Die by the Gun Page 4

  “Look here, Mister Flowers, if I’m going to be your cook, why don’t I get on back to the ranch and be sure the chuckwagon is all packed up proper-like? We both know how important it is for everything to be in its right place, secured when we hit rough terrain and—”

  “We’re going to pry Desmond loose from whatever hellhole he’s crawled into. I need help with that.”

  “Hellhole?” Cletus Grant snickered. “Is that what you call them purty lil’ things’ private parts now?”

  “I can cut that flapping tongue of yours out and stuff it in your ear,” Flowers said. Mac tried to find even a hint of joking in what the trail boss said. He couldn’t hear it. The man was deadly serious. From the look of the thick-bladed knife sheathed at his left side, it had seen hard use. Slicing out tongues might have been the least of what that steel had seen and done.

  “Didn’t mean anything by it, Mister Flowers. You know me. I’m always joshing, keeping a lighter way of seeing things.”

  Mac and Grant exchanged glances. Cletus shrugged and looked ahead down the road.

  There was plenty of daylight left and that worried Mac. The owner of the wagon yard had undoubtedly taken the black stallion with the flashy tooled saddle straight to the bounty hunters. That told the gunmen their quarry was still around town. Mac had expected that and figured to use it as a diversion. He had been clever using Cletus as a shield to get out of the city before, but coming back to Fort Worth only stirred up the pot again.

  “We had to come to town tomorrow anyway. Old man Mason at the mercantile’s got the rest of the supplies I ordered for the drive,” Flowers said. “We can lasso Desmond and take everything back. That’ll save a trip in.”

  “I can go check the supplies. Making sure everything’s ready is my job.” Mac hoped he could lose himself in the commercial section of Fort Worth, away from the saloons and brothels in Hell’s Half Acre where the bounty hunters were most likely to be prowling. Then again, they might have some of their gang watching the general stores to be sure he didn’t buy supplies for the trail.

  His head began to hurt. Too many ideas crowded in, jumbled up, and tried to spill out in some sort of escape plan. Sticking with the Circle Arrow foreman gave him the best chance of avoiding trouble. At least he hoped so, but if necessary, he could take some of the supplies slated for the Circle Arrow trail drive and ride out of town. Stealing like that worried his conscience a mite, but getting caught by the bounty hunters and killed—or worse, taken back to New Orleans to hang for a murder Leclerc had committed—had to be a lot worse.

  “Mason knows Cletus. You sign for the goods, then meet us just beyond the train station. It’ll be dawn by then.”

  “Dawn?” Mac perked up. “You thinking it’ll take us all night to find Miz Sullivan’s son?”

  Cletus laughed harshly, then tried to cover up with a fake cough.

  By the time they crossed the railroad tracks, the sun had set and a brisk wind blew across the prairie, coming up from the south. Mac fancied he caught the salty scent of the Gulf of Mexico in the wind. If so, that meant a storm brewed somewhere out of sight. The way it rained here wiped out tracks within minutes. Travel became impossible in the driving rain, but having his trail washed away mattered more.

  “Mason won’t shut up shop for another half hour,” Cletus said, fumbling open a pocket watch and holding it up to catch the light from a gas lamp. “I can get everything you bought and be waiting for you long before dawn.”

  “Git,” Flowers said. Cletus wasted no time galloping away. When the man was out of earshot, Flowers spoke in a weary voice. “The last time I found Desmond he was in the Frisky Filly Sporting House. From the ruckus he put up as I dragged him out, he might have a favorite whore there.”

  “We can start there,” Mac said. His head swiveled back and forth, jumping at every cowboy and rider dressed in a black coat. Either none was in the gang hunting him or they ignored a man with a partner. Mac doubted he had a big enough store of luck to use the same trick twice. Having Cletus riding with them would have given more, better, cover.

  “You’re as jumpy as a long-tailed cat on a porch full of rockin’ chairs,” Flowers commented. “What kind of trouble did you get into here in Fort Worth?”

  “Some of Miz Sullivan’s teetotaler ways must have rubbed off on me, maybe. All these drinking emporiums make me a tad uneasy.” As they rode past every saloon, Mac glanced inside, worrying he would see the square-headed, broad-shouldered men hunting him down.

  “Why do I doubt that?” Flowers asked dryly as he drew rein in front of a fancy three-story building.

  Lights burned in every window on the top floor. Half-dressed women sat on a balcony circling the second story. They waved and hooted at anyone passing by. The ground floor had stained-glass windows, cut crystal fixtures visible through the open front door, and a parlor that was about the ritziest thing Mac had ever seen. He wouldn’t have thought this was a frontier cathouse but rather one pulled up by the roots from Storyville in New Orleans and transplanted. It seemed out of place in a rough and tumble section of town like Hell’s Half Acre, but Mac knew the rich folks liked to sneak down to the “wrong” part of town and revel in the danger.

  Mac touched the revolver tucked into his belt to remind himself he had six empty chambers. The sight of a huge black man in a tailored, pearl-gray, swallowtail coat standing just outside the door, acting as gatekeeper, reminded him of his lack of firepower. There wasn’t any way he could take a man that size and strength in a bare knuckles fight. From the way the mountain of a man stood, he had plenty of weapons of his own tucked away in a shoulder rig, in his coat pockets, and unless Mac guessed wrong, a couple of sheathed knives hidden under the broad lapels of his fancy jacket.

  “We have to get past him?” Mac asked in awe.

  “You man enough to bull past him?” Flowers laughed. This was as close to humor as Mac had heard from him, and it had to come at his expense.

  “A full-grown bull’s not bull enough to get past him.”

  Flowers nodded once.

  “You might be a good hire, after all. You’re the first one of the men I ever brought who’s shown good sense.”

  “How loco are your cowboys? Who’d tangle with him?” Mac stepped down to stand beside his horse. He pressed close to hide his face from riders in the street. They shouted obscenities back at the ladies of the evening on the porch just above the street. In return, the Cyprians passed judgment on their manhood and anatomical endowments.

  “We full up right now,” the ebony giant said, stepping up and pressing a hand the size of a dinner plate against Flowers’s chest.

  “You mean we don’t have the money to even get into the parlor. I know that. We’re here to take Mister Sullivan home. He is here, isn’t he?”

  “That’d be tellin’. The boss don’t like that none. Our customers deserve—and get—all the privacy we can give ’em.”

  Flowers lifted his shoulders and dropped them as he stepped forward. Mac almost laughed when he saw the servant’s expression. Flowers might be the man’s name, but he wasn’t in the least bit fragrant like one. If he had taken a bath in the past week, it would have been a surprise.

  “That’d be Harrison Judd?” Flowers said.

  The broad, flat face betrayed no emotion.

  “Who’s inquirin’ after me, Obediah?” On the heels of the question, a dapper man twirling a cane came from inside the whorehouse. The light caught the gold knob at one end of the cane and the steel tip at the other.

  Mac had seen canes like this before. A sword inside the length came out with the twist of the knob and presented a formidable weapon. He began to get antsy at so much deadliness facing him and Flowers. His empty revolver taunted him now and made him wonder if a plot in the potter’s field waited for him.

  “Just the gent I want to see,” Flowers said. “Come on out for a minute, Mister Judd. We wouldn’t want to disturb any of the paying customers.” Flowers pointedly looked at the we
ll-dressed men in plush chairs with a drink in one hand and their other arm around trim waists of pretty waiter girls.

  “This is becoming tedious,” Judd said. “Let the boy sow his wild oats. You got no call dragging him out by his heels just when he’s beginning to enjoy himself.”

  “Unless I miss my guess, Desmond is so drunk there’s not a whale of a lot he can enjoy right now. Has he passed out?”

  “Doesn’t matter one bit to me. He pays for a lady’s company. That’s between the two of them.”

  “So you aren’t the pimp running this whorehouse? You don’t take the money from the gals and get them hooked on laudanum?”

  Mac put his hand on Flowers’s arm to quiet him. The man was building up a head of steam, and the safety valve wasn’t going to hold much longer. Obediah moved his hand under his coat to get nearer the revolver in his shoulder holster. If lead started flying, Flowers would be the first to drop. Mac would be a close second.

  Flowers jerked away from Mac angrily. He thrust out his chin and bumped his chest against Harrison Judd. The brothel owner, though considerably smaller, stood his ground.

  “Might be we can come to an arrangement,” Judd suggested. “I only learned recently that Desmond’s last name is Sullivan. He wouldn’t be the son of Mercedes Sullivan, would he? The widow owner of the Circle Arrow? That must mean he’s actually as rich as he makes out with the girls.”

  “He doesn’t have a penny to his name,” Flowers said.

  “But his ma does. What’s it worth to her not to have him dragged through the streets naked as a jaybird and humiliated? Or maybe the marshal comes by and arrests his ass for disturbing the peace.”

  “Peace? That’s not what he’s here for. He—”

  “Arrested and his picture bannered on the front page of the Fort Worth Daily Gazette would cause his poor old ma considerable heartache. Why, she wouldn’t be able to hold her head up if she ever came into town again. How’d such publicity help her with her temperance crusade? Makes her look like a hypocrite, doesn’t it?”

  “She’d disown him so it wouldn’t reflect on her,” Mac said. He squeezed harder on Flowers’s arm to keep the man quiet. It didn’t work.

  “You go drag him out here this minute or we’re going in and find him,” Flowers declared.

  “The Frisky Filly is a big place. You think you can find him before you get tossed out? Or worse?”

  Hiram Flowers reared back to launch a haymaker. A dozen things flashed through Mac’s head at the same instant. The black guard was pulling his revolver. Judd worked his hand over to a vest pocket where the butt of a derringer poked out. The argument had drawn the attention of the women on the balcony above them. Worse, Flowers shouting at the pimp drew a crowd of men who were flowing into town for a night’s debauchery.

  Mac looped his arm around the foreman’s and twisted hard. This kept the punch from landing and unbalanced Flowers enough for Mac to steer him away. The foreman cursed and raged until they were across the street.

  “What’d you stop me for, you young idiot? I could have taken him.”

  “It wouldn’t have been a fair fight. Look upstairs.”

  Flowers sputtered and tried to deny that several of the scantily clad women had pistols of their own. Even if they aimed at Flowers and missed, hitting their pimp, the torrential downpour of lead would have been deadly.

  “Get yourself killed and what good’s that to Desmond?” Mac saw Obediah’s attention fixed on them. He kept his hand hidden under his coat, resting on his revolver.

  Then the guard had his hands full of cowboys trying to crowd into the Frisky Filly to sample the fleshy wares.

  “He’s in there. You heard what that snake said. He wants to blackmail Mercedes!”

  “That makes it easier on us that Desmond is a man of habit.” Mac studied the layout of the building. There had to be a back entrance. Judd didn’t look to be the kind of man willing to pay for a guard on each door. Obediah was probably alone, his size and menacing look intended to keep out anyone who could be intimidated.

  That included Mac, but he felt the pressure of time working on him. The bounty hunters wouldn’t give up after he had plugged one of them. The way they had chased him through the saloons and up and down the streets the night before told him they were persistent, both from the need for revenge and the huge reward on his head. Either of those would be enough to keep them looking for him. Both insured they’d wear down the shoes on their horses chasing him to the ends of the earth.

  “What’s he look like? Desmond?”

  “You’re not going in there without me. I swear, I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life for putting his poor ma in such a position. She’d die if he got his picture in the newspaper for doing half what he’s likely doing in there.” Flowers balled his hands into knobby fists as he ranted.

  “Come around back. Let me do the talking,” Mac said.

  “I want that young reprobate out of there. If he doesn’t ride with us on the drive, Mercedes said she’d come along.”

  “And you want her to stay safe and sound on the ranch,” Mac said. He eyed Flowers closely, then shook his head. The grizzled old cowhand and the lovely ranch owner were as mismatched a pair as he could imagine. Still, he understood unrequited love and what it did to a man.

  Evie had thrown him over for Pierre Leclerc and, so help him, Mac still loved her. Deep down, he still loved her although he knew fate had driven them apart for all time.

  He didn’t wait to see if Flowers was going to play along. Crossing the street, he went around the side of the building until he reached the far end of the balcony on the second floor. He waved to a young girl there.

  “You can’t—” Flowers started, then shut up when Mac shot him a cold look.

  “Hello up there,” Mac called. “You’ve got quite a view from that balcony.”

  “You want a better view? Here, mister, take a gander at this.” The woman hiked her skirts and fluttered them about. She wasn’t wearing anything under them.

  “I’m a bit nearsighted. I’m not sure what I saw. Fact is, I do better fumbling around in the dark. My hands are a lot better at finding secret places than my eyes. Why not let me in?”

  “Come on around to the front and tell Obediah it’s all right.”

  “You didn’t see the misunderstanding I had with him. He didn’t think this was enough.” Mac took out every bill he had left from his earnings. Folded triple and spread out in the dark, it looked like a wad of greenbacks big enough to choke a cow. “And that’s just one pocket.” He thrust his hand in and pulled out the same roll of bills, making it seem he was rolling in dough. “It’d all be yours ’cept he won’t let me in.”

  “Come on, Mackenzie,” Flowers said, tugging on his arm. “We can figure something else to get inside.”

  “My friend says there’s a better house down the street. Too bad since you’re real purty.” Mac made no move to go after Flowers. He knew what the soiled dove’s reaction would be. And he was right.

  “Come on around. There’s a door painted all red. I’ll let you in there, but you got to give me all that money.”

  “Honey child, it’s all yours.”

  Mac tried not to look too eager rounding the cathouse and standing in front of the red door the whore had mentioned. Flowers stood close.

  “We rush in and—” the foreman began.

  “And nothing,” Mac broke in. “If she raises a ruckus, finding Desmond will be impossible.” He heard someone fumbling with the doorknob. “There she is now. Keep quiet and follow me.”

  “You’re mighty bossy for a hand I just hired this afternoon. I can fire you, you know.”

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it? I learned that a chuckwagon cook’s got to take charge or he’ll get walked on. Nobody walks over me.”

  “You got quite a mouth on you.” Flowers sounded ready to fight again.

  “Stop being so riled you’ve got to pull Desmond’s chestnuts out of the fire.” Mac s
aw the slow realization dawn on Flowers that his anger was misdirected. He relaxed a little, but his fists were still ready for a fight.

  The door swung open. “You all hot and ready or you just gonna talk?” The soiled dove stood with one hand on a cocked hip and tried to look alluring “Don’t matter to me, as long as I get paid.”

  Mac went to her and pushed the door open more so he got a good look down the hallway. They were at the rear of the building and a staircase led upward just inside the door.

  “Why don’t you go to your room and get ready for me?” he suggested. “I like to make a grand entrance.”

  “Like an actor coming on stage?”

  “Exactly like that,” Mac said. He held out a few of his greenbacks. She snared them and made a big point of tucking them into her bodice.

  “I’ll expect the rest after you make that big entrance.” She walked down the hall, putting as much of a hitch in her behind as possible to entice him. She paused a moment at a door, shot him a sultry look and batted her eyelashes, then went in.

  “Come on. We don’t have much time to find Desmond,” Mac said. He worried that Obediah might make a round through the halls to be sure everything was all right. Or Harrison Judd might check on his girls. Or any of a dozen other problems.

  Flowers started up the stairs. Mac hung back and seriously considered hightailing it. He had gotten out of Fort Worth and away from the bounty hunters once. The more times he had to escape their six-guns the more likely his luck was to run out.

  “Come on. I can’t find the son of a bitch by myself.” Flowers motioned urgently for him.

  This decided Mac. He wanted the job with the Circle Arrow cattle drive, not only as a way to elude Leclerc’s killers. He enjoyed being out on the trail, as dangerous as that could be.

  He took the steps two at a time to reach the upper floor. Mac stared at the lavish decorations. Plaster statues of nude women lined the hallway. A soft carpet deadened the sound of Flowers’s boots as he tromped along, opening each door as he went to take a quick look inside. Twice Flowers got furious cries to stop spying. At the third door he opened he simply stood and stared. Mac hurried to join him.