The Green Lace Corset, стр. 11
As they walked farther down the street, at Berry’s Saloon, a man flew out of the swinging doors into the mire right in front of her. She yelped as her heart jumped. Another man dove on top of him, pounding on the other man’s back. Cliff drew her out of the way just in time, or she might have been caught in the melee.
A crowd of folks rushed out of the saloon, cheering on the fighters.
“Go for his gut, Charlie!”
“Kick ’im in the head!”
“Get him!”
The man in the leather coat sauntered over to the crowd, raised his pistol, and shot it into the air. “Okay, boys, that’s enough,” he bellowed. He slid the gun back into his holster, gripped each man by an ear, and headed them down the street. “I told you I’m putting order in this town.”
“S-s-sorry, Sheriff, but he was mockin’ me,” whined the smaller of the two.
“He wouldn’t let me dance with that dame,” the scrawny one hiccupped.
“No excuses, you young whippersnappers. I’m keepin’ you till you’ve slept it off.”
As the sheriff escorted the two men down the street to the jail, the crowd hooted and hollered. Big-hatted, long-mustached, kerchief-wearing, gun-toting cowboys. Other men, in plaid flannel shirts. Three women in risqué, wildflower-colored getups laughed. Kohl-eyed and red-lipped, without bonnets, they had tendrils of hair piled high atop their heads.
A redhead in a green silk outfit gave a shrill whistle. “Go get ’em, Sheriff.”
He threw the men inside the jail, locked the door, and waved to the crowd.
Cliff escorted Sally Sue across the street to a hotel. The poster hung in a window there too.
“Set here.” He pushed her down into a rocker on the porch and went inside.
Her stomach felt as if it had been turned inside out. She had to get away from him.
The sheriff dragged a chair from his office beside the jail, sat in the chair, put his rifle on his lap, and lit a cigar. He reminded Sally Sue of her father, taller than most men, strongly built and fine-looking.
Her father had also had a forceful voice when he’d needed it. “Wife, leave the girl alone,” he’d say. “She’s not hurting anyone.”
It was darn cold. She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders. But her father had also been soft-spoken, like the last time she’d seen him: “My sweet Sal, don’t cry. I’ll be back in no time.” And he was right—he never returned and was back no time.
She glanced at the hotel door and hurried down the steps to alert the sheriff.
“Hey, darling! Where’re you off to?” Cliff’s voice called from behind her.
Her shoulders slumped, and she turned around. “Just stretching my legs is all.”
A man holding a broom stood in the hotel doorway, staring at her.
Cliff took her arm and escorted her back to the rocker. “Rest here awhile. I’ll be right back. This here’s Mr. Bjork, the hotel’s proprietor.” He tilted his head at the man with the broom and walked up the street.
She sat down.
Mr. Bjork leaned on the broom. “Your husband says he’s thinking of settling here. Would be a prudent decision.”
She watched as Cliff entered a shop. She stood up and pointed at the poster. “Help me! He’s not really my husband but this bank robber.”
The man chuckled. “Mr. Cliff told me you might say that. He asked me to keep an eye on you. Said you were dealing with some kind of condition.”
“What?”
“Said you’d been suffering a nervous collapse.”
“That’s not true.” She jumped up and started down the steps again, waving her arms toward the jail.
The man took his broom handle and pulled her back onto the porch. “I promised Mr. Cliff I’d take care of you while he checked out the town. Come on back. I don’t want to take out my gun.”
Afraid of what Cliff might do to this man, she acquiesced.
“There’s a good girl.” Mr. Bjork patted her shoulder.
“Won’t you at least go get the sheriff and tell him what I told you?” she pleaded.
“Sheriff Mack? He was a Texas Ranger. Knows how to deal with all kinds a’ rascality: cow rustlers, horse thieves, scallywags, stagecoach robbers, desperadoes, and other human transgressors. If Mr. Cliff really was a bandit, the sheriff would have spotted him right away.”
Sheriff Mack looked up the street toward them, as if he knew they were talking about him. For an experienced lawman like that, it would be only a matter of time before he recognized Cliff, rustled him up, and arrested him, or maybe even killed him. After all, the poster did say “dead or alive.”
An Indian with a red-and-black woven blanket around his shoulders rode by on a pinto. A woman in a gingham dress and a large straw hat walked by, holding her identical twin boys’ hands.
“Morning,” she said to Sally Sue, and kept going.
“Like I was saying, this here Flagstaff New Town’s booming, especially since fire last year ravaged Old Town, out near the sawmill,” Mr. Bjork continued.
“That’s horrible. What happened?” Sally Sue asked.
He looked toward the saloon. “Word is, one of them dance hall girls kicked over a lantern. Old Town burned to the ground. Yep, thirty buildings destroyed in thirty minutes. They rebuilt some homes, but the businesses relocated here, to New Town, closer to the railroad stop. I know the depot is just a bunch of old boxcars now, but someday we’ll erect a real one. We’re the largest city between Albuquerque and the West Coast. Santa Fe Railroad Company sells lots here for twenty-five dollars each. We now have a post office, seven saloons, three restaurants, two general stores, two laundries, a newsstand, a boot shop, a livery, a brewery, and this here hotel.”
He pointed kitty-corner across the street to the wooden structure. “And the McMillans have a fine building there. They even live upstairs. Fine folks, they are. And look at that limestone building farther down the