The Blood Mesa

CHAPTER TWO

We had a regular hideout in the mountains, an old stone house that had probably been built by some rancher fifty or sixty years earlier. Something had happened to make him abandon it, though, and it had been deserted for a long time. The roof had fallen in, but the walls were still standing.

And thick walls they were too, which was what had attracted Roy to the place. The old house was the closest thing to a fort you could find in the mountains, and if ever a posse tracked us there, they'd have a tough time trying to root us out as long as our food and water and cartridges lasted.

Not a one of us thought much about dying in those days, unless it was Roy and Big Boy, because they were older. Jace and Aaron and me, we were young bucks and likely thought we would live forever, if we thought about it at all. But there was always a chance our luck would run out and we'd wind up on the wrong end of a bullet. It was just part of the game.

A couple of days after robbing the bank in Flat Rock, we reached the hideout, riding single file through the twisting, sheer-walled slash in the rock that was the only way in and out of the high mountain valley where the old stone house was located. This was our Hole in the Wall, and while it was never as famous as the one the Wild Bunch used, we were all proud of it.

We didn't stay long, though. Everybody was anxious to get to Harrigan's. We hadn't kept the Gundersons in suspense; it would have been downright cruel not to tell those Swedish boys about all the good things they had to look forward to.

Harrigan was a failed rancher too, but unlike the fella who had built our hideout, he had done something to salvage the situation. He'd turned his place into a whorehouse.

We left the hideout after stashing a little of the loot there, and spent a day riding down out of the mountains into a greener, more gentle land. Harrigan's ranch house sat on top of a small hill surrounded by pines. It was a sprawling, two-story place built of logs. To one side was a big, open-fronted barn where visitors could leave their mounts if they came in on horseback. Sometimes Model A's were parked there too, because there was a road leading south from Harrigan's that connected up with the highway between Elko and Reno, and Harrigan regularly got folks coming up there from the cities too. His whores were young and pretty and his whiskey wasn't watered-down and his poker games were honest, and what more could you ask for in those days?

I'd only been there once, but that had been enough to make me look forward to another visit. I'd gone upstairs with a redhead named Becky, and she'd managed to seem totally innocent while showing me some of the dangedest tricks you ever did see. I wanted to spend some more time with her. I sure hoped she was still working there.

A few cars were parked in the open area in front of the barn when we rode up. A Mex who worked for Harrigan came out of the barn and took our horses, promising to look after them special-like. Being from Texas, I spoke a little of his lingo, and I said, "Muchas gracias,'' and flipped him a silver dollar.

Murph leaned his head toward the cars as we walked past them and said to Roy, "You reckon any of the folks who came up here in those are lookin' for us?"

"Not very likely. It's been almost a week since we were in Flat Rock," Roy said. "Besides, Harrigan's got a deal with the law. They don't come up here."

That was another good thing about the place. Harrigan greased enough palms so that the authorities left him alone. Of course, he could afford to, because he knew his customers weren't the sort to balk at the high prices he charged for everything he had to offer.

He met us at the door, a big man bald as a cue ball. I never saw him when he didn't have a suit and tie on, and he didn't look anything like a rancher. I doubt if the way he looked had anything to do with the fact that he had been a piss-poor cattleman, but maybe it had. All I knew was that he was damned good at running a whorehouse.

"Hello, boys," he said as he pumped Roy's hand. He shook with each of us as we trooped into the big, high-ceilinged main room. It was furnished mighty fancy, with soft rugs on the floor and heavy furniture scattered around. Some old rifles were hung on the walls, along with a couple of moose heads, and a huge stone fireplace took up nearly one whole wall. A long mahogany bar sat on the other side of the room. In between were tables for the games of chance and the drinking. Stairs in the back of the room led up to the second floor, where the girls who were circulating through the room did their real work.

Not counting us, I could see twelve men in the room: Harrigan, the bartender working behind the bar, and ten men sitting at the tables. Of those ten customers, six of them were drinking and laughing and talking with some of Harrigan's girls. The other four were all sitting together at one table, playing cards. Three of them were wearing range clothes, like us, and the fourth cardplayer sported a pinstriped suit and a derby hat.

Some of the whores were wearing silk dressing gowns, while the others had lacy getups that left them more bare than not. My eyes went right away to one of them with plenty of reddish-orange hair and fair skin dotted with freckles. I could see a lot of that skin because she wasn't wearing anything except some frilly black step-ins and a band of black silk around her breasts. She saw me too, and let out a squeal as she jumped off the lap of the man who had been cuddling her and ran over to me. I just had time to see that the gent who'd been deserted didn't look too happy about the state of affairs, and then Becky was grabbing onto me and practically jumping up into my arms like a puppy. She damned near knocked me over, but I caught myself as she wrapped her legs around my hips and just sort of hung there as she kissed me.

Well, with my arms full of a pretty, nearly naked, redheaded whore, I didn't think much about anything else for a few seconds, but then I heard Roy say, "I'd just let it go if I was you, mister." The sound of his voice told me plain as day that there might be trouble.

I'd closed my eyes while I was kissing Becky, but I opened them now and turned a little so that I could see. The man she'd been with was standing up and glaring at me and her. His hands were balled into fists, and his shoulders were set for a fight. Roy stood a few feet away from him, his left hand raised slightly. The gent looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to take a swing at Roy or come after me and Becky first.

Then, before anybody could do anything, the cardplayer wearing the town suit spoke up and said, "If you boys are going to fight over that young lady, why don't you do it outside? We're playing poker here, and the ladies in my hand are demanding even more attention than the one in that young cowboy's arms."

Now, I don't believe for a minute he was actually holding any queens in his hand. I think he just said that to throw off the other fellas in the game. Or maybe he did, I don't know. But it sort of broke the tension anyway. The man Becky had deserted so sudden-like said, "Hell, a whore's a whore. There's always another of 'em."

That wasn't really fair to Becky, and I wouldn't have blamed her a bit if she'd taken offense at it, but she just giggled and rubbed herself against me some more, and I sort of lost interest in everything else again. Aaron told me later that Harrigan gave the gent a couple of free drinks and steered one of the other girls over to him, and that satisfied him just fine.

Roy and the rest of the gang went over to a big table in the corner, but I was already heading for the stairs, carrying Becky with me. Jace looked back over his shoulder at us and called, "Drew, are you comin' or not?" and that made everybody else hoot with laughter. I didn't bother answering.

I just took Becky upstairs to see if she'd learned any more tricks since the last time I'd been there.

Turned out she had, but I've always prided myself on at least trying to be a gentleman, so I won't go into that. I'll just say that I was a tired son of a buck when I came back downstairs a couple of hours later. Becky had told me she was going to take a little nap, but she made me promise before I left that I'd be back later.

Night had fallen while I was upstairs, and the big room was lit by the glow of several kerosene lamps. The air was smoky from the lamps and the cheroots clamped between the teeth of several of the customers, as well as Harrigan himself. Big Boy, Jace, and Aaron were sitting at the same table where they had been earlier. Big Boy had a blond whore sitting on his lap. She was small to start with, and cuddled up next to such a big fella like that, she looked even tinier. Aaron had two girls with him—no surprise there—one on each side. One was a redhead, but her curls were a darker shade than Becky's hair. The other was a Chinese girl, with long straight hair black as midnight flowing down her back. A girl was sitting next to Jace too, on a chair pulled up next to his, and she was a brunette with just a little paint on her face, which was unusual for a girl like that. Even Becky, who was young enough and pretty enough not to really need it, painted herself up. It was just the way of things.

The table was littered with glasses and empty whiskey bottles. As I came up, Big Boy waved a hand in greeting and said, "Pull up a chair. Drew."

I looked around. "Where's Roy?"

Big Boy nodded toward one of the other tables. "Over there."

I looked and saw that Roy had joined the same poker game that had been going on earlier. One of the players had dropped out, but the dude and the other two were still there. Roy had his hat shoved to the back of his head. A glass of whiskey sat at his elbow, but it didn't look like he had touched it. Roy wasn't much of one for drinking when he was playing cards. He liked to be clearheaded whenever he was doing anything important.

"What about Murph and the Gundersons?"

"Upstairs," Aaron said. "Those Swedes' eyes got so big when a couple of Wing's cousins got hold of them, I thought they were goin' to pop." He patted the bare thigh of the Chinese girl, who had to be Wing.

"Where's Becky?" asked the brunette sitting with Jace.

"Still upstairs," I told her. "She said she was going to take a nap."

That brought a laugh from the others. The little blonde on Big Boy's lap said, "Wore her out, did you. Drew?"

I grinned and said, "She's an enthusiastic girl."

Aaron reached for a bottle with a few inches of whiskey still in it and poured some of the hooch into a glass. He slid it over to me. "Here. Get your strength back."

I felt like I needed more than whiskey, but I knocked it back anyway, then said, "What about something to eat?"

"Harrigan had his cook fry us up some steaks earlier," Big Boy said. "Not all of us were so danged impatient that we didn't stop to eat first."

"Well, I'm about ready to go upstairs, Big Boy," said the blonde. "From what I hear from the other girls, you live up to your name."

Damned if he didn't blush a little when she said that.

Big Boy and Aaron scraped their chairs back and stood up, and Aaron solved the problem of deciding which girl to take with him by taking both of them. I just shook my head in wonderment as they all headed up the stairs.

Jace and the brunette were still sitting there at the table, though, and I realized then that Jace hadn't said a word since I'd come downstairs. His jaw was set tight, in fact. The brunette looked at him, then looked at me, then said, "My name is Cecilia, by the way." She stuck her hand out.

I shook it and said polite-like, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am. I'm Drew Matthews."

"I know who you are," Cecilia said. "You and your friends are the famous Tacker Gang."

I shrugged. I didn't know how famous we were, but I suppose a few people had heard of us. The newspapers had gotten hold of Roy's name somehow and tagged it on the whole bunch, since they didn't know our names.

"I've read about you," Cecilia went on.

"That's one thing about the newspapers," I told her. "You can't believe but about half of what you read in them. If those reporter fellas don't know what they're writin' about, they just make something up."

Now, I know that was maybe overstating things a mite, but I was young and I was talking to a whore, so I didn't really mean anything by it.

She talked to me for a few minutes more, mostly about nothing, but I wasn't really paying attention. I looked over at Jace and when Cecilia gave me a chance, I asked him, "Are you all right?"

"Sure," he said tightly. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, you haven't said nothin' since I came down, and you're still sittin' here—"

He didn't let me go any further. He reached over and grabbed Cecilia's hand and said, "Let's go."

"There's no hurry," she said to him. "Just whenever you're ready—"

He interrupted her too, pushing back his chair and standing up as he said, "I'm ready now."

Cecilia glanced at me, and this time it was her turn to shrug, and then she let Jace lead her over to the stairs and up to the second floor.

I caught Harrigan's eye and asked him if I could get a steak.

"With all the trimmin's?" he asked.

"Damn right."

We were rich, after all.

I ate the steak, along with a mess of potatoes and biscuits and gravy, washing it all down with beer instead of whiskey. Then I went over and watched the poker game for a while so that my food could set a spell before I went back upstairs to Becky. While I was doing that, Murph Skinner and the Gunderson boys came downstairs with their whores to fortify themselves with some more liquor before going back up for another bout.

Some cardplayers don't like it when anybody watches them, but others don't seem to mind. This appeared to be an easygoing bunch. The fella in the pin-striped suit was called Ford, and he was from Los Angeles, over in California. The other two men were ranchers, which was what I had pegged them for from the first. It didn't take me long to figure out that Roy and Ford were the best poker players in the game. They won the biggest pots, about half going to Roy and half to Ford. The ranchers settled for raking in some of the little ones.

I'm not much of a cardplayer myself. Give me some dominoes and a good game of Forty-Two. So it didn't take me long to get a little bored watching Roy and the others play. By that time, I was feeling a mite stronger, and I figured Becky had gotten enough sleep to last her a while. So I drank the last of the beer in my mug and headed upstairs again.

Becky was awake and waiting for me, and she said she had dreamed about us. She started showing me some of the things she'd been dreaming about. I allowed that those must have been pretty nice dreams, and she was showing me just how nice when the door of the room suddenly burst open and a stark naked, sobbing woman ran into the room.

I surely do hate it when that happens.