Calamity jane 7, p.16
Calamity Jane 7, page 16
‘I’m all for folks’s thinks of others,’ the red head asserted, with an even tone which suggesting nothing of the anxiety she was experiencing. ‘Let’s hope Mark Counter and that fat old bitch from the Hide And Horn see it that way.’
‘They will,’ Wardle declared and continued, trying to sound sincere, ‘Now us Regulators’ve got everybody who’d’ve stood by her corralled with Counter and Pockets Hoscroft at the jailhouse, we’re going to leave a buckboard outside the Hide And Horn for her to take Tune Collier to Garnett, where he’ll be safe enough under Sheriff Bowman’s protection, afore Frank Cousins and his gang get here.’
‘She struck me’s being a mighty stubborn old bitch,’ Calamity claimed, struggling inwardly to prevent an increasing rage bursting from her. She knew an appearance of passive acceptance of the situation was required. ‘What if she won’t use it?’
‘Then, no matter what happens, it’s all her doing and none of ours,’ the storekeeper answered. ‘We’re doing all we can to protect the town as a whole and still give her a chance to save herself and Collier.’
‘Come on, Wilb’!’ Stern growled impatiently, ‘Let’s get done what we come for and get the hell out of it.’
‘Are you leaving me here?’ Calamity asked, with well simulated alarm.
‘We ain’t taking you with us, that’s for sure!’ Stern declared, his ego still smarting from the memory of the treatment he had received at the hands of the red head on their first meeting.
‘Oh my good God!’ Calamity gasped, still calling upon all her skill as a poker player to produce the desired effect. ‘Can’t one of you stay with me?’
‘Why?’ Wardle wanted to know, concluding, as she had intended, that the request had been directed at him and not his companion.
‘Cousins might’ve sent word that he’d come in peaceable, should he be given a clear run at Bulldog and the marshal,’ the red head explained, eyeing the storekeeper with what she hoped would be taken for a mixture of pleading and the suggestion of a worthwhile recompense. Glancing pointedly at the bed, she went on, ‘But I’d feel a whole heap happier and safer happen I’d got one of the Tennyson Regulators here to tell any owlhoots that happened by’s I’m in his protection.’
‘You would at that,’ Wardle answered with enthusiasm, running a lasciviously appreciative gaze over the very shapely figure of the girl and thinking that, as neither he nor any of his cronies believed the presentation of the buckboard would help keep alive the objects of Cousins’ wrath, it could prove advantageous to have the cast-iron alibi of being with Calamity Jane when their killing was investigated. ‘In that case, I reckon it’s only right I take care of you myself. You go tell Josh and the boys what I’m doing, Moe.’
‘How about that sick dude and his mother?’ Stern inquired, the son having supposedly contracted a severe attack of the grippe which had been the Front de Boeufs’ excuse for remaining in their rooms since the arrival of their intended victim,
‘Go tell them to keep off the street, no matter what they hear,’ the storekeeper replied. ‘Happen you’re lucky, that right handsome widow-woman might ask if you’ll protect her like I’m going to do Calam.’
‘Sure,’ Stern growled, with a complete lack of hope, and turned reluctantly to leave.
‘Well now,’ Wardle said, after the door had closed behind his departing companion. ‘He’s gone and that leaves only you and me.’
‘Like you say, he’s gone and that leaves only you and me,’ Calamity replied. ‘Only, way you’ve acted towards me since I’ve been in town, I didn’t reckon you liked me.’
‘It wasn’t that!’ the storekeeper asserted, returning his revolver to its holster. ‘I’d heard’s how you and Mark Counter were sort of—friendly—and didn’t reckon you’d want anybody else cutting in.’
‘We was more than just goddamned friendly!’ the red head declared, sounding indignant. ‘Fact being, time was I reckoned I could quit working my butt off driving a freight wagon to live all fat and comfortable as the very rich Mrs. Mark Counter, but he got tied in with that hot-assed she-male owlhoot, Belle Starr, and dropped me flat.’
There was such apparent animosity in the girl’s voice, she might have been serious in her complaint. In fact, she had spoken a certain amount of truth. But regardless of her frequently intimate association with the blond giant, at no time had the possibility of marriage ever entered her head. Nor, although she was aware that he had developed very strong feelings for Belle Starr, had she ever regarded this with a sense of betrayal. Always a realist, she had considered—no matter that the other was a known outlaw—that Belle and Mark were far more suited for matrimony than she and the blond giant would ever be.
‘The dirty dog!’ Wardle said, with what he hoped sounded sincerity. He removed his hood and continued, ‘If there’s one thing riles me, it’s a man who does a woman wrong.’
‘You wouldn’t do it, I can tell,’ Calamity claimed, stepping forward to place her hands behind the neck of the smirking storekeeper.
‘Would I he—!’ Wardle commenced.
Powered by an exceptionally well-muscled right leg, the knee which passed between the thighs of the storekeeper brought the declaration to an abrupt end. Taken in the most vulnerable portion of the masculine anatomy with a far from gentle impact, the sudden and completely unexpected agony rendered him incapable of conscious thought or actions. Torment and nausea caused him to stumble away from the girl and double at the waist. Before he could get far enough away to save himself, she jerked downwards with her hands, and increased the folding motion so she could continue the attack. Bringing up and bending her right leg, she propelled its knee violently against his descending face. Blood sprayed from his crushed and, as it was discovered later, badly broken nose. The hands left his neck and he was thrown over to alight upon his back. In doing so, his head struck the floor with sufficient force to completely render him unconscious.
Bending to snatch the ivory handled Colt Navy Model of 1853 revolver from her gunbelt, Calamity darted to the door. Easing it open, she looked cautiously along the passage. Showing no sign of having heard what had happened to his companion, Stern was being admitted by the massive young man into the room of the woman she had learned had signed the register as ‘Mrs. Jessica Cholmondeley’.
‘All right, you lousy son-of-a-bitch!’ the red head hissed at her unheeding victim, having returned to retrieve and buckle on her gunbelt. ‘I’m going to help Madam and Mark. But, should they get made wolf bait and I come through, I’ll be back to finish you off the slowest way I can figure!’
‘Well, momma,’ Trudeau Front de Boeuf said with satisfaction, after the instructions had been given to Moses Stern and he had withdrawn. ‘It’s going as we want!’
‘So it would seem,’ the beautiful woman replied, but with less enthusiasm.
Much to her annoyance, Jessica Front de Boeuf had not been able to sate her passion at the expense of Edward Kinsella during the afternoon. He had, she suspected, deliberately avoided having to remain in her company for long enough to play his part. Instead, she had been compelled to pass the time practicing various tricks of crooked gamblers with her son. To give her credit, such was her strength of will, she had been able to concentrate upon the demanding tasks of shuffling a deck until it was in a pre-determined sequence, nullifying a cut which would otherwise have changed this, and dealing the second or some other card without detection instead of the one on top. xviii
From sundown, the Front de Boeufs had kept watch upon the Square from the window of her room. Like Kinsella, they had been disappointed when there was no shooting from the jailhouse. However, being aware of how competent her nephew was as a gun fighter, Jessica had admitted she was not confident in the ability of the Tennyson Regulators to achieve what was required. It would, she had stated, be much more reliable for Kinsella to shoot him and the elderly deputy town marshal through the bars of the cell after they had been disarmed and locked in.
‘Can we rely on Cousins to keep his men in check, momma?’ Front de Boeuf inquired.
‘This isn’t like Benson City. Instead of having the whole town suffer all he wants to do here is show he’s not afraid to take revenge on the pair who killed his nephew,’ Jessica replied. ‘But I think I’ll get my Derringer, just in case some of his men might not be satisfied with the loot from the saloon and come looking for more.’
‘That would be as well,’ the massive young man agreed.
‘Good heavens!’ the woman ejaculated, on crossing to the dressing-table. ‘Here’s that letter from Turnbull. I’d forgotten all about it.’
‘You’d best see what he has to say,’ Front de Boeuf suggested. ‘It might be something important.’
‘More likely it’s only another of his whining demands for money,’ Jessica sniffed, but she tore open the envelope and, extracting a sheet of paper, began to read.
‘What is it, momma!’ Front de Boeuf asked, seeing the woman stiffen and an expression of alarm come to her beautiful face.
‘W…We can’t let Mark Counter be killed!’ Jessica replied in a strangled voice.
‘Why not?’ the young man wanted to know.
‘Turnbull has heard what’s in Aunt Cornelia’s will,’ the woman explained, her hands shaking with emotion. ‘She is leaving all her money to Mark, as she threatened. But she claims she is so certain of his complete honesty that, only if he should be killed as a result of committing any kind of crime, can it all come to us.’
‘Good God!’ Front de Boeuf gasped. ‘That means—!’
‘Yes,’ Jessica finished bitterly, thinking of all the hours and money they had spent bringing their scheme to fruition. ‘It means if he dies tonight, we won’t get a thin dime!’
Fifteen – We’ve Had to Change the Plan
‘If you can get to the saloon and tell Madam Bulldog help is on the way, Miss Calamity,’ Trudeau Front de Boeuf suggested, as his mother, the girl and he came together in the second floor passage of the Fortescue Hotel, ‘Momma and I will go and help Cousin Mark to escape from the jailhouse.’
‘I’ll get to her,’ Calamity Jane promised. ‘And God help anybody who tries to stop me doing it!’
‘If anybody should try, make sure you deal with them silently,’ Jessica Front de Boeuf advised in her usual haughty fashion. ‘I don’t think we can cope with both Cousins and his men and those Tennyson Regulators, or whatever they call themselves, at the same time.’
‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ the red head promised, just a trifle annoyed by the attitude of the beautiful woman. Making a gesture with the Winchester Model of 1866 carbine she was carrying to augment her Colt Navy Model of 1853 revolver and bull whip, she went on, ‘I’ll whomp ’em with the butt of this. But are you sure you want to come along with us?’
‘Cousin Tune and Nephew Mark are in trouble,’ Jessica replied, with what appeared to be genuine sincerity. ‘And our family are like that of Cousins in one respect. If you cut one of us, the rest bleed. So it is my duty to do all I can to help them. Now, we’d best be moving before it’s too late.’
Having armed herself fully, ready to embark upon a rescue mission, Calamity had been surprised by a knock on her door. Entering the room, the massive young man had introduced himself as Mark Counter’s cousin and suggested co-operation. He had explained that he and his mother were using the name, “Cholmondeley” to avoid embarrassing Town Marshal Tune Collier by letting it be known he was related to a professional gambler, and that he had pretended to be suffering from the grippe so as to offer an excuse for them to remain in case their wounded kinsman needed help. Satisfied by his explanations, the red head had agreed to co-operate in helping to deal with the problem.
Waiting for Front de Boeuf to join her in the passage, Calamity had been surprised when he had arrived accompanied by his mother. Despite wondering what had induced the beautiful and arrogant woman to take part in such a dangerous and unladylike expedition, she had been willing to concede both were dressed in a manner that was suitable for the action that was planned.
The young man had changed into a dark shirt and trousers and was bare-headed. In addition to carrying his Greener whipit gun, he had the Colt 1860 Army Model revolver from his “Grizzly Bear” disguise, and his Colt Pocket Pistol of Navy caliber thrust butt forward into each side of his waist band. Although she knew nothing of him and his activities, her instincts warned he was less the soft and pampered momma’s boy than appeared on the surface, and she was confident the weapons were for more than just a bluff.
For her part, having discarded her stylish garments, Jessica had stuffed her hair under her son’s white planter’s hat. An open black cloak hung over the kind of black sleeveless bodice and tights used by ballet dancers when practicing and there were flat heeled pumps on her feet. Counting upon everybody being too engrossed in what was to take place to think about the kind of weapon with which the marshal had been wounded, she had elected to bring the Winchester rifle she could use so effectively as well as her Remington Double Derringer. However, being just as unaware of her true nature and potential, the red head wondered whether she might not prove more of a liability than an asset in the trouble which was sure to be forthcoming.
Realizing there was nothing to be gained and much to be lost if she allowed her resentment over the somewhat condescending manner of the woman to cloud her judgement, Calamity nodded at her explanation and started to lead the way to the stairs.
‘Hold it!’ the red head whispered urgently, waving her companions back with the carbine as she was nearing the stair head. ‘Somebody’s coming!’
As she delivered the warning, Calamity whipped off her battered U.S. cavalry kepi and peered with the minimum of exposure around the edge of the wall. Identifying the still hooded man who was ascending, the revolver now tucked into his waist band, she withdrew her head. He had been looking downwards in his usual shambling fashion and she was confident that she had avoided detection.
‘Who is it?’ Front de Boeuf whispered.
‘Moe Stern,’ the red head replied. ‘The jasper who—!’
‘Take this, Tru!’ Jessica commanded, speaking just as quietly as the other two and holding out her rifle. ‘Leave him to me!’
‘Yes, momma,’ the massive young man assented, having none of the doubts which were assailing the girl over the suggestion.
Relieved of the Winchester and leaving the little twin-barreled pistol in the pocket of her tights, Jessica walked forward with a heavier step than was necessary. Hearing her, as she had intended, Moses Stern raised his head and his right hand went towards the butt of his revolver. He made no attempt to draw it. Instead, he stared with lecherous delight at the eye-catching sight presented by the beautiful and extremely curvaceous woman. She halted with arms akimbo, spreading further apart the cloak to exhibit all the better the contours of her body which was encased in garments fitting as snugly as a second skin and with a décolleté which left no doubt the bodice alone covered her imposing and thrust forward bosom.
‘I’ve been pulling on the bell-rope until my arm aches, but nobody has come up to answer!’ Jessica announced, such a device having been installed in the hotel since the class of guests had improved and such a service had become expected. Her manner was haughty and complaining as she spoke. ‘Aren’t there any of the staff downstairs, my good man?’
‘Nope,’ Stern replied, resuming his briefly interrupted ascent. ‘We telled ’em to go home and keep offen Frank Cousins’ trail, so that’s what they’ve done.’
‘Are you here alone?’
‘Wilb Wardle’s up there with Calamity Jane, but I’m on my lonesome down he—!’
‘Then who is that?’ Jessica demanded, staring with well simulated horror down the stairs.
Startled by the way in which the question was put, and with his normally suspicious nature distracted due to the appearance presented by the woman, the thought that he was being subjected to an ancient ploy never entered Stern’s head. Once more reaching for his revolver, he began to swing around so as to investigate. Instantly, Jessica raised her shapely and firm muscled left leg to kick him hard between the shoulders. Already off balance, his head struck the wall as he was precipitated downwards. Continuing his uncontrolled descent, there was an audible crack of bone breaking when he crashed to the floor of the entrance lobby.
Showing a speed which came as something of a surprise to Calamity, despite her belief that he would prove beneficial to the rescue bid, Front de Boeuf moved forward. Handing the Winchester to his mother in passing, he darted downstairs.
‘It’s all right!’ the young man reported, having disappeared briefly while making an investigation. ‘The front door is closed and I couldn’t see any sign of him having been heard as he hit the floor.’
‘I’d say he’s bust his neck,’ Calamity remarked, having descended with Jessica, and glancing at the sprawled out, unmoving figure of the burly man.
‘I won’t lose any sleep over that,’ the woman declared, her manner calmly disinterested. ‘Will you?’
‘Can’t say I will,’ the red head confessed, studying the speaker in a fresh light. Realizing there were hard muscles under the seemingly soft and pampered exterior, she put the matter from her mind and went on, ‘What’s doing outside, friend?’
‘They’ve left the buckboard hitched outside the saloon,’ Front de Boeuf reported, amused by the change he sensed in the demeanor of the girl so far as his mother was concerned. Being aware of how capably she could defend herself physically when the need arose, he had not been in the least surprised by her handling of the potential threat to their mission. xix ‘None of them are with it, but two are on the sidewalk outside the jailhouse.’
‘There is no sign of Cousins, I suppose?’ Jessica asked, although the timbre of her words was more in the nature of a statement.
‘None, momma,’ Front de Boeuf confirmed. ‘But I should think they will soon be arriving.’
