Death rides alone, p.12
Death Rides Alone, page 12
Pettifer shook his head and said, “We’ve got a deal. Why don’t you go ahead and pay now, so we don’t have to worry about it in the morning?”
As a rule, Luke didn’t like paying for things in advance, but he wasn’t going to argue and draw attention to him and Tyler. Instead he took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket this time and said, “I assume this will buy us a couple of bowls of stew and a place to sleep tonight, along with the use of the forge?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve got a special deal going on just that combination,” Pettifer said. With practiced ease, he caught the coin as Luke tossed it to him and dropped it into a pocket on the apron. He took a couple of bowls from a shelf, set them on the bar with a pair of spoons, and told Luke and Tyler, “Help yourselves from the pot over yonder.”
Luke nodded toward the bowls and spoons, indicating that Tyler should pick them up. Then, with the rifle in one hand and the cup of beer in the other, he went over to one of the empty tables.
He set the beer down and laid the rifle across the table. Tyler left his beer there, too, as they went over to the fireplace and the stewpot.
“I haven’t seen anybody in here I know,” Tyler said, pitching his voice low enough that Pettifer and the other men in the room couldn’t hear it.
“Neither have I,” Luke said, “and more importantly, none of them seem to recognize either of us.”
They filled their bowls using the dipper that hung from the stand, then carried them back over to the table. The beer might not have been very good, but the stew was surprisingly tasty, Luke found when he dug in. It was filled with chunks of venison, wild onions, carrots, and potatoes. He hadn’t noticed it in the twilight, but somewhere around the trading post had to be a garden.
Pettifer didn’t strike Luke as the type to tend a garden, so that argued for the presence of a woman around the place. That hunch was confirmed a few minutes later when one of the curtains was thrust back and a man in the bullhide chaps of a Texan swaggered through, followed by a woman in a plain shirt and long skirt. Her blond hair was roughly cropped so that it fell just above her shoulders.
The pug-nosed, sunburned Texan joined the two men standing at the bar, who greeted him with ribald comments and good-natured slaps on the back. He was young, probably not even twenty yet, and Luke supposed this might have been his first time with a woman. One of the other men called out to Pettifer to pour a drink for the youngster.
Pettifer did that, then went down to the other end of the bar where the blonde was standing. He nodded toward the far side of the trading post and asked her, “Spotted Fawn still back there with the other one?”
“That’s right,” the blonde said as Pettifer filled a shot glass with whiskey for her.
“Didn’t hear any sort of trouble going on, did you? It’s been a while.”
She shook her head and picked up the glass. She threw back the drink and set the empty on the bar with a thump.
In a half-whisper, Tyler said to Luke, “Hard to believe a gal like her and one as sweet and innocent as Rachel are even the same species.”
Luke chewed and swallowed and said, “We’re all human beings, subject to the same frailties and magnificences.”
“You quoting that Marcus fella again, or some other old Roman?”
“No. That one is my own.”
The two men with the young Texan either lacked the funds for a whore or had already taken their turn, because they didn’t show any interest in the blonde. After a few minutes she motioned for Pettifer to pour her another drink, then picked up the glass and sauntered over to the table where Luke and Tyler sat. Luke could tell that she was trying to put a seductive sway in her walk, but she wasn’t having much success at that.
“Hello, boys,” she said as she came up to the table. She put a well-worn smile on her face.
Luke didn’t point out that he hadn’t been a boy since before he had gone off to war, and that was a lot of years ago.
“My name’s Millie,” the blonde continued. “What do they call you fellas?”
“Tired and hungry,” Luke said. He appreciated time spent with pleasant female company as much as any man, but this wasn’t really the time or place.
“Which one are you?” she asked.
“Both.”
Millie gave up on him and turned to Tyler, saying, “And that would make you . . . ?”
“Flat broke, ma’am, and I surely do regret to say it.”
Millie sighed and said, “No more than I’m sorry to hear it.”
She was younger than Luke had thought at first and reasonably pretty in an already faded way. With a foot, he pushed back one of the empty chairs at the table and said, “You look a mite tired yourself. Why don’t you sit down for a while?”
Millie frowned.
“Sittin’s not really how I earn my keep.”
Luke took out another dollar and laid it on the table.
“Sit,” he told her again. “I’ve been on the trail now for several days with nothing nice to look at. You’re a welcome change from that, Millie.”
She glanced at the bar, where Pettifer stood watching her. Making sure that he could see what she was doing, she picked up the coin and dropped it down the front of her shirt, then sat down between Luke and Tyler.
“You can tell me your names if you want,” she said. “I know better than to shoot my mouth off to any badge-toters who come sniffin’ around.”
“I’m Judd, he’s Luke,” Tyler said before Luke could respond. Luke would have preferred that Tyler hadn’t admitted even that much, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything. After all, the men who were hunting Tyler already knew his name and what he looked like.
“I’m happy to meet both of you,” Millie said. “And happy to sit down and do nothin’ for a few minutes. You wouldn’t think whorin’ would wear a body out so much, but it sure does.”
“Anything keeping you from going somewhere else and making a fresh start?” Luke asked.
“Everything in the world, mister,” she said with a weary sigh. “Everything in the world.”
“You should do like that old fella Emperor Marcus,” Tyler said. “Do the best you can with what you got and let the rest move on past you.”
She frowned at him and said, “What?”
Before they could continue this rather odd discussion of stoic philosophy, the young Texan in the bullhide chaps strode over to the table. The three sitting there turned their heads to look at him as he hooked his thumbs in his belt and announced, “I’m ready to go again, Millie.”
“Oh, I doubt that, kid,” she said. “I know you’re young, but you best wait a little while longer.”
“I said I’m ready now.”
Over at the bar, his friends cackled. Luke figured they had prodded the youngster into approaching the table.
Luke had finished his stew. He pushed the empty bowl away and said, “The lady’s time has been bought and paid for, friend, and I believe that dollar I laid down still has more time to run.”
“He’s right—” Millie began.
The Texan glared at Luke and said, “I didn’t ask you, old man. I’m talkin’ to this here dirty whore.”
“Hey, there’s no need for talk like that,” Tyler said. The legs of his chair scraped on the rough floor as he slid it back a little.
The Texan tensed, his right hand moving quickly to hover over the wooden grips of what appeared to be an old cap-and-ball revolver holstered on his hip.
“You just stay out of it,” he snapped. “I don’t need no advice from the likes o’ you. You ain’t even packin’ a gun. What’s the matter? You a damn yellow-bellied coward? Too scared to carry a gun?”
Luke tried not to roll his eyes in disgust. After the day they’d had, the last thing they needed to encounter was some obnoxious young buck who probably thought he was fast on the draw, that fantasy no doubt fueled by liquor and countless dime-novel scenarios pored over in bunkhouses and outhouses.
Tyler said, “I’m not scared. Just not looking for trouble. Why don’t you go back to your friends, let us talk to the lady for a while, and then if she wants to do some more business with you, that’ll be up to her.”
“You keep callin’ her a lady? Don’t you know a dirty whore when you see one?” The Texan let out a raucous laugh. “Oh, I get it now! You’re one o’ them fellas who ain’t interested in gals. That’s why you ain’t taken her over yonder to the rooms. You wouldn’t know what to do with her if you did.” He jabbed his left thumb against his chest. “Well, I sure as hell do!”
“Yeah,” Millie said, “that’s why we sat back there playin’ cards for twenty minutes so you could lie to your friends about everything you done to me.”
The Texan’s eyes widened in outrage. He yelled, “You lyin’ bitch!” His left arm swung out before Luke or Tyler could stop him, and the back of his hand cracked across Millie’s face with enough force to knock her out of the chair to the floor.
Tyler exploded out of his chair with a shout and tackled the Texan, driving him off his feet.
CHAPTER 17
Luke was on his feet a split-second later with both Remingtons drawn and cocked.
One was aimed in the general direction of the two men sitting at a table. They had been sharing drinks from a bottle after finishing their supper. Both were middle-aged and tired-looking, and although they watched the fracas between Tyler and the Texan, neither of them seemed to have any inclination to join in.
The same wasn’t true of the two men at the bar, the youngster’s friends. They had looked startled when Tyler tackled the Texan, but then they’d scowled and started forward as if to help their partner.
Luke’s other Remington, its long barrel pointed straight at them, stopped them in their tracks. They wore furious expressions, but staring down the barrel of the revolver had frozen their feet.
“Right there, boys,” Luke said. “You’ll do just fine staying exactly where you are.”
On the rough, sawdust-littered floor, Tyler and his opponent had rolled over several times, punching and kicking and gouging. There might have even been some biting going on; Luke couldn’t tell. There were no rules in this fight, which the young Texan demonstrated by trying to ram his chaps-clad knee into Tyler’s groin.
Tyler twisted away from that vicious blow and clapped a hand over the other man’s face, digging for his eyes. The Texan jerked his head away and clipped Tyler on the chin with a wild punch. That rocked Tyler’s head back. The Texan grabbed Tyler’s shirt front and slung him to the side.
As Tyler rolled over again, the Texan scrambled to his feet and went after him. A boot toe thudded into Tyler’s ribs.
Luke didn’t like to see anybody being kicked while he was down, but he knew if he took his attention off of the Texan’s friends, they would rush to join the fight.
Tyler was on his own in this battle.
The Texan tried to kick him again, but this time Tyler got his hands up and grabbed the young man’s boot as it came at him. Tyler heaved, throwing the Texan off his feet and sending him crashing to the floor on his back. That knocked the breath out of the Texan and stunned him long enough for Tyler to make it to his feet. He had to grab the back of a chair and brace himself on it until his legs steadied.
The Texan rolled onto his side and then got his hands and knees under him. As he came up, he yelled, “I’m gonna blow your lights out, you bastard!”
Before he could reach for his gun, though, Pettifer leveled a shotgun at him from behind the counter and said, “Keep your hand away from that hogleg!”
The young Texan glared at him but didn’t make a move for the Colt on his hip.
“I don’t mind fights in my place,” Pettifer went on, “but they’re gonna be fair. You two can beat yourselves to death if you’re of a mind to, but no gunplay!”
Luke didn’t feel any admiration for Pettifer—the man harbored outlaws and was a whoremonger—but at least he still had a semblance of honor about him. That Western code of fair play could be found in most people who lived on the frontier, even its lowest denizens.
For a second the Texan looked like he was going to slap leather anyway, despite the threatening scattergun, but then he thought better of it. Instead he reached for the buckle of his gunbelt, unfastened it, and lowered the belt and holstered gun onto one of the tables.
Then he balled his fists and charged at Tyler, bellowing out his rage as he did so.
Tyler met the attack with hard fists of his own. He blocked some of the Texan’s punches, absorbed the force of the ones that got through, and swung blow after blow of his own.
For a long moment, the two young men stood toe to toe, slugging away at each other, as stubborn and brutal as primordial beasts struggling in the dawn of time, Luke thought. Both faces were bloody now, and drops of crimson flew every time a fist crashed into flesh.
Then one of Tyler’s feet slipped as he tried to shift to a different position, causing his guard to drop. The Texan’s right flew in and slammed into Tyler’s cheekbone with enough force to send him reeling back against the bar.
The Texan crowded against him, keeping him pinned there while hooking punch after punch into Tyler’s midsection. Tyler was helpless and gasping for breath. His face had gone gray under the onslaught.
Luke didn’t want to see Tyler beaten to death. That would assure that the truth about Rachel Montgomery’s murder would never be revealed. He was about to step in when Tyler made a desperate grab and got hold of the Texan’s left ear.
Tyler twisted as hard as he could, and more blood flew as skin ripped and separated. The Texan howled in pain and tried to jerk away, but Tyler kept twisting until the ear was torn halfway off his opponent’s head.
He finally let go and swung his left in a wicked hook. The punch wasn’t moving very fast, but the Texan was so concerned with his mutilated ear that he couldn’t get out of the way in time. Tyler’s fist caught him on the jaw and jerked his head to the side. Tyler hit him with a right. The Texan staggered back a couple of steps.
Now Tyler was the one crowding his opponent, keeping the Texan off balance with a flurry of punches. Luke could tell that Tyler was putting the last of his strength into this counterattack. If it failed to end the fight, Tyler was probably done for.
The Texan couldn’t get his hands up anymore, though, so punch after punch thudded home. As the Texan began to sway, Tyler swung a roundhouse right that landed solidly and lifted the youngster completely off his feet.
This time when the Texan crashed down, it was with a finality that said he wouldn’t be getting up again anytime soon.
Millie had long since gotten to her feet after the Texan knocked her out of the chair. Luke had seen that from the corner of his eye. She had stood to one side, watching anxiously as the two young men battled.
Now, with the Texan out cold, she stepped up hurriedly to Tyler and caught hold of his arm to steady him as he swayed and looked like he might fall down, too.
“You didn’t have to stand up for me like that,” she told him, then smiled. “But I’ve got to admit, it was kind of nice.”
Tyler managed to return the smile, although it looked like it hurt him to move his bruised, bloody face.
“Yes’m,” he said as his breath rasped in his throat. “I can’t abide . . . anybody hurtin’ . . . a lady.”
“Well, the kid was right about that part, I reckon. I ain’t no ways a lady. But it’s nice somebody might think so and act like it, whether it’s true or not.”
Luke motioned with the Remington’s barrel to the Texan’s two friends and said, “Get him up and out of here.” He looked at Pettifer. “That is, if you have no objection.”
Pettifer had lowered the shotgun but still held the double-barreled weapon. He shook his head and said, “They hadn’t paid for rooms for the night, just booze and a poke for the kid. That gives you more of a say on who stays and who goes, as far as I’m concerned.”
Luke nodded toward the Texan’s senseless form again, and this time the other two men came forward to pick him up, although they wore surly frowns as they did so.
They got him to his feet, but it took both of them to keep him there. The Texan had started to make incoherent noises and move his head a little, but he was still a long way from having his wits about him.
As the other two started half carrying, half dragging him toward the entrance, one of the men who’d been sitting at the table stood, picked up the Texan’s hat, and put it on the youngster’s head. The Texan didn’t seem to notice.
“Hell of a fight,” the older man said to Tyler. “Wish it could have gone on longer.”
“No offense,” Tyler said, “but I sure as hell don’t.”
The Texan’s two companions hauled him out of the trading post and into the night. When the door had swung closed behind them, Luke looked at the two older men and said, “You fellas didn’t have any cards in that game, did you?”
The one still sitting at the table said, “Not hardly, mister. Mack and me are just passin’ through. We don’t know any of you folks and would just as soon keep it that way.”
“Sounds good to me,” Luke said. He holstered both guns. He would remain alert, of course, but his instincts told him the other two customers didn’t represent any threat.
“Honey, let’s get you set down,” Millie said to Tyler as she helped him over to the table. “You look a little green.”
“Yeah, I might not have . . . eaten that big bowl of stew . . . if I’d known I was gonna get punched in the belly so much.”
Tyler didn’t make it to the table. He turned and lurched toward the door instead, holding a hand to his mouth. Millie went with him, helping hold him up, and they made it outside before Tyler began losing his supper.
Pettifer put the shotgun somewhere back under the bar where he had gotten it and told Luke, “No refunds on the stew because it didn’t stay down.”
“Not your fault that it didn’t,” Luke said. “You might have stepped in, though, when that obnoxious Texan began to mistreat the young woman.”
