Running Irons

him to see. “Go pull their teeth, friend, they’re safe covered.”

Watching the way the young man moved, Calamity once again felt struck by the calm, competent and efficient manner in which he handled himself. One thing was for certain sure, he moved like a well-trained lawman. His route to the bodies took him by the front of Calamity’s wagon. In passing, he rested the Winchester against the wagon’s side and took out his right-hand revolver before going any closer to the dead Mexicans. Up close, should one of the quartet still be playing possum, a revolver’s short length licked the be-jeesus out of the longer range and greater magazine capacity of a rifle.

Neither weapon would have been needed, as the disarming of the Comancheros passed without incident. Not one of that evil quartet would ever give trouble or endanger lives and property again. Yet the young Texan did not feel any annoyance at having taken the precautions. The way he saw things, it was well worth taking a few added precautions happen they kept a man alive.

“That’s them cleaned,” he remarked, after tossing the last of the Comancheros’ weapons toward the wagon. “You’d maybe best stop in the wagon, ma’am, they aren’t a pretty sight.”

“They never are,” Calamity answered, putting her carbine’s safety catch on and sliding the little gun back into its boot. “And for Tophet’s sake, stop calling me ‘ma’am’.”

“Sure, ma’am,” drawled the young man soothingly.

If there was one thing in the world that riled Calamity more than the rest, it was having a young feller around her age showing off his masculine superiority—not that Calamity would have expressed it in such a manner—and acting all smug and condescending because he wore pants and maybe sported hair on his chest. Well, maybe she might be a mite shy on the hair but she could sure copper his bet on the other score. Unfastening the skirt, she slid it off and, not for the first time, wondered why in hell womenfolk hampered themselves by wearing such garments. Once free of the skirt’s encumbrance, she took up her gunbelt and vaulted lightly from the wagon.

“You look a mite disappointed,” she said noticing the way he glanced at her legs.

“Why sure,” the Texan replied. “When I saw you take off your skirt there, I figured——”

“Well, you was wrong. Let’s clean up around here afore the Jones’ get back.”

“As you say, ma’am. This isn’t your place then?”

“Just passing through, although I did take a few liberties with the fixings,” Calamity answered, her eyes flickering to the window she destroyed in her departure from the cabin. “And the next time you call me ‘ma’am’ I’ll ——”

“Ma’am’s a good name seeing’s we’ve not been introduced. I figured you was a lady in distress.”

“Boy,” grinned Calamity, although her rescuer could maybe give her a year in age. “I’m no lady, but I sure as hell was in distress. Fact being I was so in distress that I said, ‘Calam, gal,’ I said, ‘you’re sure in distress right now, so where-at’s that long, blond, handsome Texan who’s going to save your ornery, worthless lady’s hide.’ And dog-my-cats, there you was as large as life and twice as welcome.”

“I talk too much when I want to haul off and fetch up, too,” the Texan told her. “Like right now.”

For a moment Calamity’s temper boiled up hot and wild, quelling the uneasiness in her belly. No matter how often one saw sudden death, the sight never grew any easier on the stomach. Those four Mexicans aimed to rape and kill her, as she well knew, but the thought did little to stop her feeling just a mite sick as she glanced at, then looked away from the gory mess that was the top of Gomez’ bullet-shattered head.

However, life must go on. If Calamity sat down and went all woman and hysterical every time she saw a body, she would have spent a good portion of the last three years that way. A freight driver’s life was hard and dangerous out West, what with facing the hazards of the elements, Indian attack and the occasional meeting with murderous Comancheros, so offered plenty of opportunity for one to see sudden, violent death.

After her mother left her in the care of the nuns at a St. Louis convent, Calamity stayed put until her sixteenth birthday. There being too much of Charlotte Canary’s spirit in Calamity for her to take kindly to the discipline of the convent, the girl slipped away on her sixteenth birthday and hid in one of Dobe Killem’s wagons as it started its trip West, first working as cook’s louse, then learning the mysteries of a team-driver’s art. From the men of the outfit Calamity learned much; how to handle and care for a six-horse team, use a long-lashed bull whip as tool and weapon, know more than a little about Indians, and how to defend herself with her bare hands in a rough-house frontier barroom brawl—a useful accomplishment when dealing with tough dancehall girls who objected to Calamity entering their place of employment. In three years Calamity had seen a fair piece of the West and reached the stage of competence where Dobe Killem allowed her to handle chores alone, knowing he could trust her to come through for him.

“What’ll we do with ’em?” she asked, ignoring the unsettled condition of her stomach. “It’ll take a whole heap of digging to plant all four of ’em; and I don’t want to do it near the house.”

“We won’t have to,” answered the Texan. “If you’ve room in your wagon, I’ll take them into Austin.”

“You a bounty hunter?” growled Calamity.

Reaching into a hidden pocket behind his gunbelt, the Texan extracted something. He held out his hand, in its palm lay a silver star mounted in a circle. While not a native of the Lone Star State, Calamity still knew and could recognize the badge of the Texas Rangers when she saw it—and she saw one in the palm of her young rescuer’s hand.

“Ranger, huh?” she asked.

“Yes’m. The name’s Danny Fog——”

Calamity slapped the palm of a hand against her thigh and gave an exasperated yelp. Everything slotted into place now, she could see the family resemblance and cursed herself for not spotting it straight off. Of course, there was a mite of difference that could account for her not connecting her rescuer with——

“Damn it to hell!” she snorted. “I should have seen it. You’re Dusty Fog’s kid brother.”

Which same was roughly the sort of remark Danny Fog had come to expect to hear when he announced his identity. Danny yielded second to no man in the respect, admiration and affection he bore for his famous brother, the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog. As Danny saw things, a man who had been one of the South’s top fighting leaders in the war, became known as a cowhand, ranch segundo and trail boss of the first water, bore a name as a town-taming lawman with few equals, was acclaimed by reliable sources as the fastest gun in Texas, deserved all the credit and fame which came his way. So far Texas had not come under the grip of “debunkers,” those intellectual young men who, aware of their own complete lack of any qualities of courage or ability, sought to bring everybody down to their level. Dusty Fog enjoyed just fame and acclaim and his brother, Danny, stood first in line to give it.

But it sure riled a mite to be known as “Dusty Fog’s kid brother.” Without boasting of it, Danny knew himself to be intelligent; with his training he considered himself to be a pretty fair lawman; maybe not real fast with a Colt—it took him a good second to draw and shoot and in Texas one needed to be able to almost half that time to be considered fast—but a fine shot with a handgun or rifle; capable of reading sign in an efficient manner, and a reckonable fist fighter; these latter qualities stemming from the lessons given by two of Dusty’s friends, each an acknowledged master in his field. So he figured he could make a better than fair peace officer, given time to gather experience and reckoned he ought to be able to stand on his own two feet; which was why he joined the Rangers instead of staying on in Rio Hondo County and working as his father’s deputy. That way he hoped to gain for himself a separate identity instead of living as “Dusty Fog’s kid brother.”

“You know Dusty, ma’am?” he inquired.

With a remarkable show of tact, Calamity guessed at the cause of the momentary pause which followed her words. So she held down the blistering comment which rose on Danny’s repeated use of the word “ma’am.”

“Met him a couple of times, and the Ysabel Kid—know ole Mark Counter a whole heap better though. Say, didn’t they ever mention me?”

“Only gal they ever mentioned that partly might fit your description was a dead-mean, red-haired lump of perversity called Calamity Jane. Only Mark mentioned as how she was a mite fatter’n you and got more freckles.”

“If you’re jobbing me——” she warned.

“Me, ma’am?” asked Danny, then a look of horror came to his face. “Landsakes a-mercy, do you mean to tell me that you’re Calamity Jane?”

“You did that real smooth,” Calamity sniffed. “Maybe just a mite over-done, but not bad for a kid.”