Episode 18

The Devil Coming With Me

“Have you not the shame God gave every man? Have you not the sense God gave a wood tick?” the woman said, her eyes sweeping the circle of men, including the new town marshal. She was spitting mad. Joe noted for the first time that she held a length of cane in her delicately gloved hand. She cut at the drovers with the cane, sweeping it back and forth. It cut the air with a whistling sound. The cowboys took a step back, the prospect of this wildcat female slashing their faces with a cane end bringing them to a moment of sobriety.

A dozen or so women joined her, coming through the gap made in the ranks by the white-clad hellion like a host of seraphs riding into hell. The cowboys and the other patrons made way for them. These were more common angels, sturdy women in dull dress with faces made ugly with righteous rage. Each was armed with a length of cane.

“Is it not enough you drink and smoke and chew more like beasts than men? Is it not enough that you defile female flesh with your base animal desires? But you must hasten your damnation, assure your torment in the realm eternal, by further humiliating a fallen woman?” The woman in white admonished every swinging dick within earshot.

She made her way past Joe to step behind the bar, stepping over the fallen bartender and elbowing the other aside. The administering angel lifted the trembling whore from where she crouched behind a barrel. Her hands to the girl’s shoulders.

“Are you a peace officer, sir?” the woman said. Joe didn’t realize at first that she was addressing him. His attention was still on the surrounding press of men now held at bay by the company of women suddenly in their midst.

“I am, ma’am,” Joe said, not turning, Colts held unwavering on the big bastard with the buck knife still in his fist.

“May I have your coat to cover this poor, despoiled child?” the woman asked, though it was clear she expected his full cooperation.

“That may be awkward as I’m at what you might call an impasse here, ma’am.”

“Sisters,” the woman said.

Without further command, the crew of women stepped between the bar and the goggling mob of patrons. They stood like a bristling hedge between Joe and the drovers. The largest of them, a broad-beamed matronly type, whipped her cane through the air. The drunks recoiled, taking a stumbling step back.

Joe holstered his .36 and slipped an arm from his coat. He switched the larger Colt to his right hand with a flickering motion. He slipped the coat free and held it out behind him.

“Perhaps you’d like to accompany us from here?” the angel said.

“Move to the door. I’ll be covering you,” Joe said and restored the smaller Colt to his left hand and trained both on the shifting mob of drovers. The barricade of women filed toward the tent opening behind their leader who was taking the young whore out to the street, Joe’s coat wrapped about her.

Joe waited until the women were clear and backed toward the opening. His guns trained steady on the cowboys. The big honcho eyeballed him with mean pig-eyes.

“You heard the lady bringing you the word of God,” Joe said as he retreated out of the lamp light into the dark of the street. “But I will be back in here shortly and it’ll be the devil himself coming with me.”