Ranch War

Calamity Jane.”

Always quick to jump to conclusions, Calamity snorted and asked, “You mean that your law-wrangling pard sent them two jaspers after me?”

“I didn’t say that!” Talbot protested. “As far as I know, Orde Endicott is an honest, upstanding member of the Bar.”

“Just how far do you know about him, Counselor?” inquired the Kid.

“He was the brightest member of our class and had a brilliant career as a defense attorney in the East.”

“Yet he wound up hanging his shingle in a one-hoss Nebraska cow-town?”

“I believe he moved out there for health reasons,” Talbot answered, looking uncomfortable.

“Right now,” Beauregard said firmly, before the Kid could speak again, “I’m more interested in those two fellers who jumped Calamity. Did they follow on the train, or from the depot, do you reckon, Calam?”

“They didn’t,” Freddie stated emphatically. “Calamity traveled up here in my private car at the rear of the train. We left it clear of the depot and went the back way to the Fair Lady. After we parted, I was kept talking at the back door for a few minutes. I could see the street all the time and nobody went along it.”

“Even if they had trailed her to the hotel,” drawled the Kid, “they’d still have to learn which room she was in.”

“That’d be easy enough,” Beauregard told him. “The register’s always open on the reception desk and, after midnight, the clerk spends most of his time in the office. Calam’s name’d be about the last in the book——”

“Only not as Calamity Jane,” Freddie concluded. “And, as Charles said, not many people know her as Martha Jane Canary.”

“So they could’ve found out which room I was in,” Calamity said. “Why didn’t they both come upstairs, ’stead of one of ’em trying to get in through the window?”

“To make doubly sure of reaching you,” Freddie guessed. “They couldn’t be sure of being able to open the door——”

“And, like a blasted fool, I’d opened the window a mite,” Calamity continued and, in self-exculpation, went on, “Whoever was there afore me used some fancy perfume that stunk like a cat-house comes a hot summer ——”

“Nobody’s blaming you for opening the window,” Beauregard said gently. “But you did help them a mite by doing it.”

“Ain’t that just like a man, Freddie?” Calamity asked. “‘Nobody blames you, but ——!’ How was I to know they was after me? Do you reckon I sent up smoke-signals telling ’em I was coming?”

“I talk too much ’n’ too loud when I’ve made a fool mistake,” drawled the Kid. “Don’t you, Kail, Counselor?”

“Mistake!” howled Calamity, rocketing to her feet like a startled bobwhite quail rising from a corn-patch. Then a spasm of pain contorted her features. “Damn it! Now you’ve started my hurts to aching again!”

“Sit down, Miss Canary,” Talbot suggested, eyeing the Kid with disapproval. “Can I have my clerk fetch you a drink of water, or something?”

“Nope,” the girl replied, dropping her rump to the chair. “They do say that cigar-smoke’s right good for taking the hurt out of a sore jaw, though.”

“It’s a well-established non-medical fact,” Freddie confirmed with a smile. “Go ahead, Charles. Smoke doesn’t bother me.”

Talbot let out an embarrassed sniff at the reminder of his lack of hospitality. Opening the cigar-box, he held it in Calamity’s direction. If he expected the girl to be bluffing, he was rapidly proven wrong. Taking a cigar, Calamity twirled it appreciatively between her forefinger and thumb, bit off the end and accepted a light. Watching the girl for signs of distress as she sucked in the smoke, Talbot presented the box to the Kid and Beauregard.

“Now this here’s what I call a good cigar,” Calamity announced. “I can see why Lawyer Grosvenor didn’t offer me a smoke. If I’d got cigars this good——”

“Who did you say?” Talbot interrupted.

“Grosvenor. That fancy law-wrangler down to Topeka’s sent me to see you,” Calamity replied. “Didn’t he let you know I was coming?”

“No,” Talbot stated. “I’ve not heard from him.”

“Way you said that, Counselor,” the Kid remarked, “I’d reckon you don’t count this Grosvenor hombre what you’d call a honest, upstanding member of the Bar.”

Before coming West, Talbot had believed its inhabitants were dull-witted, uneducated yokels. Since his arrival, he had discovered that many of them—despite lacking a formal education—could be remarkably shrewd and discerning. So he felt no surprise at the way the Kid had read the correct meaning to his words.

For his part, the Kid would receive the answer to his comment at first hand while handling the law in a corrupt town.* Beauregard appeared to know it already.

“He’s so crooked, he leaves a trail like a sidewinder,” the marshal declared.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Talbot said cautiously.

“I would,” Beauregard insisted. “He’s kept more thieves and such out of the law’s hands than I can count. All with legal trickery and pull in the State Legislature.”

“That’s never been proven——!” Talbot began, his instincts making him protect the reputation of a man he knew to be all the marshal had claimed.

“And is getting us away from the point,” Freddie put in. “There could be several valid reasons why Grosvenor didn’t inform Charles about Calamity coming. What we are trying to find out is how they knew where to find her, so that they could rob her of the papers that would prove her eligible for receiving the offer to buy the ranch. And don’t ask me to repeat all that.”

“It sounds to me like The Outfit’s involved,” Beauregard said gently.

“Which Outfit?” asked the Kid.

“I wished I knew,” the marshal admitted. “It’s only rumors I’ve picked up, Kid, but there’s a mighty well- organized bunch operating in and around Kansas. You want somebody killed, or got rid of, and’ve got the money to meet their prices, you go to The Outfit. They’ve fellers in every town, near on, and’re said to use some of the Wells Fargo way station crews to pick up and pass on information.”

“And you think they’re involved?” Freddie inquired.

“Could be,” Beauregard admitted. “I wouldn’t put it past Grosvenor to be working for The Outfit.”

“Then why send her all this way?” asked the Kid. “She could’ve been jumped and robbed just as easy in Topeka, especially if Grosvenor’s mixed in the deal.”

“Word has it that the State Legislature’s getting interested in The Outfit,” Beauregard answered. “So they wouldn’t chance making a fuss that close to home.”

“You think this ‘Outfit’ has men in Mulrooney, Marshal?” Talbot put in.

“I know it has, but not who they are. The Outfit’s smart. They don’t try to take over a town. They just keep a few hired guns around in case some’re needed. Likely the fellers don’t even know beyond whoever gives them pay in town.”

“So Grosvenor sends Calam here and lets somebody know she’s coming,” the Kid said. “They wouldn’t need to follow her to the hotel.”

“They might, though,” Freddie insisted. “If The Outfit pass information by telegraph, they would have to use a code, or make the messages sound harmless and nothing to do with what they really meant. That would mean they couldn’t go into a lot of details or descriptions. So they would have had to keep a watch at the depot.”

“If they had done, they’d’ve knowed she wasn’t no shy lil Eastern gal,” the Kid objected. “Least-ways, I’ve never seen any Eastern gal dressed like Calamity.”

“What’s wrong with how I dress?” Calamity bristled indignantly.

“Not a teensy thing from where I’m sitting,” the Kid assured her. “Only I never saw no shy lil Eastern gal wearing pants, nor toting a Colt ’n’ a bull-whip.”

“Calamity didn’t leave the train with the other passengers,” Freddie announced. “So if they had a man watching, he wouldn’t have seen her. Or didn’t recognize her.”

“You’ve maybe got it,” drawled the Kid.