat politely as he delivered the warning Dusty walked from the room, followed by Doc.

  Dusty was puzzled by Bearcat Annie’s attitude. The woman might just be trying to prove to him that she could run the town although a woman. There also might be some far more serious and sinister motive behind her actions.

  At the jail Dusty found the cells were being filled up with sleeping drunks, crooked gamblers and various other miscreants. Mark turned as Dusty and Doc came in. “Got one I’d like you to look at, Doc,” he greeted. “Put him in our quarters.”

  Doc and Dusty went into the room at the back and on the bunk lay the man who’d been in the poker game with them earlier. His face was pale and his breathing hardly noticeable; he was stripped of everything.

  “Found him down in the Chinese section,” Mark said as Doc bent to examine the man. “Couple of them were just taking his boots when we arrived. They took off and we lost ‘em. You know what it’s like down there.”

  “He’s been drugged with butyl chloride,” Doe remarked, straightening up. “Be out for some time yet. Keep him warm and he’ll be all right, except for a bad h
ead, come morning.”

  “Butyl chloride?” Dusty asked. “That’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, unless the user knows how much to give and it varies with everyone.”

  “Then we’ve got to get whoever used it. Before they kill someone.”

  Mike, the miner, sat on the bed the following morning, holding his head. He glared at the door of the room wondering what all the noise was about in the passage. Outside, walking along the cell fronts, ratting a tin cup along the bars and giving wild yells, was the Ysabel Kid. Rusty Willis gave willing support and several of the prisoners joined in. It was Dusty Fog’s special cure for drunks. At that hour, in the cold grey light of dawn, all someone who had drunk himself under a table the night before wanted was peace and quiet. The last thing he needed was for his aching head to be assailed by this noise.

  The drunks were trooped out and sat on the bench in the passage, holding their heads. “Breakfast, gents,” Mark Counter announced, entering the room followed by one of Irish Pat’s men carrying a tray.

  Each of the groaning men found a plate placed on their knees and eyes focused on their breakfast. There was a concerted rush for the door for a whisky-aching stomach could not face up even to the sight of cold, unsweetened oatmeal mush.

  Mark watched the men staggering towards the water trough and grinned at his fellow deputies. “Here endeth the first lesson. Herd ‘em back and get this place scrubbed out, then turn them loose.”

  Mike looked up as Dusty Fog came in. “What’s happening. Cap’n?”

  “Just seeing the drunks have some more fun. What happened to you?”

  “That damned chippy!” the miner came to his feet, then realised how he was fixed. “Did they do—.”

  “Who?”

  The miner told his story with many a lurid curse. He had met a pretty young woman in a store and helped carry her parcels back to a small hotel where she was staying. There he had met her brother and been offered a drink. That was the last thing he could remember.

  “We found you on Chinese Street,” Dusty explained. “Reckon they left you up there knowing what’d happen. They figgered the Chinese would strip and rob you. That way you’re not able to prove anything. They get much?”

  “Couple of hundred dollars. I’ll go down there—.”

  “You’ll do nothing. I’ll handle it.” With that Dusty left the room, he sent Mark and Rusty to collect the woman and man from the hotel. They were told to search the room and see if they could find the bottle of butyl chloride. Then he called Doc and gave him orders.

  Mark and Rusty returned with a voluble, protesting man and a soberly dressed, pretty woman. By the time they returned Dusty had arranged for clothes for the miner and brought him in.

  “This them, Mike?”

  “Sure!” The miner growled and lunged forward.

  Mark Counter’s arm shot out, thrusting the man back. Dusty snapped, “That’s enough, Mike. Go get something to eat.”

  Slowly the anger left the miner’s face, he knew that Dusty Fog was going to handle this matter. He also knew if he tried to object he was going to wish he never even thought of it. Without a word he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  “Found this roll of money, two hundred dollars,” Mark said. “We near took the room apart but we didn’t find the butyl.”

  “Then one of them’s got it. Butyl’s hard to come by so they wouldn’t throw it away. We’ll have to search them.”

  The man met Dusty’s eyes, there was triumph in his gaze. The girl, however, moved back, her eyes snapping fire. “You try and search me and I’ll scream this place down.”

  “Reckoned you might at that, ma’am,” Dusty agreed. He saw Doc returning and also saw he’d accomplished his mission. The office door opened and Maggie Bollinger entered, followed by Doc. “Howdy, Mrs. Bollinger. I need a special deputy. Pay’s ten dollars a week. You take on?”

  “Sure,” Maggie looked at the girl and knew what her duties were going to be. “When do I start?”

  “Right now. Take this lady in our room at the back and search her.”

  The young woman started to object but Maggie Bollinger gripped her arm and led her out of the rear door. Dusty took the man and pushed him into the cell lately occupied by the drunks. He searched the man although he knew there was nothing on him. Then from the other room he heard a slap followed by a harder blow and a thud. Leaving the man in the cell Dusty watched the drunks finishing scrubbing the passage floor. Maggie Bollinger came from the room holding a small green bottle, the girl was seated on a bed holding her jaw and crying.

  Dusty went to the rear door and looked out at a small outhouse, a building meant as a grainstore. “Hold the gal here, Maggie. I’m going to get a jail rigged for her.”

  Dusty went back into the office and sent for a carpenter and Cy Bollinger to put bars at the window of the cabin. He then gave the now-sober drunks a warning which they took to heart. On returning to the living quarters, he found Maggie was thinking for herself. Her first prisoner was not in the room, she was scrubbing out her jail.

  Doc Leroy and Rusty Willis managed to hide the admiration they felt at the way Dusty Fog handled every problem which came his way. He appeared to have foreseen and have a solution to whatever came up. They had both expected trouble handling women and neither could have thought out a way to search the girl without laying themselves open to accusations by her. Dusty foresaw this same trouble and met it by bringing in a special deputy who could not only search another woman with impunity but could handle any violent objections to her searching.

  In the days which followed they were to see and marvel still more at the way Dusty Fog handled the town. For a man who claimed that he knew little about being a lawman he made a fair hand at ad libbing his duties. Fights were broken up, the tough men handled by tougher methods. Doc himself inspected a gambling house and his findings closed the place permanently, sending its owner out of town fast. It also served as a warning to the other places, they never could be sure when that slim, pallid young man would make an appearance and uncover things which should have remained hidden from sight.

  The drunks learned their lessons. It was far more pleasant to take less whisky and get aboard one of the wagons arranged by Dusty to tote them back to the mines than suffer the hospitality he offered at the jail.

  In many things he stuck strictly to the letter of the law but one incident showed another facet of his character. It was on the early evening of their sixth day in town. Dusty was just about to send his first couple of deputies out when Maggie Bollinger arrived half carrying, half dragging a pair of dishevelled and dazed-looking young women of the class who could and did dare walk the streets after dark. She shook them into the chairs against the wall and stood between them as they sat crying and holding heads.

  “They were fighting in the street outside the Beaumain Theatre,” Maggie told Dusty. “It’s not the first time that’s happened. I banged their heads together to cool ‘em down and brought ‘em here.”

  “Put them in the women’s cell,” Dusty told her. He watched the girls led out and frowned. The girls worked for the two main brothels of the town, Jenny’s and Big Liz’s place. These two were the only establishments which sent girls on to the streets to raise customers. The Beaumain Theatre was a choice spot and although it had not happened while Dusty was in office, fights were common between the girls for possession of the highly-prized pitch. “Mark, go get Big Liz. Lon, bring Jenny in.”

  Big Liz and Jenny received the news that they were summoned to appear before the Marshal with some trepidation and the same thought in mind. They had heard of the fight and arrest of their girls and expected trouble. There was a group in town called the Civic Improvement Guild whose aim was to close every red light house, and word had it they had seen the Marshal only that morning. With that thought in mind Big Liz pulled on her feather boa and told her bouncer to send her lawyer to the jail. Jenny thought things over for a time, then with a sigh st
uffed a thick wad of notes into her reticule before going to join the dark, dangerous-looking young man who had come to fetch her.

  Dusty sat at his desk and looked at the women as they stood before him. His grey eyes were far from friendly. Neither of the big, buxom women was easily disturbed yet there was something about this small man which made them uneasy. Big Liz looked out of the window in the hope of seeing her lawyer. Jenny opened the strings of her reticule and let the thick wad of money show while pretending to take out her handkerchief.

  “Lon, keep everybody out of here,” Dusty ordered and the Ysabel Kid left the jail, shutting the door behind him. Maggie Bollinger went to stand with her back to the door, hands on hips.

  “I want my lawyer before I say anything,” Big Liz spoke first.

  “You’re not going to say anything, ma’am. I’m doing the talking, so lay back your ears and listen real good. You know why you’re here. Two of your girls were fighting outside the theatre just now. It’s not the first time that’s happened. But it’ll be the last. Seems like they can’t decide who should be there. Nor can you. All right we’ll let you decide. Maggie’s going to take you out into the corral. The one who walks out gets to stay on and use the streets. The other gets out of town.”

  The two women stared at each other then at Dusty. Big Liz’s voice was a worried croak as she said, “You mean fight each other?”

  “Sure, just like your gals have been doing.”

  Once more the two madames looked at each other. The madame of a frontier brothel was of necessity tough, and both these were no exception. They were evenly matched in size and weight and both well versed in every dirty fighting trick. That was the trouble. They were too evenly matched. Neither one was sure of how she would come out of a fight with the other.

  “You can’t do it to us!” Jenny’s voice was more of a whine now.

  “Why not?” Dusty’s voice was hard. “You send your gals out and let them fight.”

  Big Liz licked her lips nervously, Quiet Town was one of the best paying locations she had ever been in and she did not wish to leave. Neither did she wish to take her chance on a fight for she knew that whoever won would be in little better shape than the loser.