Ironhorse

53

“You’re cinched, swing up!” Virgil said.

“Where are the others?” I said as I swung up on the back of the roan.

“Drunk,” Virgil said. “Commingling with a wild bunch of whores, but if they heard the shots, they’re getting their wits about ’em... this way.”

Virgil and I took off south at a clip. Virgil rode fast, pulling one horse, and I was behind him, pulling the other. We quickly skirted around and came up on the backside of the west end of town. Virgil slowed and pulled up short behind an outbuilding and dismounted. He pointed to the backside of a white house.

“That house there,” Virgil said. “They’re in the front parlor, don’t appear they heard nothing.”

I dismounted. We tied the horses behind the outbuilding and moved closer on foot.

“I came to the end of the street,” Virgil said. “Heard music. I stayed in the dark, got up on the porch and looked inside. They were dancing, singing. One of the women was sawing on a fiddle, another beating a piano. The windows were fogged over. Men singing, but all I could see was the whores doing the music and dancing about naked.”

“Just like we figured,” I said.

“Is,” Virgil said. “Didn’t see men, though. Then I got a glimpse of the back of a man sitting on a sofa between two whores. He had a white bandage wrapped around his head.”

“Vince.”

“Damn straight Vince; not anybody else wrapped up like that.”

“You didn’t see any others?”

Virgil shook his head.

“Just Vince, but I heard the others. They are in there,” Virgil said. “I got off the porch, walked to the back of the building, but I did not see the horses. I thought, like we talked about, they must have hobbled, or picketed somewhere. Then I heard a horse flapping his lips. I followed the sound, walked around that water shed there, and on the backside found the horses. They were saddled, loose cinches, and had their bridles hanging over their saddles.”

“You figured you’d just get them.”

“I did. I could hardly hear the music from there, but they were still carrying on. I figured since it was dark and them boys being occupied with the whores, I’d move off with the horses.”

A big wagon pulled by six mules passed behind us. We watched until it moved on past us.

“I gathered up the horses,” Virgil said, “walked off, back that way. I was halfway down the alley, headed toward the street, but was interrupted by the bandito in his undergarments with his quick-draw rig strapped on his hip.”

“He followed you?”

“No. He was there in the alley, retching up a gullet of turned whiskey. He looked up as I was walking by, wiping his mouth. He looked at the horses. It took him a moment to figure out one of the horses was a horse he’d previously been riding. He stepped back, quick-like, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was taking my horse, taking my deputy’s horse, too, and while I was at it, taking his horse and one other to boot. He told me if I took another step he’d have to shoot me. I took another step. He pulled, and I shot him in the collarbone. He took off like a pheasant. I was between him and the whores’ place, so he went through the alley there toward where you were. I would have shot him again, but I had my hands full with the horses. He shot two wild shots at me as he was on the run down the alley. A moment or two later, you shot him.”

We moved up near the clothesline behind the whorehouse, where the horses had been picketed. We found a secure place and kept watch on the backside of the whorehouse.

“Don’t see anybody,” I said.

“Front parlor is where they are.”

“Maybe they’re putting the pieces together,” I said. “Just moving slow.”

“Might be. The undergarment fellow was firmly liquored up. No doubt they’re all a flush lot.”

“They can’t see where the horses were picketed from where they are in the house there,” I said.

“No, they can’t.”

“Dumb of them.”

“It was,” Virgil said.

“Pussy will do that to a man.”

“It will.”

“Make a man do dumb things.”

“It does.”

“Like what they have done here tonight.”

“Yep,” Virgil said.

“Mix it with sour mash and whatever smidgen of smarts they had left, slips sideways, right out of the saddle.”

“Lookie here?” Virgil pointed.

A door opened from the front parlor. There was now light spilling into the back room. We could hear the music from the parlor and could see someone moving inside.

“Sounds like they’re still at it,” I said.

“Does.”

“They didn’t hear the shots.”

“Don’t seem so,” Virgil said.

“They got no idea.”

“Nope.”

“Unless it’s a trap.”

Virgil shook his head.

“No,” Virgil said. “They got no seesaw for that.”

The back door opened.

“Here we go,” Virgil said.

A strong-looking, smaller man stepped out onto the porch.