The woman who greeted Tom Mulvehill inside the door of the dancehall wore blowzy finery in gaudy hues, and a face made up to match. Everything about her said whore, except her voice, which said, “Care for a dance?”
“No,” said Tom, barely glancing her way. He craned his neck, searching among the dancing couples for Cash Joyner, scowling when he did not catch sight of the man at once. The din of stomping feet and strident music, and the stuffy heat of the room, did not improve his temper. Then, among the throng he spied Cash, energetically whirling a pretty young woman around the floor.
Before he could cross to Cash, the whore sidled up beside him and slipped her arm beneath his. “Then what did you have in mind, mister?” she purred into his ear.
He flinched away, finally aware of her, and yanked his arm free. “I didn’t come to dance, nor screw neither. Piss off!” He waded into the press of dancers, leaving behind him the outraged shrieks of the whore and setting a course to intercept Cash and his tart.
Cash had seen him coming, thanks to the shrill imprecations of the rejected whore, and as Tom approached he grinned and shouted, “I paid for this dance, Tom! No fair cutting in!” Then he spun away for another circuit of the dance floor, his partner’s skirts billowing out from her legs. Tom gritted his teeth and braced himself against the buffeting of the other dancers in the hall, waiting for Cash to come around again. When he did, Tom caught hold of his elbow and dragged him to a halt by main force.
“All right, Tom, if it means that much to you,” the younger man said. A huge smile wreathed Cash’s face, though he puffed mightily from his exertions. “This here is Irene, and I’d appreciate her return when you’re through.” He waved a magnanimous hand in the direction of his partner, a petite young thing whose dark hair had flown loose from its ribbons. Irene gave no sign of caring who her partner was, and when Tom pulled Cash toward the perimeter of the room she soon found another man to sweep her back into the currents of the dance.
Cash resisted. “What the hell are you doing? I paid a quarter to dance with that girl.”
“Then you got overcharged,” Tom said. “Let me have ten dollars.”
“I ain’t got ten dollars.”
Tom stared at him. “You mean to say you danced away twenty dollars?”
“Of course not. I had a few drinks and took a couple of dancing lessons first.”
“Dancing lessons?”
“That’s right.” Cash’s grin got wider, if that were possible. “Private lessons, if you take my meaning. Oh, and you’ll never believe…”
Tom interrupted. “All right, how much do you have left?”
“Wait a minute, what happened to your money? You lose it all to Jonas already?” The black look on Tom’s face answered his question well enough. “Then forget it; quit while you’re ahead. I’ve got a few dollars left. Let me buy you a drink. And wait till I tell you…”
“I don’t want a drink, I want to get back to that game.” Impatience and agitation rolled off him in waves, preventing him from holding still for more than a moment or two. He’d been gone from the poker table maybe fifteen minutes. “Any time now Jonas might decide to call it a night.”
“Oh yeah? You think if you lose some more, Jonas will hand over the strongbox? That’ll save time.”
“Don’t get smart with me. Just give me what you’ve got, and I’ll make it last.”
“No sir. You’re just chasing your losses now. What has Jonas told you, anyway, that’s worth forty dollars?”
“Everything. Who’s driving, the cargo, how many guards. Only thing he hasn’t told me is when the coach is coming, but I can get it from him if I have a stake. Half what you got, what do you say?”
Cash shook his head. “You’re welcome to a drink. That’s all.” He turned to the bar and gestured to catch the barman’s eye. Tom slouched with his back to the bar, eyes roving back and forth as though searching each dancer and each woman for money he might be able to shake loose. Then his gaze lit on a fellow he recognized and he straightened, an idea forming in his head. Cash tried to hand him a shot of whiskey, but Tom ignored it, instead pointing out the man on the dance floor.
“See that guy?” he said. Cash admitted that he did. “Wait for me out the side door of this place. When I come out with him, just follow my lead.”
“Oh, lord,” Cash said. He tossed off one of the shots of whiskey and set the glass on the bar. “Are we going to make him play cards at gunpoint?”
“Just go.”
Cash drank down the other shot and made his way toward the door. Tom waited for him to leave, then ventured back into the turmoil of the dance, threading his way toward the fellow he recognized as the whiskey drummer who had been run out of Owens and Price. The man was not dancing so much as embracing a woman, both hands squeezing her hindquarters through her dress and his face buried in the nape of her neck. The woman, a brunette taller and older than Cash’s partner, held her head cocked away from his, an expression of profound boredom on her face.
When he got close enough to be heard over the brabble, Tom called, “Hey, mister!” The drummer’s face came up from its explorations, and Tom saw the confusion in his eyes when he realized he was being hailed by someone he didn’t know.
“What do you want?”
Tom tried to look sympathetic and said, “Didn’t I hear the sheriff tell you to stay in the hotel tonight?”
“So what if he did?”
Tom let him have his anger and belligerence for a moment, then dashed it away. “It’s no skin off my nose, but he’s coming this way. I expect he won’t be too happy to find you here.” The panicked drummer released the dancehall girl so abruptly that she staggered a little, then flounced away with a grateful smile for Tom.
“I only came in here for a dance and a drink,” the drummer said.
“That won’t cut no ice with the sheriff. Come on, there’s a side door over here.”
He steered the man by the elbow, casting glances over his shoulder at the front doorway. The drummer, caught up in his urgency, yanked open the side door and fled through it with Tom close on his heels. The light from the doorway cut a dim rectangle into the darkness outside, in which Cash Joyner’s form was visible, lounging against the wall of the dancehall. He pushed himself upright as Tom slammed the door behind them, plunging the alley back into shadows and muting the noises within.
“This way,” Tom said, and led the drummer farther down the alley, in among the sheds and privies. Cash followed, and the salesman hurried to stay close to Tom, nervously looking behind him. So distracted was he that he noticed too late when Tom set his feet in the dirt and swung around in a wide, low arc, putting all his weight and muscle behind the fist that he then drove deep into the pit of the drummer’s gut.
All the wind whooshed out of the man’s lungs in one explosive grunt, and he doubled himself over Tom’s arm, unable to hold himself upright. Tom took hold of his suit coat and let him fall slowly over on his side, struggling to take a breath. Keeping his head down near the drummer’s ear, Tom said, “Sheriff told you to stay in the hotel, didn’t he, you son of a bitch?”
The man didn’t answer, his belly still too clenched to allow him to speak. Tom looked at Cash, who kept watch up and down the alley for passers-by. Taking hold of the man by his hair, Tom forced his head around to stare directly into his eyes, streaming with tears of pain and helplessness. “Answer me,” he said. “Sheriff said to stay in the hotel.”
The drummer nodded, gasping, “Uh-huh,” the only sounds he could utter.
“But you didn’t listen, did you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, friend, here in Malad City
“Fuh.”
“I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Fuh-hine,” the drummer said, the words catching in his throat as though he were choking on them.
“Fine?” Tom shot Cash a wicked smile. “You mean, fine, we can kick the shit out of you, or fine, we can jail you, or what?”
“Uh-uh! Fuh-fine! Pay!”
“That’s right, you have to pay for your mistake,” Tom said, enjoying himself. Then Cash smacked him on the shoulder with the back of a hand. When Tom scowled at him, Cash returned it and made a hurry-up gesture.
“All right, my deputy agrees; you have been sentenced to pay a fine of…” Tom felt around inside the drummer’s now dust-smirched coat and withdrew a leather billfold. He leafed through the wad of banknotes it held, keeping all but a pair of ten-spots. “…two hundred and forty dollars, and we’ll let you off with time served.” He bent down and tapped the man’s chest with the nearly-empty billfold.
“When you’ve caught your wind, get back to the hotel and stay there. In the morning, see to it you’re on the first stage out of town, understand?” Tom said. The drummer nodded, his breath beginning to come easier now.
“Good,” Tom said, and kicked him in the belly. The drummer curled up again, retching. “And next time, remember what happens when you don’t listen to the sheriff, you hear?” He strode away and Cash followed, the moans of the salesman soon swallowed up by the darkness.
“What the hell was that about?” Cash said when they had put the dancehall a block behind them. “I thought we planned to rob stagecoaches, not roll drunks.”
Tom offered him a sheaf of bills. “You want any of this?”
Cash took the money and stuffed it into his pocket without counting it, tagging along as Tom headed back toward Owens and Price, and presumably toward Jonas and the poker game.
“If you needed money so bad, why didn’t you just get it from Dove Ed?” Cash said.
“He only had but forty dollars,” Tom said, “And besides, he’s off somewhere with that piece from the saloon.”
“No he ain’t. He’s back there,” Cash said, and jerked his head behind them, in the general direction of Nell’s.
Tom stopped short and gaped at Cash.
“I been trying to tell you. He came in just a minute before you did.”
“I didn’t see him.”
Cash sniggered. “I don’t think he was there to dance, Tom.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Right hand to God. He walked in and looked around like a child picking out penny candy at the general store. Before I know it he was headed up to the rooms with a woman in a blue dress.”
“Is that a fact.”
“Hell, Tom, if you’d waited a couple of minutes he probably would have finished. You know how young boys do the first time.”
Tom pushed his hat back on his head and smiled in wonder. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “He had to learn sometime, I guess.”
“They grow up so fast, don’t they?”
They laughed, and Tom said, “Come on, let’s get back to Owens and Price. I aim to get my money back from Jonas.”
“You mean the news about the stage, right?”
“Right.”
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