Ralph Compton Outlaw Town Read online

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” Dodger said sourly. “I need four men to hold him. The cowboy here and three others.”

  “Surely you don’t expect me to take a part?” Mayor Broom said.

  “This was your idea.”

  “Yes, but,” Mayor Broom said, and didn’t go on.

  Chancy kneeled beside Finger Howard and put his hand on Finger’s shoulder. Finger didn’t open his eyes. Chancy gently shook him, but Finger didn’t move. “Something’s wrong.”

  “He’s in the final stages,” Dodger said. “There’s still hope. If the worm, as your simpleton partner called it, hasn’t burst. If the poison hasn’t spread through his system. If he’s strong enough to handle the surgery.”

  “If, if, if,” Chancy said.

  “I know,” Dodger said.

  Outside, voices were raised, and the onlookers parted to admit a man carrying an armful of towels. None were folded. It looked as if he had scooped them up from wherever he found them. The man himself was as untidy as the towels. His clothes were rumpled, the hair that hung from under his hat stringy, his face grimy. “I found some, Broom,” he said.

  “That’s Mayor Broom to you, Carter,” Broom replied. “I’ll thank you to remember that.”

  Carter looked at Chancy and at Finger. “Sure thing. Mayor Broom, it is.” He let the towels fall at the mayor’s feet.

  Dodger picked one up and frowned at a brown stain. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that they should be clean?”

  “It’s the best I could do,” Carter said. “Who keeps a clean towel around anyhow?”

  Chancy saw his point. The cowhands on the trail seldom washed their towels. For that matter, they seldom used any.

  “These will have to do,” Mayor Broom said.

  Another commotion outside resulted in another man entering. He was toting a large pot by the handle with both hands, and didn’t look happy. He had to be in his forties, with gray at the temples, and wore a Smith & Wesson on his left hip, rigged for a cross draw. He was cursing and loudly declared, “Watch out! This damn thing is hot!”

  Chancy had to move out of the way as the newcomer set the pot down much too hard, and water splashed every which way. A few drops splattered on Finger’s arm, and he groaned.

  “That was dumb,” Chancy said.

  The newcomer’s dark eyes flashed with anger and he snapped, “What did you just call me?”

  “You got some on my friend,” Chancy said. “You’re too careless by half, mister.”

  “I will gun you where you stand,” the man said, coiling as if to draw.

  “No,” Mayor Broom said. “You won’t. Simmer down, Reid.”

  “You heard him,” Reid snarled. “He called me dumb.”

  “No. He said what you did is dumb. He called you careless and he’s right. You are.” Mayor Broom became stern. “And you will simmer down or I’ll send for Ives. Would you like that?”

  At the mention of the name, Ira Reid slowly let his body relax. Shaking his head, he said, “No need for that.”

  “Remember where you are and what this is,” Mayor Broom said. “We have a herd on its way in.”

  “About time,” Reid said.

  “Go outside with the others,” Mayor Broom said, “and behave yourself.”

  “No,” Laverne Dodger said. He was sorting through his scalpels. “I told you I need four men to hold the patient down. You and the cowboy take an arm. Reid and Carter take a leg.”

  “The hell you say,” Reid said.

  “We don’t save him,” Dodger said, “the herd might not come.”

  Chancy didn’t understand why they were so anxious about the cattle. A moment’s reflection, and he reasoned that they must rely heavily on passing herds for their livelihood. He put it from his mind.

  “I can’t believe you want me to lend a hand,” Mayor Broom said.

  “You have to do your part, the same as everybody else,” Dodger said. Shifting on his only heel, he lightly pressed his fingertips to Finger’s belly. “He’s swollen something fierce. When I cut him, the smell will be rank. Just so you know.”

  “I hope I don’t get sick,” Carter said.

  “You do, you turn the other way,” Dodger said. He waggled the scalpel and dubiously remarked, “I haven’t cut on anyone in years.”

  “Let’s hope you haven’t forgotten how,” Mayor Broom said.

  “Amen to that,” Chancy added.

  Chapter 9

  If Chancy lived to be a hundred, it would please him considerably if he never remembered a single minute of the horror that followed. He’d seen badly hurt men before. Like that time a bull gored a puncher. Or the time his cousin fell out of a tree and broke his leg and the shattered bone sliced clear through the skin. Or when a neighbor accidentally cut off a couple of fingers with an ax while chopping wood for the fireplace.

  This was something else, something horrible to witness, something surgeons did all the time but he could never do in a million years.

  Laverne Dodger didn’t waste any time. He took a deep breath and made a swift cut low on Finger’s abdomen. There was a hiss like escaping air, and blood and a vile yellow fluid oozed out.

  “The stink,” Carter said, and made as if to retch.

  “Don’t you dare, damn you,” Dodger said.

  Chancy averted his face. It wasn’t the smell so much as the sight that nauseated him. The sounds were almost as gruesome: bubbling and squishing, and worse.

  “Lord help us,” Mayor Broom gasped. He too had turned his face away, and was pressing his mouth and nose to his sleeve.

  “How long is this going to take?” Reid wanted to know.

  Without looking up, Dodger said, “I have to cut the appendix out, then sew his intestine, then stitch the wound.”

  “How long, damn it?” Reid snapped.

  “A while,” Dodger said.

  Chancy shut his eyes and breathed shallowly and thought of pleasanter times. Of growing up on the farm, of his ma and pa, the best parents a body could ask for. Of his four brothers and three sisters. They were a close-knit family. His whole life until he went off on his own, he’d shared a bedroom with his two older brothers and never minded a bit. Fact was, sleeping in a bunkhouse or out on the prairie with the other hands for company wasn’t much different.

  Chancy remembered the pies his ma used to bake. Cherry was his favorite. She used the tart kind, and they always made his mouth pucker. She also made the best biscuits this side of anywhere. Smeared with butter, they were so soft and delicious they’d melted in his mouth.

  He recollected his first ranch job. How green he’d been. He could ride well enough back then, and he was a passable roper, but when it came to cattle, he hadn’t known as much as he thought he did. Longhorns and dairy cows weren’t the same critters. And going into the brush after a longhorn that didn’t want to be brought out was an education in itself.

  Chancy thought of Felicia, a girl he’d been sweet on. Leaving her had been hard, even after what had happened. He’d courted her, taken her to church socials and the like, and finally mustered the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. It had shocked him clear down to his toes when she informed him she would think about it, and shocked him even more the very next day when she told him marriage was out of the question, then and forever. When he’d asked why, Felicia said her pa didn’t think he’d ever amount to much, and she could do better.

  That she went along with it cleaved his heart in two.

  Chancy never let on, though. He’d looked her in the eye and said that he thought he’d asked for her hand, not her pa’s, and if she’d let her pa run her life, she wasn’t the woman for him anyhow. Walking away had taken every ounce of grit he possessed.

  Since then, Chancy hadn’t given females much thought. As far as he was concerned, he was shed o
f them. Ollie liked to tease him and claim that when the right gal came along, he’d find out it was easier to give whiskey up than it was to give up women.

  That Ollie, Chancy reflected, and inwardly smiled. He would be the first to admit his pard wasn’t the brightest candle on the table, but as friends went, Ollie stuck through thick and thin, and that was what counted. Chancy knew he could rely on him, no matter what.

  Such as that time Chancy dismounted to check for sign and a longhorn came charging out of the brush. It had him dead to rights. But Ollie jabbed his spurs and yipped and hollered and caused it to shear off. When Chancy thanked him for saving his life, Ollie grinned and said, “Shucks. That’s what pards are for.”

  Chancy later repaid the favor with an incident involving a rattlesnake. They’d been out after strays and Ollie’s mount nearly stepped on a rattler. The snake coiled and rattled, and the horse reared. Ollie was thrown. He landed so close to the snake its darting tongue almost touched him. All it would have taken was a flick of the rattler’s head, and its deadly fangs would have sunk into Ollie’s neck. Seeing his pard in peril, Chancy had drawn and fired. He wasn’t much of a shot. Certainly he wasn’t in the same class as Ben Rigenaw or Jelly Varnes. But Lady Luck smiled on him, or maybe she smiled on Ollie, because his desperate shot cored the snake’s tiny brain and it rolled over and showed its belly to the sky.

  Ever since, Ollie was convinced that Chancy was one of the best shots alive. Chancy told him time and again that he couldn’t pull off that shot again if he lived a million years, but Ollie said he was just being modest.

  Chancy recalled their visit to Dallas not long after that. How they’d gone there figuring to have a high old time. Dallas was supposed to be wild and woolly, but if so, that was in the past. It was as peaceful as a spelling bee. They’d made the rounds of a few saloons and turned in before midnight. The only excitement, if you could call it that, was when a woman who looked to be older than his ma approached them and asked if they wanted to treat her to a few drinks and whatever else they might have in mind. Ollie thanked her but said he’d preferred someone with fewer wrinkles. She almost hit him.

  Suddenly Chancy became aware of a hand on his arm.

  “You can let go,” Laverne Dodger said.

  “What?”

  “It’s over.”

  “It’s only been a few minutes.”

  “Hellfire, cowboy,” Dodger said. “I’ve been at it over an hour.” Exhaustion marked his features, and beads of sweat sprinkled his brow.

  Chancy gave a start. He’d been so lost in his memories he’d lost all track of time.

  The others had already risen and stood back. The mayor had his bowler off and was mopping his face with a handkerchief. Reid stood with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. Carter looked green around the gills and was rubbing his stomach.

  As for Finger Howard, he was breathing fine and wasn’t as pale. His belly, Chancy was happy to see, was a lot less swollen. The stitches were neatly done, and except for smears of blood around the incision and a few small scarlet splotches here and there, you could hardly tell he’d been cut.

  “I’ll be switched,” Chancy said in amazement. “You’d have made a great doc, Dodger.”

  “Thanks.” Dodger smiled sheepishly. “I reckon I haven’t lost my touch.”

  Mayor Broom smiled and clapped him on the back. “We are all in your debt, Laverne. This will put us in good with their trail boss, I bet.”

  “Why is that important?” Chancy asked.

  Instead of answering, Mayor Broom said, “We’re looking forward to making his acquaintance. Him and the rest of your outfit. Aren’t we, boys?” He motioned at the men outside, and every last one smiled or nodded.

  Chancy had seldom seen such a friendly bunch.

  Chapter 10

  Under the mayor’s guidance, half a dozen townsmen carefully carried Finger Howard to a nearby cabin and deposited him on a bed.

  Chancy was grateful but couldn’t help remarking, “Whoever lives here won’t mind? We don’t mean to put anyone out.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Mayor Broom assured him. “The folks who live here are gone right now.”

  To Chancy, it didn’t look as if anyone did. Despite the bed and a table and a couple of chairs, the cabin had an empty feel. There wasn’t even a cupboard, or any sign of habitation. Just a lot of dust.

  “Trust me, Mr. Gantry,” Mayor Broom said. “The good people of Prosperity are happy to meet your every need.”

  Dodger had come along, his peg thumbing loudly on the cabin floor. “I’ll check in on your friend regular,” he promised. “To make sure his fever stays down and the swelling goes away.”

  “In fact,” Mayor Broom said to Chancy, “you can stay here yourself. Bring your horse over and make yourself to home.”

  “What I could use right now,” Chancy said, “is a drink.”

  Carter was one of those who had helped bring Finger over, and he grinned and nodded. “Now you’re talking. A bottle would help me forget all the blood and that terrible smell.”

  “You’ll have two drinks at the most, and that’s all,” Mayor Broom said. “You know how you are after a bottle, and we don’t want you misbehaving when our guests arrive, now, do we?”

  Chancy marveled at the mayor’s gall. The man had no right to tell another how much he could drink. He marveled even more at how meekly Carter gave in.

  “Whatever you say, Broom. I reckon I wasn’t thinking. But you know how much I like bug juice.”

  “You’d suck it down from dawn until dusk if you could.”

  “Dusk, hell,” Carter said, and cackled. “I’d suck it down plumb to midnight.”

  Some of the others laughed.

  The mayor led the exodus out. Other onlookers had followed, and he stepped to one side and addressed them all. “Pay attention. I’ll only say this once. We have a herd on the way. The first in a while to stop. I want everyone on their best behavior. Whatever they want, we give them. You’re to be polite and courteous at all times.”

  “Do we lick their boots too?” Reid said.

  “I mean it,” Mayor Broom said. “None of your crustiness or you’ll answer to Ives.”

  Chancy perked his ears. There was that name again. “Who is he? You’ve mentioned him before.”

  “He sort of keeps the peace around here,” Mayor Broom said.

  “Ives is the closest we have to a lawman. You could say he’s our tin star even though he doesn’t actually wear one.”

  That struck Chancy as strange, but then again, “You have a doc who isn’t a doc, and look at how well he does.”

  “Thank you for the praise,” Laverne Dodger said.

  “Exactly my point,” Mayor Broom declared. “We like to keep things informal, Mr. Gantry. To do as the Bible says and love our neighbors.”

  “You’re laying it on too thick,” Reid said. “He can tell just by looking at us that none of us are Bible-thumpers.”

  “I could kick you,” Mayor Broom said angrily. To Chancy he said, “Pay him no mind. Reid was born a grump and his disposition hasn’t improved any since he came out of the womb.”

  Carter erupted in mirth, and Reid glared.

  “Now enough of this,” the mayor said. Coming over, he draped his arm around Chancy’s shoulder. “What say we repair to the saloon and you can have a drink on us and wash down all the trail dust you must have swallowed on your way up from Texas?”

  “Mayor, that’s the best offer I’ve had in a coon’s age,” Chancy said eagerly. He let His Honor usher him down the street. The batwings creaked noisily as they entered.

  Chancy inhaled deeply and smiled. Saloons all smelled the same. The liquor, the cigar smoke, the spittoons, and sometimes, like now, the scent of perfume, were enough to drain his worries away like water down a hole in a barrel. He stopped and drank
it in.

  There was the usual bar, and tables for cards and dice. No piano, though, which was a shame, since Chancy liked music. Several men were ranged along the bar and a few others were playing cards. At the back, at a table by himself, sat another man.

  None of them interested Chancy as much as the two female visions who peeled themselves from the bar and sashayed toward him. “Doves, by golly,” he said in delight.

  “Of course,” Mayor Broom said. “What kind of saloon would it be if there weren’t any?”

  One was a blonde, the other a brunette. The blonde had curls and bright red lips and was plump in the middle and heavy in the thighs, but she had about the nicest smile anywhere. The brunette’s hair hung straight. She was thin and had bumps for breasts, but her legs were long and nice, and she swayed her hips saucily.

  “What have we here?” the blonde said in a sultry voice that tingled Chancy’s spine.

  “Where’d you find this handsome fella?” the brunette said.

  “Ladies, permit me to make the introductions,” Mayor Broom said. “This here is Chancy Gantry, Texas cowboy.” He nodded at the blonde. “Chancy, I’d like you to meet Della Neece. This other gal is Margie.”

  “Margaret Hampton,” the thin dove said. “But I don’t like Margaret. I like Margie better.”

  “A pleasure,” Chancy said.

  “Not yet it’s not,” Della said, taking hold of his arm and playfully snuggling against him. “But it might be later if you play your cards right.”

  Margie took his other arm and giggled in his ear. “We’re friendly as anything once we’ve had enough to drink.”

  Chancy thought he must be dreaming. “A dove on either arm. I must have died and gone to heaven.”

  The ladies laughed and Della gave his arm another squeeze. “Why, listen to you, you silver-tongued devil.”

  “I like a man who flatters a gal,” Margie said.

  Chancy grew warm all over.

  “Ladies, ladies,” Mayor Broom said. “I hate to spoil your fun, but in case you haven’t heard, there’s a herd on the way with a lot of other cowpokes who will want female companionship. Don’t lavish it all on Mr. Gantry.”