“YOU WANTING SOMETHING, missus?” the oldest of the women employed at the Arizona State Saloon asked, having seen Steffie Willis standing outside and looking over the batwing doors.
“Can you fetch Cap’n Hart over for me?” the ash-blonde requested, aware that she must not enter the establishment and that to do so would arouse the resentment of the saloon girls.
“He’s busy right now,” replied the woman, a well-rounded redhead with a dislike for females accounted “good” by the standards of the day. “Whyn’t you—?”
“Either you go fetch him right now, or I’m going to do it myself,” Steffie warned. She had no animosity toward members of her sex who worked in saloons, knowing the majority of them had had no other choice where obtaining employment was concerned. However, not only did she have a spirited nature that objected to such treatment, the urgent nature of the business that brought her there made her less tolerant than would otherwise have been the case. “Which I’ll do it over you if need be.”
“Why, howdy, you-all, Miz Willis, ma’am,” Dusty Fog said before the redhead could reply. He had been circulating around the room and recognized the ash-blonde from the description he was once given by her husband. “If you’re looking for Rusty, he’s drinking, carousing, and making all kinds of fun with the ladies.”
After the departure of Sheriff Amon Reeves and Kiowa Cotton—who had agreed to the request for his services as a skilled reader of sign immediately upon its being put to him—the celebrations were resumed in the saloon. Considering it a matter of priority, the small Texan and Stone Hart had first devoted their attention to helping Thorny Bush make an adjustment to the realization that he had taken another human being’s life; they assured him that everybody would agree he only did so to prevent himself from being killed in a gunfight he neither sought nor wanted. They succeeded so well that the youngster was soon regaling all within hearing distance with his extensive repertoire of jokes, and on this occasion was allowed to do so without reprisals.
“Not him,” Steffie was unable to prevent herself from saying despite her eagerness to see the boss of the Wedge. “He’s too loyal, noble, upstanding—and scared of what I’d do to him should he do such carrying-ons to do any of ’em.” Then she became serious as she continued, still remaining outside the doors. “It’s Margaret.”
“What about her?” Dusty asked, stepping through the front entrance.
“She’s just had a letter from Mrs. Eardle asking for them to meet up secret-like to try to settle the fuss between their husbands,” the ash-blonde replied. “Which she’s bound ’n’ determined to do, the way she’s been asked. Where’s Cap’n Hart?”
“He was going out to the backhouse last I saw, and isn’t back yet,” the small Texan answered. “Just what was she asked?”
“That she come to the meeting on her lonesome,” Steffie explained. “And, knowing how set she is in her ways, I’ve told Becky Reeves to push her down gentle ’n’ sit on her to make sure she stays put until I get back with the other boss.”
“I surely do admire loyal and respectful help,” Dusty drawled. “Look, Stone’s helping the boys whoop things up to celebrate the end of the drive. Leave us let him keep on doing it and I’ll come with you.”
“Well—!” the ash-blonde began. However, remembering what Rusty had told her about the way a trail boss of Stone Hart’s kind showed gratitude for a job well done, she decided there could be no harm in accepting the suggestion from the small Texan. From all she had heard about him—and, like the other members of the Wedge crew with whom she had spoken, her husband accorded him a respect equaled only by that given to his boss—Dusty was quite capable of dealing with any problems that might arise from following the instructions given by Mrs. Eardle. “Sure, if I can’t get the best—!”
“I surely do admire being taken on as seconds,” Dusty stated with a grin, deciding that he thoroughly approved of the obviously competent young woman his amigo had taken for a wife. “Let’s go get her done.”
“Thanks for your help, Red,” Steffie called to the watching woman. “And I know I can count on you to keep that fool husband of mine on the straight ’n’ narrow path.”
Watching the curvaceously close-to-buxom and obviously sturdy ash-blonde woman walking away accompanied by the Texan—whom she, in accord with many other people who knew him, now no longer thought of as being small—the saloon girl gave a grin. Although tough in her own right, she felt as she resumed her duties that she could have been ill-advised to have caused the entrance to the saloon to be made in the manner threatened.
Dusty soon found himself being admitted to the sitting room of the sheriff’s home. It was the first time he had seen Stone’s wife, and as was the case with the ash-blonde, he approved of the choice made by a good friend.
“I didn’t have to do what you said I should, Steffie,” announced Becky Reeves, a tall and Junoesque woman in her mid-thirties who exuded the kind of rugged self-confidence that made her invaluable to her husband when he was required to deal with recalcitrant female prisoners. “But there were times when I thought it was close.”
“Stone isn’t with you,” Margaret Hart stated, turning her head as if able to see the man who she had heard following the ash-blonde into the room.
“This’s Cap’n Dusty Fog,” Steffie introduced.
“Good evening, Cap’n Fog,” Margaret greeted, walking forward with an assured step until she stood in front of the small Texan. Reaching forward with her right hand, she went on, “May I, please?”
“Feel free, ma’am,” Dusty authorized. Then, while his face was being run over gently by the woman’s fingers, he went on, “Please accept Mark’s, Lon’s, and my apologies for not having been able to come to your wedding.”
“I do,” Margaret declared with a smile, liking what her trained touch told her about the man she was examining. “Although I suspect you and those other worthless cusses who ride with you would have tried to talk him out of it.”
The position of the sound of Dusty’s voice told Margaret how tall he was, and her fingers formed an accurate estimate of the powerful build he possessed by touching his shoulders and biceps. Furthermore, in addition to having heard it mentioned by Stone and the permanent members of the Wedge crew—especially Rusty Willis—even though none of them expressed it in such a fashion, she could sense the force in his personality that made people against whom he came in contention to suddenly feel he was far larger than was the case.
When the situation arose, Margaret deduced correctly, the small Texan would stand the tallest of all.
“Not me, ma’am,” Dusty denied. “I reckon if I’ve got to put up with taking me a wife, all my amigos should have to endure it.”
“I’ll treat that remark with the contempt it deserves, Dusty,” Margaret claimed. “And being called ‘ma’am’ makes me feel awful old.”
“I’ll bear it in mind, Margaret,” the small Texan promised. “Steffie reckoned something’s come up that needs a mite more handling than you can manage being just a woman. So, seeing’s how Stone’s full’ occupied with making sure those useless yahoos he calls a crew don’t drink the Arizona State dry ’n’ try to haul Child City out to the edge to save riding in so far when they want to call, I reckoned you might be willing to let me take a hand.”
“I think I can just about endure it,” the tawny-haired woman decided after a short pause to consider the proposition. Even without Steffie and Becky’s objections to her doing as was requested in the letter that had been left attached by a thumbtack to the front door of the sheriff’s house, she had realized she would be quite ill-advised to do so alone. Not only was she in a strange town, but she did not have Rolf to serve as a seeing-eye dog. Furthermore, aware of how the crew always enjoyed having their boss with them on the celebration a trail’s successful conclusion, she had not wished to cause him to forgo it. “How much do you know?”
“Only that you’ve had a letter asking you to meet up with Mrs. Eardle in secret to see if you can come up with a way to make your menfolk settle down peaceable,” Dusty replied. “Mind if I take a look at it?”
“Feel free,” Margaret authorized. “Can you fetch it, please, Steffie?”
“I already did,” the ash-blonde replied, offering the small Texan a folded sheet of paper.
“Uh-huh,” Dusty grunted after reading the message that contained the request of which he had been told. There were also details telling how to reach the rendezvous and a request for Mrs. Hart to come alone and without any sort of light, as it would go hard for the writer should her husband find out what she was doing. “I know you’ve never seen any of her writing, Margaret, but—!”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” the tawny-haired woman instructed with a smile. “I know what you mean, and as I’d never heard there was a Mrs. Eardle, I wouldn’t be able to say whether it was her handwriting even if I could see it.”
“Would you reckon as how a woman wrote it, Steffie?” the small Texan inquired, relieved that what he considered a bad faux pas was not regarded in such a fashion by Margaret.
“It’s kind of neat for a man’s hand,” the ash-blonde assessed after conducting an examination of the letter. “Wouldn’t you say so, Becky?”
“Yes,” the sheriff’s wife seconded, then she lifted the paper to her nose and sniffed it at. “Which it’s a mite scented, and although we all know there’re some who would, that doesn’t strike me as being something many men would buy.”
“Do you think it could be a trap of some kind, Dusty?” Steffie asked, sounding worried by the possibility even though she had already reached such a conclusion.
“It’s possible,” the small Texan admitted.
“Then it’s me who’s going with you, if there’s any going to be done!” the ash-blonde asserted in a definite tone.
“And it’s me Mrs. Eardle wants to meet,” Margaret pointed out with an equal vehemence. “If it is a genuine request, we have to play it the way she asks, and if not—well, I doubt whether anybody around here other than we and the crew know I’m blind. Certainly those hard cases who tried to cut the herd didn’t see anything to let them know.”
“There likely wouldn’t be that bit about you not having a light along if they had known,” Dusty assessed. “And the letter would not have come.”
“I’ll go along with you on that and hope Stone never hears I did,” Margaret declared, then swung to face the ash-blonde with an air of determination, although the way she spoke robbed the last few words of any sting. “Seeing how dark it is outside, I’ll be better able to cope with it than you, Steffie. So, speaking as your employer, I’m stating here and now that I’m going and not you.”
“Somebody’s there, Dusty,” Margaret Hart whispered, gesturing ahead as she and the small Texan walked together through the darkness. His eyes could barely do more than form a general idea of where they were going.
Faced with the determination shown by the tawny-haired woman, which she admitted to herself made good sense although she threatened without meaning it to quit and find a more agreeable boss, Steffie Willis had raised no further objections. Margaret, donning the cloak-coat she had brought with her for the return trip to the ranch over her gingham dress, had left the sheriff’s house with Dusty Fog. As they were going through the door, Becky Reeves had said she would open the windows and, at the first hint of trouble being heard, would get word to the Arizona State Saloon as fast as Steffie could move.
At first there had been some light from the surrounding buildings to help the small Texan find the way. However, before long, Margaret and he had arrived at a part of Child City where all the premises were either closed for the night or no longer in use. The destination selected for the meeting—or site of the trap, should this prove to be the case—was a deserted and practically ruined Spanish-style mission. Although the small Texan scanned it as well as possible in the bad light, he could detect no sign of there being other humans in the vicinity. However, as they were approaching the jagged remains of a sturdy adobe exterior wall, Margaret gave the warning that there could be occupants.
“Are you here, Mrs. Eardle?” the small Texan called, bringing Margaret to a stop behind the sloping end of the wall.
“Guess again, beef head!” a mocking masculine voice with a Northern accent replied from somewhere ahead, then snickers from several men could be heard.
“What’re you fellers after?” Dusty inquired, drawing the left-side Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker revolver with his right hand while attempting to locate the men in the Stygian blackness of the night. He had tried to sound querulous at the same time and cover the sound of the hammer being cocked by speaking loudly.
“We want the woman, short stuff!” the same harsh voice replied. “Major Eardle of the AW sent us to collect her, and seeing as there’s three of us to just the one of you, you’ll save yourself a whole slew of grief if you let us have her.”
“Three of you, huh?” Dusty said, having felt Margaret’s right hand tighten a little on his left when the number was given by the speaker and a finger tap five times. “That’s pretty tall odds against me, feller.”
While speaking, the small Texan allowed the woman to move the direction his Colt was pointing until it was at a downward angle. When the motion stopped, he responded to a tap in the side with her other forefinger by setting free the hammer. It snapped forward, and there was a crash of detonating black powder followed by the red flare of the muzzle blast. He was dazzled by the sudden glow but cocked the single-action mechanism instinctively. While doing so, he heard a screech that was closely followed by a sound he knew to be caused by the limbs of a human being thrashing in the agony that preceded death.
Proving that Margaret had been correct in her estimation of the number of would-be captors, four revolvers were fired from different positions. All were well-aimed, but the lead struck the adobe wall and died there. Each assailant’s position had been marked by a red glow, but Dusty was still too dazzled by his own shot to be able to capitalize. For a moment, the only consolation he could draw was that the vision of the trio would be just as impaired. Then he realized that there was another factor working in his favor: being blind, Margaret was oblivious to the detrimental effect caused by the muzzle flare from the weapons. What is more, as she had already proved, she could locate direction most accurately from sounds. Nor had the multiple detonations confused her.
Once again, the small Texan allowed the gentle pressure on his hand to guide its movements. He had cocked the Colt instinctively while controlling the kick of the recoil, and all was ready when he felt the same signal as before. The Peacemaker cracked, and once again, owing to his own skill and the accuracy of the guidance he had received, the detonation was followed by the sound of lead driving into human flesh and the cry of a man in mortal pain.
“He’s got Purd as well as the ’breed, B—!” a startled voice claimed.
At the first word spoken, Dusty again allowed his movements to be directed by Margaret. Waiting only until he had recocked the Colt, she turned its alignment and repeated the signal. The Colt sounded. Going by the yell of alarm that rose without any suggestion of pain in it, Dusty concluded that he had made a near miss instead of inflicting injury. However, it seemed that this proved to be the last straw for the speaker.
“I’m getting the hell out of here!” the man screeched.
“And me!” announced a fresh voice redolent of equal alarm. “That son of a bitch shoots too damned straight for me!”
“They’re all going who can,” Margaret announced after having listened intensely to various sounds suggesting that the surviving would-be abductors were withdrawing quickly on foot.
“I’d sure like to see Steffie going lickety-split to fetch Stone and the boys along,” Dusty drawled, setting the hammer of his Colt on the safety notch and returning it to its holster as leather creaked and horses were set into hurried motion. “The trouble being, there’s no call for them to give up their drinking ’n’ carousing and come at all.”
“You know what men are,” Margaret said, trying to control her nerves as she realized she had helped cause serious injury and probably death to two of the party lying in wait to take her captive.
“I know what Stone’ll be when he hears what’s come off,” Dusty answered as the hoofbeats faded away. “Riled a mite, or even two mites.”
The small Texan proved to be correct in his assumption.
Upon his arrival—accompanied by all his hands, the two members of Ole Devil’s floating outfit, and Steffie Willis—the boss of the Wedge was in a more furious display of temper than anyone had ever seen from him. However, he calmed down a little when Margaret assured him that she was unharmed and that it was at her insistence that the small Texan had brought her to the ruined mission. Knowing how determined she could be when she decided on some line of action, Stone was willing to accept the reason he had not been informed of what was to happen. He also stated that he did not believe he could have repulsed the attackers with the skill shown by Dusty. But his anger started to rise again when he was told who had been responsible for the attempt to capture Margaret.
“By God!” the boss of the Wedge growled savagely. “Eardle’s gone way too far this time. I’m headed—!”
“Back to the sheriff’s place,” Dusty interrupted. “I know those that of ’em’s could took a greaser standoff, but there could be more around ready to cut in if this game fell through. They might be figuring on making another stab at it, so it’s your place to see that it doesn’t come off.”
“You mean you’re saying we let this damned game drop?” Stone demanded.
“Nope,” the small Texan denied. “I’m going to have words with Mr. Eardle. Don’t say no, amigo. It’s better that way. Once it’s over, Mark, Lon, and I’ll be headed back to the OD Connected, but you’re going to be making your home here. Which being, it’ll be a whole heap easier if folks don’t keep remembering how you let yourself get into a shooting war as soon as you got here. That Welsh feller Mont reckons isn’t Welsh’d really have something to sink his teeth into.”
“Dusty’s making good sense, Stone,” Margaret stated definitely, but could not help supplementing the assessment with “Probably for first and last time of his life.” Then she went on in a tone that implied she regarded the matter as settled, “Who do you mean to have with you, Cap’n Fog?”
“Mark and Lon, for starters,” the small Texan replied, giving Stone no chance to speak. “How about it, Waggles, Peaceful, Silent, are you on?”
“We’ve all throwed our bedrolls into Wedge’s chuck wagon way back,” the segundo answered. xxv “And they was still there last trail count.”
“I just hope there won’t be no trouble!” Peaceful Gunn wailed in his most doleful and seemingly deeply concerned fashion, as everybody expected he would.
“Just one goddamned minute, Cap’n Fog!” Steffie put in, stepping forward to halt with feet spread apart and arms akimbo. “Didn’t you miss somebody out on your trail count?”
“I can’t think who,” the small Texan replied, conscious of the bitter glare that had been directed his way by Rusty Willis. “This is no chore for a married man.”
“Then why’re you going?” the ash-blonde countered. “If you reckon you’re going off on this fool game without the best goddamned fighting man you’ve got, then you’ve got another thought coming.”
“You in, Rusty?” Dusty asked mildly.
“My boss says I am,” the cowhand replied.
“Got space for another hand, Cap’n?” Dude asked.
“Make that two,” David Montgomerie suggested.
“I count it three!” Thorny Bush claimed.
“All right, ’though I’m like’ to regret being so kind-hearted,” Dusty assented. “Only, afore any more of you volunteer, the rest of you’ll be staying out here and helping your boss ride shotgun on Mrs. Hart ’n’ Mrs. Willis.”
“Do it whatever way you see fit, amigo,” Stone said, yielding to the inevitable and admitting to himself that Dusty was making good sense about Stone’s not becoming actively involved. His eyes went to the Kid as he went on, “There’s just one thing, though. Try to handle things without any killing, if that’s possible.”