The Bride's Prerogative (43 page)

CHAPTER 11

H
iram slid his checker forward with one finger. He looked up into Ethan’s eyes and chuckled. Ethan scowled but crowned his playing piece with another checker.

Hiram sat back and waited for his friend to consider his next move. One good thing about Ethan: He was there when you needed him. The Dooley house had gotten a little too congested for Hiram during the past week. Females in and out all the time, what with the welcome tea the preacher’s wife had helped Trudy host for Rose, and the shooting club ladies coming to consult Trudy on everything from guns to quilting bees these days.

The jailhouse had become his hideaway, and Ethan didn’t seem to mind. After all, the sheriff had spent enough evenings in Hiram and Trudy’s kitchen. The way Hiram saw it, he’d called the loan, and Ethan was paying him back by giving him a quiet place to get away from the petticoats.

Scrambling footsteps on the walk jostled them both from their reverie. Ethan stood as they looked toward the door.

“Sheriff! Come quick!” The dark-haired saloon girl, Vashti, stood panting in the doorway.

“What is it?” Ethan reached for his hat as he spoke.

“A bunch of tough cowpokes are likely to tear up Miss Bitsy’s place. She told me to get you pronto.”

“Where they from?”

“I never seen ‘em before. Augie went for his shotgun, but the leader drew on him before he could get to it.”

Ethan touched his sidearm as though making sure it was there and strode to the door. “Stay here, Miss Vashti, or go to Dooleys’ and stay with Trudy.”

Hiram followed him down the path toward the street. No way was he staying behind with the flashy bar girl.

Ethan dashed up the boardwalk, and Hiram stuck to his heels. Not that he wanted to get involved in a brawl, but if Ethan was headed for trouble, he might need someone he trusted at his back. He couldn’t let Trudy’s suitor get shot up before he’d gotten around to proposing either. What would he tell his sister?

Hiram had never been into the Spur & Saddle, not even for the Sunday chicken dinner. But he knew from what people told him that the place mostly stayed quiet and orderly compared to the Nugget. Miners and ranch hands favored the noisier, roughneck place. Tonight was only Friday, in any case. Saturday night was when most cowpokes cut loose.

A gunshot rang through the cool evening air. Ethan picked up speed, and so did Hiram. Bitsy had invested a lot in her business. Even though it was a saloon, everyone would hate to see anyone hurt or the only piano in town get damaged.

Nearly a dozen horses were tied outside the Spur & Saddle, and sharp voices burst from inside. A rancher tore out the door and nearly collided with Ethan.

“What’s going on in there?” Ethan grabbed Micah Landry’s jacket to steady them both.

“Sheriff! Good thing you’re here. Bunch of toughs giving Bitsy a hard time. Wanting more drink and getting personal with the girls. She told them to take it to the Nugget, but they won’t leave.”

“Who fired the shot?”

“One of them. Augie went for his piece, but he wasn’t fast enough.”

Ethan pulled his .45. “How many customers inside?”

“Maybe ten or a dozen.”

Bitsy’s strident voice came from within. “Leave her alone. You all just get out of here. You’re not welcome anymore.”

“Get away, Micah.” Ethan mounted the steps and cautiously peered through the half-open door.

Micah stared after him then looked at Hiram. “You’re going in with him?”

Hiram shrugged and climbed the steps to stand behind Ethan. He wished he had a gun.

From inside, a man snarled, “We don’t leave till I say we leave. And you, Mr. Bartender—you can just step away from where your gun is and pour the whiskey. Me an’ the boys want another drink.”

Hiram caught a deep breath and shot off something like a prayer as he peered over Ethan’s shoulder. The well-lit room seemed full of people. It took him a moment to realize half of them were reflected in the mirror behind the bar. That must be the one Oscar Runnels had packed all the way up here by mule train ten years or more ago.

A big cowboy seemed to be the one speaking. He faced away from them and toward Augie, whose fists were clenched on the surface of the bar. So far the leader hadn’t noticed Ethan and Hiram in the mirror.

Three other men stood near the interloper with their hands hovering over their holsters. One of them held Goldie, the blond bar girl, close to him, with his arm clamped about her waist. Hiram didn’t let his gaze linger on that travesty. The poor girl must be terrified. Bitsy stood to one side, next to a table full of regulars—two town councilmen and a stagecoach driver.

Ethan stepped into the room. Before he could reason himself out of it, Hiram followed. He sensed someone close behind him and flicked a glance rearward. Micah had changed his mind. The odds felt better.

“All right, folks,” Ethan said, “Let’s settle down and put the firearms away.”

The big cowboy spun toward him with a heavy Colt Dragoon pistol in his hand.

“Well now, it’s the law.” The man’s teeth gleamed white in the lamplight. He held the pistol loosely in his hand, as though he’d forgotten it was there, but the muzzle pointing toward Ethan didn’t waver. The sounds Hiram expected in a saloon—clinking glass, soulful music, and friendly laughter—all were absent.

“Put it away,” Ethan said. Everyone in the room stood still. Ethan held the cowboy’s stare. “Unless you want to spend the night in jail, be quick about it.”

At the extreme range of his vision, Hiram caught movement. Zach Harper was scooting around the edge of the room toward the door. Now that the attention was off him, Augie cautiously stooped and slid his hands beneath the bar.

“You heard the sheriff.” Bitsy stepped forward in all her shimmering evening finery. The jeweled choker about her snowy neck caught the lamplight. “Drop the gun.”

The big man made as if to lay his pistol on the nearest table then whipped it toward Ethan. At the same moment, one of the other roughnecks leaped toward Hiram with his fists raised.

A pistol roared. Hiram didn’t pause to think about it. He ducked, avoiding the cowboy’s swing, and landed a solid blow in the assailant’s midsection. The cowboy grunted and swayed. Hiram took the opportunity and threw his weight behind the next punch. He hit the man square on the jaw.

Shouts and screams erupted around him. Chairs scraped the floor. Hiram was aware only of the man he’d punched sagging backward and spreading his arms as he hit the floor.

Another shot rang close behind him, and Ethan yelled. “That’s it, folks. We’re done.”

Hiram sucked in a breath and pulled his throbbing knuckles to his mouth. When he was a kid, it never hurt like that to hit someone.

Ethan continued to speak in a firm but soothing tone. “Easy now. You fellows just keep your hands high.”

Hiram turned slowly. Acrid smoke hung in the air. Ethan covered the two remaining strangers with his pistol. The one who’d started the trouble lay sprawled on the floor near a tipped chair, bleeding on Bitsy’s nice oak floor. Goldie had escaped the men and huddled at the end of the bar near Augie, who now held his shotgun up where all could see it.

Didn’t Ethan look fine? Too bad Trudy couldn’t see him, with his dark hair falling down over his forehead and his eyes blazing. Their sheriff had proved his mettle tonight. The two unscathed cowpokes shook in their boots at the sight of him.

Bitsy stepped forward. “Want I should disarm them, Sheriff?”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Ethan held his ground with his gun trained on the cowboys.

Bitsy stepped toward the first one, staying as far away as she could and still ease his pistol out of his holster. When she had both the men’s sidearms, she laid them on the bar.

“All, right, you two,” Ethan said, “you didn’t draw your weapons, so go on. Get out of here, and don’t come back.”

“What about Eli and Sandy?” one of them asked. He looked toward the man Ethan had shot and shuddered.

“I don’t expect that one is going anywhere. As to the other fella, he’ll spend the night in the jailhouse.” Ethan nodded toward the man Hiram had laid out on the floor.

“Wait a minute, Sheriff.” Bitsy strode toward the man who had spoken. She glared at him for a moment, drew back her hand, and slapped him. “That’s for Goldie. She ain’t that kind of girl.” She turned her back and walked over to embrace Goldie. “It’s okay, honey.”

Ethan looked at the cowpokes and nodded toward the door. “Go on. Tell your boss he can come bail that one fella out if he wants him back.”

The two glanced toward their six-guns.

“You can pick those up tomorrow at the jail, provided you’re sober.”

The men walked meekly out the door. Ethan exhaled and closed his eyes for a second.

Micah clapped him on the back. “Good job, Ethan.”

The men who had been playing poker before the incident started clapping. Bitsy, Goldie, Augie, and the other patrons joined the applause.

Hiram grinned at Ethan. “Want me to fetch Doc Kincaid?”

Ethan caught his breath. “Yes, get him quick. There may be help for that fella.”

Augie was already bending over the wounded man. The one Hiram had hit stirred and moaned. He raised his hand to his jaw.

“Hiram Dooley, you surprised me!”

Hiram turned and found Zack Harper beside him.

“You sure conked that no-account. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“Yeah, Hi, where’d that punch come from?” Micah asked. “You weren’t a boxer in your salad days, were you?”

Bitsy walked over and squeezed his arm. “I never thought of you as pugilistic, Hiram. Goes to show you never know a person as well as you think. And I thank you for assisting the sheriff.”

Hiram opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. Truth was, he felt a little shaky.

Ethan was conferring in low tones with Augie, but he turned to the second cowboy, who had rolled over and pushed himself up on his knees.

“Okay, mister, get up nice and slow. Put your hands out where I can see ‘em.” Within seconds, Ethan had the cowboy’s wrists tied with a short length of twine supplied by Augie. “No need for the doctor, Hi.”

Hiram nodded and looked again at the dead cowboy as Ethan herded his prisoner toward the door. “Death certificate?”

“That’s right,” Bitsy said. “Now that we have a doctor, we should get him to look at all the dead bodies and write out death certificates.”

The others stared at her.

“That came out wrong,” she said. “You know what I mean. We went a long time with no doc to make it official.”

Hiram nodded with the rest. They all remembered deaths in Fergus that had gone unrecorded.

“I’ll fetch him.” Hiram hurried out the door in spite of his wobbly knees. The fresh air revived him. He ran along the boardwalk ahead of Ethan and the prisoner, past the jail to the boardinghouse. Dr. Kincaid sat in the parlor, reading by lamplight.

“Can you come to the Spur & Saddle, Doc?”

Kincaid rose, his lithe, athletic form seeming out of place among the fussy cushions and doilies of Mrs. Thistle’s parlor. “I’ll get my bag.”

“You won’t need it,” Hiram said.

“Oh?” Kincaid arched his eyebrows.

“The fella’s dead. Sheriff Chapman shot him.”

“I see.”

“We need you to … well, look at him.”

“I’ll go right along. Anyone else hurt?”

“Well … one fella got a little bruised up, and …” Hiram realized he was kneading the knuckles of his right hand. He held it out sheepishly. “Looks like he’s not the only one.”

Kincaid reached for Hiram’s hand and drew him closer to the lamp. He probed the joints. “Does that hurt?”

“Yes sir.”

The doctor studied the hand for a moment longer, feeling it gently. “Flex your fingers, please.” After Hiram complied, he nodded. “You’ll be sore for a week or two. It’s swelling. Soak it in Epsom salts. Sometimes wrapping it helps. And a nip of whiskey—”

“Oh, I can’t have whiskey.”

Kincaid nodded. “Well then, willow bark tea may ease the pain if it’s bad enough for you to want something. Tell your sister.”

“Yes sir. Thank you.”

“All right, I’ll go along to the Spur & Saddle. Where do they want the body?”