‘Don’t touch that gun, cowboy!’
Every head in the place turned towards the voice.
Many of them knew its nasal tone already, and those who did not certainly knew its owner. Hickok stood in the doorway, his hands hooked in the red sash, his forearms holding back the opened frock coat. The ivory-handled Colts were ready, jutting forward.
‘Hickok, this ain’t none o’ your say-so!’ the cowboy said. ‘This is atween me an’ the kid here!’
‘I’d normally say you were right,’ Hickok said, his voice level and unruffled. ‘However, I happen to know the boy isn’t heeled. Which would make shootin’ him murder, which in turn would make it some o’ my say-so. Now: you still anxious to pull that iron?’
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he braced his feet slightly apart. For a long, long moment the cowboy glared at him, his hand poised near the cutaway holster.
Then, with an oath, he turned away and put both hands palm down on the bar. Hickok nodded, and came into the saloon, easing neatly along the bar with his back to it until he came level with the cowboy. He lifted the man’s gun from the holster and tossed it to a shorter, thickset man near the door who wore a badge.
‘Take him along, Mike,’ he said.
The deputy nodded and gestured with the man’s gun, which he cocked ostentatiously. Hickok heeled back towards the door using that curious motion which precluded anyone’s getting around in back of him. He pushed the cowboy in front of him.
‘Don’t shove me, dammit!’ snarled the cowboy. ‘I ain’t no whore you can hustle!’
There was a quick sound of indrawn breath as the man uttered the words. It was one thing to call a man like Hickok a pimp behind his back, quite another to do it to his face. Hickok’s face went white.
‘You want to back that up, outside?’ he hissed.
‘I ain’t goin’ up against you, Hickok!’ the cowboy shouted. ‘One o’ these days us Texicans’ll get together an’ wipe you out!’
‘But not today,’ Hickok said quietly. Nobody saw his hands move yet suddenly there was a flash of light as he drew one of the ivory-handled six-guns and whipped it alongside the cowboy’s head. The man fell as if pole-axed; and Hickok whirled in one fluid movement to face the crowded room.
‘Any more o’ you Texicans want in on this?’ he said.
He used the word Texicans like some foul insult.
Nobody moved.
Hickok nodded, and then said to Angel, who was still standing by the wrecked table, ‘You better get out o’ here, sonny.’
‘When I’m through,’ Angel said doggedly.
Hickok smiled. ‘Come see me,’ he said, and then gestured brusquely at some of the bystanders. They lifted the two fallen Texans roughly and carted them out through the doors. When they had gone a clamor of shouts for drinks, some ribald shouts and jeers broke loose. No one came near Angel, who sat down in the chair next to the saloon girl and pulled it close to her.
She looked at him with wide eyes.
‘You’re a right one, aren’t you?’ she said, coyly.
‘Ma’am?’
‘You don’t look much more than a baby,’ she cooed. ‘Yet you’re … ’ she leaned over and squeezed his biceps. ‘Oooh,’ she said.
‘Listen,’ Angel said. ‘I want to ask you about a man called Milt.’
‘Oooh, ducky,’ she giggled. ‘You don’t look the type.’
A bottle and glass was plonked on the table by a passing waiter.
‘I don’t — ’ Angel began.
‘ — you got to buy me a drink, dearie,’ the girl said. ‘House rules.’
He shrugged and she poured him a sizable slug of whiskey. He felt her hand go to his groin and in spite of himself he was aroused. He pushed her away.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘You know you like it.’
‘Business first,’ he said, forcing a leer. ‘Fun later.’
‘Oooh,’ she said again, ‘you’re a right one, you are.’
‘Your name Rosie Russell?’ Angel asked.
‘That’s right, dearie. Me professional name,’ she said, flirting her curls. Her face looked pathetically young beneath the heavy mask of powder and paint.
‘You know a man called Milt?’ he asked. ‘Rode through here maybe five, six weeks back, with six other guys?’
The girl put her head back and laughed aloud, a caterwauling gurgle that had no mirth in it whatsoever.
‘We see a thousand cowboys a month in Abilene, dearie,’ she laughed. ‘Who can remember every one that buys a girl a drink?’
‘He bought more than a drink, Rosie,’ Angel said. ‘He bought you a hell of a good time. I’d have thought you remembered anyone who did that.’
‘Depends,’ she said, pouting. ‘You surely ain’t doin’ much.’
‘I only got ten dollars,’ he lied. ‘If you come up with what I want to know, it’s yours.’
The girl’s eyes went instantly calculating. Ten dollars was not a lot of money but it was better than doing five tricks.
‘You’re a queer duck an’ no mistake,’ she sighed, nestling her head against him. Her hand moved urgently beneath the table. ‘Why don’t we go into one of the side booths an’ … talk?’
Angel reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a pouch. He emptied it on the table: ten silver dollars.
‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll quit trying to get me into a deadfall. Rosie, you’re a pretty girl and I like you, but I got to find this Milt fellow.’
‘I can keep the money?’ she asked. ‘No kidding? The way she said it touched him: nobody could have ever given her a truthful answer to that question.
‘Keep it,’ he said, pushing the money towards her.
‘Tell me about Milt.’
‘Nothin’ much to tell, really,’ she said, deftly sweeping the money into the pouch and stuffing it down between her breasts. ‘Him and his friend Howard.’
‘Howard? Did he have red hair?’
‘That’s right, how did you know?’ When Angel didn’t answer, she went on, ‘Anyways, they came in one night and this Milt made a big fuss of me, buyin’ champagne, orderin’ the best room in the place. We had quite a night of it all.’
‘You and Milt and Howard?’
‘Plus another friend of mine, an older lady who acted as our chaperone,’ Rosie said, demurely.
‘Did they say anything at all about themselves, Rosie? Think,’ he urged her, ‘it’s very important.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’d remember if they had. They were heading south,’ she giggled. ‘But they wasn’t in no hurry.’ A wary look crossed her face. ‘What you asking all these questions for?’
‘I have to find Milt,’ he lied. ‘His folks an’ mine are neighbors back in Missouri. His old man is awful sick and he asked me to see if I could track him down and get him to head back for Kearney.’
‘Oh, that poor man,’ she said. ‘His daddy must be pretty old, I reckon.’ Angel said nothing, and she went on, ‘Milt bein’ thirty five, I mean.’
‘He’s seventy two,’ Angel said, doing some quick arithmetic.
‘Poor Mr. Sharp,’ the girl said. She was silent for a moment, and Angel started to rise. ‘No, wait,’ the girl said. ‘I’ll tell you. I just remembered something, about where Milt said they were heading.’
‘Tell me,’ Angel said.
‘You’re hurting my arm,’ she pointed out mildly. He loosened his grip. ‘Milt said something about not seeing another woman this side of the Raton Pass.’
‘He said that — Raton Pass?’
She nodded. ‘They was heading for New Mexico. But I don’t know where — hey!’ She slapped her leg and turned to a man sitting next to her at the next table.
‘How do you like that — he never even said goodbye!’
‘Never mind, sis,’ the man grinned. He was a bushy-haired fellow of perhaps thirty, with the weather-beaten face of an outdoorsman. ‘You’ll do better talkin’ to me, anyways.’ He put an arm round her waist and lifted her up, plonking her down on his lap. She wriggled a little and her cheeks flushed slightly.
‘Oooh,’ she said, ‘you’re a right one, aren’t you. What’s your name, dearie?’
‘Dick,’ he said.
The girl’s high-pitched giggle cut through the hubbub of the room and one or two heads turned. Otherwise nobody took any notice at all. No more notice was taken of Frank Angel as he pushed through the batwings and headed up Texas Street towards the marshal’s office on the corner. It was a makeshift affair of log, the gaps between the pine horizontals slapped carelessly with white gypsum cement, the dried bark peeling everywhere. The door was sturdy and heavy, with no windows.
Inside there was a long room with a desk in the corner — again, a blind corner with no windows, Angel noticed.
Behind it and across the room floor-to-ceiling bars separated another area that was the jail. It was austere to the point of bareness. The desk, a chair, a rifle rack and a small wall cabinet were the sum total of the furnishing.
Several cowboys were snoring in the cells. Hickok sat at the desk, smoking a long thin cigar.
‘Find out anything, boy?’ Hickok asked.
Angel nodded. ‘I’d like to get my gun,’ he said.
Hickok got up and unlocked the cabinet, lifting Angel’s Army Colt and belt out.
‘l loaded it up for you,’ he said. Angel looked his question.
‘Had to let that cowboy go on bail, son,’ the Marshal said. ‘He never did nothing. His friend you beat up on went too. I guess they’re around town somewhere. Wouldn’t be surprised they were looking for you. So take my advice — get on your horse and sift some dust. I don’t want to make a career out of pulling your chestnuts out o’ the fire.’
‘I never got the chance to thank you — ’ Angel began.
‘No thanks needed, son. Despite what they say about me, I’d as soon avoid shootin’ a man if it’s possible.’
‘I’m obliged,’ Angel said.
‘Wish you luck,’ Hickok said. He did not offer his hand, so Angel turned and went to the door. He went out into the darkening street and closed it behind him and as he did a voice across the street shouted ‘OK, pilgrim!’
and he saw the yellow lance of flame from the muzzle of a six-gun. Something touched his shoulder and then he was sitting on the sidewalk, his back hurting where he had smashed against the roughened bark of the jailhouse wall. He fumbled for the gun at his hip as he heard footsteps running towards him.
‘Kill the little bastard!’ someone shouted.