“What does he look like?” she snapped.
“Tall, blond, youngish, not bad looking. Rode a big
“Forgrave!” Ella and Phyl said at the same moment.
Even as they spoke the door of the room flew open.
Calamity had just figured that she must find some way of warning Danny of his danger when she found she had troubles of her own. So interested in the conversation had she been, that she forgot to stay alert. Maisie stepped from her room, took in the sight and crept stealthily along the passage toward the listening Calamity. Instead of hearing the gentle pad of bare feet, Calamity missed the sound. The first knowledge she had of Maisie’s presence being when one hand gripped the scruff of her neck and another jerked her arm up behind her back.
Dropping the hand from Calamity’s neck, Maisie twisted on Ella’s door handle and pushed open the door. Before Calamity could make a move to prevent it, she was shoved into the room.
“What’s all this, Maisie?” Ella asked.
“I just caught her listening at the door, boss.”
Pain in her trapped arm, and a natural aversion to being pushed around, caused Calamity to take action. Lifting her foot, she stamped the heel down hard on Maisie’s foot. The big brunette let out a screech of pain and released Calamity’s arm, then started to hop on her other leg, clutching at the injured toes. Before Calamity could turn and take the matter further, Phyl leapt forward and pushed her against the wall. Even as Calamity tensed to throw herself into the attack, Ella rose, jerking open the table’s drawer and bringing out the Remington Double Derringer which took Gooch’s life.
“Now just hold it right there!” the saloonkeeper ordered. “Phyl, take her gun. Keep back, Maisie.”
The latter warning came as the brunette prepared to hurl herself at Calamity and take reprisals for the vicious stamp on her foot. Knowing her boss’s temper, Maisie halted and watched, scowling and muttering to herself, as Calamity stood still and allowed Phyl to pull up her skirt and remove the Derringer from its garter holster.
“She’s a liar, boss!” Calamity yelped, getting her defense in before the attack began. “I’d only just come up here.”
“She was listening, boss!” Maisie screeched.
“All right! Shut it, both of you!” Ella spat out. Her fingers drummed on the table top, then she frowned as she remembered that Calamity came to town from Austin. “How many Rangers did Murat send, Jake?”
“One. That Danny Fog like I told you,” the man replied, staring at Calamity once more. “Say, I seen that gal afore somewheres.”
“In the Golden Slipper at Austin, you skinny goat!” Calamity snapped. “You come up here to tell the boss how I got throwed out of town. I knew you’d got me marked down from the minute you come into the bar downstairs.”
“Hell, you saw the way he looked at me right from when he come in, Phyl,” Calamity said, turning to the red- head.
“He sure did, boss,” Phyl agreed and glared at Maisie as the girl gave a disbelieving sniff.
“How about it, Jake?” Ella inquired.
“Sure I looked at her. Thought I’d seen her around someplace. Only I don’t reckon it was in Austin.”
“Where’d it be?” asked Maisie, going back to rubbing her aching foot.
“Sure it was Austin, you danged fool!” howled Calamity. “You come here to tell the boss that I’d been run out of town. I’ve heard about you.”
“What’ve you heard, Marty?” purred Ella, watching the Jewish pedlar’s face rather than studying Calamity’s expression.
“That he’d sell his own mother if he thought the price was right,” Calamity replied. “Hell, I saw him talking to Cap’n Murat down a back street in Austin a couple of days before——”
“That’s a damned lie!” Jacobs screeched, and no other word could describe the sound.
“Just stay right where you are, Jake!” Ella ordered, swinging the Derringer in the pedlar’s direction.
“Hell, Miss Ella,” whined the pedlar nervously. “Murat only stopped me to ask about a gun I’d tried to get for him.”
The pedlar did not make his words sound very convincing and Ella’s suspicions deepened. If “Marty” told the truth, Jacobs would just have reached Austin after his visit to Caspar City. So he might have been selling information which brought Danny Fog to Caspar.
“All right, Jake,” Ella said. “I believe you. You’d better get going and let me talk with Marty here.”
Turning, Jacobs hurried from the room. His one desire was to collect his wagon and put as many miles as possible between himself and Caspar City, for Ella’s words had not fooled him at all.
“You letting him go, boss?” Maisie asked after Jacobs left.
“Go get Wren,” replied Ella, which answered the question after a fashion. When Maisie left the room, Ella turned her eyes to Calamity. “I’m not sure about you, Marty. Hold her until I get back, Phyl.”
“Sure, boss,” Phyl replied. “Come on, Marty, we’ll wait in my room.”
“Wait,” Ella ordered, rising and removing her robe. “You saw a lot of Danny Forgrave, Marty. Do you think he might be a Ranger?”
Calamity’s first instinct was to scoff at the idea, then she decided not to appear certain. She figured Danny could take care of himself, and had her own escape to think about.
“Seemed a mite slicker than most cowhands,” she admitted. “Only I thought he was just more crooked than most.”
Which just about coincided with Ella’s judgment of Danny’s character. The saloonkeeper drew on the man’s shirt, taken from its hiding place and slipped into a pair of levis pants. Watching Ella, Calamity remembered what Danny told her about Gooch’s death. Calamity studied the bare flesh under the shirt as Ella fastened its buttons and formed her own conclusions.
A knock sounded on the door as Ella finished buttoning the levis. She called “Come in!” looking at Phyl and Calamity as Wren entered followed by Maisie. “Take Marty to your room, Phyl,” Ella went on.
“I’ll go with her,” Maisie growled.
Anger etched a scowl on Phyl’s face, but she did not argue. Phyl and Maisie escorted Calamity to their room, leaving Ella to give orders to the cold-eyed hired killer.
Although she hid the fact, Calamity felt worried. Danny Fog’s life hung in the balance and somehow she must try to escape then warn him that his secret had been sold out. Yet before she could do anything, Calamity must escape from the two buxom, powerful boss-girls. For once in her life Calamity knew fighting was not the answer. She might be able to take one or the other girl, but not both at once; and even against one of them, skilled bar room brawlers that they were, she would be in no condition to make a hard ride straight after the fight.
The boss-girls shared a room slightly bigger, but not much better equipped than the type used by the ordinary female workers. On entering, Maisie leaned her back against the door and stood scowling at Calamity. None of them spoke for almost ten minutes. Calamity sat on the edge of Phyl’s bed and the redheaded boss-girl crossed the room to look out of the window.
“Girlie,” Maisie finally said, “I sure as hell hope you don’t come up with the right answers.”
“Why?” asked Calamity. “So it’ll put Phyl in bad with the boss.”
Turning from the window, after seeing Wren and Ella leave by the side door, Phyl scowled across the room at Maisie. Suspicion glowed in the red-head’s eyes and she said:
“You may have something there, Marty.”
“Sure I have, Phyl,” Calamity answered, taking her chance with both hands. “You’ve seen how she’s always trying to put you in the wrong.”
“I don’t reckon I’m going to wait until the boss gets back!” Maisie hissed and thrust herself away from the wall.
Before Maisie could reach Calamity, Phyl blocked her path. “You’ll leave her be, fatso. She’s——”
Drawing back her arm, Maisie swung it, hand knotted into a fist, against the side of Phyl’s cheek. The blow landed hard, sending the buxom redhead staggering. Maisie knew she had started something she must finish with Phyl before attempting to handle Calamity. So the brunette hurled herself at Phyl and walked into a punch between the eyes which stopped her in her tracks. The long pent-up hatred burst like a wrecked dam wall and the two
