Slip Gun (18 page)

‘
I wish
him luck on it,’ grunted his companion.

‘
There’s still no word from the men we sent to get C. B.
Frith,’ the small man remarked.

‘
None,’
replied the taller, then he stiffened and stared over the other’s
shoulder. ‘Nor’re we likely to get it.’

‘
What
do you mean?’ asked the smaller man, turning.

‘
See
that feller in the buggy and leading the
bayo-lobo
hoss?’ asked the other man,
indicating between the barn’s buildings and at the stagecoach trail
without making the gesture noticeable except to his
companion.

‘
I see
him.’

‘
That’s
Cedric Burbury Frith.’

‘
Then
our men missed him!’ croaked the smaller man.

‘
You
can near enough bet he didn’t miss them,’ replied the taller. ‘Now
we’d best get the hell away from here so he doesn’t see us
together.’

Wil Jeffreys ought
to have been a
contented young woman as she walked from her home on Jeffreys
Square towards the bank. Due to her forethought, the possibility of
trouble flaring up between the ranchers and homesteaders had been
reduced if not entirely removed. Faced with the proof that Hopkirk
and Woodstole had a legal claim to the C Lazy P land, Bilak had
promised that no member of the Grange would try to make homes north
of the Elk Fork. Cushman had confirmed the decision, knowing that
to do otherwise would give the ranchers a weapon to be used against
the Patrons of Husbandry.

Despite some criticism when she had
announced her intentions, her insistence on bringing in
professional gun fighters to handle law enforcement during the fair
had already been justified. She liked and respected Marshal Caster,
but doubted if he could have handled the potentially explosive
situation as effectively as Smith had when the soft-shells had
burst in on the meeting. She wondered if Smith would have shot any
farmer who had tried to enter, or fired on Charlie Hopkirk if he
had turned before the rancher holstered the Army Colt. Clearly the
men concerned had been sure that he would, which was all that
mattered.

‘
Shivery-Shakes, she eats snakes!’

Now why had those words come to her mind?
They had been shouted often enough in her childhood and had started
many a scuffle with Lily Shivers. Wil sucked in a deep breath and
tried to turn her thoughts away from the blonde.

In addition to having once again
proved to be as shrewd and capable as any male member of the city
fathers, Wil had at last seen her younger brother showing an active
interest in civic affairs. After the brief questioning of
Smith
’s
behavior, Stanley had helped Ottaway remove the two trouble-makers.
On his return from the cells in the basement, he had asked if he
might serve as a member of the temporary police force. Somewhat to
Wil’s surprise, Smith had agreed; with the proviso that he worked
only in the company of a more experienced man and obeyed orders.
Wil regarded Stanley’s acceptance of the terms as a sign that he
was growing up. Yet she wished that he showed less friendship
towards Ottaway.

‘
Shivery-Shakes, she eats snakes.’

Slowly and remorselessly
Wil
’s thought
returned to Lily Shivers and the Happy Bull’s new sign. No matter
how the lady mayor tried to avoid it, she kept remembering the
blonde’s conditions for refraining from placing it on the
saloon.

Damn that Dexter Vendy. Even
though he had left Widow
’s Creek and would never dare to return, his
malignant influence was still making itself felt.

Wil and Lily, daughters of the
town
’s
founders, had grown up through tomboy childhood and adolescence as
friends. Even then Wil had been level-headed and solemn enough to
gain the nickname ‘Chilly Willie’, while Lily was always the
madcap. There had always been rivalry between them but, until
Dexter Vendy had made his appearance, it had never been of a
hostile kind. The break between the girls did not come until their
return from the Eastern college to which their parents, riding high
on the fringe-benefits of the cattle-industry’s boom, had sent
them.

Soon after the girls had come
home, Vendy had made his appearance. Handsome, dissipated,
unscrupulous, he had been in search of an easy life without being
burdened by work. Wil, employed in her father
’s bank, and Lily, even then
shocking convention by helping to run the Happy Bull saloon, had
each seemed to offer him what he wanted. So he had courted them,
while they had vacillated between him and Poona
Woodstole.

Thinking back to that period,
Wil recalled that Lily had always directed her interest to the man
Wil
favored.
A shrewd judge of character, Wil had seen through Vendy’s charm and
recognized his motives. There had been an engagement pending.
Before it could be confirmed, she had broken it off. Moving in as
usual, determined to go one better than Wil, Lily had snapped up
his offer of marriage. To the town, it had seemed
that the blonde had
taken Vendy from under Wil’s nose. Even Lily had regarded it in
that light.

The marriage had lasted only until the
couple reached Chicago on their honeymoon. There Vendy had deserted
Lily for an older, richer woman.

All in all, the winter of
’86-’87 had had
quite an effect on Wil’s and Lily’s lives. Before the blonde had
returned from her desertion, her father, Ben Jeffreys and six more
of the town’s most influential citizens had perished in the worst
blizzard of that terrible season while trying to rescue a snowed-in
nester family.

Refusing to accept that the town
was finished, Wil had taken over management of the bank and assumed
her father
’s
position as mayor. By the sheer force of her driving personality
and business acumen, she had brought Widow’s Creek through the
crisis and towards renewed financial stability. Doing so had not
been easy. Although women had been allowed to vote in Wyoming since
1869, most men still regarded running a bank, or being the mayor,
as falling solely within the province of males. There had been
doubts expressed over whether a beautiful young woman could succeed
at either. So Wil had been compelled to take attention away from
her looks. Wearing spectacles, keeping her hair in a tight bun and
cultivating an expression of chilling, business-like severity had
helped to do it. With Poona Woodstole fully occupied in rebuilding
the decimated C Lazy P herds, she had not needed to worry about her
looks. Especially as she had no serious rivals with Lily a married
woman.

During the period of
retrenchment, Lily Shivers
—she had stopped using her married name—had become
a thorn in Wil’s side. The blonde was no longer the gay, care-free
girl who had gone away. Probably her treatment since returning had
helped bring about the change. Tongues had wagged amongst the
‘good’ ladies of the town and the pity directed Wil’s way earlier
had changed to praise for her good sense in seeing Vendy’s true
character. Maybe Wil herself had not been tactful on their first
meeting, hinting that Lily should have profited by her example in
turning Vendy away.

Whatever the cause, Lily had set
about running a campaign of harassment and annoyance against Wil.
Let her, in her
capacity as mayor, organize a function and the blonde would
arrange some counter attraction. That new sign was the most blatant
and open attempt to humiliate Wil. It could not be allowed.
Waxahachie Smith would see that it was not.

‘
Shivery-Shakes, she eats snakes.’

Suddenly Wil realized that she had left her
spectacles at home. Not that she needed them. Made of plain glass,
they played their part in taking attention from her beauty.
However, the change in her appearance did not end there. After
lunch, she had let her hair down from its bun. Now it hung free,
held back by a dark blue band, as she wore it when riding alone
away from the town. She had not changed her clothes, other than
adding a pair of thin black leather gloves.

‘
Why
shouldn’t a woman be good-looking and efficient?’ Wil asked
herself.

Surprise showed on the face of a
man
who was
approaching Wil, mirroring the expressions she had seen shown by
other people she had passed. He was Lily’s head bartender, but
greeted Wil warmly, having known her almost as long as his
employer.

‘
Where
is Miss Shivers, Alf ?’ Wil found herself asking.

‘
Back
at the house,’ the man replied. ‘She reckoned she’d take a bath and
rest up ready for tonight.’

‘
Thank
you,’ Wil said and went by.

Almost without conscious effort
on her part, Wil turned away from the bank. She crossed the street
and walked along the alley on the right side of the Happy Bull. At
the back of her mind beat one thought. If she wished to retain her
self-respect, she could not ask Waxahachie Smith to stop Lily
Shivers putting up the sign. It was aimed directly at Wil and she
must attend to the matter personally. A smaller voice tried to tell
her not to be foolish, but she could neither halt nor turn away
from the house where Lily and the saloon
girls lived.

‘
Lily’s
up in her room,’ said the pretty blonde who answered Wil’s knock on
the front door. Eyeing the lady mayor suspiciously, she went on,
‘You want to see her?’

‘
I do,’
Wil agreed, fighting down a final inclination to
retreat.

‘
Wait
here,’ ordered the blonde. ‘I’ll tell her.’

Several more girls gathered in
the hall, hostility plain in
their attitudes as they glared at Wil. After two
minutes, which seemed to drag on interminably, the messenger
returned and told Wil to come with her. Entering the Shivers’ house
for the first time since Lily’s return, the mayor found it as clean
and neatly-kept as when .Mrs. Shivers was alive. Going upstairs on
the blonde girl’s heels, Wil felt puzzled by the sight of a
wardrobe, dressing-table and other furniture standing in the
first-floor’s passage. On being escorted into Lily’s quarters, she
discovered the reason for it. Only the bed and a thick carpet which
covered the whole floor remained in the room.

Clad in a flimsy robe, open to show that she
wore nothing but daringly-brief, short-legged white lace drawers,
and black stockings supported by frilly scarlet garters, Lily
lounged on the bed. She did not offer to rise, or close her
robe.

‘
I
can’t offer you a seat,’ Lily announced. ‘The room’s been cleared
to be redecorated after I’ve had a rest:’

‘
Can we
talk in private?’ Wil asked, ignoring the comment.

‘
Why
not?’ Lily replied. ‘Wait outside, Lorna.’

‘
Sure,
Lily,’ the girl replied and left, closing the door.

‘
Well,’
Lily said, coming to her feet to stand with hands on hips and naked
breasts jutting fully exposed. ‘What brings you here?’

‘
You
know what,’ Wil countered, feeling her cheeks redden and guessing
that the brazen posture had been adopted to make her
blush.

‘
That
new sign of mine?’

‘
Yes.
You know it can’t go up.’

‘
Why
not? It’ll draw me plenty of trade.’

‘
And
ruin the fair,’ Wil pointed out. ‘If you get away with it, the
saloon-keepers across the river will have to come up with something
like it and the Lord knows where that will end.’

‘
Hey,
look at you,’ Lily grinned. ‘Hair down, no glasses. Why, you look
almost like a woman.’

‘
Damn
it, Shivers!’ Wil snapped. ‘You know a lot of folks have invested
their savings in the fair. If it comes off, I can talk the Union
Pacific into running a spur-line down here. You know what that
means.’

‘
That
the great Wil Jeffreys, business-man has done it again.’

‘
It
means prosperity for the town—and for you.’

‘
Maybe
I’m happy with the town the way it is,’ Lily purred. ‘But I’m an
obliging gal. All you have to do is come into the Bull and beg me
not to put it up—’

‘
Beg
you!’ Wil repeated. ‘I’ve come to tell you that if you try
to put it up, I’ll run you out of town.’

‘
You—or
Waxahachie Smith?’ Lily mocked. ‘Which of you’ll be,
Mister
Mayor?’

‘
By
God, Shiv—Lily Shivers!’ Wil blazed. ‘I’ve taken all the riding I
aim to from you. It’s going to stop.’

‘
Is it,
Chilly Willie?’ Lily grinned, sensing what the other had almost
called her and remembering how Wil had always objected to that
name.

‘
Yes.
It is!’ Wil answered. ‘You’ve been goading and raw-hiding me ever
since you got back and I’ve had enough of it.’