The Kid feinted with a right hook and then telegraphed a straight left that Shoemaker easily avoided. Shoemaker countered with a left hook to the Kid’s chin. It was a punch of no great power but it caught the Kid as he took a step inside. The Kid’s head snapped back and he went down flat on his back onto the canvas, canaries singing in his head.

  Shoemaker was horrified. His gloved fists at his side, he said, “Mr. O’Rourke, I didn’t hit him that hard. Honest.”

  Nate Levy smiled at the stricken O’Rourke. “Seems that your boy has a glass jaw, Dick. Sit him up and put his head between his knees for a spell.”

  “I don’t believe this,” O’Rourke said. “I had the Kid pegged as a future champ.”

  “He’s a southpaw with a glass jaw,” Nate said. “That’s not a good combination, Dick. Hell, you’ve always got Shoemaker. A journeyman fighter can keep you in steak and eggs.”

  O’Rourke shook his head in disbelief. “This is the worst day of my life.”

  “You’ll have plenty more if you stay in the boxing game,” Nate said.

  On the way to the door he called over the little black kid. “Jack Johnson, huh?”

  “Yes, suh, that’s what they call me” the boy said.

  “You got style, young feller,” Nate said. “Keep up with the punching bag and the footwork. Study the fighter’s trade and learn it well and you’ll make your mark one day.” Nate fished in his pocket, then gave the boy a silver dollar. “I hope I live long enough to see you fight one day.”

  “So do I, suh,” Jack Johnson said, touching the coin to his forehead. “An’ I’ll make sure you get a seat at ringside.”

  * * *

  Nate Levy stepped outside the gym and lit a cigar. His attention was drawn across the street where Destiny Durand and the girl Jess Casey had rescued walked on the boardwalk with two huge hard cases, probably Kurt Koenig’s men.

  When Destiny looked in his direction he lifted his hat but the woman didn’t seem to notice and the young girl, much prettier than he remembered, looked straight ahead.

  Nate didn’t think anything of it. One wrinkled old Jew was not a man young women would remember.

  * * *

  “I didn’t think anything of it, Jess,” Nate Levy said. “I figured their minds were on other things.”

  “Probably out for a stroll, I guess,” Jess Casey said. “Kurt Koenig always sends a couple of bruisers with Destiny.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Nate said. “She’s a beautiful young woman.”

  “She’s all of that, and Joselita Juarez is turning into quite the young lady.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Luke Short said. He collapsed into Jess’s chair. “I can’t walk two steps without getting tired.”

  “If it’s any consolation I don’t feel much better,” Jess said.

  “How are two cripples going to get my place back?” Luke said.

  Nate said, “Not easily.”

  Luke’s eyes were unfriendly. “Nate, I didn’t really want an answer to that question.”

  “I’ll shut down the White Elephant,” Jess said.

  “When?” Luke said.

  “We’ll rest up for a couple of days and then get it done.”

  “I hope I can walk in a couple of days.”

  “You can ride my horse,” Jess said.

  Luke said, “And what about Jasper Dunn?”

  “He’ll fight,” Jess said.

  “Good, because I plan to gun him,” Luke said.

  Jess shook his head. “Professor Carnes will fight his battles.”

  “As I told you before, I plan to gun him as well,” Luke said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “My name is Jasper Dunn and I’m so sorry we can’t offer better accommodation for ladies. But hopefully your time as my guests will be of short duration.”

  “We’re not your guests,” Destiny Durand said. “Your toughs kidnapped us in the street. One of them has my derringer. And I want it back.”

  “In due course, dear lady,” Dunn said.

  His men crowded around the two women and studied them with hot eyes, especially the curvaceous and beautiful Destiny. Ford Talon held back. This was a bad situation and it could only get worse.

  “Why did you bring us here?” Destiny said. “Do you know you’re playing with fire?”

  Dunn smiled. “Playing with fire. How very quaint.” He stared at Joselita with speculating eyes and then said, “How are you feeling, young lady?”

  “I’m just fine, thank you,” the girl said.

  “How would you like to feel better? I mean better than you’ve ever felt in your entire life?”

  “That would not be hard to do,” Joselita said.

  “I can send you to the stars, little lady. I promise that you will soar so high you’ll never, ever want to come back down to earth again,” Dunn said. Then, over the barely suppressed laughter of his men, “Would you like that?”

  “No, she would not,” Destiny said. “Joselita has had a hard, terrible life. Why would you make it even worse?”

  “That is none of my concern,” Dunn said. “My only intent is to force your . . . ah . . . paramour to step aside and let me take over this town with the minimum of fuss and bother. Understand me?”

  “Kurt Koenig will never step aside for a damned lowlife like you,” Destiny said.

  Dunn’s backhand slap across Destiny’s face was just hard enough to sting and draw a trickle of blood from the corner of the woman’s mouth.

  “Perhaps it would be better for you, Miss Durand, if you held your tongue,” he said.

  “Kurt will kill you for this,” Destiny said.

  “I don’t think so, after he reads the letter you’ll write to him.”

  Destiny’s blue eyes glowed with hate. “I won’t write a letter for you . . . you scum.”

  Dunn ignored that. “Mr. Topper, the case, if you please,” he said.

  Grinning, the rat-faced gunman handed Dunn a small, rectangular box covered with red velvet. Dunn opened the lid and removed a syringe, the attached needle glinting.

  “Ah, Miss Durand, are you familiar with the wonderful new German drug named heroin? No? Well, it’s called after the word heroic, you see, and it’s becoming very popular.” He feigned concern. “Unfortunately since no one in this country knows the correct dosage, it can be quite deadly if injected to excess.”

  Dunn turned to Topper. “Hold the girl and bare her right forearm.” Then, “Ah, that’s excellent, Mr. Topper. Now, just a tiny prick in a vein and I’ll open the gates of paradise for you, Miss Juarez. You may think me cruel now, but later you’ll thank me for such a wonderful, shall we say magical, experience and demand it again and again.”

  Joselita shrank away from the needle, her face scared.

  “Stop! Do it to me,” Destiny said. “The girl has been through enough in her life.”

  “I’m afraid not, Miss Durand,” Dunn said. “You’re a strong woman and you could resist the drug, even when it’s coursing through your rather magnificent body.”

  “I’ll write the letter,” Destiny said. “If you leave Joselita alone.”

  “Is that a promise?” Dunn said. “A pretty promise?”

  “Yes, yes, it is, you fiend.”

  Dunn placed the syringe back in the case. “Miss Durand, you have no idea how fiendish I can be and I hope you never find out. Mr. Topper, show the lady to my desk and supply her with paper, pen and ink.” He turned to Joselita. “And how are you, my dear? Have you quite recovered from your scare? Well, here’s another one—if Miss Durand makes one slip of the pen, one sputtering inkblot, I’ll stick the needle in your arm and pump you so full of the drug that you’ll fly, all right. But, alas, I fear you may never come down again.”

  Dunn rose to his feet and followed Destiny and Topper to his desk.

  Ford Talon let his hand drop from his gun. If Dunn had proceeded with his plan to inject the girl he would have killed him. There were a dozen gunmen in the basement, including the deadly Silas Topper, and Talon knew he’d have died an instant after he pulled the trigger. He didn’t want to throw away his life like that to save a girl he didn’t know, but the ways of the Southern officer and gentleman run deep and are never lost.

  Still, Talon was much relieved that the moment had passed.

  * * *

  Jasper Dunn stood behind Destiny Durand, looked over her shoulder and said, “That’s right . . . you’re doing well . . . Dear Kurt, Joselita and I have been captured and unless . . . no, make it captured by ruthless men . . . perfect . . . and unless you sign over the deeds to the Silver Garter and the Green . . . B-u-d-d-h-a, my dear . . . Buddha by midnight we will both be killed.” Dunn clapped his hands. “There, it’s finished. Now sign it. What a good girl!”

  Destiny looked up at the man. “Kurt will never sign away what he owns. He’ll come looking for you, Dunn, with a gun in his hand.”

  “Even knowing that I’ll kill you, quite horribly let me add, if he comes anywhere near this place.”

  “That won’t stop him, Dunn. You’re already a dead man.”

  “Then let us agree to disagree,” Dunn said. He walked away from the desk and said, “Oh, Mr. Talon, I want to speak to you.” When Talon stepped closer, Dunn said, “What made you change your mind?”

  “About what?” Talon said.

  “Why, about shooting me, of course. I can read a man, Mr. Talon, Huntsville taught me that. I can tell by the way he stands and the expression on his face what a man is thinking. You were thinking about shooting me if I stuck the needle in the girl’s arm. Is that not so?”

  “I didn’t intend to let you carry out your threat,” Talon said.

  Dunn nodded. “So you would have shot me.”

  “Yes. I would have shot you.”

  “Now, do I have you killed, or do I still need you?” Dunn said. “I’ll think about that and let you know. Many of my men have left me, the lily-livered ones, and I can’t afford to lose another gun.”

  “It’s your decision to make, Dunn,” Talon said. “You’ll lose more men, because I won’t go down without a fight.”

  “I know that, Major,” Dunn said. “That’s why you’re still breathing. But don’t push me any further.”

  “Let the women go, Dunn. Your war is with Kurt Koenig.”

  “My dear sir, there’s no war, just a business proposition. Koenig gives me everything he owns and I give him back his woman.”

  Talon smiled. “Maybe he thinks she isn’t worth that much.”

  “Then I’ll hang her and pursue a different plan,” Dunn said. “Life is simple, Talon, if one makes it so.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Life was not simple for Sheriff Jess Casey. He’d just been informed that two bumbling, would-be bank robbers were holed up in a box canyon, in other words, one of the many blind alleys off Main Street in Hell’s Half Acre.

  The man who brought the news was a City Hall clerk, an excitable young fellow with thin, pale hair and protuberant blue eyes.

  “They’re both wounded, Sheriff, and a feller by the name of Professor Carnes is trying to talk them out of the alley,” the clerk said. “It seems they’re two of them Huntsville returned citizens. Now I got to go or I’ll miss all the fun. What a lark!”

  “Wait, tell me how it happened,” Jess said as he buckled on his gun belt. The pain of the wound under his armpit nagged at him.

  Words tumbled out of the young man’s mouth at a rapid rate and Jess finally got them sorted out in his head.

  It seemed that the two men had robbed the Cattleman’s Bank & Trust on Belknap Street and killed a teller. Unfortunately for the cons, when they burst outside, Mayor Harry Stout was sitting in the back of a wagon with eight other city big shots, including Professor Carnes, en route to a deer hunt and an evening supper on the prairie. A clerk followed the bandits onto the boardwalks and yelled, “Bank robbers! Murder!”

  Delighted, the heavily armed occupants of the wagon and the driver gleefully cut loose at the fleeing felons, laying down such a barrage of fire that a getaway horse was killed, both convicts wounded, a passerby took a bullet through the lungs and an elderly lady called Mrs. Forbes had a bunch of fake cherries blown off her hat. Harry himself claimed the horse kill and credit for winging one of the robbers.

  “The outlaws headed south into the Acre on one wounded horse, Sheriff, and when it collapsed and died they ran into the alley and barricaded themselves behind wooden crates,” the clerk said. “That’s all I know and now I’m outta here.”

  After the man left, Luke Short said, “Go ahead and do your job, Sheriff. Always remember that your duty as a lawman is to make a bad situation worse.”

  “Luke, one day I’ll have to sit down and tell you just how much I dislike you,” Jess said.

  Luke loved that. He hugged himself, laughed and said, “I look forward to it, Sheriff Casey. And then when you’re all done I’ll plug you out of spite.”

  * * *

  “There’s no need for violence, Sheriff,” James Carnes said. “I’m sure I can convince them to come out with their hands up and then apologize to the community at large for their slip back into lawlessness.”

  “Slip? They murdered a bank teller,” Jess Casey said.

  “So the story goes,” Carnes said. “I think the truth will be very different.”

  “They robbed the bank and a man is dead,” Jess said. “That’s the truth and you can’t change it.”

  Mayor Harry Stout, big-bellied and important, stood among his stalwart riflemen and said, “Sheriff, there is now a hostage involved. I’m sorry to say that Parson Horace Hayes has been taken.”

  “How the hell did that happen?” Jess said.

  Stout said, “The reverend wished to show them the error of their ways but they grabbed him, beat him up and now hold him captive.” The mayor looked around, making sure that his words would carry to the crowd. “It’s a dark day in Fort Worth. Oh, that my aim had been true. Well, truer than it was.”

  To Jess’s surprise this drew a round of applause from the considerable crowd. Harry was a popular mayor.

  “Hey, you rubes out there!” The voice came from the alley. “We have demands to make or the gospel grinder gets a bullet in the belly. The whole damned town will hear him scream.”

  Carnes stepped forward and called out, “My name is Professor James Carnes. You both know me. I am a friend to all returned citizens. What are your demands?”

  “Then listen up, Carnes,” the man in the alley said. “We want two fast horses, grub, whiskey and maybe some female company. You got that?”

  “Your demands will be met,” Carnes said. “You have my word on that.”

  “The hell they will,” Jess said, angry now. “As far as I’m concerned those killers can starve to death in there.”

  Carnes turned to Mayor Stout. “I implore you, Mayor, to meet their demands. Once they’ve had something to eat and a drink or two I can talk them out of there.”

  “They want a woman,” Stout said. “I will not sanction that.”

  “Then look for a volunteer,” Carnes said. “I’ll pay her well out of my own pocket.”

  “That will not happen, Carnes,” Jess said. “They’ll come out when they’re hungry.”

  “And what about the parson?” Carnes said.

  “He’ll come out, too,” Jess said.

  “I agree with Sheriff Casey,” Stout said. Then louder for the crowd, “This great city does not negotiate with outlaws.”

  Again people cheered and the mayor gave a little bow. After he straightened he said to Jess in a whisper, “Can we rush them?”

  Jess nodded. “Sure, if you’re willing to step over your own dead. It’s a narrow alley.”

  “Then that is not an option,” Stout said. He puffed up a little. “Well, Sheriff, it’s too late for the hunt, so I must return to City Hall with my guests. I leave it to you to do your duty and bring those killers to justice.”

  “No!” Carnes yelled. “That will not do, Mayor. We must meet the needs of the men in the alley. I gave them my word.”

  But he talked to Stout’s back. Harry was already patting the older ladies on the head as he passed, and kissing the younger ones.

  “One of you boys there, go get a carpenter to seal off this alley,” Jess said. “Tell him he may have to dodge a bullet or two.”

  That last drew a laugh and shouts of approval and Jess was surprised.

  * * *

  Professor James Carnes was a worried man. If this standoff couldn’t be resolved peacefully his entire social experiment—and his standing with the governor—was on shaky ground. He knew he had to act and act now before the entrance to the alley was boarded up with timber.

  “I will talk to them, Sheriff,” he told Jess Casey. “I think those men will listen to me and come out with their hands up.”

  “I guess it’s worth a try,” Jess said. “I’ll tell the carpenter not to start work until you get through talking.”

  “Very well,” Carnes said. He raised his hands above his head and quickly stepped into the alley.

  “No, not that!” Jess yelled. He’d expected Carnes to stand at the entrance and talk. “Come back, Professor Carnes!”

  But he was too late. The man had already disappeared into the gloom.

  A minute passed . . . then another . . . Voices were raised. Then silence.

  The crowd hushed and people exchanged puzzled glances. What was happening in the there?

  Then came the answer.

  Two revolver shots very close together shattered the tense quiet. Jess, standing close to the entrance, was sure he heard Carnes cry out, “Nooo . . .” a moment before the shots were fired.

  “All right, board it up,” Jess told the carpenter.

  Easier said than done.

  As the carpenter and his apprentice lifted the first board into place, the convicts fired again. A bullet blasted through the pine and sprayed the carpenter’s face with splinters, drawing blood. The man yelped and dropped the board as though it were suddenly red-hot and he and his young apprentice scampered out of the line of fire.