Read Online The Bullwhip Breed by J. T. Edson - Free Book Online

Calamity could ever remember seeing anywhere. The exception was a girl Calamity’s size, with a slim, but shapely figure in an abbreviated white outfit that left her arms and legs bare and who wore—although Calamity did not know them as such—ballet slippers on her feet. Showing far greater grace, agility and style, the girl whirled, spun and kicked her well-muscled legs in a manner that made the others look heavy-footed as a bunch of miners at a hoe-down. Her red hair was taken back and pinned up at the rear in a severe fashion, and her rather pale but pretty face held an expression of rapture as if she enjoyed every minute of her dance.
    A man, engrossed in watching the red-haired dancer’s gyrations on the points of her ballet slippers, felt Calamity bump into him as she crossed the room, glanced at her, turned back to observe the dancer, then swivelled his head hurriedly to Calamity’s departing figure. For a moment he stared after Calamity and rubbed his eyes. Deciding that he had better stop drinking, for he could not possibly have just seen a pretty girl dressed in men’s clothes pass him—although, if it came to a point, the feller who bumped into him sure walked fancy—the man emptied his glass and left the room.
    “Hey, Calam gal!” whooped Dobe Killem, eyeing his protege. “Come and get sat down, gal. Damn it, where’ve you been to?”
    Suspicion gleamed in the saloon-girls’ eyes as Calamity took the offered seat. Unlike the man Calamity bumped into, they knew for certain the newcomer was a woman and did not care for the idea of an outsider moving in on what showed signs of developing into a real humdinger of a party.
    “They’re my brothers, all of ‘em,” Calamity remarked, reading the signs as if the other girls bore them painted on their bosoms. She reached for the drink Killem poured and went on in explanation. “My mother had a fast hoss.”
    Then she grinned at the men of the outfit, wondering if any of them would have dared walk into a Western saloon dressed in those derby hats, white shirts, fancy neck-ties and town suits. Dared might not be the correct word, for those freight-hauling Sons feared nothing but their boss.
    “Where’ve you been to, Calam gal?” asked Tophet Tombes, who looked about as at home in his new clothes as a skunk would in a church hall. “We waited, but you didn’t show.”
    “I got lost,” admitted Calamity. “Then I ran into a young feller as needed some help from four jaspers who was walking all over his face.”
    “Trust you!” said Killem dryly. “There’s time I reckon we should ought to call you ‘Trouble’, not Calamity,”
    “Calamity!” giggled one of the girls. “That’s a funny name.”
    “Likely,” answered Calamity, eyeing the girl with a warning Stare. “Only don’t push it, sister, or you’ll wind up with a set of ingrowing buck-teeth.”
    Anger glowed in the other girl’s eyes as she glanced towards her friends for moral and actual support. Slapping a big hand on the table top, Kiliem glared around at the girls, his bland face filled with innocent-featured malevolence.
    “Now hold it there, all of you!” he ordered. “Just listen good to me, ‘cause I don’t aim to say it twice. Calam here’s part of my outfit. You mean-mouth her and she’ll whup the whole boiling of you, which same’ll spoil all our evenings. So you be nice and friendly with her. You hear me?”
    Within certain bounds the girls were taught to regard the customer as always being right. So far they had been treated royally by the free-spending freighters and did not wish to slaughter a goose which laid such frequent golden eggs. Several of their fellow workers eyed the party with calculating gaze and would not hesitate to move in should any of the men give a hint of displeasure. Anyway, that girl in pants did not look as if she aimed to give them any competition.
    Although quite willing to take on the saloon-girls individually or as a bunch, Calamity