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To protect the life of a visiting European Crown Prince from threatened assassination, the Governor of Texas could have called up the Texas Rangers, or even the United States Army. Instead, Stanton Howard obtained the services of Ole Devil Hardin’s floating outfit. Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco had handled many dangerous people in their time, but they’d never met the like of the one employed by this band of conspirators to kill the Crown Prince. Acknowledged as Europe’s premier assassin, Beguinage came and went unnoticed by all except the victims. And had never failed in an assignment. The only way Dusty saw of saving the Prince was to use himself as bait for a trap—knowing that when it was sprung, either Beguinage or he would be dead...
THE FLOATING OUTFIT 39: BEGUINAGE
By J. T. Edson
First published by Corgi Books in 1978
Copyright © 1978, 2019 by J. T. Edson
First Digital Edition: August 2019
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.
For Robert McCaig and Nelson C. Nye, two damned fine authors, although neither will concede that I’m young enough to have read his books when I was a boy.
I won’t admit anything, either!
Publisher’s Note:
As with other books in this series, the author uses characters’ native dialect to bring that person to life. Whether they speak French, Irish, American English or English itself, he uses vernacular language to impart this.
Therefore when Scottish characters use words such as “richt” instead of “right”; “laird” for “lord”; “oopstairs” for “upstairs”; “haim” for “home”; “ain” for “own”; “gude sores” for “good sirs” and “wha” for “who” plus many other phrases, please bear in mind that these are not spelling/OCR mistakes.
One – It’ll Make the Pot Worth Winning
Taking everything into consideration, as he was raking in the money that formed the pot, Thorley Acheson felt that his luck had definitely made a turn for the better. It had not been his intention to leave the passenger ship, Island Queen, at Brownsville, Texas, but the captain—a man of bitter tongue and forceful personality—had gone beyond merely intimating that he and his partner had better do so.
It was not, the grim-faced master mariner had said, that he could prove it was something other than an exceptionally fortunate run of the cards that was responsible for the partners’ success at poker. However, he preferred his wealthy passengers to reach the West Indies without having suffered substantial losses and wondering if they might have been cheated. The aspersions against their honesty had not particularly worried the partners, being justified if unproven. What had come next was the bitter blow. In fact, the captain had continued, he felt certain that Mr. Windle and Mr. Midgley—the names they had adopted for the voyage—would prefer to return all their winnings as a gesture of good faith—and to avoid having to swim the two miles separating the vessel from the coastline of Texas.
For all their New Yorker city-bred toughness and skill in combat, the partners had been too wise to resist the captain’s demand. They had known he was not bluffing and there was sufficient evidence—such as marked cards and loaded dice—in their baggage to establish their guilt beyond any question if he should institute a search. So they had disgorged their ill-gotten gains and agreed to leave the ship at its next port of call.
There had been even worse to come on the partners’ arrival at Brownsville. Both had entertained lavishly on board, as a bait to draw in their intended victims, charging it to their accounts and keeping their respective bank rolls intact for use in the games. Before they were allowed to go ashore, they were presented with accounts which took most of their money.
Standing on the quay and watching the Island Queen depart, after mutually wishing that she sank with all hands, the partners had turned their thoughts to the future. Each had decided that the situation could be worse. By all accounts, the Sovereign State of Texas had made such good use of its vast herds of free ranging longhorn cattle that it was no longer suffering from the financial depression left in the wake of the War of Secession. 1 In fact, many of its citizens were reputed to be very wealthy.
While the partners did not doubt that they could extract a fair proportion of such wealth from its newly-rich yokel owners, there was a major snag to be faced and overcome. To gain access to the strata of society at which they had set their sights called for the expenditure of much more money than they had available. So they conceded that a certain retrenchment of their ambitions was inescapable. There was to be a reception in honor of Governor Stanton Howard in two nights’ time, but they had known it was unlikely, in their current financial straits, that they could make the necessary connections to obtain an invitation.
Yielding to the inevitable, the partners had set themselves to re-establishing their depleted fortunes. They had made the necessary changes to their appearance and sought for victims at a level suitable to their bank roll. Moderate success had crowned their first night’s activities, but it was marred by the kind of incident that they least desired under the circumstances. Just as they were starting to win steadily, a young cowhand had objected to the way in which Acheson was dealing—which was far less competently than was usual for him—and received a bad beating for his temerity. Only the saloon owner’s wish to avoid involvement with the local law enforcement officers prevented the affair from developing into an unpleasant situation. As it was they were ordered from the premises and told to stay away.
Having acquired a somewhat healthier stake, that was still grossly inadequate for their ultimate needs, the partners had found a more lucrative field for their second night’s efforts.
Situated at the inland side of Brownsville, on the fringe of the ‘better’ section of the town, the Running Iron Saloon’s clientele denoted a rather higher social standing and wage-earning potential than the customers of the previous evening’s establishment. In spite of the name, the men in the bar were a pretty fair cross-section of the population. Nor did it take long for the partners to become involved in a game of draw poker with four other players.
A skilled performer, Acheson looked, dressed and behaved exactly as was expected of a ‘whiskey drummer’, his identity for the evening. Big, burly, with thinning brown hair and sun-reddened, jovial features, he exuded a bonhomie that made him appear to be a good sport. This and his loud chest suit, white shirt, a multi-hued cravat upon which a massive ‘diamond’ stickpin glinted in the room’s lights and a ‘derby’ hat perched on the back of his head effectively prevented anyone from suspecting that he and his partner were in cahoots.
Nobody looking at Josiah Meekly could doubt his claim that he was an undertaker. Not only did he wear the somber black attire mandatory for such an occupation, he had a medium-sized, lean frame and a demeanor ideally suited to dealing with corpses. His thin, miserable face had taken on such a look of pained disapproval every time Acheson launched a jocular comment directed at his ‘business’ that it might have convinced even people who knew them that they were strangers with nothing in common.
Certainly the four local players seated around the table were showing no doubts. In fact, they all had clearly accepted the partners at face value and were unaware of any connection.
To Acheson’s right sat a big, bluff seaman who had introduced himself as Jemmy Hawk of the cargo ship Ben Travis.
Next was one of the two players picked out by the partners as their main victims. Still not out of his teens, wearing clothing that marked him to range-wise eyes as a cowhand, he was a blond haired, handsome youngster around six foot in height with a powerful physique. A low crowned, wide brimmed black J.B. Stetson hat dangling by its fancy barbiquejo chinstrap on to the shoulders of a brown and white calfskin vest. Tight-rolled and knotted around his throat, a flaming red bandana trailed its long ends over a dark green shirt. His well-worn Levi’s pants hung outside a pair of tan colored high-heeled, sharp toed boots with spurs attached to their heels. Around his waist, a well-made brown leather gunbelt supported a pair of stag-horn handled Colt 1860 Army revolvers in contoured holsters. However, before he had sat down, he had unfastened the pigging thongs by which the tips of the holsters had been held securely to his thighs. He had announced that the other players could call him ‘Waco’, but made no mention of what the rest of his name might be.
Meekly had taken the chair between the two main victims.
Matching ‘Waco’ in height, the second ‘mark’ clearly had connections with the cattle industry. However, there were indications to eyes which knew the signs that his work was not so extensively concerned with handling the ranch’s stock. The flat heels of his boots implied he spent more time on his feet than a cowhand would while carrying out his various duties. Clad all in black, even to his gunbelt and footwear, the armament he was wearing was accorded ill with the almost babyish innocent cast of his handsome, Indian dark features. However, there was something in his red-hazel eyes that suggested the old walnut handled Colt 1848 Dragoon revolver riding butt forward in the low cavalry twist holster on the right of his belt and the enormous ivory handled James Black bowie knife sheathed at the left might be more than affectations. He had been addressed by the other youngster—for he seemed to be little older—as ‘Lon’ and, again, that was clearly considered sufficient of an introduction.
If anybody had been asked to pick out Acheson’s partner, the choice would almost certainly have fallen on the man to his left. Just as loudly dressed and jovial, Benny Benner was a genuine drummer and made no bones about declaring that he ‘travelled in ladies’ underwear’, leading the jokes the comment aroused and promising the others a peek at his wares if they allowed him to win.
While making his preliminary survey, Acheson had followed his habit of learning all he could about the opposition. According to the bartender he had questioned, Hawk served on a ship that specialized in transporting cattle to New Orleans. Having been paid off after having helped to deliver a herd of their ranch’s cattle for shipment, the two cowhands were indulging in the kind of spending spree which characterized their kind when in the money. Deciding that they had the type of attitude best suited to his and Meekly’s needs, Acheson had not bothered to seek further details. Nor, being newly arrived in Texas, would it have helped if he had known more about them. In fact, he was so eager to descend upon his prospective victims that he left the counter before the bartender could impart further significant information.
The more Acheson saw, once he was involved in the game, the greater grew his conviction that he had found the ‘marks’ he desired. Each of the cowhands had been flashing more money than he had anticipated. And he did not envisage any especial difficulty in separating them from it. Of the two, he considered the younger would be the easiest to take.
From all appearances, the blond had drunk just enough to have given himself an over-inflated view of his own toughness and sagacity. Which, added to his loudly stated claim to be an expert player of draw poker, made him an even more likely candidate for trimming. Seeking to emphasize his knowledge, he had ‘exposed’ a couple of cheating tricks so ancient and well publicized that no card sharp dared use them anymore. He had quoted epigrams on the order of, ‘Cut ’em light, lose all night,’ and, when hauling the first pot taken against his companion had chided, ‘Hell’s fire, Lon! Won’t you-all never team’s when you hold a lil ole kicker, 2 you double the odds against improving your hand.’
In spite of discerning that the blond youngster did have a certain skill in the game, Acheson soon decided that it formed a case of a little knowledge being dangerous. While he obviously considered that he was being smart, the way he played soon showed off all his weaknesses. When he had a powerful hand, he was all too apparently eager to throw his money into the pot. Announcing a firm policy against drawing to inside straights 3 and four flushes 4 unless the pot was worth it, he had done so on at least three occasions. When he pulled off a bluff, he invariably displayed the cards to prove he had done so. Or, on taking a pot with a powerful hand, he would not allow its value to be seen and affected to have won by bluffing. Taking advantage of the rules, he made ‘mouth’ bets and did not cover them. Or, when called and announcing he held two pairs, he would show the lower value cards first to let an opponent who held a similar hand think he had lost, then turn up the others and win.
Taking everything into consideration, Acheson and, from various signs known only to them, his partner had no doubts about the result of their efforts.
There had only been one disturbing moment and neither of the partners was involved in it directly. Having heard ‘Lon’ address the blond as ‘boy’, Benner did the same soon after Acheson had started to draw his satisfactory conclusions.
‘Hombre,’ Waco growled, oozing cold and grim menace overlaid with a tinge of drunkenness that could prove dangerous. ‘There’s not but four—or at the most five—men’s can call me that. Which you-all aren’t none of them.’ Wanting to prevent anything that might disrupt and terminate the game, Acheson put aside his contented thoughts on how the situation was progressing.
‘No harm done, I reckon,’ the burly ‘whiskey drummer’ said, exuding amiability. ‘Let me set up the drinks, shall I?’
‘You can afford to, way you’ve been winning,’ Waco grumbled, then glanced at his companion. ‘Hey, “Lon”, is it your white side’s’s doing the drinking?’
‘It’d be illegal any other way,’ the second cowhand replied, his voice, a pleasant tenor, showing just a trace of relief over the blond’s anger having been diverted.
‘How’s that?’ Acheson asked, wanting to keep the conversation turned from the clearly annoyed Benner.
‘Don’t know how it is up to New York, Thorley,’ ‘Lon’ answered. ‘But down here to Texas it’s again’ the law to sell hard liquor to an Injun.’
‘Which Lon’s grandpappy’s Chief Long Walker of the good ole Pehnane Comanch’ is,’ Waco went on. ‘Only nobody’s best start making comment on it.’
‘I can haul in my own rope, boy,’ ‘Lon’ put in, sounding annoyed, as the blond glared truculently around the other occupants of the table. ‘Which you’d best haul in your horns. You-all know’s the boss allowed we was to stay out of trouble.’
‘Dusty Fog’s only the boss when we’re riding for him,’ Waco snapped back. ‘He don’t scare me none, nor tell me what to do.’
‘You get into fuss and he’ll do some telling,’ warned ‘Lon’.
‘Huh!’ Waco snorted. ‘Worse he can do is fire me and jobs aren’t so hard to come by’s I need that one.’
‘You get fired by him and he puts out the word,’ ‘Lon’ stated, ‘you’ll not get any decent spread to take you on.’
‘There’s better paid ’n’ easier work ’n’ riding herd on a bunch of stinking cows like I’ve been saying all along,’ the blond declared, then shook his head and grinned. ‘Come on, I thought we was playing poker.’
Although the game of poker was taking place at one of the bar-room’s center tables, it was arousing little interest among the other customers. The stakes were not sufficiently high to warrant attention, nor had anything untoward occurred to make spectating worthwhile.
However, on the mention of a name which was very prominent in the affairs of Texas, the two men at the nearest table looked around.
Of all the room’s occupants, the pair seemed to be the most out of place. The smaller might just have passed as one of the general run of customers. Of middle height, bespectacled, with pallid and commonplace features, apart from his brown suit being of the latest style from New York, his clothing suggested that he belonged to the higher levels of the income bracket which formed the majority of the Running Iron Saloon’s clientele. Unlike the elegant Cattlemen’s Hotel at one end of the scale and what had once been Francisco Castro’s inelegant cantina 5 on the other, the establishment catered for the middle echelons of the population.
Much the same height, though more heavily built than his companion, the second man presented a similar clerkly appearance. However, his raiment showed clearly that he had a higher status. There was something foreign about his swarthy features which was accentuated by the way in which the tips of his large brown moustache were waxed to sharp points and by the small spike of beard on the tip of his chin. A black cloak with a red silk lining was dangling on his shoulders, exposing to view a black dinner suit and one of the new-fangled detachable stiff false shirt fronts known as a ‘dickey’. While the clothing was of good quality, he appeared ill at ease in it. In a lesser establishment, his black opera hat—which he had collapsed and lay on the table before him—might have been the cause of uncouth comment, or even actual abuse, but the bouncers employed by the Running Iron Saloon were swift to quell such behavior against paying patrons.
Having listened with some interest to the rest of the conversation between the cowhands, the men continued to watch as the game continued.
‘Let’s up the ante to twenty dollars,’ ‘Lon’ suggested, watching as Acheson cut the cards for the seaman to deal.
