Ralph Compton - Bluff City

Chapter 7

Over a week and a half went by. Clay Adams settled into his new job as a clerk for the Bluff City Courier. He took a room for rent in the shadow of the bluff. That it happened to be on the very outskirts of Bluff City did not strike any of his coworkers as unusual. Rooms were hard to come by. Nor did they wonder that he had wanted a place where he could also board his horse. Stable fees added up.

The elderly couple who owned the house kept to themselves. They rarely saw their new tenant. The room was at the rear and he always came in the back way.

Clay and Melanie ate supper together nearly every night. If the rest of the Courier staff thought anything of it, they kept their thoughts to themselves.

When Clay was not at work and not with Melanie, he made the rounds of the saloons. Nothing unusual there. A lot of men spent a lot of their spare time at watering holes. Clay soon showed a special interest in two: the Bluff City Emporium, owned by Harve Barker, and the Rusty Spittoon, considered to be the worst dive in Bluff City. No decent person, it was commonly held, ever set foot in the Spittoon because of the two-legged catamounts who considered it their private lair.

The proprietor of the Rusty Spittoon, a ferret of a man named Gressel, catered to the mean ones and to those who were not particular about how they acquired their money.

On his first visit to the Spittoon, Clay Adams walked to the bar and asked for a whiskey. He paid no heed to the unfriendly stares fixed on him.

“What have we here?” Gressel asked as he poured. He had greasy black hair and wore an equally greasy apron. “Did you take a wrong turn somewhere, boy?”

“Can’t a man drink where he wants?” Clay responded.

“Sure. Trouble is, most folks want nothing to do with my place. Look around you. I get the dregs. The kind who would slit your throat for a dollar. The kind who don’t wash but once a blue moon and wear their clothes until the clothes fall apart.” He smirked at Clay. “Then we have you. Standing there in your clean, store-bought suit and hat. You are as out of place as an Apache at a quilting bee. Scat before someone takes it into their head to chuck you out the window.”

“Are you demanding I leave?”

“Hell, no. If you want your skull busted, that’s your business. But I sure as hell don’t savvy what you’re up to.”

“Trying to have a drink in peace.” Clay carried his whiskey to a table where four human wolves were playing poker. The fifth chair was empty. “Mind if I sit in, gents?”

“Yes,” said the scruffiest and biggest of the players, placing his foot on the empty chair so Clay could not sit.

“My money isn’t good enough?”

They stopped playing. Contempt oozed from the big one’s pores as he said, “Go away, boy. You are a lamb asking to be shorn.”

“Who has the shears? You?”

“Brazen whelp,” snapped another. “That there is Skagg Izzard you are talking to. He can break a pup like you over his knee without half trying.”

“That would be something to see,” Clay Adams said.

Skagg Izzard rose out of his chair and kept on rising until he towered over the table, the players and Clay Adams. “I’ve had enough of your sass.” He balled his huge fists and rapped the knuckles together. “Can you guess what’s next?”

“This,” Clay said, and threw his whiskey into Skagg’s bearded face. The hard case raised his hands to his eyes to clear them, and Clay unleashed an uppercut that started at the floor.

Skagg Izzard tottered. A look of blank amazement came over him as he gingerly rubbed his jaw. “That hurt.”

“I’m still waiting for you to break me.”

From over at the bar Gressel hollered, “He’s poking fun at you, Skagg. Can’t you see the son of a bitch thinks he can whip you?”

“I have never been whipped,” Skagg Izzard boasted. “Not ever.” He brought his fists up and lumbered toward Clay Adams. “You stung me, boy. I’ll give you that. But now I’m ready for you. Your tricks won’t work again.”

“If you say so.” Clay feinted to the right, and when Skagg swiveled and threw a punch, Clay dodged, slid in close and brought the heel of his right foot down on the toes of the bigger man’s left foot.

Bellowing like a stuck bull, Skagg Izzard lowered his fists and staggered a couple of steps.

Clay went after him. He launched another uppercut. This one rocked Skagg on his heels. Skagg swung an open hand at Clay’s ear, but Clay ducked and flicked two swift punches to his gut.

Skagg Izzard grunted and started to fold. He clutched at the table for support, spittle flecking his lips. “I must be dreaming.”

“Some dream,” Clay said. He drove his forearm into Skagg’s stomach clear up to the elbow and Skagg Izzard collapsed like a ruptured water skin, to sprawl on his craggy face and not move.

“I saw it, but I don’t believe it!” exclaimed another player.

Clay Adams smoothed his jacket and adjusted his derby, then claimed the empty chair. “Deal me in, gents.”

Gressel came around the bar, walked up to Skagg and nudged him. “Hell in a basket.” He leaned on the table and appraised Clay through slitted eyes. “Why here, mister? Of all the whiskey mills in Bluff City, why this one?”

“Don’t let the clothes fool you,” Clay said. “This is what I’m used to.”

Gressel cocked his head. “Who are you?”

“Someone who likes a whiskey and a game of cards now and then. Someone who will come here when he wants and leave when he wants and mind his own business while he is here.” Clay slid a wallet from his jacket pocket. “Bring me a glass of water.”

“Water?”

“You heard me.”

If Gressel was surprised, he was more so when Clay Adams accepted the glass and upended it over Skagg Izzard. The big man sat up and shook his shaggy mane, drops flying every which way. Izzard looked at the glass and then at Clay Adams. “I could shoot you.”

“But you won’t.”

“Why won’t I?”

“For the same reason you didn’t go for your gun when I hit you. You have a fair streak, and I respect that.”

“I didn’t go for my gun because I didn’t think I would need it, as puny as you are,” Skagg said. He sat on the floor a while longer, his bushy brows puckered. Finally he said, “You sure are a strange one, but I like you. I reckon I won’t kill you for now.”

“I’m obliged.” Clay patted the table. “Why don’t you join us? I’ll give you a chance to take my money.”

An hour later Clay Adams left the Rusty Spittoon with twelve dollars more than when he went in. Bluff City’s night life was in full, riotous revel. The churchgoing folk had retired for the day, leaving the streets to their less restrained brethren.

Clay walked three blocks east. He turned left, rounded a corner and ducked into the recessed doorway to a hardware store that was closed. His back to the door, he slid his hand under his jacket. He held it there until he was satisfied no one was following him, then he emerged onto the street.

That had been ten nights ago. On this particular evening, Clay Adams was in the heart of Bluff City. Here the buildings were grander, the pedestrians better dressed. The Bluff City Emporium was ablaze with light. Fine carriages constantly pulled up out front and disgorged occupants dressed in the height of fashion. The doorman wore a purple uniform. Purple, it was widely known, was the owner’s favorite color.

Harve Barker liked to say that it took money to make money. He spent it with a complete disregard for how much he was spending. He had reaped a fortune and was growing richer. Vice was his trade. He offered for purchase every sin known to man, and then some.