Bounty on a Baron

Chapter Twenty

The Broadus House wasn’t even half full, and there was a lone poker game going on in one corner. There was one girl working, and although she was as pretty—or prettier—than the ones across the street, her dress was not as fancy. It was low-cut, but it was plain.

Decker went to the bar, and the bartender smiled, remembering him.

“Beer?” he asked.

“Whiskey first, then a beer.”

The bartender poured him a shot.

“Been across the street?”

“Yep.”

“Like it?”

Decker made a face and said, “It’s too damn noisy.”

“Got some good-looking women over there, though, don’t they?”

Decker glanced at the woman at the end of the bar, who looked back.

“You don’t seem to be doing so bad here,” he said.

“Ah, that’s Martha. They’ve tried to hire her at the Dice Box, but she’s loyal.”

“Really?”

“She doesn’t like the owners. They treat the women who work for them like slaves.”

“And you don’t?”

“I treat a woman like a woman,” the bartender said. He saw the look on Decker’s face and said, “Don’t get me wrong. That ain’t what I mean. I don’t tell Martha she’s got to get ten guys a night into her room or anything like that. She wants to take a guy upstairs, that’s her business. All I want her for down here is to have guys buy her drinks.”

“Sounds like a nice arrangement. What does she drink?”

“Anything.”

“Give her what she wants, on me,” Decker said.

“Sure.”

Decker eyed Martha, who was young and blonde…and alive, just like he was—only he was lucky to be alive.

The bartender poured Martha a shot of whiskey. She raised the glass to Decker in thanks. Decker raised his in return, downed it, then called for his beer.

He took the beer over to the poker game and watched for a while. It was low stakes and slow—paced, and he had no desire to sit in.

“See that feller sitting on the porch at Jo’s today?” one of them asked.

“Oh, yeah. Imagine living off a woman like that, jest sitting around her house while she works,” another man said.

“What about the time he spends away?” someone asked. “Where do you suppose he goes?”

“Who knows?”

“Maybe he’s got hisself a woman in another town,” one of them said. “You know, like living two lives?”

Decker was listening intently.

“Unfriendly cuss, that one. You’d think since he’s been in and out of this town nigh onto a year he’d say hello or something. He ever talk to you boys?”

“He’s been in the store once or twice,” one of them said. “Talks real slow and careful, like. Can’t figure it out. Maybe he’s simple-minded.”

The others laughed at the prospect, although one of them said it was unlikely that a pretty woman like Josephine would take up with a simpleton.

Suddenly they looked up at Decker, as if just real izing that he was watching.

“You wanna play, mister? We got an empty seat.”

Decker turned and looked at Martha, who was standing at the bar. She smiled invitingly at him.

“Maybe just a little while,” he said, taking the seat.

Or at least until he found out where this Josephine lived.