Quiet Town by J. T. Edson Page A

the full, forty grain charge for use in the confines of the saloon. It would be dangerous to do so for the Colt would throw a bullet clear through a man and still retain enough power to go through the thin partition wall and damage anyone it hit on the other side.
    Bearcat Annie was also surprised by Dusty’s attitude. He turned to her. “I’ll send the undertaker along, ma’am, unless he’s here already. How about your two men?”
    “The doctor’s tending to them. You play some rough, Marshal. We were only funning.”
    “Yes’m. I appreciate a sense of humour. Happen there’s a next time I’ll laugh good and loud. Then I’ll close you up.” Tipping his hat politely as he delivered the warning Dusty walked from the room, followed by Doc.
    Dusty was puzzled by Bearcat Annie’s attitude. The woman might just be trying to prove to him that she could run the town although a woman. There also might be some far more serious and sinister motive behind her actions.
    At the jail Dusty found the cells were being filled up with sleeping drunks, crooked gamblers and various other miscreants. Mark turned as Dusty and Doc came in. “Got one I’d like you to look at, Doc,” he greeted. “Put him in our quarters.”
    Doc and Dusty went into the room at the back and on the bunk lay the man who’d been in the poker game with them earlier. His face was pale and his breathing hardly noticeable; he was stripped of everything.
    “Found him down in the Chinese section,” Mark said as Doc bent to examine the man. “Couple of them were just taking his boots when we arrived. They took off and we lost ‘em. You know what it’s like down there.”
    “He’s been drugged with butyl chloride,” Doe remarked, straightening up. “Be out for some time yet. Keep him warm and he’ll be all right, except for a bad head, come morning.”
    “Butyl chloride?” Dusty asked. “That’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
    “Sure, unless the user knows how much to give and it varies with everyone.”
    “Then we’ve got to get whoever used it. Before they kill someone.”
    Mike, the miner, sat on the bed the following morning, holding his head. He glared at the door of the room wondering what all the noise was about in the passage. Outside, walking along the cell fronts, ratting a tin cup along the bars and giving wild yells, was the Ysabel Kid. Rusty Willis gave willing support and several of the prisoners joined in. It was Dusty Fog’s special cure for drunks. At that hour, in the cold grey light of dawn, all someone who had drunk himself under a table the night before wanted was peace and quiet. The last thing he needed was for his aching head to be assailed by this noise.
    The drunks were trooped out and sat on the bench in the passage, holding their heads. “Breakfast, gents,” Mark Counter announced, entering the room followed by one of Irish Pat’s men carrying a tray.
    Each of the groaning men found a plate placed on their knees and eyes focused on their breakfast. There was a concerted rush for the door for a whisky-aching stomach could not face up even to the sight of cold, unsweetened oatmeal mush.
    Mark watched the men staggering towards the water trough and grinned at his fellow deputies. “Here endeth the first lesson. Herd ‘em back and get this place scrubbed out, then turn them loose.”
    Mike looked up as Dusty Fog came in. “What’s happening. Cap’n?”
    “Just seeing the drunks have some more fun. What happened to you?”
    “That damned chippy!” the miner came to his feet, then realised how he was fixed. “Did they do—.”
    “Who?”
    The miner told his story with many a lurid curse. He had met a pretty young woman in a store and helped carry her parcels back to a small hotel where she was staying. There he had met her brother and been offered a drink. That was the last thing he could remember.
    “We found you on Chinese Street,” Dusty explained. “Reckon they left you up there knowing what’d happen.