CHAPTER FIFTY
When Ira Cole stepped into the Patterson stage depot, Red Ryan lay on his back in his cot and Buttons Muldoon sat at the table playing solitaire, a glass of whiskey beside him.
“Sorry to intrude, gents,” Cole said. “But that little gal you brought in with you—”
“What about her?” Buttons seemed absorbed and didn’t look up from his cards.
“She’s being slapped around in the One Note by Barney Koerner and them,” Cole said.
“She’s learning to be a whore,” Buttons said. “What does she expect?”
“This ain’t whoring. They’re throwing her around and beating her up.” He hesitated and then said, “Well, anyway, I thought you’d like to know.”
“Ain’t our concern.” Buttons slapped down a card with the flat of his hand and made the table jump.
“The hell it ain’t.” Red rolled out of the cot and got to his feet. “She was a passenger of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company and is still under our protection.”
“Red, she wasn’t a fare-paying passenger,” Buttons said. “We owe her nothing.”
“We still owe her twenty dollars, or did you forget about that?” Red buckled on his gun belt and holster and then put on his hat. “Buttons, you coming?”
“Maybe. When I finish this game. We’ll pay her back the twenty, you know.”
“If she lives that long,” Cole said, “After Koerner gets through with her.”
Red said, “Ira, take me there.”
After Red and Ira Cole left, Buttons stared at his cards for a while and then shook his head. “Damn it all. We’ll pay her the twenty dollars,” he said to no one but himself. He sighed, used both hands to mess up his cards, and stood. Like Red before him, he put on his hat and gun belt and walked out the door.
* * *
When Red Ryan stepped into the One Note, he at first saw no sign of the incident Ira Cole had witnessed. The floor was crowded with slow dancers, every table in the place hosted cardplayers or dedicated drinkers, the bar was lined with noisy men, and the guy at the piano played, “Juanita.” Red moved here and there through the smoke, his eyes searching, the smell of stale sweat, cheap perfume, and spilled beer so familiar to him.
Then he saw Daphne . . .
She sat at a table on the edge of the dance floor and a blonde woman sat next to her, holding a bloody rag to the girl’s nose. When Daphne saw Red, her eyes lit up and she managed a weak smile. A man vacated a seat at the table and Red drew the chair over and sat. He saw bruises all over the girl’s neck, shoulders, and upper arms. Someone had spilled beer over the front of her dress. Daphne’s nose was bloody and swollen, and she had the suggestion of a black eye.
Red decided to confine himself to two questions. First he asked, “How do you feel?”
“Mr. Ryan, I don’t want to be a whore anymore,” Daphne said, her bottom lip trembling.
He pointed to her nose and asked the second. “Who did this to you?”
The blonde woman answered that question. “See the big, towheaded feller standing at the bar? His name is Barney Koerner and he did it . . . and a lot more.”
Red nodded. “I’ll talk to him. Daphne, stay here. I’ll be right back.”
* * *
Red Ryan crossed the dance floor and stepped behind Koerner. The big man’s back was to him, so Red tapped him on the shoulder.
When Koerner turned, Red smiled and said, “Care to dance?”
The man was immediately belligerent. “What the hell?”
“Oh, you want to be a wallflower. Too bad.” Red hit him smack on the chin with a straight right. Anyone who’s been punched in the mug by a man trained as a prizefighter knows how Barney Koerner felt that night. Red had lost strength, but his wallop was still a force to be reckoned with.
Koerner took the punch flatfooted, and it staggered him. On rubber legs he stumbled backward, his arms cartwheeling, and he crashed into the saloon wall, dislodging a sign that read, HAVE YOU WRITTEN TO MOTHER? that fell neatly across his chest.
Red, used to men with sand, expected Koerner to come up fighting, but the man stayed down. Then an attack came from his right. The man with the rodent eyes charged at him swinging, but Red blocked his clumsy right hook and countered with a left cross of his own that slammed the puncher against the bar and dropped him to the sawdust. Ellis’s legs twitched, saliva leaked out of his bloody mouth, and then he took a nap.
Red turned and glared at Koerner. “On your feet. We got a Pecos promenade to finish, and I’m not a little girl you can slap around.”
Koerner wiped blood from his nose, leaving a scarlet smear on his mustache, and held up a hand. “I’m done. I’m not fighting you.”
A gawking crowd surrounded the two men, and everyone knew that Barney Koerner was finished in El Paso . . . and Koerner knew it, too.
Suddenly Red was angry. “You stinking piece of trash. I ever hear of you abusing a woman again, I’ll pin your dirty hide to the outhouse door.” He waited a moment. “Do you understand?”
Koerner made no answer.
“I said, do you understand?” Red bunched his fists.
“I understand,” Koerner said, hatred burning in his black eyes.
Red gave the man a final, contemptuous look and turned away. At the same moment Koerner got to his feet and pulled a Webley Bull Dog revolver from his pocket. He went after Red and two things happened . . . a man in the crowd yelled, “Here, that won’t do!” and a bullet kicked up splinters an inch in front of Koerner’s right boot.
Buttons Muldoon’s voice was loud in the ensuing silence. “You got a choice to make, mister. Drop the stinger, or I’ll ventilate you.” The stage driver stood with his legs apart, stern, stocky, and significant, his gun in his hand.
Koerner wanted no part of him. He dropped the revolver.
Buttons said, “Now git the hell out of here and don’t come back.”
His head hanging, Koerner left the saloon to a chorus of jeers and cheers from the sporting crowd. He fled the town of El Paso and was never heard of again, though it’s believed he died of yellow fever in 1904 while working as a laborer during the construction of the Panama Canal.
* * *
Daphne Dumont quickly referred to herself as Daphne Loveshade and insisted on changing out of her saloon finery and into her own clothes. Buttons and Red took her to Dr. John McKenna. Irritated at being awakened after midnight, he nonetheless gently treated Daphne for a broken nose and cuts and abrasions.
“She can stay here tonight where I can keep an eye on her,” the doctor said. “She’s in considerable shock.”
Red nodded. “We’ll look in on her in the morning.”
Dr. McKenna said that was just fine by him and pointed out that it already was morning.
But come the gray dawn, Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon found themselves in the El Paso hoosegow after being arrested for disturbing the peace. Acting Marshal Thomas P. Moad indicated darkly that other charges of a more serious nature could be pending.