The Floating Outfit 19 Read online

  Once more Madam Bulldog showed her remarkable knowledge of such matters. She gave the dealer’s box on the table a careful inspection, then stepped back and looked at the table itself, seeing how thick and stoutly made it looked to be. She bent and examined the end where the dealer sat by the case keeping box. Her hands ran along the wood and a panel in the side slid open. With a grunt as if she expected no more, Madam Bulldog removed a second box, one which looked almost the same as the one on the table. Yet it contained certain improvements the box on the table did not have, by far the most important being that the slot through which the cards could be dealt had room for two cards instead of one to pass.

  With a grunt she raised one box in each hand, then smashed them down against the table edge, shattering them. Tossing the wrecked boxes to the floor she went on:

  “I’ll not have a second dealer box in my house, Sam. When my bags get here I’ve a straight box, with an open top.”

  Sam caught the significance of the remark. The two boxes she broke did not have their tops left open, but only a small hole through which the cards could be pushed. The second dealer box allowed the manipulator to put two cards out, then retract the top one if having it played would not be favorable to the house.

  “We have a swamper?” she asked.

  “Two, they’re not here now.”

  “I want to see them. I want this floor washed every day before we open and fresh sawdust on it.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Sam promised.

  “Swell,” she said. “Where’s the bank?”

  “Down the street. Only the banker’s wife wouldn’t let Turner do any business in it.”

  The news did not appear to distress Madam Bulldog. She waved the hand holding the grip towards the door.

  “Let’s go see him.”

  Her interview with the banker proved once and for all to Sam that Madam Bulldog could take care of herself in any society. She swept aside the protesting teller and entered Banker Hoscroft’s private office with Sam following on her heels.

  Before the banker could rise and impose his full pompous power upon her, Madam Bulldog dumped the grip before him and opened it.

  “There’s five thousand dollars in here,” she said calmly, as if she wished to deposit five dollars. “I’ve a further fifteen thousand in the First Union Bank in Kansas City. You can have it here in my account, or I’ll open my own bank. It’s all up to you.”

  Despite his present position in life, and his pompous manner—which was mainly due to marrying a Bostonian lady—Banker Hoscroft was a shrewd man of business. A deposit of twenty thousand dollars would do his bank nothing but good. He might let his wife dictate to him on some matters, but could also put his foot firmly down when necessary. So he donned his most jovial smile and the manner he reserved for his largest depositors, escorted Madam Bulldog to the business section of the building and opened an account for her.

  “I’ll be expecting to see you in for my grand opening tonight,” she said as she left the bank and Hoscroft agreed he would be there.

  From the bank Madam Bulldog passed around the town, visiting such businesses as she would need to deal with, leaving each place with the owners full of admiration for her astute business sense. The owners of the businesses saw they would make profit far in excess of anything Turner put their way and that was one argument to silence the objections of wives, mothers, spinster sister or maiden aunts who might complain.

  Actually the complaints never came. Seeing a meeting of the good ladies in the Black Cat Cafe, Madam Bulldog bearded them in their den. She stated quite firmly she aimed to run her place, but also promised that the conducting of it would be blameless. She spoke to such effect that not only did the ladies withhold their complaints but they accepted her as a social equal.

  All the saloon’s employees were waiting to meet their new boss. Sam noticed an expectant air and looked to where Wallace, a small sly man in the usual dress of a frontier gambler, stood by the faro layout and scowling at the wrecked dealing boxes. Wallace turned, looked towards Madam Bulldog and came to meet her, a truculent gleam in his eye. He waved a hand towards the broken boxes which he dropped on the table top.

  “Did you do that?” he asked in a threatening manner.

  “I did.”

  “Why, you fat—!”

  That was when Madam Bulldog hit him. She ripped a punch into his belly, just under the watch chain on his fancy vest. It came so unexpectedly and with such power that it folded Wallace over, right on to the other hand as it came up, knotted into a useful fist, to meet his jaw. He straightened out again and went sprawling on to his back, cursing, spitting blood and clawing at the butt of the Second Model Smith & Wesson revolver under his jacket.

  “I can copper that bet, too.”

  Madam Bulldog gave the warning in a flat, cold voice. She held a Colt Cloverleaf House Pistol in her right hand, drawn from under her coat in a flickering blur of movement. Before Wallace could collect his scattered wits, or get his gun out, the .41 caliber barrel lined on him, the two exposed cylinders of the “cloverleaf” chamber like two unwinking eyes watching him.

  While being a real mean cuss and card cheat, Wallace also had a wide yellow streak in him. He knew better than to call the bet when the other side held a .41 caliber, four shot answer to his play. He let his hand come clear of the gun and backed away, crawling across the floor, fingers feeling at his jaw.

  “Have you got a horse?” asked Madam Bulldog.

  “Yeah!” Wallace replied in what he hoped would be a defiant snarl, but that came out more of a whine.

  “Then get on it and be out of town before the marshal gets back or I’ll show him those decks of cards and tell him why I bust the dealing boxes.”

  She knew she had won, even without meeting Tune Counter. It showed in the scared expression which came in Wallace’s eyes and on his hate-lined face. She guessed the town marshal had been interested in Wallace’s little additions to luck without being able to prove what they were. In which case Wallace would not be around when the marshal came back that evening.

  “See him on his way, Sam,” she ordered.

  Sam needed no second bidding. He had never approved of swindling the customers, regarding it at best as a short-sighted policy which eventually led to trouble with both the customers and the law. He knew Tune Counter would never stand for any crooked play if he detected it and had long expected the marshal to catch Wallace out, then close the saloon down.

  Bending forward Sam grabbed Wallace by the jacket collar and hauled him to his feet then hustled him across the room to the side door. One of the waiters, who felt the same way as did Sam on the subject of crooked gamblers, obligingly opened the door through which Wallace departed, helped on his way by a hard-applied boot.

  “Git—and keep going!” Sam advised.

  Wallace took the hint. He saw that his presence in the saloon would no longer be tolerated. So he headed for his room at the hotel to collect his belongings. If he nursed a grudge against Madam Bulldog and her employees he did not intend to stay around and do anything about it.

  The teller at Hoscroft’s bank beamed a welcome to Madam Bulldog as she entered through the doors at eleven o’clock on a warm summer’s morning something over a year after her arrival in Tennyson.

  “Good morning, Madam,” he greeted, using the only name by which anyone in town knew her. He reached for the canvas bag she laid on the counter before him. “You look to have been busy last night.”

  “Fair enough,” she replied, then turned to Marshal Tune Counter as he stood by the teller’s cage. “Hi, Tune. You putting it in too?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “I get paid the same day as the cowhands. My pile looks sort of paltry besides yours though.”

  She laughed. “You don’t have my overheads.” They got on very well together, the marshal and the saloon-keeper. In fact romance had been increasingly hinted at, for he spent some of his time with her and not in duty hours. Certainly Tune lik
ed her, admired her for the way she kept her promise of allowing the place to run smoothly and fairly, relying on the house percentage to make the gambling pay. Nor did Madam ever offend the public good taste by appearing on the streets in her working clothes. To see her around town one might never have known she ran a saloon, for she always dressed in stylish and conventional fashion. “The trouble with my business,” she went on, “is—” The words died on her lips. Behind them the door of the bank had opened and four men stepped inside, fanning across it as it closed once more. Madam Bulldog glanced to see who might be entering, then stood very still, her words dying away unsaid. Tune Counter stood just as still, his hands on the teller’s counter top and well clear of the Army Colt at his side. Behind the counter, the teller stayed just where he was. He gave a quick look at the Navy Colt kept under the counter for just such emergencies, but he made no attempt to touch it.

  Not with four men standing across the room and lining guns on him and the two customers. Four tall, trail-dirty, mean-looking men. At least eyes held a mean glint, being about all of their faces which showed from behind the drawn-up bandana masks. They handled their weapons like they knew which end the flame came out of. The clothes they wore, even without the dirt, would have been hard to describe and no different to those worn by thousands of cowhands. Except that this bunch were not any kind of cowhands, but master at a line of business perfected by Mr. Jesse and Frank James of Clay County, Missouri.

  From the way the four men stood and acted they had not just started on this line of business, but knew it from A to izzard. A man couldn’t take foolish chances with that kind, not and stay alive to boast about it.

  “Just stand there nice and easy,” ordered the man at the right. “That way we won’t have any fuss. Now turn around real slow, the lady first.”

  On turning, Madam Bulldog studied the four men, not trying to memorize details about them, but to see what sort of opposition she might have to tie into. She saw one of them would be the real danger. The other three looked like older men, competent workers who conducted their business quickly and with as little rough stuff as possible. The fourth was young. His eyes bore a look which told he wanted nothing more than an excuse to throw lead.

  “All right, big feller,” said the man at the right. “Now you.”

  Tune obeyed. He had no intention of making a move or trying to go against the guns of the four men. Not that Tune was a coward. He had proved his courage on every occasion which demanded it. But a lawman needed to know when to stand fast as well as when to make his gun-play. To make it now would endanger the lives of Madam Bulldog and the bank teller.

  Only the matter left Tune’s hand the moment he turned far enough for the youngster at the left of the quartet to see his badge. A low snarl rippled the masking bandana and he swung his gun around. Tune Counter saw the move and flung himself to one side, right hand stabbing at his Army Colt. Flame tore from the young outlaw’s gun and Tune took a .36 caliber ball in the left shoulder, went to his knees but got his gun out.

  “You fool k—!” yelled one of the others.

  Then all hell tore loose in the bank. Madam Bulldog’s right hand went under her coat in a fast move. The men had discounted her as a factor until too late. Flame spurted from the Colt Cloverleaf and a hole appeared between the youngster’s eyes, slamming him around the instant before he could trigger another shot into the marshal. He hit the man next to him, knocking his gun out of line even as he tried to bring it around and cope with the new menace.

  Although hit in the left shoulder Tune Counter drew his gun with the right hand, throwing lead into the man at the right and spinning him into the wall. However, the man still held his gun and Tune acted in the manner of a trained law enforcement officer. While the man still held his gun he could be termed dangerous, so Tune shot him again. At the same moment another of the bunch sent a bullet into Tune. The outlaw did not get a chance to take another shot for the teller grabbed up his Navy Colt and fired. His actions might have been in the nature of a concerned rat, knowing it to be a case of fight or die. This made the gun in his hand no less deadly although more luck than skill sent home the bullet which dropped the outlaw.

  The fourth man, seeing his three pards go down, forgot fighting. He made a leap for the door, throwing it open and darting out. The shots had aroused interest and brought people out, people holding guns, for this was a Texas town and every man in it owned a firearm of some kind. Making for the waiting horses, the man made a leapfrog mount aboard his mount as it turned from the hitching rail. He set the pet-makers to work and ran the gauntlet of fire along the street, lead singing around his ears.

  He almost made it through without a scratch, then his luck gave out. The agent for the Wells Fargo office cut loose with a short barreled guard’s model ten gauge shotgun. The nine buckshot charge had spread some and the outlaw took three balls in his back. He yelled in agony but managed to stay in his saddle. After the lapse his luck returned. Not only did he manage to keep on his horse but no posse followed him, for the town was disorganized without Tune Counter’s strong hand to guide them. The outlaw rode for all that day, through the night and late the following morning dropped un-conscious before the door of a rancher who made far more money hiding outlaws than by working his cattle.

  In Tennyson, even while the guns roared, Madam Bulldog went to Tune Counter and dropped to her knees by him. She looked at the teller who retained enough of his senses to go forward and disarm the three outlaws.

  “Get the doctor!” she ordered.

  The teller needed no second order, he went outside and yelled for medical aid. Madam Bulldog stayed by Tune, not touching or moving him. She could see he was in pain, but he stayed conscious and his instincts were those of a lawman. He looked at the three sprawled out forms on the floor and weakly pointed.

  “That one’s still alive,” he said. “See to him.”

  “Let him rot,” Madam Bulldog answered. “I’m seeing to you.”

  Not until the doctor, followed by the teller, entered, did she go to the wounded outlaw. He was dying and nothing could save him, or could have saved him had she gone to him immediately. His eyes went to her face and he pointed to the youngster who brought the trouble on them.

  “That damned fool kid!” he gasped. “He was kill crazy. Worse than the other Cousins boys.”

  Madam Bulldog felt as if a cold hand touched her. She looked down at the dying outlaw and asked. “Is he one of the Cousins family?”

  “Yeah. He was Breck. Hank Cousins’ youngest.”

  Turning her face towards Tune Counter, the woman saw he had both heard and understood. This in itself was not surprising, most everybody in Texas had heard of the Cousins family. They were a close-knit clan of a father and four sons—only now but three sons remained. The fourth son’s lifeless body lay on the floor of the Tennyson bank, a .41 caliber hole in his forehead, the back of his skull a bloody, brain-spattered, bone-shattered horror where the bullet smashed out again.

  The Cousins family, Hank, the father, a balding, heavily built man with some pretensions at being educated and peering through steel rimmed spectacles at the world, Joe, Tad and Burt, had the reputation of being bad-men, killers with no regard for human life. A sullen wolf-pack full of hate, with but one redeeming quality, their loyalty to each other. Cut one Cousins and the whole stinking brood bled. Now one of their kin had died at the hands of the people of Tennyson, or a section of the population. The rest of the clan would not rest easy, when they heard, until they shed blood, killed whoever shot down Breck and all who might have been near when it happened.

  “You mean that there’s Breck Cousins,” gasped the teller, having returned in time to hear the outlaw’s words.

  “The late and not lamented,” replied Madam Bulldog.

  Behind her the doctor glared at Tune Counter as he tried to force himself to his feet.

  “Lie down again, Tune!” he spat. “You’ll kill yourself afore I get a chance to do it.”
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  “What about the other man?” Tune replied.

  “He got clear, carrying lead,” growled the doctor. “Now lie easy, blast you, and let me fix those wounds.”

  Tune shook his head weakly, still trying to rise. He had his duty to the town, to the badge he wore. Sooner or later, depending on if the wounded man lived or died, word would reach the Cousins clan, the escaped outlaw would bear the word; or the prairie telegraph carry it. Then the Cousins bunch would be riding, hunting the man who killed Breck. That it had been Madam Bulldog not a man who shot him, that she shot in defense of another man’s life, would mean nothing to the family.

  They had killed women before and done worse before killing. Tune knew he must get help, bring in a reliable man or men into town to stiffen the citizens and help guard Madam Bulldog until he could stand on his feet again.

  He thought of men who would willingly offer their help. Most of them were occupied on law enforcement work from which they could not easily be spared, although they would come willingly if he asked. He thought of another man, a member of his own family, a nephew.

  “Hold it, Doc!” he gasped, then beckoned Madam Bulldog to his side. “Happen you want to stay alive. Send a telegraph message—to Old Devil—Hardin. Tell him what happened here!”

  He had been three days in the saddle, riding north from the great OD Connected ranch in the Rio Hondo country, headed for the small town of Tennyson in Sand County. Soon it would be night again and he must spend it sage-henning out under the stars, something he never took kindly to doing no matter that he spent a good half of his life sleeping in such a manner. Around noon the next day he ought to reach Tennyson and discover the meaning of the telegraph message which brought him away from the urgent business of gathering a shipping herd for delivery to a fort that had trouble feeding hungry Kiowa tribesmen. It had been almost three years since he last saw his Uncle Tune and so he wondered what need the marshal of Tennyson might have for his services.

  Sitting his seventeen hand bloodbay stallion with the easy grace of a light rider despite his giant size, Mark Counter presented a picture Fred Remington or any other artist would not have hesitated to set on canvas.