SADDLEBAG DISPATCHES
BOB ARMSTRONG
CLAY ALLISON’S GIRL A SHORT STORY
Winner of the 2024 Saddlebag Dispatches Longhorn Prize for Western Short Fiction
A
bigail Bartlett honored her father’s exhortations to turn the other cheek long after she had abandoned many of his other teachings, but now, as Bull Turnbull’s blood soaked into the floorboards, the homily in her mind ran more along the lines of “if you don’t want somebody sticking you with an Arkansas toothpick, keep your damn hands to yourself.” Truth to tell, it was hard to form any kind of thought, what with Abigail’s struggle to keep her balance over the twitching bulk of the dying man, her vision blurred by whatever caused her head to pound like the devil’s own hammermill and by a spray of hot, viscous liquid she wiped from her eyes. It didn’t help that a murder of crows seemed to have roosted in the cramped bedroom, though a blink of Abigail’s eyes revealed that the dry, croaking sounds were in fact emerging from the throat of poor, little Effie Hutchins, kneeling on the floor beside Bull and frozen in place with her mouth agape. Abigail lowered herself to Effie’s bed to collect her breath and assemble her thoughts. Head throbbing. Salt on the tongue. From her own blood, thank god, judging by the raw flesh on her lower lip. Effie’s eyes wide in terror and bulging unnaturally. A pair of hands, scarred and calloused. The inhuman sounds of a beast, unleashed by cheap whiskey and whatever drove men to hate the women they bought. It was all coming together.
Effie’s screams had reached Abigail in the private parlor adjacent to Dan Harmon’s Rivoli Garden Saloon and Dance Hall, where she was entertaining a pair of commercial travellers with a rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. As the men enjoyed drinks and cigars and waited to select their company for the evening, Abigail’s fingers were halted by sounds of distress. She abandoned the sonata in the midst of the delicate adagio sostenuto and rushed up the stairs, noting with alarm the ominous percussion of heavy blows landing on soft flesh. By the time she threw open Effie’s door, the blows had ceased and Bull’s hands encircled Effie’s throat. Without waiting for Dan Harmon’s bruiser, she flew at the big trail hand. “Let her go! You’re killing her!” Bull, well over six feet tall and broad-chested as the creatures that inspired his name, shrugged her off like a bothersome fly. When she hauled back her right arm and landed a windmill blow on his ear, he released Effie and turned his full attention to Abigail. Eyes shining, face scarlet with rage and rotgut, he operated the mighty bellows of his lungs for two deep breaths, during which Abigail hoped he would come to his senses, or Dan’s man would come to her rescue. Neither came to pass. Moving with surprising speed for a man of his bulk, he grasped Abigail in his meaty paws, lifted her
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