Laurie Grant - Devil's Dare

“I’m sure he was a nice fella, Deacon,” Mercedes said, patting the bartender’s hand. “You’ve never steered me wrong yet. Well, if I see this Devlin, I’ll smile at him real pretty, and listen to what he has to say—if he hasn’t lost all his money to Wyatt by then, that is.”

Sam woke late the next morning with an enormous sense of well-being. In fact, he felt like a pup with two tails. Tonight was going to go well, he was sure of it. The only difficulty would be in waiting for evening to arrive.

Well, in a cow town like Abilene whose saloons were open twenty-four hours a day, there ought to be plenty he could keep busy with until evening, he reasoned as he rose and dressed and went downstairs. He’d start with breakfast. It would be good to eat his eggs and bacon sitting at a real table, instead of hunkered down by a campfire with hundreds of longhorns lowing nearby. Then he’d check on Buck, his horse, at the Twin Barns, the livery stable beyond the railroad tracks. The buckskin gelding was probably eating his fool head off, but Sam wanted to make sure the liveryman wasn’t neglecting the cow pony that had brought Sam so far from Texas.

Buck was fine, he discovered, and whinnied a greeting when he saw his master coming. Sam scratched underneath the gelding’s jaw, a favorite place, and fed him the apple he’d talked the Drover’s Cottage cook out of.

The horse in the stall next to Buck caught Sam’s attention. The tall black stallion was an unusually fine beast to be found in a livery. Thoroughbred, Sam mused, admiring the stallion who gazed back alertly at him, his ears pricked forward. Someone in Abilene must be boarding the beast here, for the black was certainly not the kind of nag a livery would rent out.

He sure reminded Sam of Goliad, the horse Caleb had ridden away from the Devlin farm when he went to join the Union army. Thinking of Goliad, and the kind of horses that had once filled the Devlin stables, made Sam nostalgic. He was going to fill those barns up again with good horseflesh, he vowed as he left the livery, if it took a dozen trail drives to finance it!

It was still only eleven-thirty. Now what was he going to do?

He was going to stay away from the Alamo, that was certain—not because he thought he’d see Mercedes working this early, but to avoid further poker games with Earp. As likable as the cardsharp was, he was determined not to lose any more money to him.

About noon, therefore, he was firmly ensconced in a rawhide-backed chair in the Longhorn Saloon, holding three aces and a king. Boy Henderson, who had been regaling them with a tale about losing his virginity in the arms of a sloe-eyed harlot the night before, had just stepped out back to relieve himself when Tom Culhane ambled in, saw Sam and scowled.

“Morning, Tom,” Jase Lowry said in greeting. “Pull up a chair and set a spell, and watch me lose some more money to Dev here.”

“I ain’t intr’sted in sittin’ nowhere with that sumbitch spoilsport,” snarled Culhane, glaring at Sam with bloodshot eyes.

Sam sighed. If that cowboy wasn’t careful, he was going to ruin a perfectly good morning—make that afternoon, he thought, noting that it was fifteen minutes past twelve on the clock.

“Aw, come on and sit down, Tom,” he said, motioning to a chair opposite him. “Hellfire, I’ll even buy you a drink to prove there’s no hard feelin’s. That’s why you’re such a sorehead this mornin’, you know—you need a hair of the dog that bit you.”

“You may not have hard feelings, you sumbitch, but I do,” sneered Culhane, pointing a finger at Sam. “You thought you wuz some high-an’-mighty knight in shinin’ armor last night, didn’t you? Showin’ off for the filly you found—an’ at my expense! I hope she gave you some disease that makes your pecker rot off.”

Sam was determined not to let Culhane rile him, though it was clear the cowboy was spoiling for a fight. “Aw, Culhane, what was I supposed to do? Miss Mercedes told me her sister wasn’t in the business. Granted, sashayin’ around cowboys like that, it won’t be long, but I had to let you know you’d made a mistake, didn’t I?”

Sam’s reasonableness apparently only enraged Culhane further. “What you wuz supposed t’ do, Devlin, was mind yer own goddamn business!” shouted Culhane. “You ain’t my boss no more! You don’t tell me what t’ do!”

“C’mon, Culhane. Don’t be yellin’ like that,” pleaded Jase. “I got a headache. B’sides, ya might wanta work for Dev again next spring.”

“I wouldn’t work for that stupid sidewinder if he wuz the las’ trail boss in Texas!” Culhane shouted back, but his eyes remained on Sam. His hands dropped, hovering near the Colts strapped at his hips.

Sam noted the fact. Yep, the pleasant afternoon was definitely about to get ruined. He was armed, too, of course—there was as yet no real law in the wild cow town, so a man had to be prepared to defend himself. But he had no intention of drawing down on the young cowboy. He rose to his feet, slowly and deliberately. “You don’t want to do this, Culhane,” he advised.

The saloon became very quiet as cowboys nearby took note of the explosive situation. Those nearest Sam’s table edged away. A drummer who had come in to wet his whistle backed out the doors, keeping a nervous eye on the two Texans.

Culhane went right on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Fact, when I get done with him, ain’t none o’ you saddlebums gonna work for him. Whenever you’re ready, Devlin,” he said with a meaningful glance at Sam’s pistols.

“Tom! What are you doin’?” shouted Boy Henderson from the back of the saloon. He had come back just in time to see Culhane fixing to draw on the boss.

Involuntarily, Culhane glanced in the direction of the boy’s voice, and Sam took instant advantage of it, launching himself at Culhane with doubled-up fists. A moment later Culhane was out cold on the saloon floor, and the patrons of the Longhorn were going back to their whiskey and cards.

“We’ll get him back to his room, Dev,” Jase Lowry said, gesturing for Boy and Cookie to join him, “so’s he can wake up peaceable. I’ll try an’ talk some sense inta him when he comes to.”

Sam was just finishing a mental thanksgiving that he’d been able to avoid using his gun on his own drover. “Much obliged, Jase. I’m not so sure anyone can talk sense into that mule-headed fool, though,” Sam said with a heavy sigh. He’d made an enemy, and now he was going to have to watch his back.

Jase nodded his agreement. “I can try. But I know what ya mean, Dev. I can explain it to him, but I can’t understand it for him.”

As it happened, all the schemes Mercy and Charity had concocted turned out to be unnecessary. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, when Mercy was just coming in from the barn after having managed to stash her chosen ensemble for the evening there, she noticed George Abels’s buckboard parked in front of the house.

Going inside, she found the middle-aged farmer in the parlor with her father and Charity, telling them that his elderly father-in-law, who lived with them and who had been declining for months, was saying he was going to die again. He wondered if the reverend would come out, and sit up with him for a while, and quiet his doubts about the hereafter.

Mercy did her best to smother a smile. This had happened so many times before that it had become something of a joke between the girls, for their father would go out to the soddy out by the Smoky River, spend all night praying with the cantankerous old man, return home exhausted but triumphant that he had helped save the old, nearly deaf reprobate’s soul, only to have the process repeated in a few months. Mercy suspected the old man used his imminent death as an attention-getting device, or a means of quieting his daughter’s numerous brood when he’d had too much of their noise. Their father never failed to go, however, for old Ike Turnbull was nearing eighty and each time might be the real thing. No, their papa never failed to go; a pastor must tend his flock.