getting to know you three’s changed my mind.”
“Has, huh?” asked Danny sympathetically.
“It sure as hell has!” Calamity yelped. “Now I
“To get serious, Calam,” Murat put in, “how’d you like to help us?”
“How’d you mean, help you?” she asked suspiciously.
“We’ve something on that needs a woman’s gentle touch.”
“It’s nothing to do with some gals getting strangled, is it?”
“No,” answered Murat, sounding a mite startled. “Why should it be?”
“No reason at all, ’cepting that the last time a lawman said something like that to me, I near on wound up getting choked by a murdering skunk. Enjoyed it so much that I figured I’d like a second go.”
“Happen they get on to you, if you take the chore, you’ll likely get your wanting,” Murat stated and explained his idea to Calamity.
When Murat finished speaking, Calamity looked him over with interested eyes. It appeared that the situation was not as dangerous as she first imagined. No sir, it was even worse. With a rope waiting on their capture, cow thieves tended to be a mite rough should they find a spy in their midst. If she went in to Caspar, she would not have the cover of police escort as she had, until the final night—when, to be fair, she ought not to have gone out—in New Orleans. However, Calamity reckoned she might be able to take good care of herself, especially against another woman; after all no gal had ever licked her yet.
“You’ll not be able to go into the saloon dressed like that, Calam,” Danny pointed out.
“Now me, I’d swear every saloon gal dressed this way,” she sniffed.
“We can easy fix the clothes,” Murat went on.
“Yeah,” groaned the girl. “I figured you might. I can’t stay on for long though. Dobe Killem wants me back with the outfit when he pulls out of here.”
“If you haven’t got us the proof we need in nine or ten days, you likely won’t get it at all,” Murat replied. “How about it, Calam?”
“You just hired yourself a gal,” she answered, holding out her hand. “When do we start, Danny?”
“Now slow down a mite, gal,” Murat ordered. “It’s not as easy as all that.”
“Happen I’d thought it would be, I’d never have taken on,” Calamity told him calmly.
Despite her eagerness to try the novel experience of working as a saloon-girl and undercover agent for the Texas Rangers, Calamity knew nothing must be left to chance. She found Murat’s preparations remarkably, and comfortingly from her point of view, thorough. Knowing that certain and painful death awaited Calamity if she should be detected as a spy, Murat intended that she should take as few chances as possible. While Danny Fog would also be working in Caspar County, he could not be on hand all the time to protect Calamity. Mostly the girl would have to stand on her own two feet and rely on her brains, courage and ability.
Collecting a trio of horses from the remuda, Calamity, Danny and Murat rode into Austin. During the trip, Murat gave Danny and Calamity instructions. Danny was to take the name Daniel Forgrave, a cowhand who had worked on three different ranches well clear of the Caspar area. Making sure Danny could remember the names of the outfits and their bosses, Murat turned his attention to Calamity. After some discussion they settled on the name Martha Connelly for her and once more Murat gave a list of places where she had worked.
“Remember those four, whatever you do,” Murat warned.
“What if somebody knows them?” she countered.
“That’s always a chance, Calam,” admitted the Ranger captain. “You can always pull out. Fact being, you’d be wise if you did.”
“Never was wise,” she grinned. “You reckon it’s a good thing to use the Golden Slipper here in town, they could right easy telegraph here and ask about me.”
“You’ll be all right, even if they do,” Murat promised.
While Calamity trusted Murat’s judgment, she figured out one detail that a man would be unlikely to think about. She expected to be taken to some dress shop and fitted with clothing suitable for her pose as a saloon-girl and saw danger in the idea. Then she discovered that Murat had been aware of the problem of dress and knew the answer to it.
Instead of visiting a dress shop, Calamity found herself taken in the rear of the Golden Slipper, one of Austin’s better class saloons. Clearly Murat knew his way around the place, for he led his party upstairs to the office of the owner, a big, buxom, jovial woman who greeted him as a friend and lent a sympathetic, understanding ear to the problems facing the Ranger captain.
“Nothing easier, Jules,” she stated after hearing what Murat required. “You boys go downstairs and have a drink on the house while I fix up Calamity with all she’ll need.”
Half an hour later Calamity entered the barroom, only she looked a whole heap different from the girl who came to town with Danny. Gone were the men’s clothing, gunbelt and bull-whip, replaced by a small, dainty and impractical hat, a dress with black and white candy-striped bodice and mauve skirt, some cheap, flashy jewellery and a reticule, such as a saloon-girl would wear when travelling. None of the items were new, but had been selected from clothing left behind by girls who departed into the respectability of married life.
Calamity had figured suspicion might come her way should she show up in Caspar with every item of clothing damned near brand new. However, Murat appeared to have foreseen the danger and countered it by arranging for her to loan a wardrobe suited to the part she was going to play.
“Got all you need, Calamity?” the captain asked as the girl joined him and Danny at their table.
“Just about all,” she replied. “Got me this outfit, three fancy saloon gal frocks, shoes, stockings and some fancy female do-dads you pair don’t know the name of, or ought to be ashamed of yourselves if you do. Ain’t but one thing more I’d like along with me.”
“And what’s that?” asked Danny.
“One of those forty-one caliber Remington belly guns.”
Such an item would not arouse suspicion, or be out of place in a saloon-girl’s possession. Many a girl working in a saloon or dancehall carried a Remington Double Derringer, or some other such small, easily concealed firearm, in her reticule, or strapped to her garter.
“There’s one in my office and some shells for it,” Murat told the girl. “I can let you have it as soon as we’ve bought your stage ticket to Caspar. You’ll go on tomorrow’s stage and be there in three days.”
“I’ll pull out now,” Danny drawled. “That should see me in town a day ahead of Calamity.”
“Reckon it should,” agreed Murat. “Break up that cow stealing, Danny.”
“Yes, sir, Captain,” replied Danny soberly. “I aim to do just that.”
Chapter 6 LOOKS LIKE I GOT HERE TOO LATE
A PAIR OF SPIRALING TURKEY VULTURES CAUGHT Danny Fog’s eye and caused him to bring his big
Two days had passed since Danny rode out of Austin and at almost noon, he figured he must be on the eastern ranges of Caspar County, most likely crossing Buck Jerome’s Bench J.
“Might be nothing, hoss,” he said, patting the
Such an action would be in keeping with the character he must play while in Caspar just as much as when he rode in his official capacity of Texas Ranger. Any man seeing circling buzzards—as the non-zoologically-minded Western folk called
