Approaching the fisherman’s shack, Belle Boyd studied it with distaste. Set close to the edge of Atchafalaya Bay, the building did not exude a welcoming air. Small, one-roomed, dark and deserted, yet still in reasonable condition, was how the cabin appeared to the girl. All around her the mangrove swamp and canebrakes closed in, making the winding path along which she walked gloomy, eerie almost, when one listened to the mysterious noises of the swampland at night.
If she had seen a light, or anything to hint that the telegraph station’s crew were present, Belle would have returned to town and gathered assistance. No coward, Belle also did not rank folly among her achievements. While she could handle a revolver with some skill, matching shots against a bunch of desperate Yankee spies would prove too much for her. She knew her capabilities and recognized her limitations. If forced to by circumstances, she would have tackled the gang, but given a chance or choice in the matter, she intended to fetch help to make more certain the capture and destruction of the Yankee’s message-distribution organization. Finding the building in darkness, she decided to check and confirm Jacobs’ information.
Drawing her Dance, she approached the front door of the building. She doubted if the Yankees maintained a guard on the cabin when not using it; to do so might invite unwanted curiosity. In all probability the telegraph key would only be connected when in actual use and might even not be present at other times. However, the wires could not be rolled up and hidden between messages. Finding them would he all the proof she needed.
Gently she gripped the door handle, twisting and shoving at it. The door opened silently, a significant point that Belle grasped. If the cabin had been unused for some time, its hinges ought to screech a protest when working. Trying to peer through the stygian blackness of the building’s interior, Belle moved forward. Eyes and ears worked hard to pick up any hint of danger; but her nose made the first detection. The significance of the faint aroma of perfume did not, however, strike her quite quickly enough. Even as she realized that such a scent had no place in a Yankee spy-ring’s telegraph station, a hand caught her shoulder, jerked hard and heaved her towards the darkness in the center of the cabin.
Taken by surprise, Belle had no chance to resist. The hand gripped her and pulled hard; as she shot forward, Belle heard the door slam to. The light flooded the room from a lantern hanging in the center. Belle saw a big brunette stood with hands still gripping the lantern’s covers, but that one did not constitute the immediate danger. Unable to halt her forward rush, Belle advanced straight into the round-arm swing the waiting Flora launched at her. Woman-like, Flora used the flat of her hand instead of her knuckles. Even so, the force of the slap sent Belle spinning across the room and caused her to drop her gun. Pain knifed through her and her head spun from the blow. Only just in time did she manage to twist herself around so that she struck the wall shoulders first instead of colliding face-on.
“Get her!” Flora screeched.
Only one thing saved Belle. The two girls aiding Flora expected to be confronted by a rival cathouse madam dressed in the conventional manner. Unable to see more than a blurred shape in the doorway, Beth carried out her part in the plan to perfection by grabbing Belle and thrusting her forward. Nor did May show any less ability in lighting the lantern at just the right moment. In doing so, she illuminated not a cathouse madam in a dress, but a beautiful girl wearing men’s clothing and carrying a gun. The shock of the unexpected sight held Beth and May off for just that vital second Belle needed to regain control of her slap-scattered wits.
One thing Belle knew immediately and without needing any heavy thought, she must fight if she hoped to escape with her life. Although her Dance lay in the center of the room, leaping for it would be suicide while all three of her attackers remained on their feet.
After screaming her order, Flora hurled herself straight at Belle. Fury and hate over-rode caution and made the redhead act without thinking of the consequences. Or it may have been that she believed a high-born Southern lady like Belle Boyd would prove easy meat. If that had been Flora’s thought, she would swiftly find disillusionment.
Moving clear of the wall, and seeing the other girls recover from their surprise, Belle prepared to handle Flora’s hair-reaching rush with something a damned sight more effective than curl-yanking. Up rose Belle’s right leg until its calf was parallel to the floor and the sole of her high-heeled shoe aimed at Flora. Straightening her left leg, Belle leaned backwards slightly and thrust forward the right in a stamping high kick. Full into Flora’s sizeable bust crashed the foot. Sick agony tore into the Union supporter; her eyes bulged and her mouth opened in a hideous shriek of pain. She stumbled backwards, momentarily out of the fight.
From her assault on Flora, Belle brought down her leg, pivoted and lashed up the kind of high kick which so impressed Jacobs at the hotel. Only this time she stood close enough to land home. The toe of her left boot caught Beth’s top lip, although it must be admitted that Belle aimed to smash it under the other’s chin, crushing the flesh up and splitting it before continuing to squash the nose. Squealing in agony, blood gushing from lip and nose, blinded by tears, Beth spun around and reeled away.
Fingers dug into Belle’s hair from behind as her third attacker came within reaching distance. May lay on a one-handed hold, her other fist driving into Belle’s back just above the kidney region. Even the back kick which Belle launched automatically, catching Mary just over the right knee, failed to release the tearing grip on the Southern girl’s hair. It did, however, serve to hold the big brunette at arms’ length instead of closing in to continue her assault. Fiery pain burst into Belle’s head and almost drove thoughts of effective defense from it. Luckily she retained sufficient control to know that she must free herself before the other two attackers recovered and came to lend their friend a hand.
Tilting backwards as if dragged off balance, Belle brought up both hands to clamp over the fingers which still dug into her hair and pressed them firmly against her skull. Using her left leg as a pivot, Belle twisted around while still retaining her hold on the trapped hand and halted when she faced towards the other girl. May squealed as the leverage on her hand bent her wrist at an unnatural angle. On being released, her automatic reaction was to stagger back.
Up drove Belle’s left foot, aiming at May’s lower body. However, May had been in brawls before and, hurt or not, knew a thing or two. Her hands shot forward to catch Belle’s kicking ankle.
“Come on, you pa—!” May began, feeling that her companions left too much for her to handle alone.
The words were chopped off, for Belle knew more than a few tricks and was prepared against the possibility of someone trapping her in that manner during a kick. Twisting her body, she brought her free leg up from the floor, turning so it passed over the trapped limb. Drawing the left leg back, Belle stabbed it out in a stamp to the center of May’s face. Again May felt the sickening impact of the kick and it cut off her demand for assistance. She lost her hold and stumbled away, hand clawing to her bleeding nose.
A hand caught Belle by the shoulder as she landed. Another came around, drove into her stomach and as she doubled over a knee caught her in the face. Belle crashed into the wall, half-blinded by tears of pain. Digging fingers into Belle’s hair, Flora heaved and threw the girl across the room. Only Belle’s superb coordination kept her on her feet. Again she managed to turn and hit the wall with her back, bouncing off it in the direction of Beth as the blonde rushed forward. Belle reacted almost without thought, yet she brought off the ideal answer to Beth’s rush. Bounding into the air, Belle drew up her legs and thrust them forward with all her strength. Too late Beth saw her danger. Her own forward impetus added force to the kick as Belle’s boots drove full into her bust. Screaming in mortal agony, Beth shot backwards, twisted around and crashed brutally into the wall.
Rebounding from the leaping high kick, Belle landed on her feet and found fresh trouble. Leaping forward, Flora smashed a blow which caught Belle at the side of the face. Behind the redhead, May came forward again. Desperately Belle drove out a roundhouse right which exploded on the side of Flora’s jaw and sent her staggering to one side. May skidded to a hurried halt on seeing that she must again face alone the devastating fighting techniques of the other girl. Deciding to make use of her superior reach. May flung a punch at the black-haired girl’s head. Throwing up her right fist, Belle caught the outer side of May’s striking arm, deflected the blow and turned the brunette’s body from her. A swift sidestep put Belle in position to deliver a stamping kick to the back of May’s left knee. Even as the bigger girl lost her balance, Belle’s left foot reached the floor and her right swung up to crash hard at the base of the brunette’s skull. Already off balance, the kick flung May forward and, dazed and helpless, she smashed headlong into the wall. From there she collapsed in a limp heap upon the floor.
Before Belle could fully recover from handling May, she found fresh trouble. Flora flung herself forward, coming in at Belle’s side. Two arms locked around Belle’s waist and the impact knocked her sprawling to the floor with Flora clinging to her. On landing, Belle forgot all her knowledge of savate and her fingers dug into the mass of red hair. An instant later she felt as if the top of her head had burst into flames, for Flora retaliated in the same manner.
With both of Flora’s girls out of action, the fight became equal. Over and over thrashed and turned the struggling gasping, squealing girls, first one then the other gaining the upper position and holding it until thrown over by the one on the bottom. In the earlier stages of the fight Belle’s clothing gave her a greater freedom of movement than that afforded by the dresses of her attackers. Now the advantage meant little in the wild, close-up tangle the fight had become. Tearing hair, slashing wild slaps and blows, flailing with their legs, fingers digging and twisting into flesh, Belle and Flora churned about the room in a wild female fracas where skill had no place.
Slowly the Southern girl’s superior physical condition began to show its effect. Flora did not lead a life conducive to perfect health and began to tire under the continued exertion. Slowly, but just as surely as when the king snake crushed out the diamondback’s life at the snake-pit, Belle began to gain the upper hand. Blood ran from her nostrils; the shoulder and one sleeve of her shirt had been ripped away, but she ignored both as she fought for mastery over the half-naked, just as badly marked redhead.
A surging heave rolled Flora from the upper position. She landed on her back, too exhausted to make more than a token resistance as Belle threw a leg across her body and sat on her. Blind instinct sent Belle’s fingers to the other’s throat, for at that moment the Southern girl became the most primeval and deadly of all creatures, a furiously angry, hurt woman. All her upbringing and refinement was forgotten as her fingers tightened upon Flora’s throat. Fear gave Flora strength. She arched her back in an attempt to throw Belle from her, but failed. Croaking, unable to breathe, her hands beat at the other girl’s face, tried to claw at her shoulders, then went down, gripping the top of Belle’s exposed underwear in an attempt to get at the flesh below.
At that moment sanity began to creep into Belle’s mind again, or it may have been that some primeval instinct gave warning of her danger. Whatever the reason, Belle twisted her head around to see what the other two women were doing. May lay where she had fallen, but Beth dragged herself across the floor in Belle’s direction. One hand supported and tried to give relief to the throbbing agony in the ultrasensitive area which caught the impact of Belle’s leaping high kick; but the other held a four-inch bladed push-knife such as gamblers and women of Beth’s profession often carried concealed about their persons. While Beth had obeyed orders and discarded her rings, she retained the knife in its garter sheath. Seeing a chance to get at the woman who inflicted such punishment and suffering upon her, Beth drew the knife and started to crawl across the floor.
As if sensing what her companion planned, Flora clung even tighter to Belle’s clothing. Struggling savagely, Belle tried to either rip the cloth or drag herself out of Flora’s grasp, for she knew she must escape the hold—or die.
Even as Beth gathered her pain-wracked body for a dive which would carry her on to Belle and drive home the knife, the Southern girl smashed a fist with all her strength into Flora’s right breast. Shocking agony ripped through Flora, numbing her body and causing her hands to release their hold. Feeling herself free of the clutching fingers, Belle rolled from Flora. She did not move a moment too soon. Down hurled Beth, her pain-drugged brain failing to react to the changed situation. Instead of realizing that her enemy, had gone, Beth carried through the plan formulated as she crawled across the floor—only she landed on Flora, not Belle. Down drove the push-knife, its point sinking just under the redhead’s left breast and Beth’s weight sent the blade in hilt-deep.
Landing on her back, Belle coiled up her legs and, as Beth reared up from the jerking, twitching body of the red-head, drove out both feet. The shoes smashed with sickening force into the side of Beth’s head. Giving a low moan, she pitched off Flora and crashed to the floor.
For almost a minute Belle stayed on her back. Across the room, May moaned and tried to rise. The sight gave Belle an incentive to move. Dragging her aching body erect, she stood swaying and looking around at a room which seemed to roll and pitch like the deck of a ship. Seeing her gun lying on the floor, she staggered forward and picked it up.
The cabin’s door burst open and Fanning entered. For a moment he stood staring in amazement at the sight which met his eyes. He did not recognize Belle as the woman he tried to kill at the snake-pit, but she identified him.
“What the hell?” he demanded, reaching towards his sagging jacket pocket.
Sick with exhaustion and pain though she might be, Belle could still react to such a threat. Up came the Dance she held, almost of its own volition it seemed—in later years Belle could never remember lifting the gun or pressing the trigger—and roared. In the confines of the cabin, the crack of the light gun sounded as loud as the boom of a Dragoon Colt. Through the pain-mists and powder smoke Belle saw the man jerk, stagger, hit the wall and slide down. Without waiting to see how badly hurt he might be, Belle ran staggering from the room and along the dark trail towards Morgan City.
Reaction to the events of the evening began to set in as Belle made her way towards the town. Her body seemed to give out a continuous throbbing ache, her head whirled with dizziness and nausea threatened to engulf her at any moment. Gun in hand she stumbled long the path, darting frantic glances about her.
Suddenly a man’s shape appeared on the track ahead of Belle. She had just turned a corner which hid the shack from view and before she could halt saw the dark bulk blocking her way. Even as she tried, to raise her gun, the man sprang forward and struck at her wrist. Feeling his fingers close around her arm, Belle acted almost instinctively. Up drove her knee, catching the man in a place guaranteed to make him release his hold. The man gave a strangled gasp of pain for, although Belle might be on the verge of collapse, the impact packed enough power to drive agony through him. Feeling the hand leave her wrist, she thrust the man aside, but three more shapes swarmed around her and other fingers closed on her.
“It’s a gal!” announced a disbelieving voice.
Blending down, one of the others raised Belle’s Dance, held its muzzle to his nose and sniffed at it. “Hold down the talk!” he snapped in an authoritative tone. “This’s been fired. Then it was a shot we heard from down there.”
Relief flooded through Belle as she recognized the voice of Morgan City’s efficient town marshal—who also ran the local field office of the Confederate States Secret Service: a detail he had not confided to Dusty.
“Shout—Southrons hear your country call you,” Belle gasped.
“What the—!” began the marshal on hearing the familiar password. “Show a light here, but keep it down.”
“N—No light!” Belle objected. “Down at the fisherman’s cabin—”
“Get down there, two of you,” the marshal ordered. “Keep alert at it. How’d you feel, Tom?”
“—terrible,” came the profane reply from Belle’s assailant. “That danged gal near on ruined me. Who is she?”
“B—Belle—Boyd—” gasped Belle, then collapsed. “After covering up for you and asking no questions down at the snake-pit,” the marshal said grimly, “I figure we rated some co-operation from you.”
Seated in the marshal’s office, feeling stiff, sore and more than a little sorry for herself, although having received medical attention for her numerous bruises and minor abrasions, Belle nodded gravely.
“I didn’t aim to go over your head, or try to show my superiority over you. But the information I bought might have been false and I didn’t want anybody to know about that if it should be. And I’d no intention of moving in it there’d been a light showing or any sign of life.”
“How’d you get mixed in this game anyhow?” the marshal inquired. “We’ve known about that outfit for some time, but couldn’t get any proof. I began to get suspicious when I heard that soldiers and seamen were being filled with free liquor down there. That’s not the cat-house way, unless somebody wanted the men drunk and talking. Anyhow, I sent a cousin of mine in, he’s on furlough down here. He went dressed as a seaman and found that after he’d been liquored up, Flora started asking him questions about when his ship would be sailing and what she’d carry. So I figured it was time we moved in and took a look around.”
“Did you find the telegraph station?”
“Sure. That feller you shot, Fanning, he talked up a storm and showed us all we wanted. We raided the cathouse—don’t know what the mayor’ll have to say about it thought.”
“Why should he have anything to say?” Belle asked.
“He was with one of the girls when we arrived—and him supposed to be at a meeting of the municipal council.”
“If he’s married, he won’t say a word,” Belle stated, and her guess proved to be correct. “Did you destroy the station?”
“Nope. I aimed to, but when I found Flora’s code books, I figured that it might be useful to be able to let the Yankees know what we want them to know.”
“It will be at that,” Belle agreed. “Can you get word out that there won’t be any ships leaving, but that one is expected from the north tomorrow night?”
“Sure we can. The Yankees land to take any messages at midnight every night. I’ll tend to it for you.”
“And how about that peddler, Jacobs?” the girl went on. “He was the one who told me about the telegraph station.” “If I know old Jake Jacobs, he’ll be long gone by now,” the marshal replied. “Reckon that Flora sent him with the information for you?”
“She may have done. Did the two girls tell you anything yet?”
“Nope. May’s in no shape to talk and all Beth knows is that you were supposed to be some cathouse madam who intended to open a place down there.”
“They weren’t in the spy ring?”
“I doubt it. The bouncer, Flora and a couple more were the only ones involved in the ring. I’ll pick up the odd ends tonight. Got the boys started on it right now. We’ve bust the Yankee spy-ring. Say, one way and another, the Yankees have been giving you a bad time.”
“I must have riled them for some reason,” Belle smiled. “And now I’d best be getting back to the hotel. Lord knows what Dusty and the others will say when they see my face in the morning.”
A grin creased the marshal’s features as he studied Belle’s blackened right eye, scratched cheek, swollen lip and nose. “You might try telling them you walked into a door and it fought back.”