“He was keepin’ out of sight,” Buffalo went on, “an’ they don’t know I’ve seen him.”
“I see.” Matt kicked at a stone with the toe of his boot. “I think I’ll advise Coyle to drop out of it.”
“They won’t listen.”
“I know, but I’ll advise them. It’s the least I can do.”
Hardy grinned. “Massey ain’t goin’ to like you!”
The crowd was already gathering for The Banker’s Daughter when they went into the theatre and found seats. It was a noisy and profane crowd, but an interested one. Jack Langrishe always ran clean plays and he always entertained. He would do no less on this night. He had come from Dublin, and his theatres had been the bright spots in more than one western mining town.
Matt seated himself on a bench and stared around. The whole town had turned out and the place was jammed full of miners, stage drivers, bartenders, bull whackers and mule tenders. California Jack, faro dealer, Madame Canutson the lady bull-whacker whose profanity matched any man’s, Scott Davis, shotgun messenger, Seth Bullock, Deadwood’s sheriff, Cold Deck Johnny, Colorado Charlie, and many others. Names famous and infamous wherever miners, gamblers of the crowd that followed the boom towns gathered.
Suddenly, the door opened and a woman shoved her way inside, calling loudly over her shoulder. Whatever the remark was, everybody laughed. She wore a man’s narrow brimmed black hat set at a careless angle atop her hair, and her rather long face, the skin olive, clear and smooth broke into a smile that suddenly made all who saw her forget that she was actually a plain woman.
“Ban,” Matt said, “better take a look. There’s a woman who’ll be remembered after they’ve buried an’ forgotten the rest of us. That’s Calamity Jane!”
Hardy leaned forward, craning his neck for a better view. She wore a fringed buckskin coat that fitted loosely and was gathered by a broad leather belt. Her trousers were also fringed buckskin, and even now she was carrying a rifle. Under the buckskin coat she wore a man’s plaid shirt.
“Heard a lot about her,” Hardy said.
“She came into the Black Hills with Crook. Smuggled herself into the outfit when it left Laramie. She was one of the first to come in. Dead shot with that rifle, too. She’s a hard case, but a good hearted one, give you anything you want, and funny thing, she being so much like a man in other ways, but she loves to handle sick people. Good at it, too.”
Matt glanced at the late comers again, searching the crowd for the face he was eager to see. Then he saw her come through the door, laughing over her shoulder as Calamity Jane had done, but how different!
She was wearing a green gown that made a low murmur run over the crowd, and every head in the place turned toward her. She walked down the aisle, preceded by her brother and followed by Clive Massey. Matt felt the smile leave his face. He shifted his feet and turned his eyes elsewhere. He was aware that Buffalo was glancing at him out of the corners of his eyes, but he ignored it.
Nevertheless, he felt sick in the stomach and unhappy. He kept his eyes on the stage and the constant flurry of activity behind the curtain. Yet she sat in a position his eyes overlooked, and suddenly he realized she was looking for him. He saw her head turn slightly, glancing at the crowd, then after a moment, it turned toward him. Their eyes met, briefly. He nodded his head, and she replied with a cool nod, and then looked away.
The curtain started to go up. Quietly, he turned and left his seat. Murphy started to speak, but he shoved his way through the crowd to the outside. “The hell with it!” he told himself roughly. “The hell with it, I say!”
Shoving his hands deep in his pockets he stepped off the boardwalk and turned up the stairway that climbed the hill, walking out on the old, burned-over slope. When he had walked fairly well up on the hillside, he turned and looked back.
The town lay there in Deadwood Gulch, a scattered, loosely knit series of communities, some of them hidden away in small hollows or scattered in other ravines connecting with this. White Rocks loomed above him.
No woman was worth it. Telling himself that, he realized how much she had been in his mind lately, and they had exchanged only a few words, yet her face stayed in his thoughts with the memory of her voice. No woman had ever touched him like this before, and he was irritated by it, fighting the feeling as a broncho fights a bit. It wouldn’t do. Clive Massey had the inside track, anyway.
Or there might be somebody back east who would come out soon to claim her. What did he know about it? She had frightened him today when he stepped out on the boardwalk to shoot it out with Spinner Johns, for she was right in the line of fire. It was because of her, and her alone, that Johns was alive. He had been forced to bluff him out because of the girl.
Ban Hardy was afraid Spinner Johns would come back, but Matt Bardoul was not. Johns would be heading for the brush now, heading for the brush with his horns sawed off. He would want to find a new country where nothing of his disgrace was known. Guessing something of what sort of man Johns was, Matt doubted whether he would ever be the same again. He had been called, been backed down, forced to take water. It did something ruinous to a man’s morale, and never again would he face a man with the same fearlessness.
Matt walked back down the hill and headed for the stable to saddle his horse. He had thrown the hull on him and was adjusting the cinch when a voice spoke out of the darkness of a stall. Bardoul held perfectly still, not turning his head.
“Matt,” he could not place the voice, “don’t go on no wagon train. You staked me once when I was broke. I tell you that because I know you staked so many you won’t remember. I’d git killed for this, if anybody knowed, but don’t go along with that wagon train!”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
He waited for what seemed a full minute before there was a reply. “Dunno. But somethin’ … ain’t none of ’em supposed to come back alive.”
“Who’s the boss?” he demanded.
There was no reply. He waited a moment, then asked the question again, but there was no answer. His unknown informant was gone.
He bridled his horse, then led him down to the IXL and tied him to the hitching rail. He stepped inside and made his way to the bar, his eyes studying the crowd, hoping to recognize a familiar face who might be the man he had staked. There were none.
Then the door opened and Logan Deane came in.
When his eyes found Bardoul, he smiled, walking up to the bar. “Nice job today,” Deane said in his soft, pleasant voice. “A very nice job. I’ve heard of Wyatt Earp doin’ somethin’ like that with Ben Thompson, but nothin’ like you did today.”
“Spinner Johns wasn’t Ben Thompson,” Bardoul said truthfully.
“He was worse,” Deane replied, “much worse! Thompson had brains, an’ as much nerve as any man. He backed down for Earp simply because he knew if he won, he lost. He might kill Earp but he knew Earp would get him. There’s no percentage in that sort of a deal.
“Johns was crazy. There was no tellin’ what he might do.”
Matt nodded. Then lifting his glass, he glanced over it at Deane. “How long have you known Clive Massey?” he asked.
The half friendly light vanished from Logan Deane’s eyes and they turned flat gray. “I don’t just remember,” he said coolly, “I really don’t remember!”
“Well,” Matt said, “I know nothing about him, but I’ve got a feeling, Deane. It’s a feeling that he should be lined up with us!”
Logan Deane’s eyes studied him warily, but there was speculation in them now. “You mean, you think he’s a gun slinger?”
“Yes, I do. Only Clive Massey would throw a gun only for what he could get out of it. Remember that, Deane!”
Logan Deane studied him. “Why tell me?” he said. “Why warn me?”
“Because someday you and I may shoot it out, Logan,” Matt said. “I hope not, because I’m not a man who likes to kill, but if the time comes when we face each other, it will be fair and above board an’ the best man will win. If either of us ever faces Clive Massey, it will not be until all the breaks are on his side!”