Danielle had supper with Sellers and Burris. Afterward, the pair set out for the saloons and poker tables. Danielle, still two hundred dollars ahead after the previous night at the Pretty Girl Saloon, decided to return there. It seemed immoral to her, naked women wandering among the tables, fetching drinks. More and more, however, Danielle was becoming accustomed to this man’s world. The naked girls drew men like flies drawn to a honey jug. She wondered how a man kept his mind on the game, with a naked female to distract him. Suppose they discovered she wasn’t a man? Would she be asked to leave?
Reaching the saloon, Danielle paid her hundred dollars, received her credit in chips, and made her way up the stairs. She opened the door into the gambling hall, and immediately a pair of the naked women were there to greet her.
“I remember you from last night, cowboy,” said one of the women. “You won big.”
“I reckon,” Danielle said. “You just have to keep your mind on the game.”
Danielle headed for a faro table, while the two naked women looked at one another questioningly. It had been their specific duty to watch for the return of this stranger who seemed to have no interest in naked women and kept his mind on the game. The naked pair hurried to the faro table and watched Danielle win the first three hands. She lost one and then won the next two. Occasionally she lost a hand, but won more often than she lost. So engrossed was she in the game, she failed to see the man with a tied-down revolver quietly leave the hall. Danielle decided it was time to back off after she had won four hundred dollars.
“You’re on a roll, cowboy,” one of the girls said. “Don’t be in a hurry.”
“Thanks,” Danielle said, “but it’s past my bedtime.” She had taken seven hundred dollars of the saloon’s money in two days, and she fully understood the hard looks she had received from the dealers as she prepared to leave. She had ignored the naked women, defied the odds, and she had won. Now she had only to cross the street to her hotel. She felt like her luck had run out at the Pretty Girl Saloon. Her feeling was confirmed when, from the darkness between the hotel and the building adjoining it, there came a blaze of gunfire. The first slug ripped through Danielle’s left arm between wrist and elbow, but it didn’t affect her aim. Lightning quick, she drew her Colt and fired twice. Once to the left and then once to the right of the muzzle flash. Three men—one of them the desk clerk—rushed out of the hotel.
“What’s going on out here?” the desk clerk demanded.
“Somebody tried to bushwhack me,” replied Danielle, “and I shot back. I reckon you’d better send for the sheriff.”
Sheriff Hollis arrived soon after with a lantern. Scarcely looking at Danielle, Hollis headed for the dark area between the hotel and the adjoining building. There he hunkered down, and in the pale light from the lantern, it became obvious he was examining the body of a man. Slowly the sheriff returned to the street where Danielle stood, blood dripping off the fingers of her left hand.
“Come on,” said Sheriff Hollis. “We’ll have Doc take care of your wound. Then you’ll go to my office and tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s about me being bushwhacked,” Danielle said. “I fired back.”
“Two hits in the dark,” said Sheriff Hollis. “I don’t often see shooting like that.”
Danielle said nothing. When they reached the doctor’s house, he quickly cleaned and bandaged Danielle’s wounded arm. Danielle then followed Sheriff Hollis back to his office.
“Now,” Sheriff Hollis said, “you have some talking to do. Start with your name.”
“Daniel Strange. I had just left the Pretty Girl Saloon and was on my way back to my hotel. I didn’t fire until somebody fired at me.”
“I believe you,” said Sheriff Hollis. “This is not the first time this has happened here, but it’s the first time anybody’s nailed a bushwhacker. His name is Belk Sanders. Have you heard of him?”
“Not until just now,” Danielle said. “I’d just won four hundred dollars playing blackjack at the Pretty Girl Saloon. Sanders must have been there, leaving ahead of me. But the cost of going upstairs is a hundred dollars’ worth of gambling chips. I doubt anyone would be able to afford that very often, and it makes me wonder if the saloon didn’t hire him to bushwhack the winners and take back the money.”
“I’ve thought of that, myself,” Sheriff Hollis said, “but there’s no proof. Tonight’s the fourth time a winner from the Pretty Girl has been bushwhacked. The first three weren’t as sudden with a pistol as you.”
“How long has this Belk Sanders been around here?” Danielle asked. “What does he do besides hang around in saloons?”
“Nothing, as far as I know,” said Sheriff Hollis, “but he always seemed to be flush. I think maybe you solved one of my problems tonight.”
“Will you need me for an inquest?” Danielle asked. “I’m claiming self-defense.”
“You’ll have no trouble with the court,” said Sheriff Hollis, “and I don’t think you’ll have to be here. Three men in the hotel, including the desk clerk, saw the muzzle flash from Sanders’s gun before you fired. I’ve never seen a more obvious case of self-defense.”
“I’ll be at the hotel tonight, and until sometime tomorrow, if you need me,” Danielle said. “I want to be sure this wound is going to heal before I ride on.”
“Good thinking,” said Sheriff Hollis. “Get yourself a quart of whiskey. It’ll take care of a fever and kill any infection.”
Danielle returned to the Pretty Girl Saloon, but only for some whiskey, which she was able to buy at the downstairs bar. From there, she returned to her hotel. By then, her wounded arm had begun to hurt, and she took a dose of the laudanum the doctor had given her. The quart of whiskey she placed on the table beside the bed. She awakened the next morning with a temperature, and forced herself to drink some of the liquor. It was a terrible experience, for Danielle had never tasted whiskey before. She choked the stuff down, wondering if it wouldn’t do more harm to her insides than the bullet had done to her arm. She counted her blessings, for Sanders had fired twice. Had his second shot hit her, it might have been necessary for the doctor to undress her in order to treat the wound. That would have given the lawman and the town something to talk about, and would explain why the Pretty Girl Saloon’s naked women hadn’t taken her mind off her game of twenty-one. Danielle was soon sick from the whiskey, and long before she was ready to get up, there was a knock on her door.
“It’s Herb and Jesse,” a voice said. “We’re invitin’ you to breakfast.”
“I can’t eat,” said Danielle. “I had some whiskey last night, and I’m sick. I reckon I’ll be here another night. If you’re still here at suppertime, I’ll join you.”
The day dragged on, and it was late afternoon before Danielle felt like getting up. But when there was a knock on her door, she was ready.
“Burris and Sellers,” said a voice through the door. “It’s suppertime.”
Danielle let them in, and although her shirt sleeve concealed her bandaged arm, the two of them looked at her with renewed interest.
“We heard what happened last night,” Jesse Burris said. “The desk clerk’s talking about it to anybody who’ll listen.”
“My God, that was some shootin’,” said Herb Sellers enthusiastically. “You nailed the varmint twice, with only a muzzle flash to shoot at. When you start teachin’ lessons for using a sixgun, I aim to sign up.”
Danielle laughed. “My pa was the best gunsmith in all of Missouri. He taught me to draw and shoot.”
“Maybe there’s a reward on this gent you shot last night,” Jesse Burris said.
“If there is, I don’t want it,” said Danielle. “I shot him because he shot at me. Now tell me about your night at the poker tables.”