J. Edson - Ranch War

Partly because one saw so few of his kind in Kansas, Calamity gave the seated man a close scrutiny before looking at his companion who leaned against the building’s wall. Tall, slender yet wiry, he had a clean-shaven Latin face that a thin, cruel mouth prevented from being handsome. The hat he wore was no Stetson. Its pointed crown, silver concha-decorated band and wide, circular brim had their origin south of the Rio Grande. So did the waist-long black jacket with silver filigree patterning, white, frilly-fronted shirt, string bow-tie, tight-legged, wide-bottomed trousers and high-heeled boots with large-rowelled spurs attached to them. As might be expected from such a man, he carried a fighting knife sheathed on the left side of his gunbelt. The position in which he sat prevented Calamity from seeing either his gun or its holster.

From the Mexican, Calamity turned her gaze to his white companion. She had walked closer and began to notice some disturbingly significant details about him.

Taller and heavier than the Mexican, the second man also lacked the other’s finery. Nothing about his wolfskin coat, tartan shirt, dark trousers tucked into flat-heeled boots or gunbelt was new. The same did not apply to his hat; that was brand-new. Although he had a fast-draw holster tied down on his right thigh, it did not hold a gun. Instead, an Army Colt was thrust into his waistband, its butt pointed to the front for a cross-hand draw. The reason for the empty holster and gun’s position probably stemmed from the fact that he had a dirty piece of rag wrapped around his right hand. Surly-featured and unshaven, his eyes had a redrimmed, bloodshot appearance that could have been the result of drinking hard the previous night—or having the contents of a chamber-pot thrown into his face.

Taken with the state of the man’s eyes, the brand-new hat and the bandaged hand suggested certain unpleasant possibilities to Calamity. A feller who slid hurriedly down a ladder, especially one in the process of breaking, might easily tear open his palm on a splinter. That jasper from her window had left his hat behind and would need to replace it if he hoped to avoid drawing attention to himself.

Of course the facts might amount to no more than a coincidence; but Calamity felt disinclined to take bets on it.

As if wanting to sweep any lingering doubts from the girl’s mind, the Mexican stood up and faced her. Calamity’s eyes dropped swiftly to his right thigh. Before raising them again, she schooled her features into lines of indifference and hid her concern. The Colt at his side had the distinctively shaped Tiffany grips and the end of its barrel protruded from the open toe of the holster.

Still continuing to walk toward the pair, Calamity rapidly marshaled her facts. She did not like the answers she came up with. The assailant inside the hotel had worn ordinary range clothes and, according to the cattle-buyer, had sported a drooping black mustache. Clothes could be changed and a mustache shaved off. The Mexican’s hair was black and he might have removed the facial growth to prevent himself being recognized during his stay in Mulrooney.

Which raised another interesting, maybe even vital point. Why had the two men remained in town and what brought them to stand on the sidewalk ahead of her? The attempted robbery at the hotel did not rate as such a serious crime that they needed to remove a witness who might be able to identify them. Nor had Calamity’s treatment of them been sufficiently drastic for the pair to risk arrest by hunting her up in search of revenge.

And that thought brought up another. If the pair should be vindictive enough to be looking for evens, how did they know where to find her? How did they recognize her, come to that? Unless they had seen her entering the Railroad House, her clothes would not identify her. Female guests at that hotel did not dress in her style. Yet she felt sure that their presence on the deserted street had not come about by accident.

One thing was plain to Calamity. She must not let the pair suspect that she had recognized them. Maybe if she could get up close enough, with them figuring that she did not know them, she could escape from the position they had her in.

“You boys fixing on making a gal take to the street to get by?” Calamity asked, hoping that her voice did not sound as tensed-up as she felt.

Instead of moving aside, the two men looked her over with cold eyes. Then the Mexican seemed to glance at something behind her, but Calamity figured that she had been around too long to fall for that old trick. Instead of looking to the rear for the non-existent danger, she continued to approach the pair and watched for any hostile move or gesture.

“Is your name ‘Canary,’ gal?” demanded the big man.

“Do I look like a canary?” Calamity countered, but the question had started a further train of thought leaping through her head.

“It’s her for certain, Job,” the Mexican stated.

“You’d know, Otón,” the big man growled. “Way you telled it, you saw her real good last night.”

“I don’t get it,” Calamity began, right hand turning palm-outward and moving surreptitiously in the direction of her Navy Colt.

The words chopped off as she heard the faint sound of a footstep behind her. Faint only because the person making it was stepping real careful and avoiding making undue noise, not because some distance separated him from the girl.

Anger blazed up inside Calamity, driving the thoughts of how they knew her name into oblivion. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours she had committed a serious error of tactics. Concentrating on the two yahoos blocking her path, she had clean forgotten that skinny-gutted loafer who had dogged her trail since she left the hotel. In fact, his presence behind her answered some of the problems which had troubled her. He must have been following, soft-footed as a cat, to point her out to the pair.

Only he had made his presence known just a mite too soon. His pards were still about twelve feet away, beyond arms’ reach. Seeing the girl’s right hand approaching the ivory butt of the holstered Colt, the loafer lunged forward. He wrapped his arms about her upper torso from the rear, drawing her toward him. Instantly his companions let out curses and sprang forward.

Calamity had learned how to handle such sneaky attacks, as she proceeded to demonstrate. Allowing her captor to pull her in his direction, she waited until she felt his body against her spine. Then she snapped back her head as hard as she could propel it. The base of Calamity’s skull rammed with considerable force into the center of the man’s face. Red fires of agony seemed to burst inside the man’s head at the savage impact. With a howl of pain, he released the girl and staggered backward. Blood gushed between his fingers as he clasped his hands to his face.

Despite having removed one threat to her well-being, Calamity knew that she was a long, long way from being out of danger. Job and the Mexican came toward her, their expressions warning her that they had no harmless intent. Of the two, Otón moved the faster, drawing ahead of his companion.

Having freed herself from the loafer’s restraining hands, Calamity once more reached for her gun. Tough she might be, and well able to hold up her own end in a hair-yanking, anything-goes, rough-house brawl with another girl; but her assailants were not girls. She figured that her best chance against the two men would be to get out the old Navy Colt and start burning powder. In addition to halting the Mexican, the sound of the shots would attract attention to her dangerous situation. The opportunity to do it was not granted to her.

Gliding forward with the speed of a weasel chasing a rabbit, Otón stabbed out both his hands. Closing his fingers on the lapels of her jacket, he wrenched them apart and down over her shoulders. Although the jacket had not been fastened, it still gripped her arms and prevented her from completing her draw. Once again the girl found herself partially trapped and countered the move in a fast, efficient manner.