by J. T. Edson
Unaware of what was taking place outside, Johnny gazed about him as he strolled in a seemingly nonchalant fashion towards the railroad workers. Knowing the employees of the saloon were sufficiently experienced to expect trouble to erupt, he was not surprised to see the precautions they were taking. Working swiftly, while the bartenders removed bottles from the shelves and dropped sliding wooden shields over the mirror beyond the counter, the girls and waiters gathered the glassware from the tables to be taken to safety. Therefore, the red head gave the majority of his attention to the forthcoming opposition. Studying them, he selected the largest as their most likely leader.
‘This here’s a gandy dancer’s house, beef-head,’ announced the man picked out by Johnny, his voice having a pronounced Irish brogue.
‘I didn’t know that,’ the redhead replied, with what sounded like meek puzzlement. ‘There isn’t any railroad lamp hanging outside.’
‘That’s only ’cause Cousin Seamus here hasn’t got around to fixing it yet,’ the spokesman claimed, indicating a smaller and equally Celtic looking member of his party who was holding the item in question. ‘But the intent’s as good as the deed, so it’s getting the hell out of here all you beef-heads’ll have to be.’
‘I can’t take the boys out just yet,’ Johnny declared, but with well simulated apologetic tones, indicating what a Texan generally considered to be undressed hips. ‘My gunbelt’s behind the bar and, as I’m buying it on time, I’ll have to fetch it afore we hit the trail.’
‘Then go and get it,’ the spokesman authorized, showing more disappointment than satisfaction at the apparent acquiescence. ‘Let him through there, gentlemen.’
‘There you are, Raybold!’ Crayne called, passing through the batwing doors at the forefront of the Easterners as the red head was allowed to join the other trail hands at the counter. ‘I expected to find you loafers idling somewhere like this. Let’s be having you outside to fetch our baggage from the hotel!’
‘Now just a little minute there!’ the biggest gandy dancer protested, eyeing the newcomers with open disdain. Having been raised in a much poorer section of Boston, he had developed an antipathy, exceeding what he felt for Texans, where such seemingly arrogant young members of that city’s wealthy society were concerned. ‘These gentlemen—!’
‘I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of things which don’t concern you!’ Crayne snapped, having deduced the background of the man he was addressing and concluding how best to bring about the development he wanted. Continuing to model his demeanor upon those members of his own class for whom he too felt considerable animosity, he went on, ‘And I’ve no time to bandy words with menials!’
‘Menials, is it?’ the burly gandy dancer inquired menacingly, striding forward until he and the young Bostonian halted at just over arms’ length. ‘Sure and seeing’s that what you think we are, would yez honor be wanting me to doff me hat to you?’
‘It would be appropriate,’ Crayne asserted, seeming to be expecting some such humble response. ‘And I’m pleased to see you know your place in the presence of your betters.’
‘That I do, your honor, that I do!’ the gandy dancer replied, knotting and swinging around his massive right fist as he was uttering the repetition of the first three words.
Ten – Get Her Done, Wedge
Expecting to elicit some form of hostile response from the burly gandy dancer, Geoffrey Crayne was ready and well able to counter the method employed. Amongst his other sporting activities, he had acquired proficiency in the fast developing style of boxing which relied upon skill at evading as well as delivering blows rather than the toe-to-toe slugging of bare-knuckled pugilism. Therefore, the reaction of his would-be assailant was ‘telegraphed’ to his alert and trained senses.
Ducking as he had been taught beneath the powerful, yet comparatively slow blow, the young Bostonian straightened as it went harmlessly past. Coming up, he sent a left cross to the chin. Swiftly though this moved, it had considerable power behind it. Caught as unexpectedly as he had believed his intended victim would be, the spokesman for the railroad workers was sent staggering a few paces. However, he kept his feet and showed no signs of being seriously affected by the punch he had taken.
‘Yeeah!’ Crayne whooped, giving an excellent rendition of the traditional Rebel yell, as he struck the blow. Then, trying adequately to sound like a true son of the Lone Star State, he went on in ringing tones, ‘Show these Yankee rust-eaters whose place they’re in, amigos!’
Having had their interest diverted by the entrance of the young Easterners, the rest of the gandy dancers had taken their attention from the Wedge trail hands at the counter. They had shared Crayne’s summation of how their leader would behave on being addressed in such an overbearing fashion, but were surprised at seeing how his attempt to object physically turned out. In spite of this, noticing the change which came into the newcomer’s accent and knowing Texans often appeared in something more fancy than the usual cowhand style clothing when celebrating, they drew the conclusion he hoped they would from his yelled out suggestion. Watching their response, the Bostonian hoped that the men his party had come to assist would prove equally perceptive.
Noticing the newcomers had removed and left behind their jackets, Johnny Raybold had guessed the reason immediately. However, there was no time for him to explain the situation to his companions. Nor did he consider there was any need. He felt sure that as Rusty Willis, Silent Churchman and Peaceful Gunn were aware he had gone to meet the Easterners they were to teach trail driving, they were shrewd enough to match his summations and realize they had allies close at hand. With that in mind, he responded to the exhortation from Crayne.
‘Yeeah! Let’s get her done, Wedge!’
Yelling his acknowledgement, the red head pushed himself from the bar. Going for the three nearest gandy dancers as they were returning their diverted attention to his group, he swung both arms upwards and out. Receiving the backhand punches, the men at the right and left of the trio were spun around. However, before the third could be dealt with, he responded swiftly to the threat. Driven back against the counter by a right to the jaw, seeing his amigos were justifying his faith in their acumen, Johnny brought up and thrust away his attacker with a foot to the chest. By that time, everybody on both sides was either involved or about to be.
In spite of his frequent declarations of possessing a most pacific nature and a desire to avoid trouble wherever possible, Peaceful Gunn was the second of the Wedge into action by a slight margin. Even as Johnny was backhanding the first two, he was advancing to drive a punch into the somewhat Slavic features of the gandy dancer directly in front of him. Although his victim was sent staggering, he was tackled around the shoulders by a Germanic-looking man.
While Rusty Willis was pitching into a railroad worker at the other edge of the group, Silent Churchman too was showing his mettle in no uncertain fashion. Ducking his head, he hurtled forward to butt the chest of the largest of the gandy dancers in front of him. As the man was driven backwards, instead of seeking somebody closer to his own size, he turned upon the second biggest. He was less successful this time. Being grabbed by the front of his vest, he was lifted from the floor and received a surging heave which sent him across the room. However, rebounding from the wall into which he was thrown, he charged over to bound on to the back of the nearest member of the opposition.
At the edge of his party, despite the heavy metal railroad lamp offering a potentially effective weapon, ‘Cousin Seamus’ did not offer to use it in such a capacity. Instead, he handed it to a waiter who was hurrying by to escape being caught in the forthcoming hostilities. He asked for it to be put somewhere safe until the Texans had been taught a lesson and it could be hung outside as a warning to others of their kind. Relieved of it, showing a disregard for his size similar to that of Silent, he rushed at the second tallest of the young Easterners who—taking their lead from Crayne—were plunging eagerly into the fray.
For their
part, Crayne and his companions soon showed they would prove an asset, not a liability, to the Texans. All were keen participants in various rugged types of sport and, as a result of inter-collegiate confrontations, not entirely unused to engaging in fracas of this kind. With one exception, they displayed roughhouse as well as more scientific fistic skill.
The exception had only just returned from five years spent in China where he had become attracted by and received instruction in what he considered the most effective fighting art of that country. Bringing up his hands in the accepted open, finger crooked fashion, he started to almost dance around as he had been taught was the correct preliminary for an attack. He found the subject of his attentions was far less stricken by awe than the opponents of his bald headed Oriental monk teachers. Watching him with frank puzzlement for a few seconds, instead of being too impressed to respond, the gandy dancer he had selected as a victim picked up a chair and crashed it against his side. Struck while one leg was raised in a particularly fancy piece of footwork, he was precipitated against a wall and dropped winded to the floor. He was saved from further attack by another Easterner, employing less flamboyant methods, who took on his assailant.
Probably none of the other combatants had noticed it, but the action of ‘Cousin Seamus’ in giving up the railroad lamp set the tone for the rapidly spreading fight. While everybody was soon going at it with vigor and determination, there was no out and out viciousness being displayed. Rather they all seemed to be reveling in the opportunity to let off steam and test the mettle of such worthy antagonists. Even the leader of the gandy dancers, whose treatment might have seemed most likely to cause animosity, did no more than bellow, ‘So you tricked me, did you, beef-head!’ more in admiration than anger before rushing at Crayne.
Fists were flying with varying degrees of skill, feet were lashing out, primitive and more expert wrestling was being employed, but clearly without any desire to inflict serious injury. Even, as first happened to the would-be exponent of kung fu, the use of chairs as extemporized clubs was not especially dangerous. Like most saloons in towns where the gathering of different working groups made such confrontations likely to take place, the furnishings while strong enough to stand up to normal use, were not sufficiently sturdy to be effective weapons. Furthermore, due to the staff taking the precaution of removing all the glassware on seeing trouble was likely to occur, there was no danger of anybody being cut as a result of deliberate or accidental breakage. Heaved over the bar, although there were a couple of heavy bung-starters within easy reaching distance as he got up, Silent Churchman did not attempt to arm himself with one before climbing on top and hurling himself back into the fray.
For all the abandon with which they were going at it, the combatants took care to confine the fighting to themselves. Brawling spiritedly, Rusty Willis found they were approaching a saloon girl trying to join her companions on the stairs leading to the first floor. Separating, they allowed her to pass between them and only resumed their interrupted efforts after she was safely by. Elsewhere, sent reeling against somebody, ‘Cousin Seamus’ spun around ready to defend himself from what he expected to be another assailant. Finding he had collided with a waiter, he held back the punch he was about to deliver and spun around in search of a legitimate foe.
Although eager to watch what happened in the barroom, Ginger did not stay by the front entrance. Gathering up the jackets left in her care, she carried them along the sidewalk until she was able to watch through the window. Her decision to move had not been caused by wishing to avoid the people who, having heard the commotion, were coming to be spectators. Knowing the floor manager had sent a bartender to warn whoever was on duty at the office of the town marshal that trouble seemed likely, past experience had suggested to her what action would be taken. Although Dusty Fog had never claimed to be its originator, a method he had employed to end a similar brawl was still put into effect by the local peace officers.
Not long after the girl had attained her new point of vantage, still holding the jackets and Johnny Raybold’s gunbelt to save them being stepped upon by the other spectators who gathered about her, the event she had anticipated took place. Called out by a deputy marshal, the members of the Volunteer Fire department who were on watch knew what was expected of them. Even though they were not being required to deal with a conflagration threatening lives and property, they responded with commendable alacrity. The speed with which the two horse drawn appliances arrived was testimony to their high standard of training acquired at the instigation of Mayor Freddie Woods as their respected Honorary Chief.
Hardly waiting for the vehicles to be brought to a complete halt, each captain began to run out his hose and make for the batwing doors. Behind them, joined by members of the crowd, the crews took hold of the handles on the sides of the large storage tanks. On command, these were worked alternately up and down to send the contents through the pulsating canvas tubes. While less powerful than would have been the case if the main steam-engined appliance had been employed, the manually ejected water was sent out with considerable force to spray over the fighting men. Even those who were not swept from their feet by the deluge quickly lost aggressive tendencies on being soaked to the skin.
‘Calf rope!’ Johnny Raybold spluttered, giving the traditional cowhand declaration of surrender. ‘I don’t even like water to drink!’
‘Turn it off!’ the leader of the gandy dancers supported, just as loudly. ‘It’s peaceful we’ll be!’
‘Sure and isn’t that the pity’s shame,’ demanded ‘Cousin Seamus’ of Silent Chruchman, who he had found to be a more than adequate adversary of his own dimensions, as they struggled in sitting postures from being washed off their feet. ‘Can’t a bunch of gentlemen be having a quiet and friendly little discussion without some spalpeen sneaking up and squirting water over ’em?’
‘These trail end town knob-heads’s all spoilsports,’ the Texan replied, in a similarly aggrieved tone. ‘Anways, seeing’s they ain’t going to let us go on with our—talk— happen they’ll let us set each other up a drink.’
‘Roll out! Roll out! Roll out! If quality folks like me ’n’ Joseph Henery there can’t sleep, ain’t nobody at-all, not even good ole General Sammy-well Houston his-self happen he was to hand, got the right to lie a-snoring!’
‘Come on now! Come on now! Come on now! Let’s see you-all rolling out from them blankets and suggans, blast your cow-punching hides. The sun’s so high, it’s like’ to burn your eyes out ’n’ half the day’s gone already!’
Standing near the lowered and supported tailgate of the chuck wagon which was his pride and joy, William Randolph ‘Chow’ Willicka, cook of the Wedge trail crew, was supplying an accompaniment to the words he was bellowing in a seemingly irate Texan drawl by banging vigorously on the bottom of a frying pan with a butcher’s sharpening steel. Short and wiry of build, he was bare headed and had thinning gray hair. However, while there was grizzled stubble on his leathery brown features, it was only an overnight growth, and otherwise his appearance and attire was clean. His attire was that of a working cowhand, but the white apron he had about his midsection proclaimed his true vocation. There was much about the way in which he bore himself reminiscent of an aged, yet still feisty fighting cock.
The vocal support for Chow’s tirade was coming from the rear of a similar type of vehicle at the opposite side of a fair sized campfire. Joseph Henry Abrahams, whose accent was also that of a Texan was adding to the cacophony by clashing together the bases of two baking pans. Bigger, burlier, with a stature closer to the traditional lines of a cook, he was perhaps half the age of the other noise maker, from whom he had learned his duties. Knowing him to be competent, trustworthy and discreet, Stone Hart had recommended to Walter Johnson that he be hired to take care of feeding the Easterners when they parted company with the Wedge.
‘Coffee’s boiling and grub’s a-waiting!’ the pair continued in unison, paying not the slightest attention to the protests from the men
they were waking up. Laying aside the utensils with which they had added to the commotion, they went on shouting as they made their way to where everything was prepared to serve breakfast. ‘Come and get it! Come and get it! Come and get it, afore we throws it out for some other hawgs!’
The time was four o’clock in the morning and, regardless of the claim made by ‘Joseph Henery’, the sun was only just starting to raise its first red glow of the day above the eastern horizon.
Disturbed like everybody else in the camp, except those few whose duties were preventing them from sleeping, Johnson threw off the covers and swung his legs to hoist himself into a sitting position on the folding camp bed he had bought in Mulrooney. On account of his age, which was exceeded only by that of Chow Willicka, he alone was not expected to spend the night—as the Texans expressed it—with the ground for a mattress and the sky for a roof. Instead, he was granted the privilege of occupying the third of the four vehicles—two of which he had purchased under the guidance of Stone Hart—prior to setting out forming a rough square and serving as a partial windbreak for the fire upon which the cooks had prepared the previous evening’s and this morning’s meal.
Almost three weeks had gone by since the New Englander had sought to distract Dusty Fog and Town Marshal Kail Beauregard in the Fair Lady Saloon. To his way of thinking despite the potential danger caused by the abortive attempt to kill the small Texan and the Ysabel Kid, everything was progressing in a most satisfactory manner. While the death of the four young Indians had caused for some revision to the scheme, this had been accomplished without difficulty. Furthermore, he considered the way in which one of them died had produced a beneficial effect for him.
On hearing of ‘Ivan Boski’s’ body having been discovered in the charred ruins of the Grimsdyke Temperance Hotel, Kevin Roddy and Francis Morrell had guessed this was not the result of an accident. Johnson had been too distrusting to admit openly he was responsible, but had pointed out the law would consider them to be his accessories if Beauregard tried to prove he was responsible. The supposition that the man they had regarded as nothing more than a petty criminal, employed to supply knowledge which they lacked, could have committed murder and arson brought a satisfying change in their attitude towards him. Realizing they were dealing with somebody who not only faced the death penalty if their belief was correct, but was able to make them to share his fate, there had no longer been any doubt that he was running things. Instead of the earlier arguments, they had yielded without question to his every proposal.
