Running Irons (4 page)

Bending down, Calamity jerked the carbine from its boot fitted to the inside of the wagon box. The move saved her life for both Mexicans fired at her and the lead passed over her head. The roars of the revolvers mingled with yet another shot from her unseen rescuer’s rifle. Swivelling around, carbine in hand, Calamity saw the effect of the second rifle bullet. Choya leaned against the door jamb, sliding slowly down. A trickle of blood ran from his chest and his Remington had fallen out of his hand.

Manuel saw Calamity swing toward him, the carbine held with practiced ease in her hands. For a moment he hesitated, wavering between handling the girl and locating the as yet unseen rifleuser. That indecision cost him his life, it gave the girl a vitally needed second or so in which to throw up and sight the rifle. Even as Manuel started to bring his revolver in her direction, Calamity shot him dead. She knew the
Comanchero
breed, knew the only way to stop their evil ways was to kill them, and felt no remorse at taking Manuel’s life.

Which same left Ramon. Badly injured though
he was, with an eye that he would never see through again, the Mexican still drew his gun and started shooting as he made for his horse. Twice he fired and, even though pain misted his eyes, he sent the bullets into the wagon box. Splinters kicked into the air but Calamity’s luck, now changed again for the better, held, and the bullets missed her. Yet she knew she must shoot back for Ramon had other charges in his gun and clearly aimed to use them. Her rescuer appeared to judge the situation in the same light for his rifle spat out at the same moment as Calamity’s carbine cracked. Struck by two flat-nosed, Tyler Henry-designed .44 bullets, Ramon whirled around twice, crashed into the nearest horse and went down.

Silence dropped after the thunder of guns, the wind wafting away the burned powder’s smoke. Calamity let out a long shuddering sigh and lowered her carbine. She felt that the last half hour or so put years on her life and, sure as hell’s for sinners, was about as close a call as ever came her young way; up to and including the time she acted as human decoy to lure out of hiding a murderer who had strangled eight girls in the old city of New Orleans. And
that
time had been mighty rough, for she wound up taking the Strangler alone; due partly to her own cussedness and mule-headedly going out without a police cover. She reckoned that not even the feel of the Strangler’s killing cord
around her throat had been as bad as waiting for those four Mexicans to jump her.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” called a male voice.

For the first time Calamity saw her rescuer. He stepped from the shelter and cover of the bushes some fifty yards away, his rifle held in both hands down before his body yet ready for instant use. Although he wore no badge of office he handled himself in the manner of a trained lawman. Despite calling out the question about her welfare, he never took his attention from the four Mexicans.

Calamity studied her rescuer with interest. There appeared to be something familiar about his features; as if she should know him, yet could not place him. He stood maybe six foot one, with a good pair of shoulders that trimmed down to a lean waist. An expensive black Stetson hat, low crowned and wide brimmed in the Texas fashion, sat on the back of his dusty-blond head. He had an intelligent, handsome face made even more grim-looking by trail dirt and a three-day stubble of whiskers, but it looked like it might relax under the right conditions. The tight rolled green bandana which trailed long ends down over his blue broadcloth shirt, his brown levis pants with the cuffs turned back and hanging outside his high-heeled, fancy-stitched boots, all were trail-dirty and showed hard wear. His gunbelt hung just right, a brace of matched staghorn butted 1860
Army Colts in the contoured holsters. The guns rode just right for a fast draw and in a significant fashion; the right side’s Colt pointed its butt to the rear, that at the left turned forward. Such a method often being used in the days before metallic-cartridge revolvers replaced the percussion-fired guns. Due to the slowness of reloading a cap-and-ball revolver, many men carried two guns, although few learned to be ambidextrous in the use of their weapons. Most folks toted their left gun so it could be drawn with the right hand. In a tight spot which called for sustained fire from his weapons, the young man who rescued Calamity most likely drew and emptied his right side Colt first, then either holstered it or made a border-shift—tossing the gun from right to left hand—and drew the second weapon cross-hand so as to continue shooting.

“Dang it though,” Calamity mused, studying the young man. “I should know this feller from someplace. Now who in hell does he remind me of?”

Quickly Calamity thought of some of the men who passed through her hectic young life, trying to decide which of them the young Texan reminded her of most. She discounted Wild Bill Hickok right away. Nor did her rescuer remind her of Beau Resin, the Indian scout she met while freighting supplies to a fort in the Dakotas and with whom she shared some mighty stirring times. Her
thoughts went next to Mark Counter, that range-country Hercules from the Texas Big Bend country. No, handsome though he was, the young man did not come up to Mark’s standards, nor resemble the blond giant enough to remind Calamity of Mark. Yet he for sure looked like somebody Calamity knew.

Even as the girl decided to ask, she saw something that jolted all thoughts of who the young Texan resembled clean out of her head.

“Look out!” she screamed.

Clearly Choya, leader of the
Comancheros,
had not been hit as badly as they imagined. Suddenly, his eyes opened and his right hand scooped up the Remington in a fast-done move. He had been playing possum to lure his unseen attack in close enough to be shot down. The move came fast, deadly and unexpected as the strike of a copperhead snake, and was typical of a
Comanchero’s
way of fighting. Even as Choya fired, and almost before Calamity screamed her warning, the young Texan acted. He moved with commendable speed, going into a crouch and lining the rifle hip high. Three times he fired, working the lever in almost a blur of movement. Choya got off one shot which fanned the Texan’s cheek in passing and might have hit if the
Comanchero’s
hand had been steadier. Twice splinters erupted from the wall, drawing closer to Choya. On the third shot no splinters
flew, but the
Comanchero
jerked under the impact of lead. For an instant he struggled to keep his gun lined. The Texan levered another bullet into his rifle and prepared to shoot again. The precaution proved to be unnecessary. Opening his hand, Choya let the Remington fall from it. This time when the gun landed on the ground, Choya would not be picking it up again.

“R
ECKON YOU FEEL UP TO COVERING THEM WHILE
I pull their fangs, ma’am?” asked the young man who had saved Calamity’s life, his voice an easy-sounding Texas drawl.

Maybe Calamity did feel just a little mite shaken by her experience, but the words stiffened her like a hound-scared cat.

“Naw!” she replied. “I’m all set to start swooning and like to pee my tiny pants.” She hefted the carbine for 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.”

A grin flickered on Danny’s face and he held out a hand. “Put her there, Calam. Pleased to know you.”

Taking the offered hand, Calamity shook it and grinned back. “And boy, was I pleased to hear from you. Say, let’s tend to the cleaning up afore we set down to old home week, shall we?”

“Be best, I reckon,” Danny agreed. “Can we tote ’em in on your wagon?”

“Reckon so. I never took to handling the blister end of a shovel.”

“I’ll go bring down my hoss first.”

“Reckon I’ll come along with you,” Calamity remarked, throwing a glance at the bodies. “Feel like stretching my legs a mite.”

“Let’s go then,” Danny answered.

He made no comment on the girl’s statement, although she figured that her words had not fooled him at all. Side by side they started to walk up the bush dotted slope and Calamity’s curiosity got the better of her as she thought of Danny’s timely arrival.

“How’d you come to be on hand right when I needed you?” she asked.

“I’ve been after Choya and his bunch for over a week now.”

“Just one of you?”

“Were three when we started out. Only the
Comancheros
laid for us. Got Buck Lemming, him being the sergeant, first crack and put lead into Sandy Gartree’s left wing. I was riding behind the other two and come off lucky. Then when Choya’s bunch pulled a Mexican stand-off. I buried Buck, patched up Sandy and sent him back to the Bradded H and took out to tracking those four.”

Which left a considerable amount of the story untold. Danny spoke truly when he said he had been riding behind the other two as they ran into the ambush. What he failed to mention being that
he saved Gartree’s life by pulling the wounded man to cover under
Comanchero
fire and it had been mainly due to his defense that the four remaining Mexicans—two died before Danny and Gartree’s guns—pulled out and ran. In the traditions of the Texas Rangers, Danny attended to his friends and then took out after the
Comancheros
even though the odds be four to one in their favor.

“Sure pleased you did,” Calamity stated. “Man, there was times when I figured I was due for wings and a harp.”

“
You.
Shucks, only the good die young they do say,” grinned Danny.

“One more remark like that out of you and we’ll see about it,” she snorted. “What was you fixing in to do, sneaking down the slope?”

“Take ’em. I’d seen their hosses when they jumped us and recognized those four when I peeked over the top of the rim. Reckoned that Choya and his bunch’d be in the house and aimed to sneak in then take ’em by surprise. Only you come through the window afore I made it. Which same I was lucky, didn’t know about that jasper in the backhouse.”

“The Ysabel Kid’d’ve checked on it afore
he
moved in.”

“Which same I aimed to do,” Danny told her calmly. “He taught me all he knows about tracking and things.”

“Which same I never saw the Kid show any sign of knowing about—things,” grinned Calamity. “Though he does know some about tracking.”

“Anyways you stopped me when you came through the window and that jasper came out the backhouse like a coon off a log when he heard the whooping and hollering, and I figured to stay hid until I saw what might be needed. How come you-all was fool enough to get caught, Calam, gal?”

Quickly, her sentences liberally sprinkled with a flow of invective that brought an admiring grin to Danny’s lips, Calamity told her story. Nor did his admiration lessen when he heard of the manner in which she prevented the men from recognizing her true potential by donning a skirt and acting as the unsuspecting lady of the house. Take it any way a man looked, old Calamity was quite a gal and lived up to the flattering comments Dusty, Mark and the Kid made about her after their return from the first meeting. Not many women would have shown her presence of mind. Fact being, few women, even in the self-reliant West, could have handled things so efficiently or come out of the situation which had faced Calamity as well as she did.

On reaching the top of the slope, Calamity looked to where Danny’s horse stood by a large blueberry bush. It came as almost a surprise to see that Danny did not ride a paint like his brother’s personal mount. However, the horse looked to be a real fine
critter, sixteen hands high and showing good breeding. The horse had a coloration Calamity could never remember seeing before, a light red, almost pinkish roan with a pure white belly.

“What in hell color do you call that?” she asked.

“A
sabino,
” Danny explained. “Got him below the line. Mexican cowhands go a whole heap on them for go-to-town hosses and for work.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” sniffed Calamity. “Looks a mite flashy to me. Got me a buckskin with the outfit that’d run his legs down to the shoulders in a straight mile race.”