At a charge of a dollar per head as entrance fee, the Mulrooney Church Social Fund swelled its coffers to a good size; for by half past eight the Buffalo Saloon’s big bar-room was packed out with almost every man in town. Not only did Dongelon loan and have erected his newly purchased eastern-style ring, but he agreed to act as referee in the bout—which offered him a good view of the entire affair and guaranteed that he got in to see it.
Dusty might have been concerned with who issued the challenge and had the posters put out, but he found himself requested to take charge of the entire affair. The request came from both Freddie and Kate, leaving everything in his hands. Always wishing to nip trouble in the bud, Dusty laid down two rules straight away: first that no liquor would be sold in the saloon; second that neither saloon’s girls would be allowed to witness the fight. Feelings ran high among the girls and Dusty knew that having them present might spark off a full-scale riot. Nor would Freddie’s girls stay away if Kate’s were permitted to attend. So Dusty ruled that neither saloon’s girls attended. In doing so he antagonized the entire female staff of two saloons, but hoped that the precaution would be worth it.
There was considerable wagering at even money on the result of the fight, although most of it appeared to be done between individuals rather than with professional gamblers who always preferred to have an edge when betting on anything. Dusty noticed this as he noticed everything else, but did not worry over it. Way he figured things, the trouble would not come until after the fight and he had made arrangements for that.
A considerable noise rose into the air, talk as bets were made or comments thrown around, laughter as somebody made a joke, shuffling and scraping of feet and chairs. Dusty kept his deputies with him at the main doors, all except Big Sarah who had the job of making sure that the Fair Lady girls stayed in their places and the Buffalo’s female staff remained at Dongelon’s. The noise drowned out any sound that might have come from the street and effectively prevented Dusty hearing certain noises which might have interested him had he heard them.
At nine o’clock a brief, expectant hush fell over the room as Dongelon climbed on to the edge of the raised dais and ducked between the top and center of the three ropes which stretched from corner to corner around it.
‘Gentlemen!’ he called, waving down the noise. ‘Your attention, please. Tonight, we are privileged to witness a challenge bout of pugilism—’
‘Make it fast and bring on the gals!’ whooped a cowhand and a roar of agreement followed his words.
Although Dongelon had thought out quite a speech, there was too much noise for him to finish it. Nor did the noise abate as Buffalo Kate walked from her office and along the narrow aisle leading to the ring. She wore a long cloak which covered her from her neck to her bare feet; and Wally followed carrying a bucket and bottle full of water and a couple of towels. On reaching the ring, Kate climbed up the steps and ducked between the ropes, walking to the corner Dongelon pointed out as being her own. There she removed her cloak and passed it to Wally. The crowd showed its appreciation for she wore a brief chemise that showed off a plump but shapely figure.
Even as Kate removed her robe, Freddie entered the ring followed by Vera as her second. Freddie removed her cloak and various male eyes stuck out like organ-stops at what they saw. Under the cloak Freddie wore an outfit consisting of a pair of black tights and a candy-striped upper section that looked like a man’s sleeveless vest—although it was not a man’s figure inside the vest.
After a moment the men forgot their admiration of Freddie’s magnificent body and started studying her as a contestant who either stood to win or lose them some money. While Kate looked a mite taller and some heavier, Freddie did not give the impression of being puny. Fact being, she looked like a tolerable strong gal and more than one member of the crowd recalled how she knocked cold a drunken railroad man with one punch when he tried to paw her at the Fair Lady. One thing was for sure, everybody in the crowd figured, whichever way things went they were in for seeing a helluva fight.
‘How about a drink before you start, ladies?’ Wally asked.
‘Good idea,’ Kate replied for she had never felt more like taking a drink.
‘Certainly,’ Freddie agreed, feeling much the same way.
Leaving the ring. Wally hurried back to the office and returned carrying a tray with three glasses of whisky on it. Vera took two of the glasses from him and passed them to Freddie and Kate while Dongelon collected the third.
‘Here’s to your health, while you still have it,’ Freddie said, raising her glass and smiling at Kate with more confidence than she felt.
Grinning, Kate replied, ‘Here’s looking at you, while you can still see me.’
Then both of them tossed off their drinks in a single gulp, much to the relief of two of the watching crowd. The glasses were removed from the ring and Dongelon handed Freddie and Kate two Indian-pennies each. They were to hold a coin in the palm of each hand, keeping the fist clenched and preventing the fight developing into a hair-yanking brawl. Quickly Dongelon told the girls the rules, for the crowd were growing rowdily restless and he wanted to start the fight.
Freddie felt sleepy as she walked forward to toe the line painted across the center of the ring. However, she kept her fists up and as soon as she came into range cut loose with a left and a right that set Kate back on her heels. Following up the blows, Freddie walked into a punch thrown by Kate. It crashed against her cheek and sent her staggering back to the ropes. For a moment Freddie hung on the ropes. She felt puzzled as she shook her head. While the blow landed with a fair amount of power behind it, she should not feel so dizzy. For some reason Kate did not follow up her advantage. Instead of moving in and landing more blows, the blonde stood in the ring center and rocked her head from side to side as if to clear it.
Giving a yawn, Freddie moved forward but although her brain knew what to do it failed to communicate the orders correctly to her hands, Closing with Kate, she swung a fist into the blonde’s ribs and felt a blow in her side, yet it lacked power. Drowsiness clouded over Freddie and she tried to shake it off, clinging to Kate. Instead of thrusting Freddie away, Kate let the coins drop from her hands and locked her arms around the other girl’s waist. Ominous growls and calls rose from the crowd and Dongelon tried to separate the girls. In a way he succeeded, for he got them apart. Then their legs buckled under them and they slid to the floor of the ring, rolling on to their backs and lying still.
A sudden silence, brought about by surprise at the sight of both girls collapsing, dropped over the room. Outside sounded a dull, muffled boom; like when a hard-rock miner touched off an explosive charge underground. If the crowd had been maintaining their noise, the sound of the boom might have gone unnoticed. As it was Dusty heard, so did his deputies and their eyes turned to him.
‘That was down by the bank !’the Kid stated.
‘Let’s go!’ Dusty replied.
Even as the five lawmen dashed from the saloon, a man yelled that the fight was a fake rigged by Freddie. Instantly one of Freddie’s supporters jumped up and swung a punch. Like ripples raised by a stone thrown into a lake, the brawl spread across the room as furious men deprived of what they hoped would be a damned good fight began to vent their annoyance on each other. Not only the cowhands and other workers were involved, but the upper-classes, including the banker and most of the town council became involved in the general brawl.
In the ring Dongelon stared down at the two still shapes at his feet. Then he turned and glared at Wally for he had seen knock-out drops in action often enough to recognize their effects when he saw them. What Dongelon could not understand was why Wally slipped his boss the drops as well as dosing Freddie.
‘What happened?’ he growled as the bartender came to his side.
‘Me ’n’ Vera reckoned a draw’d maybe satisfy the bosses. We don’t want to see either of ’em run out of town,’ Wally replied.
‘Very noble!’ growled Dongelon, ducking as a chair flew through the air. ‘Now how do we get out of here?’
Looking at the fighting mass of men around the ring. Wally grinned and replied, ‘I reckon we’re safer right here.’
‘Could be at that!’ Dongelon admitted, stepping to the ropes and laying his hand on a man’s face to shove him backwards as he tried to climb through the ropes.
The battle raged on, with Dongelon, Wally and Vera holding back the fighters and preventing any entering the ring to disturb the rest of the two women who ought to have been indulging in a bout of pugilism but instead lay on their backs and slept like two innocent babes. Not even the crackle of gunfire from outside and along the street brought an end to the fight.
Dusty and his men ran along the street and the big shape of his female deputy loomed up ahead of them. Coming forward, she pointed to the bank.
You hear it, Dusty?’ she asked, dropping the formal ‘cap’n’ in her excitement and concern.
‘We’re on our way, Sarah-gal,’ Dusty replied.
‘How about that bunch at the saloon?’ she went on as a man came flying through one of the windows in a shower of glass.
‘Let ’em fight. The bank’s a whole sight more important right now.’
Which, bitter as the thought might have been to Buffalo Kate as owner—had she been able to hear it—was the living truth. The bank held thousands of dollars; money to purchase cattle or buffalo hides and tongues from the men who brought them, the herd price left in safe-keeping by three trail bosses while they enjoyed the pleasures of Mulrooney, and the savings of most of the folks in town. If the contents of the bank’s safe were stolen, the result would be bankruptcy and ruin for most of the town.
A grin crossed Sarah’s face as she took the point and a thought struck her.
‘Go get ’em boys!’ she whooped and dashed off in the direction of the Fair Lady, travelling at a fair speed considering her bulky build.
Dusty and the deputies had more to occupy their minds than thinking about Sarah’s apparent desertion. If any of them thought about the matter at all, they put it down to her going to fetch a gun from the jail and not to cowardice.
In this they were wrong. Big Sarah knew her limitations and usefulness as a deputy. Handling female miscreants was her work, getting tangled in gunfights had no part in her duties. While she could handle a shotgun with reasonable skill, she reckoned her limited talents would not be needed in that field; fact being that she could even get in her friend’s way at a time when they needed to be free agents if they hoped to stay alive. So she let the men handle men’s work and decided to make a stab at stopping the brawl at the Buffalo.
There was one chance of her doing it. Mulrooney’s fire brigade, like most western towns, was manned by volunteers and most of the men were at the saloon. However, the two fire engines stood in their house and were of a pattern requiring only a limited knowledge to handle them. Sarah reckoned that she and the girls of the Fair Lady could haul one of the engines down and manage to make it work long enough for their purposes.
Throwing open the batwing doors of the Fair Lady. Sarah looked in at the morose girls who sat around. Practically the full working strength of the saloon sat in the bar-room, more than enough to achieve Sarah’s purpose.
‘Miss Freddie’s in trouble!’ she yelled.
Instantly the lethargy dropped from the girls and Babsy sprang to her feet. ‘Let’s do them Buffalo bitches!’ she screeched.
‘Hold it!’ Sarah bellowed. ‘It’s not them. There’s a riot at the Buffalo. We’re going to borrow a fire engine and damp ’em down a mite.’
With eager squeals the girls dashed from the saloon, grateful for a chance to relieve their boredom, and went streaming off in the direction of the fire-house. The cracking of shots behind the jail slowed them, but Sarah urged them on, telling them that Cap’n Fog was handling things.
Just as she led the girls towards the fire-house, Sarah remembered there were two engines in it. Leaving the other girls to go alone she headed for the Wooden Spoon and met the hostile stares of Kate’s girls who had come out to see what caused all the shouting and noise.
‘Your boss needs help!’ Sarah announced.
‘Come on, girls!’ Ginger yelled. ‘I knew we shouldn’t trust those—’
‘It’s not the Fair Lady girls, it’s a riot at the Buffalo,’ Sarah interrupted. ‘Fair Lady’s gone for a fire engine to help stop it.’
Sarah relied on the ‘anything Fair Lady can do, we can do a whole heap better’ attitude of the Buffalo girls to gain her the required support and she proved correct.
‘Come on, girls!’ howled a big, buxom brunette, ‘let’s show them Fair Lady cows how Buffalo can move.’
Two swarms of girls descended on the fire-house where the two hand-drawn fire-engines stood ready for use, big water tanks full and the wheels coated in antelope grease for easy rolling. All thoughts of settling their private differences by hand-scalpings had been forgotten, although the rivalry remained. Eager hands grabbed the towing handles of both engines, plump bare shoulders rested against the rear to add motive power by pushing. Sheer weight of numbers started the two engines running at almost the same instant; the Buffalo girls, having a shorter distance to run, arrived at the same moment as the Fair Lady’s group and both saloon contingents went to it with a will and eagerness to show the other who was best.
Babsy grabbed hold of the speaking trumpet which hung on the side of the Fair Lady’s engine and without asking for permission appointed herself commander of her saloon’s machine. In a voice that was squeaky with excitement, she began to exhort her saloon to pull and show those flabby old hags next door what young ladies could do.
After throwing an angry glance at Babsy, Ginger released her hold of the Buffalo engine’s towing handle and grabbed their speaking trumpet. She began to screech encouragement to the Buffalo girls, telling them to show that fat blonde foreigner and those worn out old hags what a good saloon’s girls could manage.
Ignoring the sporadic bursts of shooting which wafted to their ears, the girls dragged their engines from the fire-house down on Main Street and brought them to a halt facing the shattered windows of the Buffalo Saloon. Inside the battle still raged in all its fury and from the sound of breaking furniture Buffalo Kate would have little left for her customers to sit upon when she next opened.
Quickly the girls followed the pattern they had often seen used by the town’s volunteer firemen. In the slack days, while waiting for trade to come to Mulrooney, watching the fire crews in training had formed a welcome break from the dull, customerless hours in the Fair Lady and Freddie’s girls knew the drill very well. However, the engines had been designed for simplicity in operation so that poorly trained and unhandy crews would be able to handle them in an emergency, so the Buffalo girls had little difficulty in preparing their outfit for operation. A buxom, strong girl uncoiled each hose and headed towards the windows with the self-appointed engine commanders at their sides and screeching demands that the other members of the crew got water coming. Girls grabbed the pump handles on either side of the engines and others caught up the buckets, forming a chain to the filled water barrels on the edge of the sidewalk, ready to refill the engines’ tanks.
‘Go to it, girls!’ Sarah yelled. ‘Pump!’
A big, burly man reeled through the batwing doors of the saloon, his shirt tom off and his mouth bleeding. From all appearances he looked too wild to care who he attacked as long as he attacked somebody, so Sarah took no chances. Folding her right hand, she swung it to crash against the man’s thrust-out jaw and sent him backwards into the saloon where he fell on to his back and lost all further interest in the proceedings.
Down went the pump handle at one side and up rose the other side, to be thrust downwards again by eager arms. The two girls holding the hoses felt a stirring, swelling pulsation as water was forced through the canvas and held at the closed nozzles just waiting to burst out when the taps opened.
‘Now!’ Sarah roared.
Turning on the nozzle taps, the two girls released their jets of water. The hose could throw a jet one hundred and fifty feet into the air when given the full power of the pumps behind them. Even with the slightly less than full force the girls managed, the water flew out at a tolerable rate and when it landed packed a considerable amount of power. The twin jets sprang forward through the windows and swept among the fighting crowd, felling men like ninepins, knocking breath and aggressive desires out of fighting bodies.
The effort at stopping the brawl would not be made without sacrifices. Sweat poured down faces, washing away make-up; hair came down and straggled untidily; suspender straps popped and runs developed in stockings or, freed of their restraint, the stockings slid down; shoes were lost, dresses splashed and soaked in water; yet the girls ignored all those minor inconveniences in their efforts to end the fight.
Babsy and Ginger were yelling themselves hoarse as they urged their girls to better efforts and pointed out promising targets to the hose-handlers. Of course, it was only coincidence when Babsy screeched:
‘There, that ginger-haired bloke!’
Obligingly the Fair Lady’s hose-handier swung her nozzle in the required direction and swept a red-headed buffalo hunter from his feet just as he was about to fell a cowhand from behind and using a leg-less chair.
‘Get that fat blond jasper!’ Ginger yelled after scanning the crowd to pick a likely target and again the color of the hair was mere coincidence.
Flicking an annoyed glance at Ginger, Babsy directed the jet to where Banker Courtland and Mr. Sherill were settling an ancient difference of opinion in a most satisfactory and enjoyable manner. Sherill held the post as Fire Chief and it struck Babsy as being apt that he should learn how effective his fire engines’ hoses could be.
Roaring with rage, a man tried to climb out of the window but Babsy’s hose-handler washed him back inside like a log caught in a flashflood. Then Babsy saw a cowhand coming through the batwing doors and directed the hose at him. In doing so, completely by accident? she managed to have Ginger drenched in the side-spray from the jet. Even if that was an accident, the same could not be said for Ginger’s action in grabbing a bucket full of water from one of her girls and heaving its contents over a second man who tried to get out of the door, but included Babsy very generously in its wash.
Dropping her speaking trumpet, Babsy swung towards Ginger and the little red-head let the bucket fall. Before they reached each other, a hand caught each girl by the scruff of her neck.
‘Start anything and I’ll crack your heads together!’ Big Sarah warned.
Being sensible girls, even if a mite hot-tempered, and having a marked aversion to getting their heads cracked together, Babsy and Ginger decided to postpone hostilities until a later and more convenient moment Confining themselves to nothing more than poking their tongues out at each other, the two girls went back to controlling their hose-handler’s fire and picking off likely targets in the crowd.
By the time the water barrels were empty and the pumps sucking the last drops out of the engine’s tanks, all resistance ended in the saloon. Limp, soaking and winded men no longer felt any desire to fight, but Sarah found her troubles had not ended.
The exhausted girls leaned on the hitching rails or sagged against pump handles. All but Babsy and Ginger. Although soaked to the skin and hoarse from giving encouragement to their friends, neither had been through so great an exertion as the pump crews or bucket lines.
‘I bet Freddie Woods started that so she wouldn’t get licked!’ Ginger said.
‘Miss Freddie doesn’t need help to lick a fat bladder like Buffalo Kate!’ Babsy croaked back. ‘Buffalo’s a good name for her, she looks like one.’
‘Don’t you talk about Kate like that!’
‘Or what’ll you do?’
Instantly both groups of girls tensed, forgetting their tiredness and remembering their feud. Sarah knew she must act fast or wind up with another riot on her hands, one she might not stop so easily. However, Sarah was a woman and understood the working of a female mind.
‘You girls sure look a sight,’ she said. ‘Won’t the townswomen laugh when they arrive?’
Every girl stopped in her tracks, staring at the bedraggled condition of the opposing group, then the girls around her. Not one of them wished to have anybody, much less the good ladies of the town, see them in that state. Forgetting their disagreements, deserting the pumps and leaving shoes behind them, the Fair Lady girls dashed back to the shelter of their saloon and the Buffalo contingent fled to the rear of the building to use the back door and get out of sight.
With a grin, Sarah leaned on the hitching rail and watched the soaking men limp out of the saloon. Most of them carried some sign of being involved in the fight and she figured Dusty would be able to round them up in the morning. Then she wondered where Dusty and the others might be for she could not remember hearing any shooting for several minutes.