Walking along Hell’s main street, Emma Nene, Giselle Lampart, Dusty Fog and Break O’Day went by Doctor Connolly’s home and office building towards the front door of the Honest Man saloon. Largest building in the town, the saloon alone had two floors. On the upper’s verandah rail was nailed a large wooden sign bearing the name of the establishment, but no painting to illustrate the title as was common in such premises elsewhere.
‘How could an artist paint something that doesn’t exist?’ Emma countered when O’Day mentioned the discrepancy.
It was noon and, apart from themselves, the street was deserted; which did not surprise the women or Dusty. In fact, they had been banking on finding such a condition.
During their approach from the tree-lined top of the hollow in which the town had been erected, they had seen no sign of human life. For all appearances, the entire population might have been laid to rest in the large graveyard. A few horses were hitched outside the various adobe jacales which sprouted irregularly beyond the business premises flanking the main street and more occupied the livery barn’s corrals. The barn’s staff had not been present, so the newcomers had tended to their horses unaided and left the animals in previously untenanted stalls. Having been presented with ownership of the barn, for his part in removing the original proprietor, Dusty had the keys to its side rooms in his possession. Unlocking the office, he had allowed the others to leave their saddles and portable property until it could be more suitably cared for.
After the Kid’s departure the night before, Dusty had told O’Day the story concocted by Emma and secured the man’s offer of assistance if it should be needed. So O’Day accompanied the women and the small Texan, while Waco went off to attend to another matter.
To an unknowing observer, Hell would have looked like any other small, sun baked range country town. A mite more prosperous in its appointments than most, maybe, but with nothing to hint at its true nature and purpose. Most of the conventional business and social amenities could be located; with the notable exceptions of a bank, jail or stagecoach depot. There was neither school nor church, but other small towns also lacked them.
Facing the Honest Man stood the lengthy, well-appointed ‘Youseman’s Funeral Parlor’; which probably had a sobering effect upon revelers who were all too aware that capture by the law would mean death on a hangman’s rope. Beyond the saloon and on the same side was Giselle’s home which also combined with the mayor’s office and what had passed for a bank.
On stepping through the batwing doors into the large barroom, Dusty, the women and O’Day found that they could no longer remain unobserved. Although the majority of the room was unoccupied, the stairs and balcony empty of people, six men and a big, buxom, garishly dressed woman sat around what had been Emma’s private table. Startled exclamations burst from them as they looked towards the main entrance. An angry hiss broke from the blonde, for the red-haired, good-looking brothel-keeper Rosie Wilson was sitting in her chair at the head of the table.
Dusty recognized four of the men. Tall, gaunt, miserable of features, Doctor Connolly might have been the undertaker and the big, burly, jovial-looking Emmet ‘Happy’ Youseman, in his check suit and diamond stick-in, the town’s surgeon. Fat, pompous as when he had attended board meetings in the East, the hotel’s owner, Emanuel Goldberg, turned red and spluttered incoherently. His partner in many a crooked deal, now acting as jeweler and pawnbroker, Sylvester Crouch, muttered something to the nearer of the two strangers.
Although Dusty did not know the pair, he could guess at what they were. Tall, lean and wearing low-tied guns, they had a matching wolf-cautious alertness. One had black hair and a walrus moustache that did nothing to conceal a hard, cruel mouth. The other was going bald, needed a shave and had a patch over his left eye. Dressed cowhand fashion, they neither of them struck Dusty as having any legitimate connections with ranching.
‘Easy, all of you!’ Dusty ordered as the townsmen made as if to rise.
Soft-spoken the words might have been, but they caused the quartet to halt their intentions. The other two male occupants of the table exchanged glances, but made no hostile moves.
‘Well well, Emma-gal,’ Rosie Wilson boomed, swinging to face the blonde. ‘I never thought to see you back here.’
‘That figures, way you’re making free with my place and my stock,’ Emma replied, indicating the bottles and glasses on the table, then the cigars which the bunch around it—including the woman—were smoking.
‘We didn’t think you’d da—be coming back,’ Crouch insisted, altering his words halfway through.
‘I can see that,’ the blonde snorted, swinging a gaze around the room. ‘I don’t think the floor’s been cleaned and washed since I left.’ She turned cold eyes in Rosie’s direction. ‘You’re in my chair, Mrs. Wilson.’
‘There’s some might say different,’ the brothel-keeper answered.
‘I had my fill of rolling on the floor and hair-yanking with Belle Starr,’ Emma warned, right hand resting on the butt of the Navy Colt. ‘So if you want my chair that badly, get up and tell me—with a gun in your hand.’
‘Who’re these bunch?’ the one-eyed man demanded, his voice showing that he had done more than his share in making free with Emma’s stock.
‘The folks we told you about, Alec,’ Goldberg answered. ‘Emma Nene, Mrs. Lampart and Ed Caxton. I don’t know their companion.’
‘I’m just a man they met on the trail,’ O’Day announced.
‘Then bill out of things that’re none of your concern,’ the one-eyed man ordered and swung cold, challenging eyes to Dusty. ‘You’re the yahoo who gunned down Ben Columbo ’n’ Joey Pinter, huh?’
‘Seemed like a good thing to do at the time,’ the small Texan replied. ‘Who’re your friends, Happy?’
‘Visitors like yourself, Ed,’ Youseman answered. ‘Alec Lovey and Jack Messnick. They came in last night.’
‘See they pay for their drinks before they go to bed,’ Dusty ordered. ‘And they look tired enough to go right now.’
‘You telling us to get out of here?’ Lovey demanded, lurching to his feet.
‘What we’ve got to say’s for the Civic Regulators’ ears, hombre? Dusty replied. ‘And I figure it’d be easier for you two to go than all of us.’
‘That’s big talk for a small man,’ Messnick stated, also rising. He had taken less to drink than his companion and looked the more dangerous.
‘I can back it, if I have to,’ Dusty assured him.
‘Against all of us here?’ Lovey challenged, jerking his left thumb around the table.
‘There’s not but the two of you’ll take cards,’ Dusty pointed out. ‘The rest of them know us—and want to find a few things out.’
‘So two of us’s all,’ Lovey sneered, listening to the confirmatory mutters which had followed the small Texan’s statement. ‘That still puts the odds in our favor at two to one.’
‘Only it’s more like one to one,’ commented a voice from the rear of the barroom.
Turning their heads, the party around the table saw Waco standing at the doorway which led to the rear of the building. With his left shoulder leaning on the door’s jamb and hands thumb-hooked into his gunbelt, he contrived to present an impression of deadly readiness.
‘Maybe we’ll just try taking those odds,’ Lovey announced, his one eye glinting dangerously.
‘Then you just go to doing it, hombre? Dusty offered.
Less drunk than Lovey, Messnick could read the danger signs better. Like other men before him, the outlaw suddenly became aware of Dusty’s personality and forgot about him in mere feet and inches. There stood a big and very capable man, full able to hold up his end in a shooting fuss. Taking him on in a fair fight would be fraught with peril.
‘Aw hell, Alec,’ Messnick said in a mild tone. ‘We’re here to have fun, not to make trouble. If these folks want to talk private, we should be gentlemen and leave them do it.’
‘You mean eat crow to this—?’ Lovey blazed.
‘I mean let’s go and grab some sleep,’ Messnick interrupted, before some unpardonable insult was made and needed to be accounted for. ‘Come on. Maybe tonight we’ll get lucky just like we did that time in Fort Worth.’
‘Huh?’ grunted Lovey, then his puzzled expression turned into a knowing and sly grin. ‘Sure. Just like in Fort Worth.’
If the words carried any special meaning to the other participants in the scene, they failed to make the fact known. Break O’Day looked from the two outlaws to Dusty Fog and then at Emma. The latter couple were apparently giving all their attention to the townspeople. Disappointment showed briefly on the faces of the brothel-keeper and four members of the Civic Regulators. However, they made no attempt to address the outlaws. Lurching away from the table, Lovey accompanied Messnick across the room in the direction of the main entrance. O’Day sensed that the quartet at the table had expected a more aggressive response to the small Texan’s challenge.
Walking slowly, the men exchanged quick glances and nods. Their hands had stolen surreptitiously to the butts of their holstered weapons. Suddenly they sprang away from each other, turning and jerking out their weapons. On another occasion, they had employed a similar strategy and escaped arrest at the hands of three lawmen. Neither expected too much difficulty in dealing with two young cowhands.
Just an instant too late, Lovey and Messnick discovered that their strategy had failed to take their proposed victims by surprise. Instead of giving his undivided attention to the Civic Regulators, that big Texan was watching them. His young companion—kid brother, by all accounts—no longer lounged against the door, but was standing erect and looking even more ready for trouble.
Knowing that his companion would take ‘Ed Caxton’ as his target, Messnick devoted attention to handling the ‘younger brother’. The outlaw was the fastest man Waco had ever faced. So fast in fact, that he could have completed his draw and put a bullet into the youngster before Waco’s lead struck home and prevented him. In fact, under the circumstances, Messnick’s gun cracked ahead of Waco’s Army Colt going off.
With his revolver lifting into line, Lovey saw the big blond Texan’s hands crossing. The outlaw’s last living impression was of flame erupting from the center of his opponent’s body. Before his mind could register the fact that Dusty had drawn and fired with both hands, two bullets sped his way. One passed through his good eye, the second puncturing the patch over his other eye and driving onwards into his head. So close had the shots been together that they formed into a single sound. Firing once as he pitched backwards, the bullet ending its flight harmlessly in the front of the bar, Lovey’s body crashed through the batwing doors and on to the sidewalk beyond its portals.
Where Messnick set his faith in firing from waist high and by instinctive alignment, Waco had decided that the range was too great for accuracy by such a method. So the youngster had taken the necessary split-second to raise his Colt to shoulder level and use its sights. Messnick missed his only chance of survival. On the heels of his shot, the long barreled Army Colt barked wickedly. Like Dusty, Waco shot for an instantaneous kill. His bullet centered neatly in the middle of the outlaw’s forehead. Dropping his gun, Messnick twirled on his toes almost like a ballet dancer. He sprawled face down on the floor as his companion passed lifeless through the batwing doors.
‘Sit still, gentlemen!’ O’Day said, but the Cavalry Peacemaker that came into his hand and slanted towards the table made it more of an order than a polite request.
‘That goes double for you, Rosie!’ Emma warned, producing her revolver. ‘You’re so big I couldn’t miss you.’
‘Easy there!’ Goldberg put in, sounding alarmed. ‘We didn’t know what they planned to do.’
That was true as far as it went. While the party at the table had not encouraged the outlaws in their actions, the subject for discussion had been that Messnick and Lovey should accompany a group of Hell citizens in an attempt to locate Emma’s party. Having arrived without much money, the pair had been willing to go along. The return of the blonde and her friends had removed the need for the posse, which probably had been the cause of the two men’s actions.
‘How many amigos do they have?’ Dusty demanded, holstering his Colts.
‘N … None,’ Goldberg answered. ‘They came in alone.’
‘Mister,’ Dusty growled, adopting the character of Ed Caxton once more. ‘Happen anybody takes up for them, I’ll figure I’ve been lied to—’
‘I assure you that they’re not with any other visitors,’ Goldberg declared pompously. ‘We were surprised to see you back, Emma.’
‘You mean you figured that Emma, Matt, Comanch’ and me’d robbed Simmy’s office and lit out?’ Dusty challenged, nodding his approval as Waco crossed to check up on Messnick and look along the street.
‘That was never suggested,’ Youseman said, in a tone which implied it had been and believed.
‘May I ask where you have been since it happened, Emma?’ Connolly put in.
‘Hunting for the money Hubert, Belle Starr and some of my gals stole,’ the blonde replied, so sincerely that she might have been speaking the truth. ‘Him and the girls grabbed Giselle while everybody was watching Starr and me tangling in the dueling basin. They made her open the boxes and cleared off with her and the money the gang leaders had left in Simmy’s care.’
‘The hostlers at the barn said you told them to have a wagon ready that morning, Ed,’ ‘Youseman remarked, almost apologetically.
‘Sure I did,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Hubert had seen me, saying Emma wanted him to collect some supplies. I knew she used the wagon, so I told them to have it waiting for him.’
‘How did you know about the robbery?’ Goldberg inquired.
‘Let’s sit down and we’ll explain everything,’ Emma countered, going towards her usual chair.
For a moment Rosie Wilson remained seated. Then she shrugged and rose to select another place. Youseman joined Waco at the front doors and told the men, who had been attracted by the shooting, something of what had happened.
Having arranged for the bodies to be taken to his place, the undertaker returned to the table with Waco.
‘You can thank Brother Matt here for what’s happened,’ Dusty commenced. ‘He got to thinking why that explosion might have happened and headed for the barn—’
‘I didn’t want any of the gang leaders to guess what was up, so I made out’s I was running afore the Kweharehnuh come, all riled over losing their bullets,’ Waco interrupted, covering a point that Goldberg might have raised if he had recalled their conversation shortly before the youngster had taken his departure. ‘When I saw the wagon’d gone, I headed after Brother Matt ’n’ Comanch’ ’n’ told them what I reckoned’d happened.’
‘We got the whole story out of Belle Starr,’ Dusty continued. ‘Hubert’d brought her in to help rob the mayor. That’s why she’d started those two fights with Emma—’
‘And, like a sucker, I let her!’ the blonde put in, sounding convincingly angry. ‘Still, I paid her back good before she died. Say. It’s a pity we couldn’t fetch her in for you and Doc, Happy. There was a good bounty on her head.’
‘Did you catch up with Hubert?’ Yousemen inquired hurriedly, desirous of changing the subject and wondering if the blonde knew their secret or had only been guessing.
‘We got him,’ Dusty confirmed.
‘Where is he?’ Goldberg demanded.
‘Dead, along with all the bitches who helped him!’ Emma spat savagely. ‘There’s wasn’t a bounty on them, so it wasn’t any use us fetching them back.’
‘There’s fifty thousand dollars here,’ Dusty went on, tapping the bulging left side of his shirt. ‘The rest of the money’s hidden—’
“It’s what?’ Youseman growled and his companions showed their indignation.
‘Stashed away safe, friend,’ Dusty repeated. ‘We didn’t know how you’d act when we came back, although we guessed what you’d have been thinking. So we concluded to make sure we got a hearing.’
‘It’s our money!’ Goldberg spluttered.
‘What didn’t belong to the gang leaders was the Civic Improvement Fund,’ Dusty corrected. ‘Which last’s no more yours than it was Simmy Lampart’s.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Goldberg admitted. ‘But as a committee appointed to run Hell until a new mayor can be elected—’
‘That’s one problem you don’t have any more,’ Dusty interrupted. ‘Mrs. Lampart’s taking over as mayor, with Emma to help her.’
‘Why should she!’ Rosie Wilson yelled, starting to rise.
Emma scooped up the revolver which lay on the table before her and lined it at the bulky brothel-keeper. Looking from the muzzle to the blonde’s face, Rosie sank down on to her chair again.
‘Ben Columbo, Joey Pinter, the Smith boys and those two yacks who just got toted out of here’re right good answers to that, ma’am,’ Waco drawled. ‘We sided Mayor Lampart against Basmanov’s bunch and we’ll stand by his widow.’
‘Matt’s put it as well as I could have,’ Emma went on, laying down the Colt. ‘Anything Giselle doesn’t already know about the town, me, Ed or the boys can tell her.’
‘Well—’ Connolly began.
‘What does exhumation mean, Doc?’ Dusty asked quietly.
‘Digging up a body for—’ the doctor commenced.
‘I thought it was something like that,’ the small Texan admitted. ‘They do say a whole heap of strange things’ve come to light through exhumations.’
‘I’ve heard tell of graves being found empty when they was opened up,’ Waco continued. ‘ ’Course, that wouldn’t happen in our boothill, now would it?’
Worried glances passed between Connolly and Youseman. They had once been surgeons, experimenting in longevity. Needing human bodies upon which to work, they had begun by robbing graves. Requiring fresh blood and tissues to further their studies, they had solved their problem by murdering healthy patients. When news of their actions had leaked out, they had escaped on a wagon train of assorted fugitives gathered by Simeon Lampart.
The party’s original intention had been to reach Mexico. Circumstances had permitted them to settle in the Palo Duro and make Hell a profitable proposition. Connolly and Youseman had developed a process for embalming the corpses of outlaws killed in the town. With the aid of Lampart’s contacts, the corpses had been taken to legitimate towns and the bounties collected on them.
Connolly and Youseman had believed that their secret was known to only four men. From what they had just heard, Emma, possibly Giselle and certainly the two Texans were a party to it. The pair were all too aware of what their fate would be if news of their activities should reach the outlaws in town.
‘I think that Giselle would be an excellent mayor!’ Youseman declared. ‘And it’ll save unpleasantness all round if we accept her.’
‘That’s true enough, Happy,’ Crouch enthused. ‘I’m for it.’
‘So am I!’ Goldberg hastened to declare.
Glancing around, Dusty held down a grin. After Lampart’s body had been discovered, there had clearly been controversy over who should replace him as mayor. Unless Dusty missed his guess, two sets of former business associates were divided on the issue. He was also willing to bet that Goldberg’s response, having come so quickly after Crouch’s acceptance, stemmed from a desire to ingratiate himself with what would become a powerful faction in the town’s affairs.
‘What happened when the Indians learned that the ammunition shack had blown up?’ the small Texan inquired, keeping his thoughts to himself.
‘Ten Bears came to see us the next day,’ Youseman replied. ‘We tried to convince him that everything is still all right, but he’s given us a warning. Either the next issue’s made, or he’ll run us out of the Palo Duro.’
‘How long do we have?’ Waco asked.
‘They’re coming for it tomorrow,’ Goldberg replied. ‘It’s all right, we can make the issue. A few of us didn’t think it was advisable for Lam—Simmy to hold the only supply. So we laid in a stock of our own.’
‘So everything is all right,’ Emma remarked.
‘It is now, Rosie Wilson answered, with a malicious grin. ‘You see, Ten Bears wants the full handing-out ceremony. And that means he’s expecting to see Giselle do her dance—then get sawn in half.’