Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Read online

  Fletcher nodded. “I appreciate that, Martha. I surely do.”

  “There’s a restaurant next to the Gem Theater called The Open Door,” Calamity said. “Meet me there tomorrow morning just before sunup, and I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.”

  “I’ll be there,” Fletcher said. He watched Calamity down another slug of rye. Then, as he built a smoke, his eyes on the makings, he said, “Heard about Bill. I took it hard.”

  Calamity hesitated only for a moment. “I loved him, Buck. I loved that man with every fiber of my being. To me, there was no other man in the entire world but Bill Hickok.”

  Fletcher put the cigarette between his bruised lips and thumbed a match into flame. “How does that feel?” he asked, lighting his cigarette. “I mean, how does it feel to love a man that much? Another human being that much?”

  Calamity smiled, and a glow touched her features, making her look for a single fleeting moment like the pretty young girl she once had been. “It’s part agony, part joy, Buck. But more than that, it’s a feeling that you always want to be with a man, that you never want to be apart from him. When you boil it right down, that’s what love is, I guess. It’s just never wanting to be separated from a person for even a single day or a minute or a second.”

  Calamity poured herself another drink, but she left it untouched on the table. “We were married, you know,” she said. “Bill wrote it down on the flyleaf of a Bible that we was hitched.”

  Fletcher nodded. “I heard that story. Couldn’t quite believe it though. I didn’t think Bill was the marrying kind.”

  The woman laughed. It wasn’t the soft laugh of a woman, but the harsh roar of the mule skinner. “No wonder you couldn’t believe it, Buck. It was a big joke! Bill made the whole thing up as a prank.”

  Calamity picked up her glass and drank the rye, then refilled it again.

  “You know how Bill was with his practical jokes. He looked around and chose the most unlikely woman he could find to be his make-believe bride, and that woman was me. Bill figgered it was a real good flimflam. He was so fastidious, remember? He took a bath every day and never wore the same shirt two days in a row. And me? Well, I know what I am. I’m ugly and dirty, and sometimes when I’ve been on a bender, I smell bad.”

  “Martha,” Fletcher said, his voice soft. “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do,” Calamity said. “Now Bill is dead, I want to set the record straight.” She drained her glass and shuddered. “Well, he marked that Bible, then put it about that he’d married Calamity Jane, and everybody laughed. And me, when people called me Mrs. Hickok, I laughed louder than all the rest.”

  Calamity tipped the bottle and filled her glass again. When she put the whiskey to her lips, her hand was unsteady. She drank the raw, amber rye and set the glass back on the table.

  “But Bill hurt me, Buck. He hurt me awful bad. He hurt me right here”—she placed a hand over her heart between her slack breasts—“and it felt like he’d driven a knife into me. I loved him more than anything else in the world, and all he did was make a joke of it.”

  Fletcher placed his hand over Calamity’s. Unlike Judith Tyrone’s soft skin, the back of her hand felt rough, like old, dry saddle leather.

  “Martha,” he said softly, “I don’t know what to say. I just can’t find the words.”

  Calamity shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything, Buck. Now Bill is in the grave, and what’s done is done. It don’t matter no more.”

  “For what it’s worth, Martha, I knew Bill Hickok well, and I think he probably never realized how badly he could hurt you. It was a dumb joke, and if he’d thought it through, it would never have happened.”

  “Maybe,” Calamity said. “Maybe not. But like I already said, Bill’s gone, and now it don’t matter a hill of beans.”

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” The woman took a few steps toward the saloon door, then stopped. “Buck,” she said. “Bill writing a lie in the Bible like that: It had to be bad luck, didn’t it?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I don’t know, Martha. I guess maybe I’d have to study on it some and maybe talk to a preacher.”

  Calamity shrugged. “You don’t have to, Buck. A man takes a pen and writes a lie in the Good Book, he’s opening himself up to all kinds of bad trouble. That’s what I think, an’ that’s what I know.”

  Calamity waved a hand in farewell and walked out of the saloon. Buford’s eyes followed her with a look of burning contempt.

  Fletcher drained his beer and stepped up to the bar.

  “You know, Buford,” he said, “you may call yourself the new Wild Bill, but Hickok was something you’ll never be.”

  “What’s that?” Buford asked belligerently, his eyes blazing.

  “A gentleman,” Fletcher said.

  He didn’t wait for a reply, but turned on his heel and walked out of the saloon.

  When he’d walked a distance along the boardwalk, he glanced back and saw Buford standing outside the saloon looking after him.

  The man’s face was black with anger, and in his eyes was a naked desire to kill.

  Chapter 12

  Fletcher, the jinglebobs on his spurs chiming, made his way along the boardwalk and stepped into the Saracen’s Head Hotel, a two-story, false-fronted building made of green lumber held together with a lick of paint and the cockeyed optimism of its owner.

  He got a room on the second floor with a window overlooking the street. If Savannah was in Deadwood, this was an excellent vantage point to watch for her.

  Fletcher brought a chair to the window and sat. He rolled himself a smoke and scanned the street. Below, heavily loaded wagons pulled by straining mules creaked and groaned through the mud, and horsemen picked their way through the traffic. Small knots of women gathered outside the general stores, taking the opportunity to talk with other members of their sex, no doubt discussing matters of domestic importance from babies to weddings to the latest styles in frilly bonnets all the way from Denver and New York.

  But Savannah was not among them.

  Fletcher was still there, patient as a cat on a window-sill, as the short day shaded into evening and oil lamps outside the saloons were lit, casting flickering orange circles on the boardwalk.

  The tinny music of pianos reached him through the thin walls of his room, and thirsty, belted miners were already crowding into the saloons and gambling dens. Fletcher had seen no sign of Savannah. If she was in Deadwood, she was staying indoors.

  His growling stomach suddenly reminded Fletcher how hungry he was. He rose, stretched and quickly made his way downstairs and out into the bustle of the street.

  He had agreed to meet Calamity tomorrow morning at a restaurant called The Open Door, and this was as good a time as any to find the place.

  A bearded miner, already half-drunk, directed him to the restaurant, which, to Fletcher’s chagrin, lay clear on the other side of the street.

  At intervals along both boardwalks, husky youngsters who called themselves ferrymen hustled for business, loudly advertising that they would carry anyone across the deep mud for two bits. But it was mostly women, careful of their long dresses, who took advantage of their services.

  Fletcher decided being carried was an undignified way for a man to travel. Unbuckling his spurs, he stepped into the street.

  By the time he hopped onto the boardwalk on the other side, his boots were covered in mud. He stomped the worst of it off before he walked into The Open Door, but since just about everyone in Deadwood had mud to their knees, the grimy trail he left behind him went unnoticed.

  The restaurant’s dozen tables were occupied by miners, drummers and a few women. A big miner with a red beard and hair, a broad-bladed Bowie knife in his belt, grinned and waved a friendly hand, directing Fletcher to an empty chair beside him and his two companions.

  Fletcher ordered and was soon eating. The food was typical frontier fare, steak, onions and potatoes, but it was
well-cooked. He spent a pleasant hour talking with the miners about the subject dearest to their hearts—gold and where it was and how to find it.

  Afterward he recrossed the street and returned to his hotel. Within minutes he was in bed, sleeping soundly.

  Just before sunup, Fletcher rose and dressed, strapping on his guns. He splashed ice cold water over his face, then ran a comb through his thick black hair. He rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin but decided shaving could wait. He walked downstairs and into the street. Even this early in the morning, Deadwood was buzzing.

  The hard rock miners, most of them badly hung over, were crowding the boardwalks, getting ready for another day at the diggings, and heavy freight wagons again jammed the muddy street, the teamsters yelling, “Ho there, make way!” or cussing their big, recalcitrant Missouri mules.

  Fletcher crossed the street again and walked into The Open Door. The restaurant was jammed with people, mostly miners, but several women sat with men in broadcloth suits, bankers by the look of them, and there were a couple of ink-stained newspapermen, weary after putting to bed the latest edition of the widely read Black Hills Pioneer.

  Sam Hannon, the big, redheaded miner, was there and gave Fletcher a friendly wave, but this time there was no room at his table.

  As he stood inside the door, a table in a corner cleared as four miners rose and left. Fletcher walked over and sat down, his back to the wall.

  There was no sign yet of Calamity, so he asked for coffee and told the waiter he’d order later.

  He was drinking coffee and smoking his first cigarette of the day when Calamity came in, looking even worse than she had the day before.

  The woman was badly hung over, that much was obvious by the way her trembling fingers kept straying to her forehead and how she winced when someone loudly clattered plates in the kitchen.

  As she took a seat beside him, Fletcher poured Calamity coffee and waited. She’d talk when she was ready.

  It took a few minutes.

  Finally, Calamity drained her cup and said slowly, spacing out the words, “Your gal isn’t in Deadwood.”

  “You sure, Martha?” Fletcher asked.

  Calamity shook her head, then regretted it instantly. She groaned and rubbed her forehead. “There’s no one called Savannah Jones working the line. All the girls in town have been here for weeks. There are no new faces. No one who even looks like your missing gal. I don’t think she’s in Deadwood.”

  Fletcher felt vague disappointment mixed with relief. As he’d suspected, Savannah was no soiled dove. But if she wasn’t in Deadwood, where was she? Could she be—he shuddered at the thought—already dead?

  “I’m sorry, Buck,” Calamity was saying, the words coming after a hard struggle. “I just wish I could have been more help.”

  Fletcher smiled. “You did your best, Martha, and you discovered that Savannah isn’t in Deadwood. I thank you for that.”

  The waiter stepped to the table, and Fletcher ordered steak and eggs. Calamity, hurting, asked for a raw egg in a glass of brandy, and if that wasn’t available, would he please do her the kindness of just shooting her.

  “Buck,” she whispered after the grinning waiter had gone, “a miner struck it rich yesterday, and it was Mumm’s all round at the Montana. Drinking champagne seemed like a good idea last night, but it sure as hell don’t seem like such a hot one this morning.”

  Fletcher smiled and shook his head at her. “It never does.”

  The restaurant door slammed open with a loud bang, and William Buford stepped belligerently inside. He had lost none of his arrogance; when he caught sight of Fletcher and Calamity, his mouth twisted into a gratified sneer.

  The restaurant had been noisy, but now the talk slowly faded away into an expectant, uncomfortable silence, all eyes on the swaggering gunman. Buford, enjoying his moment, looked around, his cold eyes resting for a second or two on the newspapermen and then the influential bankers and their wives.

  Fletcher recognized that the gunman was playing to the crowd, especially the Black Hills Pioneer men, who would eagerly record whatever happened.

  Gun reputations were made in the newspaper columns, and, understanding that very well, William Buford, the new Wild Bill, was primed to kill a man for breakfast and earn a front-page story on how he’d added an eighth cross to the butt of his Colt.

  Buck Fletcher knew he was targeted to be that man.

  It took Buford a few moments to work out his next move. When he finally thought it through, a spiteful smile touched his mouth.

  “You, yellowbelly,” Buford snapped, jabbing a thick finger at Fletcher. “You’re in my chair. Get the hell out of it.”

  The restaurant was suddenly so quiet that Fletcher could smell the stunned silence like an unpleasant odor.

  He sat very still, but Calamity turned and said angrily, “Go away, Buford, and leave us the hell alone.”

  The man’s face flushed. “Shut your mouth, you stinking tramp!” He jabbed a finger at Fletcher again, his right hand brushing aside his frock coat to clear his gun. “You, I’ve told you once. I won’t repeat myself.”

  It had come.

  Fletcher rose slowly to his feet. Buford, thinking he was vacating the chair for him, glanced over his shoulder at the expectant newspapermen, a triumphant grin on his face.

  But the grin slipped a little as Fletcher strode purposefully toward him, his blue eyes now an icy, gunmetal gray.

  When Fletcher stopped, just a single pace separated him from Buford.

  “Mister,” Fletcher said, “you’ve been pushing me mighty hard, and I think it’s high time I read to you from the book. Up until now, you’ve stacked up pretty good against old timers and boys. Let’s see how you do against a grown man.”

  In that moment of awful clarity, as Fletcher’s eyes bored into his, Buford knew he’d made a terrible mistake. He’d picked on this man because he was a stranger who seemed unwilling, even afraid, to fight. But instead of the yellowbelly he’d expected, he realized with a sickening certainty that he now had a wild cougar by the tail. This man’s eyes were the coldest he’d ever seen, and there was no give in them. And not even a trace of fear. It came to him then that the guns this man wore had been used often and weren’t for show.

  He’d made the wrong move. Now he had it to do, and everyone in The Open Door knew it.

  Buford tried to save the situation by bluster, keenly aware that every eye in the restaurant was on him.

  “When you talk to me, you call me Wild Bill,” he said. The words clogged in his throat, and he knew with rising panic that his voice had sounded weak and uncertain, something that would be noted and commented on by the newspapermen.

  To save himself, Buford had to do something dramatic and quick. He did it now. He went for his gun.

  On a good day, William Buford was fast, very fast. And this was one of his better days.

  When men talked of it later, they said he was so good, he was maybe half as quick as Buck Fletcher. “And mister,” they’d say, eyes wide, “that’s saying something!”

  As Buford drew, Fletcher’s gun flashed from the leather so fast that his hand blurred. But instead of shooting the gunman, Fletcher slammed the barrel of his Colt hard—but not too hard—against the side of the man’s head.

  Buford staggered and took a single step backward, blood pouring from the deep cut that Fletcher’s gun barrel had opened on his head.

  Buford’s gun was still coming up, but Fletcher chopped the barrel of his Colt down violently on the man’s wrist. Everyone in the restaurant heard the sharp crack of breaking bone.

  The longhaired gunman screamed, and his Colt dropped to the floor from suddenly nerveless fingers. Fletcher grabbed him by the front of his fancy shirt and backhanded him viciously across the mouth, pulping Buford’s lips against his teeth.

  Fletcher kicked the Colt among the tables. “Get rid of that,” he said to no one in particular.

  Buford tried weakly to swing a left, but Fletcher e
asily brushed it aside and drove his fist hard into the man’s nose, smashing it flat against his face.

  Blood streaming from his shattered nose and mouth, Buford sank, moaning softly, to the floor. Fletcher, holding on to the collar of Buford’s coat, stepped behind him and grabbed a hank of his long hair.

  “Sam,” he said to the red-bearded miner, a terrible, relentless rage in him, “give me your knife!”

  “Hell, Buck, are you going to scalp him?”

  “Give me your knife,” Fletcher said again, the tone of his voice flat and hard, brooking no argument.

  Sam Hannon, in common with the other miners, hated Buford’s guts for killing one of their own, a harmless old man at that, so he pulled the knife and passed it hilt-first to Fletcher.

  Then he sat back, grinning, prepared to enjoy whatever was going to happen next.

  Fletcher took the hank of Buford’s hair and slashed at it with the sharp blade of the Bowie. “You cheap, no-good tinhorn,” he said as he tossed a thick handful of hair on the floor and grabbed for more. “Bill Hickok would have chewed you up and spit you but, and a dozen others just like you.”

  More hair, then more, spilled on the floor. Blood ran down Buford’s scalp where the keen edge of the knife had bitten deep, and still the raging anger in Fletcher was a white-hot living thing that would not let him go.

  The gunman moaned. Then, when all that remained of his flowing locks were a few long strands falling here and there from his gory, shaven scalp, Fletcher picked Buford up and slammed him bodily through the restaurant door.

  The entire crowd spilled onto the boardwalk as Fletcher grabbed Buford and heaved the gunman into the deep, oozing mud of the street. Buford landed face down in the mud, tried to rise, then fell on his back.

  After several tries, Buford finally managed to get to his feet, dripping black, odorous muck from head to toe. He looked up at the grinning crowd on the boardwalk like a strange primordial creature rising from a swamp.