The Floating Outfit 46

by J. T. Edson

  Mark Counter watched all this as he sat on the porch of the Casa Grande Hotel and whittled a stick. The crowd passed him by, and none of the whooping, hard-drinking men interfered with him. Only once was it tried. A muleskinner went along to the Casa Grande Hotel to tree Pauline Cushman on her own ground. What Mark did to that man warned off every other. The man was a week before he could walk. When he could, he left town as fast as a good horse could carry him.

  The blood-bay was well enough to travel by then, but Mark stayed on—not meaning to leave until Pauline was back to something like her old self again. All too well, he knew that she could never be the old Pauline Cushman; but she could be better than that hollow shell of a woman hiding away in her room.

  It was a fortnight after the fight and the morning of the dance. Mark Counter walked towards the local store, noting the glances the mothers of grown-up and unmarried daughters gave him. Since word had gone out as to who he was, and that he was the son of one of the richest men in Texas, he had been given plenty of attention.

  The owner of the store—a fat, cheerful-looking man of Germanic origin, who was called Dutchy by most people in town—looked up. He was serving a couple of women; Mark was quite willing to wait—he wanted to buy a couple of new pairs of socks, and was in no hurry.

  Iris Pendleton came in, the heavy Colt bouncing against her leg as she crossed the room and slapped on the counter-top. “Come on here, Dutchy. I’m in a hurry,” she called. “The girls don’t mind waiting. Do you girls?”

  The two women looked up angrily, but neither objected. With a sigh of resignation, the store-keeper turned to Iris. However, she’d seen Mark, and ignored the waiting shopkeeper.

  “Mark,” she said, smiling condescendingly at him. “Didn’t you get my message to come and stay down at my place?”

  “Sure, I got it.”

  “When will you be coming then?” she asked.:

  “I won’t. I like the Casa Grande Hotel.”

  “And old Pauline Cushman?” Iris purred, moving nearer to the tall Texan. “I hear you’ve been seeing a lot of her—and looking after her interests far better than her husband can.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed; he hated to see a nice, friendly young woman like Iris Pendleton so puffed up with conceit that she was spoiling herself. He also did not like her attitude, nor her insinuations.

  “I don’t see any more of Pauline than you used to of her husband.”

  Her eyes snapped angrily at him. “Did Pauline Cushman say that about me?”

  “No. I did. I’ll tell you something; you’re so puffed up with conceit because you licked a woman maybe twenty years older than yourself. Why ten years, or even five, back, she’d have chased you clear out of this town—you and two like you.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that!” Iris hissed, her eyes blazing in fury.

  “Why’d you fight Pauline in the first place?” Mark asked.

  “She called me a whore.”

  “Then don’t act like one.”

  Iris screamed and swung a slap at Mark’s face. Steel-hard fingers caught her wrist before the hand touched flesh. Mark contemptuously shoved her hand away from him and she fell back against the counter. Her hand dropped, fumbling the Colt clear and lifting it.

  Mark moved forward, his hand slapping the gun down, landing on the firm white flesh of her wrist hard enough to make her let the weapon fall. Then he gripped the wrist, sat down and spun her across his knee. His hand rose and fell hard across the tight expanse of frock which covered her rump. Iris struggled, screamed and used some language a polite young lady should not have known existed. However, as the hard hand rose and fell, the angry yells turned to pain-filled sobs and she kicked helplessly over his knee.

  At last, Mark stood the sobbing girl up and shook her, forcing her tear-stained face to look up at his. “Don’t you ever, as long as you live, pull a gun on a man again!” he snapped. “Now, get in the line there, if you want serving. You’re trying to make like you’re another Pauline Cushman. Well, you aren’t, and never can be. Go on, get out of here and try to stop being something you can’t. Folks like you for what you are. They laugh at you when you try to be Pauline Cushman.”

  Iris turned and half-ran from the store, tears falling down her cheeks more from humiliation than from pain. She heard the laughter of the other women of the town, and knew the story would be all round soon. She’d thought they regarded her as they had Pauline Cushman. Now she knew different. Even the men at her hotel thought of her gun-toting as a joke.

  Dutchy Klein sighed as he watched Iris leave the store. He finished serving, then came to Mark, who lounged against the counter.

  “It’s a great pity, Mark. She was a nice young woman before the fight. Sure she was a bit loud. But she’d been widowed and, before that, worked in a dance-hall. I reckon she’d soon have been accepted by the women-folk if she hadn’t licked Pauline Cushman. She changed from that day. It made her swelled-headed: she wouldn’t wait to be served, always pushed in front. Is a great pity. I’m sorry for her.”

  “And me. Maybe she’ll change now.”

  “I hope so. What can I get for you?”

  The dance was not a success. First, the band was not present; and, too late, the committee who were running things realized that no one had told any of the musicians what time they were to arrive, or what to play. Then two of the ladies discovered that neither had ordered the buffet from the Eating House, and there was a mad rush to prepare things. Then, when the guests arrived, the women found still more worry and trouble for themselves. With Pauline Cushman running the dance the local cowhands were always on their best behavior. With her not even present, they came wild and rowdy.

  The first few dances showed the trend; there was wild swinging of partners and horse-play on the floor. Then the band stopped playing in mid-tune, the music dying off as the five pieces of the orchestra saw the men who stood in the door-s way.

  Big Blue grinned around at the startled and worried faces.; His long blacksnake whip exploded in a roaring crack.

  “I’m a ring-tailed ripper and it’s my time to howl!” he screamed, “Anybody who wants good fun, come and follow me.”

  The cowhands—who were no lovers of muleskinners at other times—whooped their approval. This was better than any old dance with a load of lemon-sour-faced women watching your every move. They howled their delight and streamed from the room, following Big Blue and the muleskinners.

  From across the street, Fellowes watched the men streaming out of the church and grinned. Pauline Cushman was going to wish she’d never been borne when Big Bill and his men got through with her. The gambler returned to his saloon and waited until the men came streaming in. Then he roared: “Drink on the house, boys.”

  Fellowes got his first inclination that not only Pauline Cushman would suffer when one of his bar-dogs tried to take pay for the second lot of drinks. The muleskinner roared in rage and dragged the bar-tender over the counter. Another of the muleskinners leapt over and started to pour out liquor, freely and wildly. When one of the bouncers tried to stop this, the crowd went wild. The fight roared through Fellowes’s .45 Saloon, wrecking it and leaving not as much as one unbroken chair.

  Then the drunken mob—for they helped themselves to all they wanted—left and outside looked round. For all he was drunk, Big Blue remembered those cold, contemptuous black eyes facing him and realized that he was not yet ready to face Pauline Cushman. So, at the head of his bunch, he tramped into the next saloon—where the owner, having heard of, and given his unspoken blessing to Fellowes’s plan, welcomed them.

  Never was a town to get such a treeing. It made the efforts of Clay Allison on a rampage look mild and gentle. The crowd went the length of Main Street and hardly left a whole window, yet they steered clear of the Casa Grande Hotel. Big Blue was saving that for his last effort—when he’d worked his mob, and himself, up to the right pitch. So they went on round the town, a wild shouting, reckless mob.

 
; Mark Counter lay on his bed and listened to the noise. He had stayed away from the dance and, after a time, rose to go out along the passage to the head of the staircase. Several townspeople came crowding and more followed. Along the street flames licked up from a building.

  “They’re firing Fellowes’s saloon!” a man yelled.

  More men and women crowded in; the German washerwoman, the madame from the brothel and Iris Pendleton were among the last to arrive. All showed fear and anxiety as they entered.

  “Mr. Counter,” the storekeeper called, as he saw the Texan at the head of the stairs. “Would you please come down here.”

  Mark walked down the stairs, looking round at the crowd and reading the fear in every face. He stepped down to walk across the room, every eye on him.

  “Mr. Counter, we all know you and your reputation. We want you to be our town marshal.”

  “Thank you very much,” Mark replied. He looked round the room. They were all here, the women and the men who had jeered Pauline Cushman as she lay beaten on the ground. “You want me to go out there and face down that mob. That’s what you mean.”

  “You could do it,” a woman spoke up.

  “I might be able to—but I don’t aim to. There is only one way a man could stop that mob out there, and that is to kill some of them. That I don’t aim to do.”

  “We’d pay you well,” a man put in. “They’re running wild out there. All the way along Main Street, there isn’t a whole window. The town will be a wreck—”

  “And why!” Mark ignored the imputation that he sold his guns. “I’ll tell you why. Because a woman was beaten in that corral out there. Not beaten by another woman, but by something she couldn’t lick—time. Pauline Cushman held this town under and made it fit for you to live in. Then, when she got beaten, you didn’t show her any feeling. You yelled for Iris Pendleton there, like she’d done something great. You left Pauline Cushman lying out there like she was the leader of a herd of buffalo after he’s been whipped by a younger bull. Now you’re seeing what it means. Pauline Cushman is the only one in the world who might have held this thing in check, and I wouldn’t blame her if she told you to go to hell. Just like I’m doing.”

  Jere Fryer turned on his heel: he was standing at the end of the room and looking down the street. “They’re gathering.; Big Blue’s talking to them, and he’s pointing down here.” The crowd moved closer together, as if trying to gain more security from the proximity with the others. At the back, Iris Pendleton looked at the German washerwoman, then at the owner of the brothel. She started to speak, but the words choked in her throat. The madame fluffed up her feather boa and nodded. Without needing any telling what the others planned, all three went up the stairs.

  Jere Fryer looked round the room. He went to the bar and took out a box from underneath, removing a Smith & Wesson revolver from it. He broke the gun open and checked on the loads, then looked round.

  “Who’ll come with me?” he asked.

  Not one man in the crowd moved, even his cronies standing fast and immobile. One man spoke up, his voice sullen. “You can’t expect us to go out there and fight them, Jere. We’re not fighting men.”

  “Neither am I.” Fryer looked round at the faces in front of him. “Mark called me a hand-shaker and that about covers me. I was just a shadow living on Pauline Cushman’s reputation. It’s time I tried to live on my own.”

  One of the men who’d been on the balcony stepped from the crowd, went to the bar and took the second Smith & Wesson from the box. “Never want it said Mike Rice won’t back his friend,” he said and walked forward.

  The two men walked towards the door. They were almost at it—and, outside, the rumble and yells of the mob grew louder and louder as Big Blue worked his courage up to make the big plunge that would see if Pauline Cushman really had lost her nerve.

  Mark Counter rose from the chair he’d taken, loosened the matched guns and went forward. He grinned at Fryer, then looked back at the crowd. “I wouldn’t lift a hand for the rest of this town. But I’ll go with you right now.”

  They stepped to the door. Mark looked out to where, in the light of the burning saloon, Big Blue and his men stood in half-decision. Mark glanced at the other two; they were pale but their faces showed determination. However, he thought he’d better give them some advice:

  “When we get out there, you go to the right side of the trail, Mike. You take the left, Jere. I’ll stop in the center. If it comes to talking, let me do it. But, if it comes to shooting, hit the ground and fight from there. Shoot as fast as you can and hug the sidewalk.”

  The men fanned out as they stepped from the hotel; Mike Rice crossing the street, Mark taking the center and Jere Fryer standing at the left. They stood still for a moment, then started to move forward.

  Big Blue saw the men coming towards him. He noted the way the big Texan moved, the way his hands brushed the butts of those guns; and he knew that, whatever was to happen, here was a man who would not back water. Here was the real thing, a two-gun fighting man who knew his business from soda to hock, and was willing to back his play with smoking guns.

  The other men in the crowd knew, too; they were not so drunk that they did not know that they’d carried things as far as possible without shooting. All stood waiting to hear what their self-appointed leader, Big Blue, decided. The muleskinner licked his lips, watching the handsome blond giant halt, hands hanging with fingers slightly flexed and legs braced apart. It was the stance of a skilled gun-fighter and one ready to practice his art.

  “What you want?” the muleskinner asked.

  “Nothing. Just standing here and making sure that you boys don’t come any nearer,” Mark Counter replied.

  “Is that so?” Big Blue snarled. “Did you hear that, boys?” There was an ugly rumble through the crowd and the men started to fan out, ready to advance.

  Pauline Cushman lay on her bed, staring dully at the roof. She saw the leaping light of the flames rolling skywards and heard the howl of the drunken mob. It stirred her no more than the sound of breaking windows, or the fighting. She was too uninterested to care what the men out there did—even if, as she suspected, her own place was to be next.

  There was a knock on the door, and it opened. She came off her bed as the three women came in. She looked at each one—the madame, the washerwoman and Iris Pendleton.

  “Pauline, you’ve got to stop them!” Iris Pendleton was finding what Pauline Cushman knew. That crow is an evil tasting bird to eat. “Only you can.”

  “They haff tore down all mine vashings and dragged them in the dirt,” the big German woman went on. “And, when I tried to stop them, they threatened to burn my home.”

  “They been through my house and took all the gals they wanted. Not one of ’em would pay a dime. Just about wrecked my place,” the madame put in. “And they just about wrecked the rest of the town. Your place is next.”

  “They nearly wrecked mine.” There was grief and pain in Iris Pendleton’s tones: “Look, Pauline, that husband of yours, he never came near me—”

  Pauline Cushman rolled from the bed and stood up; for a moment there was some of the old fire in her eyes. “Don’t lie, Mrs. Pendleton. I know Jere Fryer. He could no more resist hanging round you than a dog round an on-heat bitch. I don’t think much of his taste, nor of yours.”

  Iris hung her head; the pride she’d felt at beating this almost legendary woman was bitter as gall now. She knew that, although she had smashed Pauline Cushman down in physical combat, she would never be the better woman.

  “A man told me that ten years ago, or even five, you’d have beaten me,” she said. “It’s true. I even tried to act like you after our fight. But there is only one Pauline Cushman.”

  “Your husband’s going out there to face that crowd. Him, that Mark Counter and young Mike Rice,” the madame said from the window.

  Pauline pushed by the other woman and looked down into the street. All too well she knew that Jere Fryer was no fighti
ng man, and only a very average performer with a gun. She also knew that no three men could halt that crowd, without shooting and killings.

  “Get my rifle from that cupboard!” it was the Major, Pauline Cushman, the Scout of the Cumberland, talking again. “Move, one of you! Hand me my shoes, Mrs. Soehnen.”

  The other three stood by in silent admiration as the Major pulled on her shoes, then checked the loads in her rifle and strode out of the door. The madame turned and looked Iris up and down. “I hear you’ve got some of her hair hung over your bar. Take it down and burn it—or, by all that’s holy, I’ll come down there and do it myself.”

  “And, if she can’t, I help her,” the washerwoman finished. “You help me collect all the washing. It ain’t been done so good these last few days.”

  Big Blue and his crowd started their advance down the street. Mark Counter stood fast, ready to make his move when it became necessary. He watched the other men coming closer. “That’s far enough!”

  Mark’s words cut like a knife across at the others. Big Blue knew that he’d pushed this as far as he could, without shooting. Then he considered the facts. At his back was a large bunch of men; facing him were two men who weren’t good with guns and one who was probably very good. The odds would never be better in his favor than they were at that moment.

  “Come on, boys!” he yelled.

  “Blue! You dirty mule-ruining, no good rat!”

  Big Blue stopped in his tracks. From the side of a building, into the light of the fire, stepped Pauline Cushman, her Winchester lined full on him. He took an involuntary pace backwards towards the crowd.

  “I heerd you wus done,” he mumbled.

  “You did, did you?” The beautiful black eyes lashed the crowd with scorn. “I know every man of you here. Get off into the brush and sleep this off. Then, tomorrow, I want you all back to clean up the mess you’ve made in town. Understand?”