Venom of the Mountain Man Read online

  “His name is Barton. Billy Barton. I never figured anyone would be good enough to beat him. What do they call you?”

  “I’ll tell you what they call him,” another man said. “They call him The Professor.”

  Upon hearing the name, there was a collective gasp in the room. The Professor drank his beer without looking around.

  Mule Gap

  It was the first time The Professor had ever been in Mule Gap, but his reputation had preceded him. Several citizens saw the man sitting tall in the saddle and dressed all in black. They knew who he was, and they were aware of his deadly skill with a handgun.

  As he rode through the center of town, heading for Kennedy’s Saloon, he passed by a large white house that, at first glance, could be taken as the residence of one of the town’s wealthier citizens. A second glance toward the establishment disclosed a square brown sign with the name of the establishment in gold script. The Delilah House. It billed itself as a “Sporting House for Gentlemen.”

  Like several other businesses in town, the Delilah House was half owned by Warren Kennedy, though this was one business that did not sport his name on the front of the building as its co-owner. In fact, his participation in the house of ill repute was kept secret for political purposes. As far as anyone knew, the business was owned and run by Delilah Dupree, a beautiful woman who had arrived two years earlier from New Orleans. She had no reservations about the avocation she followed. She believed that, because of the overall shortage of women in Carbon County, she was actually providing a service. And to that end, she proudly promoted her services by advertising in the local newspaper, The Mule Gap Ledger.

  ~ The Delilah House ~

  A Sporting House for Gentlemen

  WHERE

  BEAUTIFUL and CULTURED

  LADIES

  will provide you with every

  PLEASURE.

  “Why should I be ashamed of it?” she would reply to anyone who questioned her. “I give my girls a clean place to stay, and I insist that the gentlemen callers be on their best behavior. If they are not well behaved, I don’t let them return.”

  Three men who had come into her establishment a short while earlier were behaving in any way but gentlemanly. At the moment, the three visitors were in the parlor, where they were being loud and obnoxious. One of the men was sitting on the silk-covered sofa, with his boots up on a carved table. He had a droopy eyelid and a broken and misshapen nose. He was watching the other two men who had come with him. One was large and clean-shaven, the other was of medium build and had a sweeping handlebar mustache.

  Delilah kept her staff small, believing that four girls specifically chosen for their beauty and charm would be preferable to a larger staff of women who had less to offer. Three of the young women, Fancy Bliss, Joy Love, and Candy Sweet, had welcomed the three visitors with practiced smiles when they first arrived. However, as the behavior of the men became more and more disturbing, the women became apprehensive, and their interaction with the men was cautious.

  “Hey, Turley,” one of the two men said to the other. “Which one of ’em are you goin’ to choose?”

  “I can’t make up my mind. What about you, Gibbons?”

  “I ain’t made up my mind, neither,” Gibbons responded. “Hey, I know what. Why don’t you whores show us your goodies? How are we s’posed to know which one of you we want to take up to your room, lessen we can see ’em and decide?”

  “Why no, we couldn’t do that,” one of the women said.

  “What do you mean, you can’t do that? Iffen we choose one of you, why, you’ll have to get nekkid when we take you to bed, won’t you? So what’s the difference ’bout us seein’ you nekkid then, or a-lookin’ at your titties now?”

  Because Delilah was in her office at the moment, she was unaware of the boorish behavior of the three men, but Fancy Bliss had managed to slip away.

  When she went into the office there was an agitated expression on her face. “Miss Dupree?”

  “Yes, Fancy, what is it?”

  “There are three gentlemen in the parlor that . . . well, they are not being very gentlemanly.”

  “Thank you, Fancy. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Delilah stepped up front to the parlor and saw immediately what Fancy was talking about. “Ladies, please withdraw to your rooms now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they all replied, and quickly left.

  “Hey, what did you do that for?” Gibbons asked. “What good is a whorehouse without whores? I was just fixin’ to pick one of ’em out.”

  “Please leave,” Delilah said. “This house is closed.”

  “What do you mean, closed?” Turley asked. “I know they’s someone upstairs with one of your whores now, on account of I seen ’em go up.”

  “I will soon be sending him on his way, as well. This house is now closed. Please leave.”

  “The hell I will. I ain’t goin’ nowhere till . . .”

  “Please do what Miss Dupree asked you to do.” Fancy had stepped back into Delilah’s office and had come out holding a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “Let’s go, Turley,” the man sitting on the sofa said. “We don’t want to be where we aren’t wanted, now, do we?”

  “Come on. We ain’t even—” Turley started to say, but again his comment was interrupted by Gibbons.

  “I said let’s go.”

  “All right, all right, I’m a-goin’.”

  The man who had issued the order turned toward Delilah, and she took a quick intake of breath when she saw the scar. She had heard of this man, and she realized that she was walking on thin ice, ordering them around as she did.

  “We’ll be goin’ now,” he said.

  “Thank you. You are welcome back anytime your . . . friends . . . can exhibit less boorish behavior.”

  The scar-faced man chuckled. “You hear that Gibbons, Turley? We’re boring. I been called lots of things, but I ain’t never been accused of borin’ nobody.

  “Boorish, not boring,” Delilah said, but even as she made the correction, she realized that none of the three had the slightest understanding of the word. She made no further effort to enlighten them, remaining silent, except for the sigh of relief when they left her establishment.

  “Joy?” Delilah said.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “As unobtrusively as you can, go upstairs and try to determine how long it will be before Jasmine is finished with her gentleman visitor.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jasmine Delight was a beautiful octoroon with golden-hued skin and emerald eyes. She had come from New Orleans with Delilah.

  Joy didn’t have to check on Jasmine. Even as she started to, they could hear Jasmine’s voice as she came downstairs with her client, Abner Wilson. A frequent visitor from Rawlins, he was a member of the territorial legislature.

  “I do hope your visit with us was a pleasant one, Mr. Wilson,” Delilah said as the distinguished-looking middle-aged man stepped out into the lobby.”

  “How can it not be a pleasant visit when one can spend company with a young lady as delightful as Jasmine?” Wilson replied. “And may I also say that I appreciate your discretion? If word of my visits were to reach the wrong ears, it would, I fear, be the end of my political career.”

  “You are always the perfect gentleman, sir, and you are always welcome at the Delilah House, where discretion is as important to us as any pleasure we can provide.”

  * * *

  Just down the street from the Delilah House, a recent arrival in town was playing poker in Kennedy’s Saloon. “I’ll take three,” said the man dressed in all black.

  The dealer gave the man in black three cards, then looked over at the next player.

  “What about you, Maloney?” the dealer asked. “How many cards?”

  “One,” Win said.

  “Drawing to an inside straight, are you?” the dealer joked, slapping a new card down in front of Maloney.
/>   Maloney was actually trying to fill a heart flush, but when he saw that the card was a spade, he folded.

  “Well, mister, it’s going to cost you five bucks to see what I’ve got,” one of the other players said to the man in black.

  The man in black looked at his cards, thought about it for a moment, then, with a shrug, folded.

  One of the other players who had bet heavily on the hand lost, then pushed his chair back from the table. “Boys, I’d better give this game up while I still got enough to buy myself a beer.”

  Just as he was leaving the game, three men were coming into the saloon. One of them, seeing an open chair, came over to the table and, without being asked, sat down.

  “A person with manners would have asked if he could join,” the man in black said.

  “Mister, you got ’ny idea who you’re talkin’ to?” the new man asked.

  “Obviously, I’m talking to someone who is sans manners,” the man in black replied.

  “Sans manners? What does that mean?”

  “It means your demeanor is boorish.”

  “Damn, that’s the second time today, I’ve been called a bore.”

  The man in black smiled patronizingly.

  “You really don’t know who I am, do you?” asked the man with the drooping eyelid and misshapen nose.

  “So far there’s nothing about your personality that would lead me to want to know who you are.”

  “Well, I damn sure know you. You’re the one folks call The Professor. My name is Puckett. Billy Bob Puckett. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  The Professor recognized the name but gave no indication he did. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you. Are you someone I should know?”

  The other players around the table readily recognized the name, and realizing that a showdown between two well-known gunfighters was about to occur, they reacted in apprehension.

  “Mister, Professor,” the player who had just won the hand said. “Maybe you ain’t never heard of him, but Billy Bob Puckett is . . . uh—” he stopped in midsentence, not wanting to agitate Puckett in anyway.

  “You can say it,” Puckett said. “You can tell The Professor here that I ain’t the kind of man a feller is goin’ to want to rile. That is, not if he wants to live any longer.”

  “Well then, Mr. Puckett, I don’t want to rile you because I certainly do plan to live longer . . . so please, do join us,” The Professor said. “I have to admit that I have been admiring your hat. Perhaps, if there is a fortuitous fall of the pasteboards, I might just win it tonight.”

  Puckett took off his hat, a low-crowned black hat surrounded by a band of silver conchas. “You ain’t gettin’ my hat.” He pulled a stack of bills from his pocket and put them on the table in front of him. “On the other hand, after I take all your money, I might just buy me a fancy brocaded vest to go with my hat.”

  The Professor chuckled. “We’ll see, Mr. Puckett. We’ll just see.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Professor won the first hand, and the next hand as well, and with that hand was a few dollars ahead.

  “You’re a pretty lucky fella, ain’t you?” Puckett said.

  “Sometimes it happens,” The Professor replied as he raked in his winnings. “But luck is only effective when one has the skill to best employ it.”

  “Yeah, like what happened last week. Was you lucky or skillful?”

  “Last week?”

  “Yeah, last week in Stinking Water. Are you tryin’ to tell me that you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about? You are the one they call The Professor, ain’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “You kilt Billy Barton.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, Mr. Professor, Billy Barton was a good friend of mine. And me ’n you is goin’ to have an accountin’ over that.”

  “Wait a minute,” one of the other card players said, recognizing immediately that this raw-edged conversation might well lead to gunplay. “Are you sure you two want—”

  “Stay out of this, friend,” Puckett said.

  First that player, then the others got up and walked away, leaving only Puckett and The Professor. They were facing each other across a table upon which lay a spread of cards, some faceup, some facedown. There also remained on the table little personal banks of money in front of where each of the players had been sitting.

  “Now you’ve done it,” The Professor said. “Your ill-mannered behavior has ruined a perfectly good card game.”

  “Yeah? Well, they can always find another card game, but Barton can’t, can he? He can’t never play cards again, and he can’t never have no women again, he can’t never do nothin’ again, on account of he’s dead. I guess maybe you didn’t know at the time that he was a good friend of mine, did you?” Puckett asked.

  “No, but even if I had known, it wouldn’t have made any difference. By the way, your grammar is atrocious,” The Professor said.

  “My gran’ma is what? Look here, you ain’t got no business talkin’ ‘bout my gran’ma! She was a fine woman!”

  “I’m sure she was.”

  “Now that you can think back on it, I’ll just bet you wish you hadn’ta shot my friend, don’t you?”

  “No, I would’ve killed him anyway,” The Professor said. “He was clearly a man who needed killing.”

  “You see them two fellas standin’ over at the bar?” Puckett asked.

  When The Professor looked in the direction pointed out by Puckett, he saw two men; one large and clean-shaven, the other of medium build, with a handlebar mustache. Both were looking toward the table.

  “Them two boys is Gibbons and Turley. It turns out that Billy Barton was a friend of theirs, too. Me ’n them is just all broke up over losin’ a good friend like we done.”

  “Yes, I could tell just how upset you gentlemen must have been over the demise of your friend by the grief you expressed at his funeral,” The Professor said. “Oh, wait. That’s right. There was no funeral, was there?”

  “We was plannin’ one,” Puckett said.

  “Really? Apparently, you didn’t mention that little detail to the undertaker. Mr. Barton was laid out in a plain pine box, then buried on the far side of Boot Hill without even a marker.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was there,” The Professor answered. “And I was the only one, except for the two grave diggers.”

  “You always go to the buryin’ of men you kill?” Puckett asked.

  The Professor flashed a cold look at Puckett. “When I can,” he answered pointedly. “Sometimes I bury them myself.”

  “Just how many men have you killed?” Puckett asked.

  “As many as I needed to.”

  “Is that right? Well, you won’t be killin’ no more.”

  “And why would you say that?”

  “Because I’m about to kill you.”

  “And would that be just you, Mr. Puckett? Or do your two friends intend to cut themselves in to the dance?”

  “Well now, that don’t really matter none, does it? I mean, as long as you’ll be dead.”

  Puckett started to draw his pistol, unaware that The Professor had already drawn his gun and was holding it under the table. The Professor fired, and Puckett’s eyes opened in surprise as the bullet plowed into him before he could even clear leather.

  The Professor turned his gun toward the two men at the bar . . . and though the odds had been three to one, he had the advantage. He already had his gun out, and Gibbons and Turley had been given no advance warning as to when Puckett intended to make his move. The Professor shot two more times. Gibbons, who was able to draw and point his gun toward The Professor, managed to take two steps before he fell. Turley had gone down in place.

  “Son of a bitch! Did you all see that?” someone said. “The Professor took on three of ’em ’n kilt all three! ’N one of ’em he kilt was Billy Bob Puckett!”

  * * *

  Warren Kennedy poured cogn
ac from a cut-glass decanter into two crystal snifters. “This is vintage 1858. I think you will find it more than adequate.”

  The Professor lifted the glass to his nose and took a whiff. “It has a very good nose.”

  The Professor and Kennedy held their glasses toward each other, though they didn’t actually clink them together.

  “Your real name is Frank Bodine?” Kennedy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Bodine. Why do they call you the Professor?”

  “I am called that because I actually am a professor. I have a PhD in English and taught that subject at the College of William and Mary.”

  Kennedy looked surprised. “Begorra! And are you for telling me you really were a professor? I thought perhaps they called you that because—”

  “Of my skill with a pistol?” The Professor interrupted the observation with his reply. I suppose there is some justification for having that opinion.”

  “Yes. How did you . . . that is . . . a college professor as a professional gunman? You have to admit that ’tis a strange combination. How is that you be here in the West, following your . . . uh . . . particular line of work, rather than bein’ a professor back at William and Mary?”

  “I should have been promoted to head of the department,” The Professor said. “I had the most seniority and I had the best record. But I was passed over in favor of the dean’s nephew.”

  “That explains why you are no longer teaching, but not your skill with a pistol.”

  “The art of the fast draw and pistol marksmanship had always been a hobby of mine. I practiced until I was quite proficient, then I began to give demonstrations. I know there could be nothing more contrary to expectation than someone in the staid profession of academia being extraordinarily skilled in the use of a pistol, but I think that was, at least in part, what drew me to the practice. When I gave up my professorship, I decided to see if I could convert my hobby into a profession, and I realized that the best place to do that would be in the West. And that is what I have done for the last few years.”

  “Converting your hobby into a profession? That is an interesting choice of words,” Kennedy said. “What you mean is you have been selling your gun to the highest bidder.”