black falcon 2 part 2 the man who liked women

 

2 the man who liked women Part 2

 

Luke read contour lines on a map well enough. The railway line was graded as far as possible, made flat, for the most economical use of the coal to fire the engine; but inevitably there were some changes of gradient. The detonators which had stopped the train had been set off just over the highest point on the line, where the driver’s whole attention would be on stopping before the weight of the train coming behind him had a chance of forcing him forwards.  Which meant that the caboose was out of sight of the engine. A vicious thug like Fillies would have no hesitation in blasting the guard; indeed, the guard and the extra man had been found beside the line.

Once uncoupled, the caboose would travel down the incline, and having the momentum of its own weight and the weight of the gold, would likely continue a fair way onto the flat, and even up the slight incline going the other way. It would take a cool hand to wait until it had gone as far as possible before throwing the brake, so it did not go back to the lowest point on the rail again, where a search might be expected to take place, if anyone thought of it running downhill. Very few people understood the principles of momentum.

Without doing any calculations, hard without more specific data, Luke had made an educated guess where the caboose might have fetched up.  Here, if he were Fillies, he would offload the gold, in a methodical manner into the woodland which covered most of Oregon, and any other goods of value, and set charges, well tamped, to cut the bogies in strategic places, which should break up the wooden structure of the van as well. Tossed into thick undergrowth in pieces, the destroyed caboose might never be found; and the boards would, eventually, rot. Of course, Fillies might had burned the wooden upper part, but being treated with tar, this would give off enough smoke to attract interest. No, scattered it would be. He might even have used the boards to build somewhere to hide the gold, covered in earth and moss until he was ready to collect it. Luke would have done so; after all, that much gold was not easy to carry any great distance. It would take an engineer to re-use the wheels of the caboose to build a cart, and to use as block and tackle as a rough crane to lift the gold.  But then, Luke had been reared to look at any solution which made life easier; and he was not a stranger to mathematics and engineering concepts. He doubted, however, that Fillies would know where to start. If he was wrong, then the man might take the gold further, but not by much. Old tree roots militated against too easy a passage. A native travois would work better.

However,  there was a small settlement in a clearing in the forest, and the stage coach would go through it. If Fillies was holed up there, and if they got the newspapers, it would be a good place for him to make the acquaintance of the charming Jane Brandon, and hope to make the more personal and intimate acquaintance with her inheritance.

There were a lot of ifs in that plan; but sooner or later, Fillies would hear of Jane Brandon, and would head for Pendleton.

In the meantime, it made sense to travel as if he was Jane, and hope to surprise Fillies somewhere near his base. What was annoying was having to leave his horse; but it could not be helped. Luke doubted that he could ride side-saddle for any distance, and riding astride might show up any male mannerisms. Blackwind could stay in the livery stables. And Tommy had permission to exercise him – if he could stay on.

Whimsically, Luke wondered if Tommy could stay on, and he smiled to himself at the thought of the youngster’s likely determination to do so. He had won the use of Blackwind at Tommy’s age by doing just that, when the creature was an unbroken colt. His father had said he might have the colt, if he could break it to ride.

Blackwind and Luke were old friends, and understood each other. And it was understood that Luke needed a good horse to make his own way, as his older brother, Daniel, would inherit the ranch.

Luke remembered that a lady never yawns in public, and swallowed the yawn, dabbing at his delicate lips with his lace-trimmed handkerchief.

It was going to be hard to hide the growth of stubble on so long a journey, but at least he could lower the veil, as if for privacy, and moreover, it was quite dark within the coach.

 

Luke found himself with two travelling companions. One was a matronly woman; the other a gruff and taciturn homesteader.

“Going far?” asked Luke.

“Only to the next stop, my dearie,” said the lady. “Pore young thing! A shame you have to travel alone! I’m Martha McClarron.”

“I am sure I can manage well enough,” said Luke.

“You’re that widder-woman in the paper,” grunted the farmer.

“Oh! I hate how the press seize on any small story!”  Luke dabbed delicately at his eyes with the frivolous confection of lace and linen purported to be a lady’s handkerchief.

“I never heard of no Thomas Brandon in Pendleton, and I come from there,” said the farmer, suspiciously.

“Poor Tom, he was always something of a recluse,” said Luke. “I doubt he spent much time in town.”

The farmer sniffed.

Well, he was going to be a fun companion all the way to Pendleton.

 

Luke hated every moment of the journey. He disliked being on the inside of the wagon, he hated the proximity of the other people, one garrulous woman of uncertain years, who appeared to have a budget of news she thought of as interesting to everyone else; and a taciturn, suspicious farmer who said nothing, and watched Luke narrowly. Luke did his best to doze in his corner of the bumpy carriage.

“If I ever meet anyone who says they travel for pleasure, I’ll call them a liar,” he muttered, when jerked awake, and having to hang on to his bonnet which was almost knocked off his head as he was thrown against the door.

“Oh, my dear, the roads are much better than when I was a girl,” said Martha. “And almost no danger of being ambushed by redskins!”

“Or Johnny Rebs,” said Luke.

“Oh! What a terrible time the war was!” Martha agreed. “I’ve only heard that terrible Rebel Howl once, but it nearly stopped my heart! So help me, the only thing ever skeert me worse was when there was a panther screamed in the woods when I was a little girl, milking the cow, and bless me, how I kept the milk in the pail running in, I do not know.”

“How terrifying!” said Luke, reflecting that it probably had been.

“Well, there are more people nowadays, and mostly wild beasts keep themselves to themselves,” said Martha, comfortably. “And the same can be said about the injuns.”

Luke could reproduce the Rebel Howl; because he had practised as child, during the war, and his father had taken on a rebel deserter as a hand. He had used it to terrify an officious marshal once.

He could imitate a panther’s scream as well. His father had hired on a sufficiency of natives that meant that the young Sokolovs had learned a lot of native craft; the ranch had been a place without frontiers, though Luke could only guess how hard the years of ‘Bleeding Kansas’ had been, when his parents and those who looked to his father, Dmitro, as their ataman, or leader, fought for the rights of the blacks fleeing slavery who fetched up on the ranch. As Cossacks, they believed in freedom; ‘Kozak’ meaning free man. It gave Luke a cosmopolitan outlook.

This came in useful when, at the first stop to change horses, when the passengers might make themselves comfortable, they were joined by a black man.

Martha gave a little cry.

“Oh, dear!” she said.

“I ain’t sittin’ next to no...” the farmer finished his sentence with a derogatory word.

“I’m sure I don’t mind the colour of a man’s skin; it’s the colour of his soul which is more important to me,” said Luke, shifting closer to Martha, who also refused to sit beside a man if she had an option.

“Whar d’your folks come from, then?” sneered the farmer. “You po’ white trash as can put up with anything?”

“My mother’s English,” said Luke. “And therefore less primitive than the fools who consider the colour of a man’s skin has anything to do with what sort of a man he is. My father’s a Cossack, with all that stands for. If you look carefully, you will see that the gentleman has a dog collar, and is presumably a reverend gentleman, putting him well above an unwashed, illiterate sodbuster.”

“Have some tolerance for the farmer, sister,” murmured the black man. “William Jackson, doctor of divinity.”

The farmer subsided into sullen silence at having a black man call for tolerance towards him. Luke thought it delicious.

It was crowded for the next stage, but at least it meant that those on the crowded bench were less jolted.

Martha left them on the next stage, and Luke took the opportunity to swiftly shave his upper lip and chin, and re-apply makeup, taking a private room in which to eat.

There were two passengers taken up. First was a drummer of fancy goods, mostly such metal goods of a delicate nature which were hard to make or come by, like scissors of all kinds, thimbles, fine needles, lengths of chain for jewellery and watch-fobs, folding knives, and tableware. Second was a dapper man with too many fobs on the chain across his fancy brocade vest, and too many rings to be a gentleman.

Luke marked him down as a professional gamester, who might, or might not be dangerous with the single pearl-handled revolver he wore. Just because it was a thing of beauty did not make him less dangerous; Luke also had pearl-handled revolvers. He liked the feel of them in his hand, and considered that the smooth mother-of-pearl assisted a fast-draw. Moreover, it felt warm and organic, and he liked that.

“Hamilton Burd,” said the drummer. His southern accent was slight, but apparent. “Pleased to make the acquaintance of y’all. Ma’am, can I interest you in any fine metal goods? Any size of scissors you could name, thimbles, needles, whatever takes your fancy. Needlecases with fine metal covers, chased, inscribed....”

“I’ve all I need, thank you,” said Luke. He carried his hussif in plain view, rather than tucked away in his saddle bags as he usually carried it, on a set of chains, as country ladies still wore such things, a pair of fine scissors, a folding knife, a pincushion set inside horn, which he had carved himself, and a darning mushroom, which he had also carved himself, the handle being hollow to hold needles on a sheet of rolled flannel, the end unscrewing to become a thimble, should he need one. He was more accustomed to use a leatherworker’s palm, which fit over the thumb and middle finger with a dimpled tin inset in it for pushing leather needles, with their triangular ends, through heavy leather, to effect mends to tack. That, however, was not on display.

“My name is Charles Dance,” said the dapper man. “I am a businessman.”

“And here was me thinking you were a nobleman,” said Luke, seeming to admire the man’s style.

“Oh, really?” said Dance, preening, and twirling his curled moustache. Luke thought it looked ridiculous.

“Yes, I thought you might be a Knave of the Cards,” said Luke, simpering.

An ugly look crossed the face of Dance; it might not be a general term for a card sharper, but the inference was clear.

“Dames don’t know nutt’n about a man’s recreation,” he said.

“Oh, well, of course, you’re so right,” said Luke. “I just read warnings about men who seem to be too good to be true.”

“Well, now, suppose I teach you how to play,” said Dance. “Can I cut anyone in?”

“You have to be kidding,” growled the farmer. “Missus, I don’t take to you, but don’t you play with his sort.”

“Cards are the devil’s handbook,” said the preacher.

“I... uh, I don’t gamble,” said the drummer.

“Just you and me, then, Mr. Dance,” said Luke, brightly.

It passed the time on a dull journey, and they used the drummer’s sample box as a card table.

The next stage was coming up in an hour or two, and Luke was seven hundred pounds up on the card sharper, having taken both his ground bait and then noted his methods of cheating.

There needed to be a way out, however, as the man had several cards up his sleeve. Luke fumbled putting an ace in his tight female sleeve.

“Hey! You can’t do that,” said Dance.

“Oh, I thought you were teaching me the rules, so it must be legal,” said Luke, opening his fine sea-blue eyes wide with dissembled innocence. “And as you have the ace, king, and queen of spades in your sleeve, I thought it must be quite in order.”

The farmer grabbed Dance’s arm, and shook out the cards.

“I want my money back!” said the sharp.

“Why? I won using your rules,” said Luke.

“Sometimes, brother, you have to pay for an education,” said the Reverend Jackson. His dark eyes were laughing.  “Now, I’m sure the lady will put some of her new-gained wealth towards charity.”

“Oh, I probably shall, reverend,” said Luke. “When I find a charity which suits me.” He stowed the money very carefully inside the inside pocket of the ridiculous little jacket which he wore. He had needed to take it apart and steam the seams to put it back together again, being rather broad across the back; and it hid where he had opened the back seam of his gown for the same reason, and inserted a flap of plain black. And if the stitches of the jacket were not so fine as those of the tailor who had made them, and if they had bias-cut strips from a piece of plain black linen down them to make a seam, it would do for a few days.

 

Black Falcon 2 part 1 the man who liked women

 

2 The man who liked women

 

Part 1

 

Luke disliked cities, but occasionally he found himself passing through places which were definitely larger than small towns for more specialist supplies – the centrefire cartridges for his Winchester were not common enough to be available in every general store – and to replace the black clothing he favoured over the usual garb of levis, flannel shirts, and leather vests.

Fully tooled up, clean from a long hot soak which was a luxury, and, which pleased him mightily, some black levis to combine hard-wearing with Luke’s sartorial tastes, and he felt good.

He stalked down the street with his predator’s tread, and found a poster pasted up outside the stage coach office. He studied it.

The man depicted was handsome in a florid sort of way; the sort of coarsely-handsome man some women find irresistible. Luke thought he looked an ugly customer. His name was Dan ‘Fillies’ Mikkeljon, and he was worth $1,250 alive, $500 dead.

That meant he had a stash they wanted to get their hands on.

The stash was probably worth finding.

The small print declared that Fillies had acquired his nickname by his habit of making up to women who had connections to wealth, and using inside knowledge to crack safes, or dig up hidden monies, and was to be considered dangerous. Luke recalled reading of his last theft in a paper left in the train when he freighted into town with his horse. An unhappy wife with a miser of a husband had been seduced, and agreed to flee with Fillies, along with her husband’s stash. Having helped him dig the hole to uncover it – a matter deduced by the local sheriff, who had to be smarter than many, who figured this out by the blisters on her hands – Fillies had then shot her, and left her in the hole as her grave.

Luke disapproved strongly of men who killed women.

He pulled down the poster, ignoring the startled protest of the man at the ticket office, and headed off to the marshal’s office.

“What’s the reward on this hombre’s stash?” he asked.

“What, a boy like you, after Fillies Mikkeljohn? Go back to school,” jeered the marshal.

“My boyish beauty is against me,” sighed Luke. “Just because I have the body of an angel, everyone assumes I’m an innocent. What’s the reward on his stash?”

“Ten percent,” said the marshal, unwillingly. “He lifted fifty thousand in gold.”

“How the hell did he transport it?” asked Luke.

“He took the whole train, uncoupled the caboose with the gold in, and unloaded it at his leisure,” said the marshal.

Luke whistled.

“He ain’t short of gall, is he?” he said.

“Nope,” said the marshal. “Torpedos[1] on the line, the train stopped, he uncoupled the caboose, cool as you please, shot the guard, and draped him over the buffers of the last carriage. Train driver swears he knows where he stopped, but by jingo, there was no caboose there when anyone went back for it, and no gold neither.”

“Huh,” said Luke. “Map?”

The marshal shrugged.

“If you got any ideas,...”

“Ideas I got in plenty, sir, but ideas aren’t proof, and if I’m wrong and drag out a posse, my reputation will be mud,” said Luke.

“You talk like an Easterner.”

“I talk like the schoolmarm’s son,” said Luke. “My mother came out from England.”

“I don’t suppose it makes you friends.”

Luke smiled at him. His smile was singularly sweet, and his lips, delicately coloured and curved, almost effeminate. The hint of mischief in his eyes was not, however, warm.

“I don’t need friends who judge me on how I speak,” he said.

“Well, it’s no skin off my nose,” said the marshal. “Here’s the map.”

Luke studied it.

“Where’s he struck?” he asked. The marshal marked half a dozen places with pins.

Luke considered; then he nodded.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.  “What’s his lower limit?”

“He’s never stolen a prize worth less than fifteen thousand.”

Luke nodded.

“How do you plan to find him?” asked the marshal.

Luke smiled again. The hint of mischief was stronger and his eyes glinted and a dimple made its appearance on his cheek.

“I’m not going to bother. He’s going to find me,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

An hour later, Luke walked into a ladies’ outfitters.

“I’m shopping for m’sister,” he told the young shopkeeper. “She’s happy with readymades until she can get fabric and shop. She needs mourning, and she took it into her head that she needs all new undergarments as well.”

“What, and you’ve got to pay? Sisters, eh!” said the young man, sympathetically.

“Oh, she gave me the dough,” said Luke, easily. “She may not be wealthy yet, but she can afford to make a bit of a splash; seemingly her husband turned up his toes long enough after his own brother for her to inherit her brother-in-law’s fortune. Fellow was a gold miner, and hoarded every nugget and poke of dust. The lawyer said she’s worth twenty thousand, maybe more, if the mine ain’t worked out.”

“Dadburn it! That sure is a sizeable heritance,” said the young man.

“Yes, and she’s all rarin’ to take off for some place called Pendleton,” said Luke. “Won’t wait for me, of course; just like a woman.”

“You didn’t ought to talk about that, really, sir,” said the salesman. “People talk...” he made a small movement with his head towards a middle-aged lady, being attended to by another young man. She was listening avidly.

She was also the wife of the editor of the local paper, and Luke had picked his moment with care.

The helpful young man turned back to business.

“What size is your sister?” he asked.

“Oh, she’s about my height; a tall lass.  O’ course, she’s a shadow of her old self; been nursing her old man.  I don’t suppose you do them patent corsets which are...  you know, a bit exaggerated? She used to be...” he made graphic hand movements in the neighbourhood of his chest. “She don’t want to turn up at her in-laws looking like she should be the one being buried.”      

“Of course, sir,” said the helpful young man. “You want a Watkiss Patent shapely corset.”

Luke smiled in content as the helpful young man produced a corset which was well-padded in the right area.

“Perfect,” he murmured. He paid for his purchases and walked away with a complete set of female garb.

 

Back in his hotel, Luke crooked a finger to the proprietor’s youthful son, Tommy, who was boy of all work, and about fourteen years old, with red hair, buck teeth, and a taste for lurid fiction in dime novels, on which much of his pocket money was squandered.

“You know I’m a bounty killer, don’t you, Tommy?” he said. “They call me the Black Falcon.”

“Y’are? Wow!” said Tommy. “That’ll explain your guns.”

“Exactly,” said Luke. “Now, I’m after a villain who kills women; and I need your help, and your silence. And there’s five dollars in it for you if you can help me.”

“For sure!” breathed Tommy, his eyes shining.

“Come up to my room,” said Luke.

Tommy trotted behind the tall, dangerous man who was his new hero, surpassing all heroic marshals, Pinkerton’s detectives, and dashing cavalry officers.

 

“Right,” said Luke. “You any good at shaving?”

“Uh... no,” said Tommy. “Never had to do it.”

“Well, I should think I can give myself a close enough shave,” said Luke who had also been to a drugstore asking about cosmetics to hide his sister’s tear-streaked face when travelling. “You unpack all them female doo-dads for me, and we’ll see if we can figure out how to dress me up. Durned if women’s clothing didn’t ought to come with an instruction manual; it isn’t as easy to figure out as stripping and cleaning a gun.”

Tommy giggled a little self-consciously as he handled garments he had never even imagined touching.

“It’s all right if you get a thrill, son, as long as it’s the thoughts of a lady in it, not me,” said Luke, who had stripped to his long underwear to shave.

“Something’s wrong with the, um.... the underthings,” said Tommy, holding up two separate frill-bedecked legs.

“Well, I’m damned!” said Luke. “It’s all sewn up and finished proper; I guess that’s the way ladies do things. How do they stop the draft getting up their nethers?”

Tommy sniggered.

“Perhaps they don’t,” he said. “After all, ladies gotta go same as men, and all them skirts....”

“Good point, Tommy-boy,” said Luke. He carefully removed every last speck of hair on his face, and turned to the clothing. “I’m wearing those over my own underwear,” he said. “And my own riding boots under them at that. I can’t afford to have my feet let me down.”

He got dressed with Tommy’s help as far as the skirt, cursing about the corset.

“Women need medals of honour for surviving these,” he said. It was fortunate that his waist was slender; the bulk of the petticoat and skirt would hide that his hips were, too.

“I wouldn’t be a woman for a hundred thousand dollars,” opined Tommy.

“I need slits in this to reach for my guns,” Luke said. “You’ll have to hold things flat for me so I can fix it so it ain’t immediately apparent. I am glad my mother taught me to sew, so I can fettle my own duds at need.”

Tommy, who had been resisting such domestic lessons from his own mother, promptly swore he would learn how to sew if a dangerous man like this could admit to sewing and seemed to think it a virtue.

It did not take much for Luke to work out that all he had to do was to open up the pockets thoughtfully provided in the skirt. Then he put on his gun belt, and put the skirt over, checking that he could draw smoothly.

Then he went to work on his face with the cosmetics.  A bonnet with a short veil, concealing how firm his eyebrows were, and he turned to Tommy, and batted his eyebrows.

“Will I do, young sir?” he asked.

“Cuh, Mr. Falcon, sir, you’re kinda real purty!” said Tommy, in profound shock.

Luke winked at him.

“Now, do you think I’d fool your old man, if you told him that I’d given my room to my sister?”

“Yes, sir!” said Tommy.

“Well, lad, now you get to help me take it all off. No point me leaving until the gossip columns have talked about a rich widow,” said Luke. “Can you arrange me meals in my room for a couple of days?”

“Yes, sir!” said Tommy, pocketting further largessse. “I’ll get you the paper, too.”

“Invaluable boy,” said Luke. “Now, I wait for the news to hit, and then I get me a stage coach to Pendleton.”

“It’s days and days to Pendleton, sir,” said Tommy.

“Yes, quite,” said Luke. “And I need to give that consarned owlhoot time to find out about me, and get sorted out onto the stage.”

Tommy sighed.

“And then you gun him down?” he said.

“Hell, no,” said Luke. “First, I separate him off from the crowd, then I capture him – he’s worth more alive than dead – and then I threaten unspeakable torture until he reveals where his stash is hidden. I want that ten percent.”

 

 

In due course, the newspaper gossip column spoke coyly of how it had come to their notice that a young and lovely widow had come into a fortune by way of compensation for losing her husband, in terms of gold by the truck full.

Luke, meanwhile, had sat for a photograph in his trappings as a woman.

“Tommy, my lad,” he said, “Nip to the newspaper offices and ask them what they’d pay you for the chance to copy a photograph of the beautiful and wealthy widow, Jane Brandon.”

Tommy sniggered as Luke handed him a copy.

“Coo, Mr. Falcon, that makes you into a real looker,” he said. “Are you sure it ain’t your sister?”

“Oh, my sisters would, any one of them, be up for playing bait,” said Luke. “But I’m not sure I fancy the idea.”

“Your sisters sound swell!” said Tommy. “Catch my sister being bait! She’d set up such a screech the owlhoots’d die of fright.”

“Ah, well, she’s a city girl,” said Luke. “My sisters were raised as warriors, like me, with added nursing skills.”  He handed Tommy a package. “And while you’re out, if you can drop that into the post office first, I’ll be obliged; it’s a copy of the picture which you ‘borrowed’ off the dressing table of the lady’s brother, and a letter to my parents.  I don’t intend for anything to go wrong, but I want my parents to know in case anyone finds themselves burying me in women’s duds.”

Tommy sniggered.

“You’re too good to let any consarned owlhoot take you down,” he said.

“Your faith in my efficiency is heartening,” said Luke.

 

Luke was killing time watching ladies out of the window of his room, and copying their mannerisms to give the time for the story to circulate. No point going all that way in uncomfortable clothing, bounced like corn in a corn popper in a stage coach if the prey for which he was bait had had no sniff at him.

And then, he fluttered downstairs to pay the bill.

“Durned if I seen you before, ma’am,” said the proprietor, scratching the fringe of hair he still possessed at the back of his neck.

“Oh! It’s my dear brother... he gave up his room for me... so kind!  I really couldn’t have a kinder... and himself having to look for somewhere to stay, and still getting me tickets... such a pity he can’t accompany me... I believe I owe you his bill as well, he left money to settle... so do I have to sign your register too?” he fluttered his hands delicately as he lost himself in a series of half-sentences about his so-kind brother, and fluttered across to the stage coach depot to pick up the coach to Pendleton. The fare averaged out at around twenty cents a mile; or a dollar per ten miles. It was an outlay, spending almost fifty dollars to travel as bait, but it would net a goodly amount. And Luke needed to get closer to where he was certain Fillies’s hidden store of gold was stored.

 

---

[1] Detonators to warn of trouble ahead

Black Falcon 1, Marshal for two days

 

1. Marshal for two days

 

It was raining when he rode into town for provisions; the sort of unrelenting rain that made its way inside clothes, down collars, into boots, and anywhere else rain has no business to go, even bypassing the long black leather duster, and black Stetson.

The livery stable saw to the discomfort of his horse. He nodded to the hand who saw to the horses and tossed him a silver dollar.

“Give him a good currying, please,” he said. His voice was unexpectedly soft.

The stablehand noted, however, that his Smith and Wesson Schofield revolvers were tied down, a sure sign of a gunslinger. It was well-known that anyone who toted two guns was either a show-off blowhard, or a very dangerous fellow indeed.

The stablehand assessed the newcomer as a very dangerous fellow indeed.

Luke Sokolov, for such was his real name, nodded, and toted his saddlebags and his Winchester 73 with him. 

Many gunslingers used the Colt opentop revolver with the older version of the Winchester built in 1866, as both used the same ammunition, useful for someone on the road a lot. Luke, however, took his ability as a sharpshooter seriously, and his Winchester sported the latest in telescopic sights. Luke could do things with that Winchester that most sharpshooters only dreamed of.  And since he needed separate cartridges to the heavy centrefire cartridges of the 73 Winchester, he picked his revolvers for their speed in reloading, and the heavy 0.44 calibre.

 

Next was the saloon, and he took his saddle and saddlebags with him, shouldering aside the batwings to go in.

“A cup of tea,” said Luke.

“Tea?” the barkeep queried.

“Tea.  By the pint. I’ll switch to whisky when I’ve warmed up,” said Luke. “Make it strong and sweet.”

“Only if you buy a bottle to go with it,” said the barkeep.

Luke shrugged.

“Make it a Dewar’s; I’m not touching any home-brewed rot-gut.”

“You think a lot of yourself.”

“Yes. And if you can’t get me Dewar’s, or Jameson’s Irish at a pinch, I’ll stick to tea,” said Luke.

Grumbling, the barkeep fetched up a dusty bottle of Dewar’s Scotch Whisky. Luke examined the seal, and nodded, to pronounce himself satisfied.

“Mister, I ain’t about to give counterfeit whisky to a man who wears two holsters tied,” said the Barkeep. “What do they call you?”

Luke considered.

“Most people call me ‘the Black Falcon,’” he said. “It does as well as any name.”

“Part Injun?”

“Not that I’d noticed,” said Luke. He was tanned with hawk-like features, but his eyes were blue green, and as warm as ice. His hair was dark, untidy, and collar length where it curled, as did the tips of his moustaches when he failed to cut them close. His long sooty lashes were the envy of many a woman, and his delicate features would be called effeminate on a man less confident of his manhood. 

A throat was delicately cleared at Luke’s elbow, and he turned to fix his seagreen eyes on a plump little man whom Luke labelled in his own mind as a tinhorn. His head was bald, pink, and shiny.

“Mister Falcon,” said the man, “I heard of you; you’ve collected bounties on some owlhoots, I hear.”

“It’s a job,” said Luke. “And I don’t aim to leave town without warming up and getting me some provisions.”

“Oh, absolutely, absolutely... but you see, we need a marshal real bad... the Bar TZ ranch has Texan hands, and they’ve been running beeves to the railhead... and they’re due back in town any day now, and they like to hit the saloon and make whoopee... and our marshal has fled, account of how they said they’d beat him so bad next time he tried to stop them that he’d never walk again.”

“And what do you want me for?” asked Luke. “Run down your errant marshal, and bring him back?”

“No, we want you to be our marshal,” said the little man.  “I’m Erasmus Bobbin, the banker here... and the amount of damage they do... I’ve the backing of the shopkeepers.”

He pushed a star at Luke.

Luke raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to stop these rowdy Texans from making a nuisance of themselves,” he said.

“Yes,” said Bobbin.

Luke regarded the six-pointed tin badge with the word ‘Sheriff’ hammered onto it, rather crudely.

“What’s the pay?” he asked.

“We pay thirty dollars the month, a dollar a day,” said Bobbin, nervously.

“You’re keeping me from earning bounties,” said Luke. “You pay me five dollars a day while I’m here, and ten dollars for the day these proddy waddies come by.”

“That’s outrageous!” gasped Bobbin,

“That’s my offer,” said Luke. “And consider how much repairing damage would cost.”

Bobbin mopped his shiny brow, considered, swallowed hard, making his string tie bob, and nodded.

“Very well,” he said.

“I’ll be eating now,” said Luke. “You can bring me the keys to the marshal’s office while I’m eating; I might as well stay there as anywhere.”

It would not be the first time he had slept in a jailhouse bunk; some law officers disliked bounty hunters to the point of pinning a technical crime on them. It amused Luke to pin on the badge, and to prepare to sleep in what was, for the next few days at least, his own jail.

Once he had eaten an indifferent beef stew with floury bullets alleged to be dumplings, he toted his bags and rifle over to the jailhouse, noted that there was paperwork left undone, and sorted that out before turning in.

 

oOoOo

 

Luke’s first day as marshal was fairly quiet. He spent some time patrolling his new patch with as much easy grace walking as he had in the saddle, stalking like some wild beast. The townsfolk watched him with a mix of approval that their new marshal looked dangerous, and trepidation, that their new marshal looked dangerous.  Luke discovered that, as he had expected,  Bobbinsville was a small, no-account place with one each of the usual appurtenances of civilised life; one saloon, which had rooms upstairs, one bank, one store, one livery stable, one church, one graveyard, one carpenter who also made coffins, one school, or at least a shack and half a school,  a proper schoolhouse being built to replace the shack currently in use; and one doctor, whose office was opposite the marshal’s office. There were board sidewalks between the buildings, to keep the skirts of ladies out of the dust or mud – the mud from the previous day’s rain, however, quickly dried out into dust – and give some appearance of civilisation. The store sold everything, and Luke, not anticipating being long in town, left a list there, and an order to pack it in saddlebags.

He left the whisky in a saddlebag too; a lawman should be stone cold sober at all times, at least in Luke’s book.

Consequently, he continued drinking tea in the saloon as he observed its habitués.

Only one man took it into his head to make an issue of the boy marshal drinking tea.

“Am I making you drink tea?” asked Luke.

“A real man drinks whisky,” growled the half drunken local.

“A real marshal stays stone cold sober when he’s on duty,” said Luke. “You want a marshal? You get me unlikkered up.”

The drinker swung for Luke of course,

He went down, as Luke blocked effortlessly, and let fly with one of his own fists.

Luke picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants, walked out through the batwings, and dropped him on the sidewalk.

“If the trash isn’t cleared up by the time I finish my tea, he’ll be in jail,” he said.

There was no pugnacious drunken bum to be found when he emerged.

There was very little more trouble for Luke.

 

 

He toted a sleeping drunk off the street to sober up in the other cell, and gave a small boy a few sharp whacks where it would do most good for letting off a firecracker when folks were already on edge.

“My ma’ll be by to see you,” yammered the youth.

“She’ll be out of luck. I don’t spank females,” said Luke.

He did not receive a visit from the boy’s starchy mother, a widow who taught school.  It was all she could do to live down the suggestion that she would go to complain to the new marshal in order to get a spanking from the extremely handsome young man.

If looks could have killed, however, Luke would have been a smoking pile of ashes.  However, many of the townsfolk nodded to him happily; the schoolmarm’s son was a small demon of mischief which his mother could not be brought to realise.

 

oOoOo

 

The sounds of the hoofs could be felt before they were heard the next day; and then the sound was like thunder with the added screams ‘Yee haw!’ and whooping as the eight cow pokes rode into the town, firing into the air.

Luke strolled out.

Such high spirits were acceptable. He was there to see it went no further.

The hard-looking men dismounted, slinging reins over the hitching post outside the saloon, and one of their number caught sight of Mr. Bobbin, an elderly lady on his arm.

“Hey, Bobbin, have you learned to dance yet?” one of the men fired in the ground near Bobbin’s feet, and he jumped nervously.

“You can stop that,” said Luke, in his low, but carrying voice. “What’s more, I think I’ll have all your gun belts until you’re ready to leave town if you can’t behave better than a bunch of first grade farm boys with a stolen bird gun.”

“And who’s going to make us?” said the leader, derisively.

“I am,” said Luke. “Quick or dead; makes no difference to me.”

The man must be the ramrod; the others murmured, and looked to him.

“I ain’t handin’ over my gun to some consarned  schoolboy like you, whatever tin badge you tote,” said the ramrod. “And I ain’t over making Bobbin dance.”

“Fire again, and I fire back,” warned Luke.

The Ramrod laughed, and fanned his revolver in fire about Bobbin’s feet. The fat little man stumbled back; the elderly lady fell, and screamed as a ricochet hit her face.

Nobody later could say they even saw the movement in which Luke’s Smith & Wesson cleared his holster; but the ramrod went down.

“Get out of town,” said Luke to the other seven.

They drew on him.

This was a fatal error.

The gun in Luke’s right hand spoke four more times; the one in his left spoke three.

The cowpokes would be proddy no more.

Luke reloaded, and went over to the old lady.

She was sobbing in pain and terror, and Luke picked her up, ignoring the fact that she had lost control of her bladder, and carried her into the doctor’s office.

“I don’t think she’s hurt mortally badly,” he said, in the correct English he had learned at his mother’s knee, quaint to many in the west. “But I think she may have broken her leg as well as having taken a bullet. And see here, doc,” he added, “It was a ricochet, so you clean it well with whisky, make sure no lockjaw gets in.”

“I know my job... Marshal,” said the doctor.

“Good,” said Luke.

He went back into the street.

Men were clearing up the bodies.

Bobbin shook his head gloomily.

“You shouldn’t have killed them all, marshal,” he said.

“I didn’t touch them until actual bodily harm was committed on the lady you were with,” said Luke, frowning.

“My mother; she’s not too steady on her pins,” said Bobbin.

“And if she broke her hip she won’t ever walk again, and might die of it,” said Luke. “I told them to stop, I warned them. And the ramrod shot, and caused your mother harm. So I shot him. I told the others to get out of town. They chose to commit suicide instead.”

“We’ll have trouble from the Bar TZ now!” panicked Bobbin.

“You want me to deal with any of them who make trouble?” said Luke.

“No; I want you out of town,” said Bobbin. “Please hand in your badge.”

“My fifteen dollars?” said Luke.

“I... you did not fulfil the contract properly,” said Bobbin.

“I can unfulfil it even more by making more mess than they could,” said Luke. “I did what you told me. Pay up.”

Trembling, the banker got out his wallet, and handed the bills to Luke, who pocketed them. Then he took off his badge.

“Have a six-pointed enema,” he said.

“Wh... what?” said Bobbin.

“I said, ram it up your arse,” said Luke.

 

It had been interesting while it had lasted.