Blaze! Hell's Half Acre Read online

  She knew he had climaxed, too.

  "This was fun," she said. "How much did you pay for me?"

  "However much it was, I got a bargain," he said.

  "So did I. We can—"

  J.D. pressed his finger into his lips to silence her. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, warning her of someone out in the corridor. Quick, light footfalls passed their door. Kate pulled down her skirts and hurried to peer out while J.D. buttoned up. She opened the door a fraction of an inch.

  Success! Entering a room with Big-hearted Abby was youngster that had to be Zeke Morrisey from the description Deputy Davis had given. They had found half of the surviving gang—and the one likely to have taken all the loot from the bank robbery.

  Chapter Seven

  "Wait." Kate held her husband back. "Let them settle down. Then we can catch Morrisey."

  "You want to get him with his pants down? It didn't look that way to me." J.D. frowned as he considered what he'd just said. What was Zeke Morrisey doing in a whorehouse if he wasn't taking advantage of its primary product?

  He and Kate said at the same time, "The envelope!"

  "The other robber wrote a letter to Big-hearted Abby and Morrisey found out. Why would he come here if he has the gold from the bank robbery?" J.D. frowned even more. There was a simple way of answering all the questions. He pushed Kate out of the way. "Watch my back."

  "You mean that cute backside?" She laughed at his sour expression. "I should have found a way to bring along my six-shooter. We could gather them both up at the same time."

  "I can handle both of them."

  "You can certainly handle me."

  J.D. had to shake his head at that. He always felt she was just a little beyond his control, and that was what he loved about her. A quick check showed his six-gun was ready for action. With a swift move, he opened the door. Even faster, he closed the door. His breath came fast, and his heart raced.

  "What's wrong? What happened?"

  "Frank Bell. He's outside the door, and he's got his gun ready for action."

  The words hardly cleared J.D.'s lips when three quick shots echoed down the corridor. Knowing the element of surprise would fade if Three-fingers Frank had a chance to recover from breaking into the whore's room, J.D. opened the door again and rushed into the hallway, six-shooter leveled. The outlaw had broken down Abby's door and had burst into the room. Three quick steps brought J.D. to the open door. A look around inside told him how bad the situation was.

  Zeke Morrisey huddled in the corner, bent over and moaning. Three-fingers Frank had gut shot him. Abby pressed against the wall across the room from Morrisey, pale from shock and eyes darting around like a trapped animal. J.D. cocked his six-shooter and shouted, "Drop it, Bell. Don't try it!"

  He fired at the same instant as the bank robber. Splinters flew beside his head, causing him to flinch. A sharp pain showed where one wooden shard grazed his forehead. He flinched away, and this caused his next shot to go wide. He missed Bell and blew out the window. The outlaw dropped to one knee and braced his elbow against the bed for a better shot.

  By now, J.D. recoiled and dived back into the corridor. The robber's bullets tore through the air above him. He rolled onto his back and fired a couple rounds to keep Bell from following up on his momentary advantage.

  "I got her. I got a gun to her head. Toss your piece in, or I'll blow her damned brains out. I promise you!"

  "Waste your ammo, Bell. See if I care. She doesn't matter to me." J.D. heard Kate's hiss at this. He motioned her back.

  "You can't let him kill her!" Kate clutched her derringer in one hand and knife in the other.

  "He's a trapped rat. That makes him desperate and even deadlier." J.D. got his feet under him and avoided showing himself in the doorway. Slowly standing, pressed against the wall, he considered all the ways to stop Three-fingers Frank Bell.

  He didn't need the outlaw alive, not if Zeke Morrisey was the one who knew where the gold was stashed. How Big-hearted Abby came into the puzzle was a poser, but it wasn't anything he worried over at the moment. Saving her life was important. Keeping Frank Bell from getting away mattered more. Bell was a one-man crime wave.

  "Give me your gun." J.D. held out his left hand to Kate.

  "I want it back."

  "The only blood on it will be Bell's." J.D. clutched the derringer, shifted it to get his finger on the trigger, then called out to the outlaw, "Here's my six-gun. Don't hurt the girl."

  He stepped into the door with his six-shooter held high.

  "I'll toss it on the bed. Let her go."

  Bell choked Abby with his left forearm while he held his six-shooter to her temple. J.D. saw the grin on the outlaw's face, thinking he had won. The instant he relinquished his gun, they would both die at the outlaw's hand.

  "Here it is." J.D. threw the gun onto the bed. The outlaw did exactly as he expected. His eyes left his target and followed the gun as it hit and then bounced once.

  J.D. brought up the derringer in his left hand and fired. He proved he was as good a shot with his left hand as he was with the right. The bullet ripped a deep gash on Bell's right temple, causing him to jerk away. As he moved, so did Big-hearted Abby. She rammed her elbow back hard into an exposed belly, adding to Bell's woe.

  The second round from the derringer hit Bell squarely in the middle of his chest. He gasped, staggered and sat on the bed as a circle of red began spreading on his shirt. All that went according to J.D.'s plan. The rest went to hell fast.

  Abby dived over and picked up his six-shooter, cocked it and turned it on him.

  "I'll shoot. I can't miss."

  "We want to help you. How's Zeke doing?"

  This ploy worked. He had guessed that Morrisey and Abby knew each other and maybe even meant something to one another. The girl turned toward the man who sat hunched over in the corner. With a surge, J.D. launched himself and batted the gun away. He landed belly down on the bed, then found himself tangled in the bedclothes. Floundering around, he tried to grab Abby. She moved quickly, going to Morrisey's side, not to help him but to snatch his gun from his limp grasp. J.D. faced her again.

  "I'll kill you. I will. Who the hell are you?"

  "Nobody you need to worry about. I—"

  J.D. saw resolve in her face and tried to get out of the way of the bullet. But it wasn't aimed at him. She fired past him and hit Three-fingers Frank Bell in the chest again. The outlaw dropped his six-shooter and spun, falling through the window amid a shower of glass.

  "Keep back!" Abby turned the gun on J.D. "I mean it."

  "Zeke needs help." Kate came in and stood beside J.D. "Let me see what I can do. I'm pretty decent at patching menfolk up."

  J.D. saw that she clutched her knife hidden in her skirts, ready to use it if Big-hearted Abby tried to shoot. She needed to get closer, and offering aid for the wounded bank robber provided it.

  "You and him, you're lovers?" Kate edged away from J.D. He stood stock still to keep from drawing unwanted attention from the frightened girl. "He means something to you. I see that. Did he write you a lot while he was away? In Wichita Falls?"

  "We're not like that." Shock began to confuse the girl. She scooted away and gripped the pistol in both hands. Back pressed into the wall, she drew up her knees and rested her hands there to support the heavy six-shooter. "Go on. See to binding his gunshot wound. Bell never gave him a chance. He plugged him as soon as he kicked in the door. Zeke tried to fight back in spite of getting a bullet in his gut."

  "Bell is a killer. I don't think Zeke is. Help me get his side of the story." Kate moved closer to Morrisey, then knelt.

  J.D. gauged the distance to his pistol on the bed. If he went for it, he dared not hesitate. When he retrieved the weapon, he'd have to shoot Abby, and he didn't want to do that. She knew Morrisey and was tangled up in the bank robbery, but she hadn't been there to kill the tellers and customers.

  "Come on, Zeke. Tell Abby it's going to be all right." Kate gently shook
the outlaw.

  J.D. realized the man was dead at the same instant Abby did. He went for his pistol; she fired. He twisted away and collided with Kate as she grabbed for the girl. They went down in a pile. When J.D. untangled and got to his feet, Abby had vanished.

  "The window! She went out the window!" Kate rushed to look out, but J.D. held her back.

  "She's still armed. She's got Morrisey's gun." He scooped up his six-shooter and cautiously peered out. He hoped to see two bodies in a pile on the ground below. Somehow both Bell and Abby had survived a two-story drop and then hightailed it away into the cold autumn night.

  "There's nothing in his pockets. Not even a scrap of paper with a map scrawled on it showing where the gold is hidden." Kate made a sour face, took her derringer and reloaded it.

  "You've got quite a sense of humor. Why'd he need a map if he buried the gold?" He knew Kate was being sarcastic, but he was in no mood to encourage her.

  "What's goin' on in here? My God, you done killed him, and where's Big-hearted Abby? That do-gooder owes me a week's pay."

  "Get out of my way." Kate lifted the derringer and aimed it at Miss Purdy. The woman's jowls jiggled, but she didn't budge.

  "Dearie, a scrawny li'l thing like you don't scare me none."

  "I'm not so scrawny," J.D. said. He aimed his six-shooter at the madam. His determination convinced her to let Kate push past.

  "You ain't drunk," the madam accused. "You lied to get in here with that bitch."

  "That bitch, as you call her, is my wife. Keep a civil tongue in your head."

  "It figures that you'd marry a whore."

  J.D. brought his pistol up and fired. Miss Purdy leaped away, startled. Her feet tangled and she sat heavily in the hall.

  "You tried to kill me!"

  "If I'd meant to, you wouldn't be complaining right now." J.D. spun and pointed his six-shooter at the bouncer who came toward him, limping and half bent over from both his and Kate's mauling. "You. Pick up the body in the room."

  "I don't do nuthin' but what she says."

  "She says to pick up the body and get it outside." He turned and aimed the six-gun at Miss Purdy again. This time she stared down the barrel of the .44-40. His hand didn't quiver at all as his finger drew back on the trigger.

  "Do it. Do like this son of a bitch says."

  "The sooner the better."

  The bouncer moved painfully into Abby's room and picked up Morrisey's limp body. He slung it over his shoulder, hesitated, then heaved it through the window. For an instant, J.D. considered wasting another slug. He calmed down, went to the window and looked down. Zeke Morrisey's body sprawled lifelessly. If he hadn't been dead before, there wasn't any way he could have survived the fall.

  J.D. used the pistol barrel to knock loose a couple pieces of glass still stuck in the frame, scissored his legs over the edge and dropped. He landed heavily, his legs bunched to absorb the impact and then rolled. He came to his feet a couple yards from the wall. He looked up at the broken window. Miss Purdy slapped the bouncer, who cringed away from her abuse like a whipped cur. Putting a bullet in the man's feeble brain would have been an act of mercy.

  A quick movement returned his six-shooter to its cross-draw holster and then he grunted as he picked up Morrisey's body. Like the bouncer, he slung it over his shoulder. Unlike the bouncer, J.D. was staggering under the dead weight before he got to the street in front of the Palace Saloon. They needed Morrisey's body to claim part of the reward. It was a pity the robber hadn't drawn a map and tucked it into his pocket. That would have made retrieving the stolen gold a piece of cake.

  But there was still Big-hearted Abby. Morrisey and she had a relationship. It might not have been as lovers as she claimed. J.D. was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the girl on that score, but they weren't accidentally tossed together this night. Morrisey had sought her out. And J.D. would have bet money that the envelope that had led them to Fort Worth had once carried Abby's full name and address.

  "Money," he said, stopping across the street from the saloon. A shrug of his shoulder dropped the corpse into a straight-backed chair in front of an apothecary. J.D. looked back at Miss Purdy's and remembered all the greenbacks he had tossed around to gain entry and reserve Kate's exclusive favors. It was a couple hundred dollars, and he still had much of what Kate had won in the pool game, but the principle mattered more. Letting that pig woman keep even a dime galled him.

  He started back toward the whorehouse when he saw his wife approaching. She walked down the middle of the street. From the set to her shoulders and the way she swirled her skirts as she walked, he knew what she had to report.

  She had lost Big-hearted Abby in the maze of buildings that was Hell's Half Acre.

  Chapter Eight

  "She's quicker on her feet than I expected," Kate said, shaking her head. "Falling out the window the way she did, I thought that would slow her down. If anything, it gave her more reason to run faster. Finding her is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack."

  "Bell disappeared, too. The only one left bled to death with a bullet in his gut." He glanced in Morrisey's direction. The corpse sagged and threatened to fall from the chair where J.D. had propped her up.

  "I hit Bell a couple times. He's carrying a pair of slugs around in his worthless carcass," J.D. said. "I think it's possible that Morrisey hit him, too. I wasn't counting shots fired, but there were a couple before I got into the room."

  "What are we going to do now? I have no idea where to look for her in the middle of the night."

  J.D. turned slowly and saw that Kate was right. Even if it had been high noon, finding Big-hearted Abby would take more luck than skill. She knew every nook and cranny of Hell's Half Acre. The men and women who populated this hellhole wouldn't take kindly to anyone asking questions, much less someone with the look of a bounty hunter coming after a denizen. For the right amount, those same people would turn in their own grandmother to the law—or a bounty hunter—but J.D. suspected that if they got too close to Abby, she would disappear. There were ways out of Fort Worth she could take. The railroad depot wasn't too far from here. A horse could be stolen easily enough at either of the lots where wagons and horses were stabled at either end of Main Street. And a whore had to have some following. A cowboy or man working in the town would swap temporary refuge for her favors.

  "Asking right now might be hard," he said. From the saloon across the street came loud shouting and the clatter of hooves on boards.

  A cowboy ducked low and rode his horse from the saloon. Just beyond him, trying to keep his horse from rearing, another drunk cowboy drew his six-shooter and began shooting at bottles lined up on the bar. When he broke a couple of them, the barkeep handed up a beer. The mounted cowboy chugged it, then tossed the mug away and pounded after the first rider. He didn't duck low enough and hit his head on the door.

  He fell heavily and lay on his back, to the great glee of other patrons. From the shouts of encouragement, the rider who already raced along the street to guide his horse into the next saloon down the street was the odds on favorite in the race.

  "They call it the Acre Derby," J.D. said.

  "They ride into a bar, shoot it up and then do the same at the next? I don't get it." Kate moved closer and held his arm as she watched a new entrant in the derby trying to convince his horse to go into a saloon full of shouting, drunken men.

  "That's it. I don't know if there's a starting line or even a finish line, but somebody's got to win." J.D. shook his head in wonder. "I don't even know what the bet is."

  "There are two more." Kate heaved a sigh. "With such a commotion all around this part of town, finding Big-hearted Abby is even more out of our reach. Who would pay attention to a skinny whore when there is racing and shooting going on?"

  J.D. had to agree. "Let's turn what we have over to the marshal. Zeke Morrisey ought to be good for some of that reward out of Wichita Falls. Maybe we can collect a hundred or two, then get the rest when
we nab Three-fingers Frank Bell."

  "Dear, you're such an optimist. We catch Bell. So what? The loot from the robbery is lost." Kate held onto his arm as they walked back to the chair where Morrisey's corpse sprawled gracelessly on the boardwalk, having fallen out of the chair.

  "It's not lost if we can figure out a way of tracking Big-hearted Abby. How'd she come by a moniker like that, anyway?"

  "Maybe she gave it away on Sundays," Kate said in disgust. "I lost her. That's all there is to it."

  "If she does that on Sundays, all we have to do is hang out and watch the churches." J.D. bent, got under the dead weight and heaved Morrisey over his shoulder. He staggered a few steps, got his balance and headed north out of Hell's Half Acre.

  "Where's the marshal's office?" Kate walked slowly beside him, intent on watching whoever came from inside the saloons they passed. The derby had moved farther to the east, leaving almost funeral silence behind. It was a slim chance but Abby might get spooked and bolt. If she did, leaving Morrisey behind so both of them could go after her made a peck of sense.

  "You're heading in the right direction. Or," she said dryly, "we can sit and wait for him and a posse to show up to stop the fights."

  J.D. had noticed that the quiet hadn't lasted long and now every saloon overflowed with men swinging wildly at each other—or thin air. More than one pistol report told of shenanigans inside he cared not to think about. And even a horse came out of a saloon near 9th Street without a rider. From the hooting and hollering inside, the man had been roped and dragged off his mount to eliminate yet another derby rider. The sounds came of animals and men feeling their oats, gunfire and more than a few breaking bottles. The odors making him gag were too vile for him to identify. All he wanted was to drop off the dead body and collect whatever money they could as bounty.