The Old Wolves (3 page)

FOUR

“Spur-urrrr,”
a girl's pretty voice said into the tranquil darkness at the edges of the old lawman's slumber.

Spurr grunted, smacked his lips, ground his head into the pillow, and let himself drift deeper into the warm tar of sleep she'd started to summon him from.

The girl's voice called him back toward the fringes once more. “Spurr, hon . . . wakey, wakey.”

“Ah, hell,” he said, still mostly asleep. “Le' me, le' me . . .”

“Spur-urrrr.”

The voice was softer but it came from nearer this time. He could hear the girl's soft breathing, feel the warmth of her mouth up close to his left ear. Suddenly he felt the warm, wet softness of her tongue inside his ear, felt her small, pliant hand wrap around his manhood down beneath the sheets and autumn quilts, and give him a gentle squeeze.

“Come on, hon—you said you was gonna take Kansas City Jane to breakfast this morning. Don't you”—she swirled her tongue around in his ear once more and squeezed him a little harder—“re . . .
mem
 . . . berrr?”

Spurr opened his eyes and groaned at the girl's manipulating hand that was causing the proverbial worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle to wag its tail. Spurr chuckled at the notion though the image of a tequila bottle caused lightning to strike his brain and make his ears ring. He'd had far too much of the ole tangleleg these past few days.

Tangleleg, tobacco, and women.

“Take a few days off, Spurr,” Chief Marshal Henry Brackett had told Spurr after he'd gotten back with Mitchell, Wagner, and Pritchett from the Indian Nations and filed his report.

He reached up and sandwiched Kansas City Jane's face between his hands and planted a warm kiss on the tip of her nose. “You keep doin' what you're doin' with that nasty little hand of yourn, Janey my darlin', and I might have you on your back again. I don't think I got money enough for another poke
and
breakfast fer two. Been goin' through it mighty fast of late.”

“That's all right,” Jane said, stretching her lips back from her teeth—nearly a full set, with only one gap behind her right eyetooth. That was pretty much a full set for a whore in these parts. “I'll give you a free one . . . since you're celebratin' an' all, after taking down that nasty Gatling bunch over in the Nations. The way they were carryin' on for so many years, like a bunch of bloodthirsty wolves, why, I reckon every girl on the frontier owes you a poke, Marshal Spurr.”

She leaned closer to him, raked her breasts across his shoulder, causing Spurr's old loins to tingle.

Spurr chuckled. He rolled the girl over on her back and buried his face between her firm, pale breasts, snorting and licking her and gently raking her with his beard stubble. She laughed and shivered, lifting her knees and writhing around, placing her hands on the back of Spurr's head and grinding his face tight against her.

“Oooo, that tickles, Spurr!”

Spurr lifted his head. He kissed each of the girl's pebbled pink nipples in turn, and then rolled over to the edge of the bed and dropped his feet to the floor. “Come on, Jane. If we do it again, I'll need a nap before we light out. I ain't as young as I used to be. Let's go out and see what Mr. Wong is servin' up for breakfast these days. Last time I was there, he was cookin' some right fine huevos rancheros.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jane, who was sitting up and luxuriously smoothing her curly golden hair back behind her pink shoulders. “Don't that beat all—a Chinaman cookin' Mescin food?”

“What do Chinamen normally eat, Spurr?”

“Hell, I don't know. When I was scoutin' for the railroad a few years ago—hell, about twenty years ago now!—I saw 'em boilin' a lot of cabbage with rice and the like. They drank tea, too. Lots of tea.” He glanced back at Jane again—if he remembered right, her real name was Nellie—and admired her firm, pink round ass facing him as she crawled over to the far side of the bed. “Their supper meals smelled—I hate to say it, Miss Jane—but a little like Indian stew.”

“What do you suppose was in it?” The girl climbed down off the bed, turning to Spurr and pulling her hair back behind her head with both hands in that sweetly feminine way of hers. As she thrust her shoulders back, her tender breasts jutted forward, still a little red from Spurr's beard stubble.

“Do you know what's in Indian stew, darlin'?” Spurr rose, chuckling, and began stumbling around, gathering his clothes.

“No, Spurr,” the girl said. “What's in Indian stew?”

“Uh . . . well, let's just say that when a farmer's missin' one of his hounds for more than a day, and there's some Injuns camped out nearby, he might as well figure he's seen the last of ole Rover.”

“Oh, Spurr—please!” the girl intoned, making a face and cupping her hands to her breasts, drawing one knee toward the other one. “You shouldn't say somethin' like that when we're about to light out for Mr. Wong's!”

Spurr roared as he sat down on the edge of the bed with his clothes in his lap. “You asked, darlin'! You asked!”

She threw a pillow at him, and he laughed harder.

They continued to jaw at each other as they both dressed, the girl stumbling around the room, pulling one article of clothing on at a time, and Spurr trying his best at dressing without having to move around overmuch. His head felt as though several brawny tracklayers had shoved railroad spikes through his ears and poured wood tar down his throat.

When he'd gotten back from the Nations, a commendation from the governor of Colorado had been waiting for him, on Chief Marshal Henry Brackett's desk, as well as a fifty-dollar bonus. Spurr had to admit that, while he was normally a relatively humble man, the commendation from the governor as well as the chagrinned smile on the old Chief Marshal's face had gone to his head.

And why shouldn't it have?

A month ago he had gone out to breakfast with the venerable old marshal, and over omelettes and hash browns, Henry Brackett had once again suggested Spurr retire.

“Why don't you head on down to Mexico, like you've been threatening to do for the past ten years, Spurr? Leave this lawdogging business up to the younger men. You've made your mark. Hell, even old bull buffalos know when their breedin' days are over. They take it with a stiff upper lip and just wander away from the herd.”

“Wander away from the herd, huh, Henry? Sounds a helluva lot like what the Injuns do. Look for some cave up in the hills they can die in alone, so the young folks don't have to bother with 'em.”

“Oh, that's not what I'm sayin' at all, Spurr. A bad choice of words.” Marshal Brackett had nudged his small, rectangular spectacles up his nose, laced his hands together on the table behind his plate, and leaned forward. His eyes behind the glasses were somber, frank. “I'm saying the marshals service has gotten . . . well, it's gotten more complicated in these more modern times, Spurr. Colorado turned from frontier territory to a bona fide state almost five years ago now. The laws have gotten more complicated. Outlaws have gotten more complicated, too. More sophisticated.”

When Spurr was about to interject, Brackett had lifted a hand to forestall him and said, “All that aside . . . well, you know as well as I do, Spurr, that with that old ticker of yours, you could go at any time. Face it, Spurr. Your best days are behind you. Leave it to the young folks to bring law and order to the
new
frontier.”

Spurr had to admit, he'd considered it, just as he'd told Henry Brackett he'd do. He'd consider it over one more assignment—tracking the LaMona Gatling bunch from the spot of their last bloody robbery, though Brackett had insisted he ride “with three much younger but still very capable men, the new breed of deputy United States marshal.

“When you've ridden with these young professionals, Spurr, I think you'll be able to turn in your badge with confidence that civilization is in good hands.”

“Young professionals, my ass,” Spurr said now, setting his hat on his head in Jane's warped mirror. He laughed, still boiling over with glee, despite the bottle flu, at his having turned the tables on the three snooty lawmen—the
young professionals
as the Chief Marshal had called them—and taken down the entire Gatling gang single-handed.

“What's that, hon?” Jane said, fully dressed and ready to go, sidling up to him in the mirror and wrapping an arm around his waist.

Spurr turned to her, hesitating. Then he laughed again. “Oh, I was just sayin' I think it's time you and this ole lawdog headed out for some o' the Chinaman's chow, and then we head on back here and I give you one hell of a professional ash-haulin'. How'd that be, Sweet Jane?” He reached into a pocket of his corduroy trousers hanging off his lean hips. “I think I got one more silver dollar rollin' around in here too lonely for words!”

Jane chuckled, and then she frowned. “Spurr, is that all you got left from the money the governor gave you?”

“Jane, my dear beautiful gal—a pine box is a damn lonely place. You're there a long time, and there ain't one purty girl anywhere near for that whole long eternal time to spend it on.” Spurr winked, pecked the girl's cheek. “Now, I'm so hungry my belly thinks my throat's been cut!”

Laughing, they left the girl's room together and strolled down the wide, carpeted stairs of George Cranston's Saloon, which everybody in Denver city proper and most of the county knew was a whorehouse—one of the best in Denver. Spurr didn't usually have the money for such a place—he often swore that his store-bought pants came with holes in the pockets—but after the governor himself had oiled his palms a little, he saw no reason not to splurge.

And he'd found this little blonde, who called herself Kansas City Jane, just a delight to make an old man's weak ticker feel almost young and strong again.

Spurr's spurs rattled as he led Jane on down the stairs, her arm hooked through his. It was still early by saloon and whorehouse standards, so there were only about five men in the large, dark, cavernous room that housed a long polished mahogany horseshoe bar and vast, gaudy mirror on the left. There were about twenty or so stout tables on the right, amidst the square-hewn ceiling posts and a couple of potbellied stoves, both of which ticked and smoked with morning fires. It was late August, still summer, but there'd been a pronounced chill in the air for days.

A gambling parlor lay through a curtained doorway, with blackjack tables, a roulette wheel, and a craps table, at the rear of Cranston's, but Spurr tried his best to stay out of the place lest those holes in his pockets should grow even larger.

“Where in the hell you goin' with my girl, Spurr?” This from the barman who also owned the place—Leonard Cranston, brother of George who'd been hit by a hansom cab a few years back, dying and leaving the business to his big, burly, blond-bearded brother, Lenny, who hired some of the prettiest doxies in Colorado.

“We're off to get married!” As Spurr led the girl, who wore a much more sensible dress and shoes than she normally wore about Cranston's, toward the front door that looked out on Arapaho Street, he lifted his hat high above his head. “Wish this ole duck good luck, will ya, fellers?”

FIVE

“Wish Miss Jane luck, more like!” called one of Cranston's regulars, Pearl Isaakson, who came in most mornings to partake of a sudsy beer to start the day, and anything remaining of last night's free lunch platter. He stood at the bar, grinning, one elbow on the bar top, a beer schooner in his fist.

The others in the saloon this early weekday morning, including Cranston, laughed as Spurr led the girl through the heavy, glass-paned door and out onto Arapaho Street. Traffic was light on this narrow, gravel-paved side street, about three blocks from the Mint and the Federal Building.

A beer dray was just now passing with two big mule skinners at the reins, both of whom waved to Spurr and lifted their battered felt hats to Miss Jane. The driver's shaggy dog was following the dray, tongue hanging and tail wagging, making the rounds with its master though giving chase to the occasional stray cat now and then.

Spurr had resided in or around Denver long enough to know well over half the faces—including the animals' faces—in the fast-growing old cow town once known as Denver City.

Spurr and the girl waited for a coal wagon to pass and then headed off across the street to angle toward an alley mouth, which would take them via the quickest route possible to the Chinaman's café which, if Spurr remembered correctly, was called merely Good Food—Cheap.

“You ever been married, Spurr?” Jane asked as they stepped up onto the boardwalk on the street's opposite side, passing the tonsorial parlor out front of which the barber, Roy Overhill, was sweeping horse and mule dung from his stoop.

“Me? Hell, no!” Spurr laughed. “Oh, I lived with a few women too stupid to know no better, but no, I never been hitched.”

“I bet you'd have made a good husband.”

“Really? Why's that, honey?”

“Oh, I don't know. 'Cause you're good. You're kind. You're sweet as all git-out in bed, and you got a nice laugh. Your eyes twinkle, too, and I like that in a man. Most men are so serious.”

“Well, I'm old enough to know you can't take life too damn serious. Why would you? It's too damn short!”

Jane laughed and rubbed her head against his arm as they walked. “Spurr, I hope you come back an' see me sometime.”

“Ah, hell—you must be tired o' my stringy hide by now.”

“You're a good man, Spurr. Sure, you got a few years on you, but . . .”

Spurr stopped and looked at her. “What is it, Miss Jane?”

She gazed up at him concernedly. “Don't take this the wrong way, okay, hon?”

“What is it?” he urged, patting her hand.

“Spurr, ain't you just a tad old to be doin' what you're doin'?”

“Ah, hell,” Spurr said, twisting his leathery, patch-bearded, wart-stippled face like he'd just sucked a lemon. “Not you, too, Miss Jane.”

“Last night, Spurr,” the girl said, “I woke up and you . . . you didn't sound too good.”

“Didn't sound too good? Hell, I was probably snorin'!”

“Well, between the snores your breath seemed to flutter a lot, like you were working at catching air.”

“Ah, hell,” Spurr said, patting her hand reassuringly this time. “I was just tired. Drunk and tired. You 'bout wore me out, girl! But that's all right. Gettin' his ashes hauled good, by a real pro like yourself, adds year to an old man's li. . . .”

Spurr let his voice trail off and beetled his grizzled brows as he stared across the street, toward four horses standing at the tie rack in front of the old Territorial Bank of Denver—a small, wood-and-brick structure sandwiched between a furniture shop and Petersen's Fine Watches & Watch Repair store.

“What is it?” the girl asked, following his gaze toward where a man in rough-hewn trail gear leaned against the hitchrack, his back to Spurr and Jane. Spurr could see him between a piebald gelding and a black-legged steeldust stallion. The man wore a long, coarsely woven coat, and he had his head down as though scrutinizing something on the ground around his boots, which were casually crossed at the ankles.

The horses were not tied. Spurr could see that the man leaning against the hitchrack was holding all four sets of reins in his hands.

Spurr looked at the bank. The shades were drawn over the front windows and doors. That wasn't unusual for this early in the day, but the horses standing out front of the place were damned unusual. As was the man standing a little too casually against the hitchrack, holding their reins.

Just then the bank door opened. Faintly, Spurr heard the bell over the door jangle. The shade in the door's window jostled. The door jerked as it stopped abruptly, as though running up against a boot, and then a man stumbled out—a hombre dressed in rough trail gear similar to that worn by the gent at the hitchrack. He was holding a pistol straight up in one hand, and the two men who followed him out of the bank were also holding pistols.

Spurr released Jane's arm and unsnapped the keeper thong over the hammer of the Starr .44 jutting butt forward on his left hip. Keeping his eyes on the three men hurrying out of the bank, he said quietly, with measured calm, “Jane, I want you to crouch down behind that rain barrel over there. Can you do that for me, please?”

“But, Spurr, what . . . ?”

“Now, Jane—
hurry
!”

As Spurr turned back toward the bank, he saw a shadow move in the corner of his right eye. He jerked his head in that direction. A man was moving quickly out from a store front a half a block away, extending a pistol straight out in front of him. The pistol exploded as the man shouted, “Trouble, boys!”

Jane, who had just started running up the street toward the rain barrel outside of a small grocery shop, had stepped between Spurr and the man with the gun at the same time that the gun roared. She gave a shrill scream as she jerked backward, got her shoe caught in a crack between the boards, and hit the walk with a heavy thud.

“Jane!”
Spurr yelled, extending his Starr straight out from his right shoulder. He hastily aimed at the man running toward him, yelling and shooting, smoke and flames lapping from the barrel of his six-shooter.

Two slugs screamed around Spurr as the old lawman drew his left foot back, turning sideways to make himself a smaller target, and triggered the Starr twice quickly.

Bam! Bam!

He watched the man running toward him jerk his head back as his body flew to Spurr's left where it ran into an awning support post. The shooter slid down against the post, clapping one hand to his chest and triggering his pistol into the boardwalk.

“Jane!”

Spurr started running toward where the girl lay faceup on the boardwalk six feet away from him. But when the men on the far side of the street began opening up on him, the roar of the revolvers echoing loudly off the buildings lining the narrow, shadowy street, Spurr wheeled and returned fire.

The men were each taking their own horse's reins and trying to get mounted. But the horses were screaming and fidgeting as the men triggered their pistols at Spurr. Their wild shots broke glass and thumped into building facades or awning support posts around the old lawman, who, down on one knee, quickly emptied the Starr.

He pinked one of the bank robbers as the man was climbing onto his horse. The man yowled and clutched his right buttock and fell backward out of the saddle to hit the cinder-paved street, mewling.

But Spurr did not see the man hit the street, because just then an invisible mule kicked him in the chest and threw him backward into a slight break between two business buildings.

He lay flat on his back, gasping, his left arm feeling heavy and dead, the mule that kicked him now sitting on his chest. Time slowed down, as did his mind, and he fought to stay conscious and aware of what was going on across the street. As if from far away, he heard several more gun pops, and then he felt the reverberation of galloping hooves through his back.

He felt naked, lying there, that invisible mule sitting on his chest, keeping him from dragging a full draught of air into his lungs. His vision blurred, dimmed, and his tongue grew thick and dry. Nausea caused his belly to contract, and he managed to roll onto his side as sour bile exploded up from his chest and splattered onto the spur-scarred, sun-silvered boardwalk.

Then the morning light dimmed. He wasn't sure, but he must have passed out for a time.

He was drawn back to full consciousness by the sounds of men shouting and horses galloping. He lifted his head to see two Denver policemen approached the bank at a hard gallop, the city badge toters shouting and gesturing. As they pulled to skidding halts in front of the bank, the one nearest Spurr leapt out of the saddle of his long-legged bay, while the other ground the heels of his high, brown boots into his own bay's flanks and continued south along Arapaho.

The other policeman, attired in a blue, cavalry-like tunic with gold buttons, corduroy trousers, and a copper badge on his left breast, dropped his horse's reins and, holding a Winchester carbine in one gloved hand, ran up on the boardwalk. His boots tattooed a frenetic rhythm as he hurried over to where Jane lay unmoving, her blond head nearest Spurr, her hair having fallen from the neat coronet she'd started the morning with.

The cop knelt beside the girl, touched a finger to her neck.

Spurr was grunting against the pain in his arm, shoulder, and chest as he lay on his side and looked at the cop. “She . . . ?”

“Dead,” said the policeman, whose granitelike face and walrus mustache marked him as Mark Trumbo, ex-cavalryman and lieutenant on Denver's sixteen-man police force. The man's pewter brows beetled as he walked over to Spurr and stared down, incredulous.

“Spurr?”

Spurr stared at the girl in shock, unable to wrap his mind around all that had just happened so quickly, so out of the blue.

“Where you hit, Spurr?” Trumbo asked, dropping to one knee beside the old lawman.

Spurr shook his head. He rolled onto his back. “Reach into my pocket . . . shirt pocket. Little bag in there.”

Trumbo reached inside Spurr's thigh-length elk-skin vest and hauled the small hide sack from the pocket of his hickory shirt. “This?”

Spurr swallowed, licked his lips. “Take one o' them pills out, stick it under my tongue.”

“Heart?”

Spurr nodded.

Trumbo's big fingers were awkward, but he managed to get the little bag open and shake one of the small, gelatin tablets into the palm of his hand. With his thumb and index finger, he plucked the pill out of his palm and, as Spurr opened his mouth and lifted his tongue, Trumbo set it inside the old lawman's mouth.

Spurr let the nitroglycerin tablet, prescribed by his doctor as the latest “heart-starting medicine,” dissolve under his tongue. As the nitro gently exploded in his chest, nudging his tucker and making it begin to beat more regularly, the mule eased itself up off Spurr's sternum. The policeman was speaking to him, but Spurr wasn't listening.

His thoughts were with the girl, who'd taken a bullet meant for him.

He heaved himself up onto all fours, crawled over to Jane, who lay staring through wide-open eyes at the sky while her tussled hair blew in the breeze around her pretty head.

Her lips were spread, revealing her teeth, so that she almost appeared to be smiling.

Blood puddled the simple, light brown dress she'd donned that morning to have breakfast at the Chinaman's with the ragged old lawman.

“Oh, darlin',” Spurr said, sorrow racking him, as he gently took the girl's young face in his hands, brushing his thumbs across her eyes, closing them. “Oh, my dear sweet, beautiful darlin'!”