Nelson Nye - Rafe

This Bathsheba was a real knowing mare, ever alert to Rafe's best interests. She'd spotted this joint even quicker than he had and, ears cocked, stopped short, one eye rolling back to see how he was taking it.

As a matter of fact he was still peering round. The next structure beyond housed a hat shop and baker, and after that was the bank, double-storied and brick as befitted so established a place in the community. The whole last block on that side was taken up with a feed yard and livery, the poorer homes spreading out to the south, tiny islands of junk among the cholla and greasewood topped by an occasional flowering saguaro. The more affluent had their residences on the lanes feeding off the main drag.

Bathsheba pawed impatiently. Thus reminded, Rafe hitched up a leg and got down. He sure didn't like to spoil her this way but there wasn't much choice if you were hunting information. Her last owner must have been a sure-enough scholar because if a man didn't take a firm hand with her she'd haul up in front of every grog shop in sight.

Rasping his jaw with a wistful look in the direction of the barber's pole Rafe reached around to catch hold of the reins, only then recollecting the loss of his bridle. "Well, hell," he said and, ducking under the rail, pushed through the bat wings into Jack Dahl's.

If mirrors and mahogany and naked females on canvas was any measure of prosperity this Cow Palace, Rafe decided, must be a mighty source of comfort to all who had a stake in it. Though it wasn't precisely packed right now it was doing all right for the middle of the day. The faro layout, cage and wheel, and even the blackjack table had customers, and a mob three deep was bellied up to the bar. Evidently, and plainly not too far away, there were mines in production to judge by the Cousin Jacks jostling elbows with the teamsters and cowhands milling about a roped-off twenty-foot square of dance floor perspiring and noisy as a sackful of frogs.

Tobacco smoke swirled in blue layers below the bright flare of the Rochester lamps which apparently were worked day and night in this dive. In constant circulation a bevy of cuties in spangles were hustling to separate the boys from their wages. There was a sudden scramble for the arena as a three-piece band swung into the rollicking strains of Soldiers Joy .

Near as sudden as it started, and before Rafe had latched hold of someone he could talk to, the music went sour and splintered off into dischord. Following the startled sweep of eyes doorward Rafe saw framed in the bat wings the longnosed freckled face of Bathsheba. With her lip peeling back she threw her head up and nickered.

The cowhands guffawed hilariously, clouting each other and hooting and hollering. A heavy-set gent in gray derby and striped leg-clutching pants got red-faced out of his chair at the poker game, went stomping past Rafe with his mouth whitely clamped about a stump of black cheroot. Like a prodded bull with his eye on the muleta came a beetle-browed bouncer and a third burly specimen, getting shed of his apron, came hotfooting out from the bar with a bung starter just as Bathsheba pushed in through the doors.

Rafe stuck out a leg. Beetle Brow, loping into it, hit the floor spraddled out and cleaned a swath through the sawdust three foot long with his chin. The cowpunchers, hooting, liked to laugh their fool heads off. Bathsheba, after the fashion of one not entirely sure of her welcome, came timidly in. The guy in the derby waved his arms, started swearing. The barman ran up waving his bung starter. Bathsheba rolled her eyes and whinnied. The bartender said, "She's slipped her headstall—"

"Never mind that—get her out!" shouted Dahl, brandishing his derby and sure enough seeming about fit to be tied.

The bouncer, a little glazed in his expression, with a knee drawn under him appeared to be trying to get himself up. The feller who had took off his apron was sidling around with one arm stuck out, it being difficult to tell if he were trying to catch the mare or only keep from being stepped on. There wasn't much doubt what Bathsheba thought about it. Stretching out her neck she showed him both sets of teeth.

The barkeep jumped back. The crowd roared and hooted. Dahl cried furiously, "Who's the owner of this monstrosity?" and Rafe didn't know whether to speak out or not. He figured a lot could be said on both sides of the question; but when the beetle-browed bouncer, still on one knee, commenced to fumble a hip pocket, Rafe didn't have much choice. He sent the bugger sliding with a well directed boot.

Dahl and the barkeep both of them livid, converged on him threateningly. From someplace Dahl produced a sock filled with shot. The barkeep, glowering, lifted his bung starter.

"Now, just a minute—" Rafe said, nervous.

"Get her out," Dahl said, "and get 'er out quick!"

Rafe said uncomfortably, "Bathsheba's kind of notional. She—"

"You got thirty seconds!" Dahl sounded half strangled.

The mare, watching Rafe, began to look a little reproachful. "Go on, you!" the barkeep growled, flourishing his bung starter. He cut around, moving nearer. The mare showed the whites of her eyes.

"Look out," Rafe warned. "No tellin' what she'll do if you excite her."

Mr. Dahl said viciously, "You puttin' her out or ain't you?"

Rafe, tired of being shoved, yelled, "No!" and Jack Dahl stopped in his tracks.

He took a long look at Rafe and, beckoning up two more of his hirelings, spat out his cigar. "Take 'em, boys," he grunted, and closed in behind to give them a hand.

The barkeep made a wicked pass with his bung starter. Rafe, sliding under it, put a boot against his belly and the barkeep's winds went out with a mighty whoosh , Bathsheba, ears flattened, began backing toward the bar, the crowd at that end making haste to move elsewhere. Rafe, as though reluctant, backed off some himself.

Beetle Brows, on his feet again, cracked an ugly grin. He had a gun in his fist—a short-barreled pocket pistol, and it seemed fairly well established he intended to use it. Dahl and the other pair, scrinch eyed and malevolent, were stepping farther apart to come in on the flanks.

"Look," Rafe grumbled, "I'm peaceful as hell when I'm left alone, but if you're goin' to play rough I won't be responsible." He shook an admonitory finger under Dahl's nose. "You fellers keep on—"

"And you'll do what?" Dahl said with his lip curled.

"Just remember," Rafe told them, "you been warned."

Now Dahl was a man who had considerable pride. He had moved to Dry Bottom with a number of his friends who'd been in on that Jayhawking business along the Kansas border. He liked to be thought a pretty tough cookie; and besides all this the place was packed with galoots he needed to impress, hard-rock men and rough playing cowpokes, all watching with grins and filling the ozone with cheap advice. He couldn't afford to back down—not even if this drifter proved more fruity than he looked.

Dahl tugged an end of his black moustache, swung a hard look around and fetched up his chin. The barkeep took a fresh grip on his bung starter. Beetle Brow's grin, above the snub-nosed pistol, spread in pleased anticipation. The other pair, grunting, spat on their hands and then, all together, the whole push moved in.

The gaunt stranger, sighing, looked extremely reluctant—everybody afterward, agreed on that much. Some claimed he never actually moved so much as a finger until the barkeep's bung starter whacked against the mare.

Then everything seemed to happen at once. The Rebel's left boot, sailing up out of nowhere, took the barkeep under the jaw like a ball bat. He stretched six inches and went out like a light. Nobody saw the stranger reach for his iron, but suddenly the glint of it was slicing through the tangle like the knives of a dozen Injuns. It went whunk against something and Beetle Brows, without even time to let go of his pistol, popped out of the melee like he'd been shot from a cannon. Arms flailing wildly he went down with a thump, blood on his face, shirt hanging down like a tatter of doll rags. Bathsheba, with her head tucked between front legs, was kicking hell out of the bar when another of Dahl's bruisers went slamming head first into a wall and kind of wilted.