Ralph Compton Outlaw Town Read online

  Chancy could have punched him.

  “Which reminds me,” Mayor Broom said. “How many hands are there, exactly? Just so we know.”

  Chancy didn’t see where it mattered much. “Fourteen. And the trail boss and the cook.”

  “So sixteen? That’s good. That’s real good.”

  “How so?” Chancy asked.

  “We wouldn’t want there to be too many for us to handle,” Mayor Broom said, and winked and grinned.

  Chapter 11

  Ollie Teal returned in less than an hour. He wasn’t alone.

  By then Chancy had downed a couple of drinks and was feeling happy with the world and everyone in it. The doves were a delight. They talked and joked and helped him forget the ordeal with Finger. He was so absorbed in his whiskey and the ladies that he didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around him until he happened to glance to the rear at the man at a table by himself.

  It was as if a glass of cold water had been thrown in his face.

  The man radiated menace, like a cougar about to pounce. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat, a black vest, and a black shirt. His hair was black too and hung to his shoulders. His face was downright cruel, with eyes that glittered flint. Above the table poked the pearl handles of matching revolvers worn high in twin holsters. Colts, from the looks of them.

  Chancy paused with his glass almost to his mouth. “Who in the world?” he blurted.

  Mayor Broom had been hovering the whole while, and he quickly stepped in and said, “That there is Ives, the gent I was telling you about.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Chancy saw Della give an involuntary shudder.

  “You can see why we let him keep the peace,” the mayor continued. “You might say he’s our resident gun hand. Although, truth to tell, all the boys are pretty handy with a pistol.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that Chancy realized every man in the place, with the exception of the mayor, was heeled. Even the bartender had a revolver strapped around his waist. Most towns, only some of the men went around armed.

  The mayor saw him looking. “I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Gantry. But look at where we are. Indian Territory, with hostiles everywhere. Outlaws too and ruffians of every stripe, who flock to the territory because there is so little law.” He gestured at the saloon-goers. “To keep trouble at bay, we stay prepared. I’ve personally asked our good citizens to always wear their sidearms. As a precaution, you understand?”

  “Makes sense,” Chancy supposed.

  “It works,” Mayor Broom said. “We haven’t had a lick of trouble. Oh, rough characters wander by now and then, but they think better of acting up and go their merry way.”

  “Or get planted,” Carter said, earning a harsh glance from Broom.

  Chancy had forgotten the man was hanging around. He was about to ask how many men they’d had to plant when the batwings swung open and in strode Lucas Stout with Ollie Teal in tow.

  Chancy set down his drink so fast he sloshed some on his hand. Wiping it on his pants, he went over. “Boss. Finger has been taken care of.”

  “So Ollie told me,” Stout said.

  “I was waiting for you to get here,” Chancy said by way of explaining his presence in the saloon. As it turned out, he was worried over nothing.

  Mayor Broom was coming toward them and offering his pudgy hand. “Mr. Stout, isn’t it? Trail boss for the Flying V, Mr. Gantry has informed me. I can’t tell you how pleased we are that you might bring your herd to our little paradise.”

  “Is that so?” Stout said, shaking hands.

  “Feel free to graze your cattle where you like, and help yourself to the water from our lake. Anything you and your men want, anything at all, you have only to ask and we’ll try our best to accommodate you.”

  “That’s right friendly,” Stout said.

  “Oh, it’s more than that,” Mayor Broom said. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, much of the business we do stems from men like yourself. We don’t have a railhead to offer, as Wichita does. So we offer what little we do have in the hope you’ll be free with your spending.”

  “And fill your pokes while we’re at it.”

  “Our secret is out,” Mayor Broom said, and laughed. “Give us credit for being honest about it.”

  “You’re that,” Lucas Stout said. He scanned the drinkers and the cardplayers and his gaze fixed on the man in black at the far table.

  As usual, Mayor Broom was quick to notice. “That’s Ives. As I’ve explained to Mr. Gantry, he sort of keeps the peace around here. He’s our resident gun hand, as it were.”

  “I have a couple of my own,” Stout said.

  “Oh?”

  The trail boss looked over his shoulder. As if it were a signal, the batwings opened and in sauntered Jelly Varnes. A few steps behind him came Ben Rigenaw.

  Jelly was only a couple of years older than Chancy. A happy-go-lucky sort, he was always smiling. He smiled while he worked. He smiled while he ate. Rumor had it he smiled when he shot someone too. He had a round face, almost babylike, with sparkling blue eyes and hair the same color as Della’s and just as curly. On his hip nestled an ivory-handled, short-barreled Colt with which he was uncommonly proficient.

  In Chancy’s opinion, and that of some of the other hands, Ben Rigenaw was quicker. On a couple of occasions Rigenaw and Jelly had practiced together, shooting at bottles and such, and while Jelly might disagree, it was plain that Rigenaw was a shade faster. Not only that, Chancy always had the impression the older man was holding back.

  Rigenaw was in his thirties. He had brown hair, cut short, and brown eyes that hinted at uncommon depths. He had been a cowboy nearly all his life and had been on several trail drives. His experience with cattle was second only to Lucas Stout’s, and maybe Addison’s. His experience with pistols was second to none. Like Ives, Rigenaw was a two-gun man. They were rare. Most men could draw and shoot with the hand they used most. To do it with two hands, at the same time and with equal accuracy, took special skill. Rigenaw preferred Remingtons with rosewood grips, and he was a wizard with both. His clothes were ordinary cowpoke duds, bought at a general store. His only condescension to fashion was a large silver belt buckle in the shape of a wolf’s head, and tassels that hung from the bottom of his holsters.

  Chancy once asked him about the wolf and Rigenaw replied that he wore the buckle because he used to “howl at the moon when I was younger and dumber.” The holsters with the tassels had been given to him by a “female friend,” which was all Rigenaw would say about it, and no one was about to pry.

  Jelly Varnes stopped next to Lucas Stout and stared at the back table. “Well, lookee there, boys,” he said with his inevitable smile. “A rooster among the hens.”

  “Among what, now?” Mayor Broom said.

  Ives met Jelly’s stare with a quirk of his lips that might pass for a smirk.

  Ben Rigenaw came to a stop on Stout’s other side. He too stared at the man in black.

  Ives lost all interest in Jelly. Focused solely on Rigenaw, he rose, pushing his chair back with his foot. His hands loose at his sides, close to his Colts, he came toward them smiling. But on him the smile was as warm as a frigid blast of Arctic wind.

  “Ives!” Mayor Broom said. “I’d like you to meet Mr. Lucas Stout and some of his cowhands.”

  Up close, the man in black was taller and wider than Chancy had imagined. He didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what Ives said.

  “Welcome to Prosperity, gents. Where only the good die young.”

  Chapter 12

  Mayor Broom uttered a nervous bark. “What kind of thing is that to say to our guests? Be civil, if you please.”

  Ignoring the mayor, Ives stared only at Ben Rigenaw. “Not often I run across any like us.”

  Rigenaw didn’t respond.

&n
bsp; “You ever have a hankering to prove you’re the top of the heap, I’ll be here,” Ives said. He had a low, gravelly voice that made Chancy think of a grizzly hungry for raw meat.

  Again Ben Rigenaw didn’t reply.

  “Enough of that kind of talk,” Mayor Broom said.

  “Wolf got your tongue?” Ives said to Rigenaw, and flicked a finger at Rigenaw’s belt buckle. “Or is it that you don’t stand up for yourself?”

  “When I have to, I do.” Rigenaw broke his silence.

  Jelly Varnes had lost his smile. “What am I? Chopped liver? I stand up for my own self. Ask anyone. Or try me. Anytime.”

  “Listen to you,” Ives said. “You’d be easy to rile.”

  Mayor Broom took half a step between them. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. What’s all this talk of riling? We’re friends here, or we soon will be. Prosperity is nothing if not hospitable, and I hope you give us the chance to prove it.”

  “Hospitable,” Ives said. Another quirk of his mouth, and he touched his hat brim and went on around Ben Rigenaw, nearly brushing against him, and out the batwings.

  “You have to excuse him,” Mayor Broom said. “He’s not as sociable as the rest of us. Some people are that way, I’m afraid.” Broom had the temerity to pluck at Lucas Stout’s sleeve. “Why don’t I treat you to drinks all around and we can become better acquainted?”

  “There will be time for drinks later,” Stout said. “Tonight, after we’ve bedded the herd and set up camp.”

  “Then you’ve made up your mind. Excellent. But why bother with a camp when you can have a roof over your heads?” the mayor said. “We have cabins to spare. Enough for all of you if three or four bunk together.”

  “It would be nice to have a roof for once,” Ollie said hopefully.

  “We stay with the herd, except for Finger and whoever I pick to be with him,” Lucas Stout said.

  “Your man is being well looked after, I assure you,” Mayor Broom said. “Ask Mr. Gantry.”

  Chancy nodded. “The fella who operated on him is keeping a close eye on things.”

  “Even so,” Stout said.

  “Whatever you deem best,” Mayor Broom said. “You’re a cautious man, Mr. Stout. And I don’t blame you, being in charge of a herd and the punchers and all. I have this town to watch out for, so I’m the same way.”

  Chancy smothered a snort. The mayor had all the caution of a patent medicine salesman.

  “We’ll see you later, then,” Lucas Stout said, and wheeling, he strode out with Ben Rigenaw right behind him. Jelly gave the shelves of liquor a longing look and jingled after them.

  “Lucky devil,” Ollie said to Chancy. “Getting to have a drink already.”

  “We’d best catch up,” Chancy said.

  Their boss and the gun hands had stopped past the overhang and were surveying the main and only street.

  “What do you think?” Lucas Stout asked Ben Rigenaw.

  Rigenaw shrugged. “We see his kind everywhere.”

  “Is it bluster or for real?” Stout said.

  “He didn’t strike me as full of hot air,” Rigenaw said. “Reckless neither. We should be all right so long as the mayor keeps him in line.”

  “Should be,” Stout said dubiously.

  “Shucks, boss,” Jelly Varnes said. “He causes any trouble, I’ll deal with him for you.”

  “Not you,” Rigenaw said. “Me.”

  “I’m not no slouch,” Jelly said.

  Stout nipped their disagreement in the bud with “Neither of you is to skin your six-shooter unless I say so or he goes for his mother-of-pearls first. Savvy?”

  “I hope he does,” Jelly said. He gazed past them, and stiffened. “Good Lord. Take a gander at the scarecrow.”

  Laverne Dodger had hobbled out of the stable and was making for the cabin where Finger Howard had been taken. With his scarred face, his missing arm, and his peg leg, the comparison wasn’t unwarranted.

  “He’s the doc,” Chancy said. “His name is Dodger. He got blown up in the war.”

  “He’d give an infant nightmares,” Jelly said.

  “That man saved Finger’s life,” Lucas Stout said. “So I’ll say to you the same thing the mayor said to that Ives. Be civil.”

  “It’s not as if I was going to go over and ask him if he scares babies for a living,” Jelly said.

  “That would be mean,” Ollie said.

  “Although he could likely take over for the bogeyman and make a fortune at it,” Jelly said, and his smile bloomed.

  “Damn you, Varnes. Don’t make me tell you twice,” Stout said.

  Grinning, Jelly held his hands up, palms out. “I’m only joshing. I’ll mind my p’s and q’s like everybody else.”

  “I’ve always wondered about that,” Ollie interjected.

  “About what?” Lucas Stout said.

  “Why only the p’s and the q’s? I never had any schooling, but even I know there’s a whole, what do you call it, alphabet. Why not mind our c’s and our r’s? Or those a’s and those z’s?”

  Lucas Stout sighed and shook his head. “You are a wonderment, Teal.”

  “I am?” Ollie said.

  “Want me to shoot him?” Ben Rigenaw said.

  Chancy laughed mightily.

  “Why waste the lead?” Lucas Stout said, and motioned for them to head up the street.

  Dodger had reached the cabin, seen them coming, and stopped to wait.

  “Are you saying none of you ever thought about that p and q business?” Ollie said.

  “Drop it,” Stout said.

  “Maybe have Chancy shoot him,” Rigenaw said. “Ollie is his pard.”

  “I don’t know how he does it,” Stout said.

  “Who does what?” Ollie said.

  Laverne Dodger acted surprised when Lucas Stout thrust a hand at him and pumped his arm with vigor.

  “Mr. Dodger, I believe it is. I hear I have you to thank for saving Finger Howard. We’re all of us obliged. Anything I can do for you, anything at all that’s in my power, you only have to ask.”

  “That’s decent of you,” Dodger said.

  Stout fished in his pocket and brought out his poke. “How much do we owe you?”

  Dodger hesitated, then said, “Not a cent.”

  “A sawbones always charges.”

  “I’m a stableman,” Dodger said.

  “Who saves lives when he’s not forking hay,” Stout said. “I haven’t been to a doc in ages, but twenty dollars should cover it.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I insist.”

  “I won’t, I say, and don’t try to make me take it.”

  Clearly puzzled, Lucas Stout slid his poke into his pocket. “If thanks is all you want, then it’s thanks you’ll get. But at least let us buy you a drink or three tonight at the saloon.”

  “I will do that,” Dodger said, and opened the cabin door. “After you, gents. If he’s asleep, try not to wake him.”

  Finger Howard was out to the world. The incision was red and puffy, but otherwise the swelling was gone. His color had returned, and he wasn’t sweating nearly as much.

  “My prognosis is a full recovery,” Dodger said as he pulled the blanket to Howard’s chin.

  “How long before he’s back on his feet?” Lucas Stout asked. “Better yet, how long before he can sit a horse?”

  “In a few days he’ll be walking fairly fine,” Dodger said. “I’d give him a week, though, before he’s ready to do any riding.”

  “We can’t wait around that long.”

  Laverne Dodger said a strange thing. “It’s for the best that you don’t.”

  Chapter 13

  After a spectacular sunset, Prosperity turned into a rip-roarer.

  Every man in town, or so the mayor mentioned, ma
de a beeline for the saloon. Chancy reckoned there were close to forty. Add to that the seven trail hands Lucas Stout let come in—the rest had to stay with the herd—as well as the cook, and the saloon was jammed.

  Then there were the women. Della and Margie weren’t the only doves who worked there. An older gal called Cora joined them. So did a vision of loveliness by the name of Missy Burke.

  Missy was the youngest of the doves, the same age as Chancy and Ollie, with lustrous chestnut hair that fell in waves past her shoulders, a face an angel would envy, and a figure that took a man’s breath away. At least it took Chancy’s. Her face was exquisite: oval, with a smooth complexion, dazzling green eyes, and lips as full as ripe strawberries. When she smiled, he would swear her teeth gleamed.

  Chancy was pouring himself a drink when Cora and Missy came in through the back, and his mouth dropped. He couldn’t take his eyes off Missy. Moving as gracefully as a swan, she smiled and nodded at men she knew, and received a hug from Della, who squealed, “Missy Burke! Where have you been all day?”

  Someone nudged Chancy’s elbow and Ollie snickered and said, “You catching flies?”

  “Don’t you see her?” Chancy blurted.

  Ollie looked over. “Which one?”

  “Are you blind?” Chancy said. “The young one in the blue dress.”

  “She’s all right.”

  Chancy tore his gaze from the ravishing embodiment of womanhood. “All right? She’s more than all right. She’s the prettiest girl I ever saw.”

  “And you’re not even drunk yet,” Ollie teased.

  Chancy finished pouring and took a gulp. He savored the taste and the warmth, but they were nothing compared to the feeling that had come over him. He imagined himself going over and taking her hand and introducing himself, imagined spending the evening with her, and many more evenings besides. She was so beautiful any man would be happy to be in her company. “I bet she’s married.”

  “Huh?” Ollie said.

  “A girl as pretty as her, she has to be hitched.”