Troubled range (8 page)

"I've never met the lady," Belle remarked, ignoring the interest her action aroused among the people in the room. "But I'm sure the statement was correct."

At his table, Framant leaned forward, studying Belle with cold eyes.

Unbuckling her gunbelt, Calamity put it down on the table by Belle's bag. She dipped her shoulder and charged Belle, sending her sprawling. Belle caught the wall and prevented .herself falling, but her hat slid back and she brushed it from her head. By this time Calamity had picked up the pencil which Belle dropped and turned to the poster once more.

Belle sprang forward and Calamity twisted to face her, sitting on the table and raising her feet ready to thrust the blonde away. Only Belle did not come in range. Shooting out her hands, she grabbed for Calamity's ankles and caught hold of the cuffs of her pants instead. Calamity let out a yell of anger and surprise as Belle threw her weight back and heaved. Although she tried to grab something, Calamity failed to find anything she might grip and prevent herself being dragged from the table. She landed on the floor with a thud, but Belle had not finished. Backing away, Belle dragged Calamity across the floor, the other girl bending her legs and thrusting, trying to force herself free and grabbing at chairs or table legs to avoid being hauled along.

To the tune of laughter and'shouts of encouragement, Belle dragged Calamity across the floor. There was only one way out for Calamity, although not a way a more modest young woman would have cared to take. Unbuckling her waist-belt, she tried to slide out of her pants. Their tightness held her and she grabbed the leg of the faro table as she passed it. This proved firm enough, and the table heavy enough, to anchor her down. Belle grunted and threw her weight back to try to tear Calamity free. Too late she realised what Calamity had done. The pants started to slide and Calamity gave a heave which freed herself. She left her pants in Belle's hands and lost her moccasins.

Taken by surprise, Belle staggered back, lost her footing, and sat down hard, still clinging to Calamity's pants. Calamity, still wearing her kepi, made a pretty picture, her shirt tail flapping around her shapely bare legs and giving glimpses of the new white, lace-frilled combination chemise and drawers she had bought that afternoon to prove to Mark Counter that she was a real lady at heart. They were the latest fashion among show people, short legged and daring, and Calamity had the sort of figure to set them off to their best advantage.

Coming to her feet, Calamity flung herself at Belle, landing on the blonde before she made her feet. Grabbing down. Calamity gripped Belle's skirt and heaved at it with all her strength. Belle gave a yell, tried to twist herself free and in doing so threw the final pressure on the tortured cloth. With

a ripping sound, the skirt tore from waist almost to hem. Rearing back, her trophy firmly gripped in both hands, Calamity tore the skirt away, rolling Belle right over and leaving her black stocking-clad legs, with frilly red garters, and black drawers as brief and attractive as Calamity's own, exposed by the hem of her blouse.

Once more Calamity sprang into the attack, her hands closing on Belle's blouse. Belle forced herself up, her own hands gripped Calamity's shirt neck and her eyes met Calamity's.

"Try it!" Belle hissed. "And I'll peel you raw." For once in her life Calamity Jane backed down from a challenge. Nothing she had seen about the blonde told her Belle would not carry out the threat of stripping Calamity naked, even if it meant losing every stitch of clothing she wore in the process. Modesty did not prevent Calamity from calling Belle's bluff. She knew that if they did start to remove more clothing, the owners of the saloon would stop the fight. A hair-yanking brawl between two women was common enough for the owners to let one go on, it was regarded as being a bit of added entertainment for the customers. But there were limits to how far the owners dare let such a fight

go.

So Calamity released her hold of Belle's blouse, for she did not want what promised to be a good fight stopping. Not until she had handed that blonde hussy the licking of her life as a warning to stay away from Calamity Jane's man.

While releasing Belle's blouse, Calamity made up her mind how to handle the situation. She had been taught to fight by soldiers and freighters, men who showed her the value of a fist over hair-yanking. In more than one saloon brawl this knowledge had given her a decided edge over the other girl.

"First one into her belly," Calamity thought. "Then the next to her jaw."

The first drove into the stomach. Up came the other hand and caught the down-dropping jaw—

And Calamity hit the floor on her rump, her head spinning. She had learned an important lesson. The other girl also knew how to use her fists.

Now it was Belle's turn to become over-confident. She sprang forward and drew back her foot. Calamity showed that she had learned other lessons in the art of self-defence. Quickly she hooked her left foot behind Belle's left ankle, placed her right foot on Belle's left knee, pulled on the ankle and pushed on the knee. Caught with her other leg raised for the kick, Belle could not stop herself going over, but she broke the worst of her fall with her hands.

They came up and flung themselves at each other. For a time it might have been two men fighting. They used their fists, wrestling throws and holds, none of the usual tactics of a pair of fighting women. The watching crowd yelled their encouragement and already the house gamblers were taking bets on the results. Not that they had any clear indication of which girl would win for they seemed evenly matched.

"Howdy, Mark," a sleepy voice said.

Turning from watching Belle drive Calamity back into the crowd with a battery of punches, Mark looked at the speaker.

"Howdy, Joel. What're you fixing to do about this? Speaking as a duly appointed officer of the law that is."

"Ain't doing nothing," Stocker replied, watching the crowd scatter as the two girls spun round and through them. "My job's to keep the peace and I wouldn't reckon anybody's breaking it." He paused and eyed Mark with that same sleepy gaze. "How do you figure in on this?"

"Could say I brought them together," Mark admitted. "But, knowing Calamity, she'd've come in here and tangled with somebody, and B—Marigold's the most likely one for her to pick from."

"Huh huhi" Stocker grunted. "Figured it that way myself. Only I wouldn't have expected Miss Marigold to be the one. Alius struck me as being a real lady."

The "real lady" was at that moment swinging Calamity around by the hair and sent her sprawling across the room to hit the wall. Calamity seemed dazed by the impact and stood with legs apart, back braced against the wall.

"Best stop—!" Stocker began as Belle moved in towards Calamity.

His words stopped for Belle did not deliver a crippling kick at her helpless opponent. Instead she stopped and

started to slap Calamity's face, alternating hands and swinging the other girl's head from side to side. The pain of the slaps revived Calamity and she thrust forward, her hands tangling into Belle's hair. If Belle's yell of pain was anything to go by, the grip Calamity had on her hurt.

The fight developed into a more female brawl with Calamity's hair-yanking opening. Reeling backwards, the two girls spun across the room in a flailing tangle of arms and legs, pulling hair, swinging slaps and punches. One piece of feminine fighting was denied them. Calamity's work did not tend to allow her to grow long nails, and Belle knew men objected to playing with a gambler who had long enough fingernails to make identifying nicks on the cards.

Even without scratching, the two girls put on a tolerable example of the art of bar-room brawling. On their feet, or rolling over and over on the floor, they went at it'for almost fifteen minutes without a pause.

Then Belle was flat on her back and Calamity dropped to kneel astride her with the intention of grabbing her hair and bouncing her head on the floor. Belle knew as well as Calamity what the red-head intended to do. Bringing up her legs, Belle hooked them under Calamity's armpits from behind, almost as if she was trying to perform a full nelson with legs instead of arms. Calamity gave a yell as she went over backwards, but carried on rolling to land on her feet and dropped down. She landed on Belle's raised feet, felt them against her chest and knew what to expect even if she could not prevent it happening.

Thrusting up with her feet, Belle sent Calamity flying backwards across the room to land on a table top. Calamity saw Belle coming at her and rolled back off the table, throwing it over. It landed on Belle's right foot, the edge thudding down on her toes. Belle squealed in pain. She was still hopping on her other foot when Calamity rounded the table.

Calamity swung herself around, her fist coming in a circle which ended on the side of Belle's jaw. The crowd scattered as Belle went sprawling across the room, hit the bar and clung to it. Dazedly Belle watched Calamity come forward, a chair gripped in her hands ready to strike. The blonde sobbed for

breath, she tried to force herself from the bar to avoid the blow.

"We'd better stop Calam," Mark said to Stocker.

"Ye—Dabnad it, look there."

Instead of lifting the chair and crashing it on to Belle, Calamity threw it to one side. She staggered to the bar and Belle crouched ready to fight back.

"H—hold it!" Calamity gasped.

"H—had e—enough?" Belle replied in surprise.

"No—no—Feel like a drink."

"A—and me. Fred, whisky and brandy."

"What do you make of that?" Stocker asked.

"Those gals sure must be enjoying the fight. Belle could have finished Calamity against the wall there, and Calamity could sure have sung B—Marigold to sleep with that chair. There's been other times when they could have used a knee, or foot and didn't."

He hoped Stocker had not noticed the slip he made in his words. Not by a flicker of emotion did Stocker's sleepy face show he had noticed Mark say "Belle" instead of Marigold. However, Mark would have been surprised if he had seen anything on the marshal's face even if he noticed the slip.

The girls finished their drinks. Watching them, the crowd grew expectant once more. Most of the onlookers had felt disappointed when they saw the fight come to such an indecisive end. Now they realised that the fight had not ended, but that the opponents were just taking a drink while regaining their strength for a resumption of hostilities.

From his place at the end of the bar, Mark watched the girls and felt puzzled. While he could understand Calamity grand-standing in such a manner, it surprised him that Belle would act in the same awy.

"My turn," Calamity said, slapping her empty glass on the counter. "Same again, Fred."

"Here's looking at you," Belle replied, raising her glass. "Not that you'd be seeing much with that eye."

"If it's worse than yours, it's bad," Calamity grinned. "Whooee, that was a mean one you caught me with at the beginning. Say, where'd you learn to wrestle?"

"From an Indian. Have you finished?"

"Sure."

Setting down her glass, Calamity lashed out her fist, driving it into the blonde's jaw and spinning her in a circle to hit the bar. Belle swung her arm sideways, the heel of her hand driving into Calamity's ribs and stopping her forward rush.

For thirty minutes by the bar-room clock the fight raged, from start, to when the two girls, tottering on legs which looked like heat-buckled candles, gave Stocker cause to think he might have to end the fight.

"I'll have to stop 'em if they go any further, Mark," the marshal said as Calamity staggered from a push and left her torn shirt in Belle's hands.

"Looks that way," Mark replied, for Belle had lost her blouse.

It could not go on. The girls were on their last reserves of strength. Where their slaps had sounded like whip-cracks on landing, they now barely made a sound and on reaching flesh seemed more in the nature of a gentle push.

Hooking a leg behind Calamity, more by accident than design, Belle tripped her. They were locked in each other's arms and could do nothing to stop themselves falling. However, Calamity managed to twist herself so they both hit the floor. Their arms relaxed and they rolled apart, lying flat on their backs, breasts heaving, mouths hanging open.

"Get the doctor," Mark said. "I'll get the gals to their rooms."

"Sure," Stocker replied, "I'll—Man, just look at that."

Incredibly, in view of the gruelling brawl they had just fought, Belle was trying to sit up. Beside her, Calamity rolled over and forced her hands against the floor. Belle did not look the elegant creature who dealt blackjack. Her once immaculate hair now resembled a tangled, dirty, blonde wool mop. The face was streaked with sweat and dirt, its left eye blackened and puffed almost shut, the nose bloody. Her most serious injury was a bite on the left hand, gained when the fight was at its height. She had lost one stocking but the garter remained, a slash of colour against the white of her leg. The other stocking had little foot, no knee and hung in tatters. Calamity was just as badly bruised and battered, dirty and exhausted.

Sensing a climax approaching, the crowd fell silent. Quite a lot of money depended on the outcome of the fight.

Through the whirling mist that seemed to surround her, Calamity saw Belle sitting up. Drawing on her last ounce of strength, Calamity thrust herself forward, shooting her fist at Belle. Everything went black for Calamity the instant before her fist landed. Carried by the impetus of her body, the fist caught Belle at the side of the jaw and Belle flopped on to her back. Calamity's limp form dropped on to Belle's and they lay there without a move.

"What'd you call that, Mark?" Stocker asked.

"I'd say a stand-off. Go get the doc, I'll tend to the girls."

Excitement burst over the crowd, cheers and shouts of laughter ringing out. The floor manager called for drinks on the house and there was a rush to the bar. Mark did not join it. He crossed to where the saloon-girls, eight in all, stood in a group, knowing they were not included in the manager's largesse.