Bert Tillory had slept with every woman west of the Pecos, to hear him tell it.

He'd blown into town a fortnight ago and spent every evening regaling the boys at the Rusty Bucket with tales of his conquests. Then, when it got late enough, and he'd had enough whiskey, he'd push his chair back from the table, tip the bartender an extra four bits, and head out in search of female companionship. He always found some, from what folks said.

The thing that kept him from getting lynched or shot as he plowed his way through farmers' daughters and bankers' wives was the sheer audacity of him. He wasn't much to look at--a little on the skinny side with a crooked nose that he got from a girl in Missouri who liked to have a fight before a fuck. But there was something about him just the same that kept men from doing much more than grumbling about him over their drinks. He was like a force of nature, or maybe a god.

It almost became a perverse matter of pride as they questioned him. "Who'd you bag this time, Bert?" called Bill Huggins as Bert sauntered into the Bucket. Bill asked every day and laughed long and loud as Bert described which ladies had felt the touch of his divine rod.

"Why, I believe that was your wife, Bill. While you were out digging post holes, I was plugging hers."

And of course, everyone laughed long and loud as Bill's ears turned bright red. "That ain't right," he said into his beer. "Ain't right for a man to sleep with another man's wife."

Bert bought him a shot of whiskey and put an arm around Bill's shoulders. "Let me make it up to you, Bill. You ever eat an orange?"

"Yes…" Bill looked confused.

"Get yourself one, peel it, and then get the seeds out of it but don't use your teeth. Just use your tongue."

"That'd take me all day," said Bill.

Bert winked at him. "Trust me. Your wife will thank you later."

"I don't understand."

"That's the whole problem." Bert sucked down his own whiskey. "Ain't many fellers who do."

"Hey Bert," said young Ed Feingold the lawyer, who was proudly Jewish and could drink anyone under the table in a straight-up shot-for-shot contest. "Who was the richest lady you ever bedded?"

Bert smiled. "Oh, that'd be this one hifalutin' Russian lady in Muskogee. She was a whaddyacallit, a tsarina."

"What's a tsarina?"

"Like a princess. She was a real fine woman. Good breeding. And she could suck a prick like a champion."

"Dang," said Ed, eyes wide. "I'd love to meet a girl like that."

"I hear tell they're all like that in Russia," said Doctor Jedediah Tetch from the corner. "And they like it in their asses too."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Bert. "But if I ever get tired of American women, I think I'll be headin' out towards Moscow."

"That's up in the Dakota Territory, ain't it?" asked Dave Nacker, one of the town's undertakers.

"No, stupid," said Dave's brother Sam, slapping him on the back of the head. "It's in Russia."

"What's the strangest woman you ever bedded?" asked Hank Jessup, who was a nigger but the best blacksmith in four towns, so he was welcome to drink with the white folks; all their horses had Jessup shoes.

Bert leaned back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and looked off into the distance. "Well," he said, "I guess that'd have to be Clockwork Chloe."

A crash made everyone look over at the bar. One of the ranch hands who'd been resting a foot on the brass pipe along the bar's base had slipped. He'd hit the floor and ale was dribbling from his overturned mug onto his head. Warm laughter echoed within the saloon's walls.

"Aye, what's the matter there, lad? Did ye forget how tae stand up properly while drinkin'?" shouted Peter McTavish, already well into his second bottle of the night.

"Clancy oughtn't to polish the pipe so much," grunted the ranch hand as he accepted a towel from the bartender and dug ale out of his right ear. His left ear was missing, and Bert caught a glimpse of the scar tissue in its place.

"Least you didn't hit the spittoon." Clancy took the towel back and returned to wiping down the bar with it.

"Remember the night Sam did?" Dave Nacker laughed. His brother smacked him again. "Ow! Dammit, Sam!"

"Tell us about that girl, Bert," said Ed.

"Must have been nigh on a year ago," said Bert. "I was down Texas way and met up with a Chinaman traveling with his five daughters. Nice fella. We transacted a little business. He wanted his daughters to get pregnant by a white man so their kids would have a better time of it."

"Makes sense to me," said Hank Jessup. "My grandpappy was white. 'Course, that don't mean nothin' nowadays."

"Hey, are Chinese girls… you know, are their things really sideways?" asked Dave Nacker, earning himself another brotherly slap.

"No, they ain't. They're real nice, though. Real nice," said Bert. "Anyway, I'd fulfilled my end of the contract as best as I could and was fixin' to leave when he told me about this girl in a town called Muddy Creek. Chloe, her name was."

"What was so special about her?" Bill drained his beer and looked at the bartender hopefully, as if he might get another one on credit.

"This Chinaman feller, he was a clockmaker. He built 'em all from grandfather clocks all the way down to pocket watches. His wagon was full of little brass wheels and gears. Real fine quality stuff. He showed me some of the stuff he done built."

"I'd sure like to have seen that," said Hank. "I love clocks."

"Anyhow, he done told me about this girl in Muddy Creek. Seemed she'd been run over by a train."

Ed gasped. "A train? Jesus wept, you'd think she'd have gotten outta the way."

"Seems that she'd been tied to the tracks." Bert looked around the room. His eyes fell on the ranch hand at the bar. "Sounds like somethin' a real sick son of a bitch would do, don't it?"

Nobody said a word to that. It was one of those things folks always read in dime novels, but nobody ever knew someone who'd actually done it. Or had it done to them. Bill Huggins, who was Catholic, crossed himself.

"She was a tough young thing, that's for sure. It was the dead of night and the engineer never had hisself a chance to see her before it was too late. Still, she managed to get the ropes partway undone and instead of cuttin' her in two, the train took off her left leg below the knee and her left arm at the elbow." Bert drained another whiskey. Several men were quick to offer him another.

"How come she didn't bleed to death?" Dave ducked in anticipation of another blow from Sam, but his brother only nodded.

"The Chinaman was nearby with his daughters in their wagon. They heard the train stop and the screaming after. They used some kinda Oriental snake oil and got the bleeding stopped and slapped tourniquets over the wounds. The oldest daughter, she was some kinda sawbones. They got her patched up."

"So you bedded a woman who was missing an arm and a leg? That's nasty," said Sam Nacker.

"That's not the strange part. I done a girl in St. Louis who didn't have no legs at all. Truly an amazing experience, fellers, and until I met Chloe, it was the strangest."

"So what happened?" Clancy the bartender set his ample behind down on one of the vacant chairs by Bert's table and mopped his shining brow with a bar rag. He had two glasses and a bottle of the good stuff from the back room. He poured out two measures, one for him and one for Bert. It didn't leave anyone behind the bar, but that didn't matter. Everyone was crowding around Bert.

"While she was in her fever, the Chinaman put his head together with his daughters, and they built her a new arm and leg out of brass and mahogany, steel and India rubber." Bert took another drink. "Now, I seen plenty of wooden legs in my time, and even some hook hands, but these were different. They were works of art. Spring-driven, with machined gears that worked like muscles. Fellers, she could do everything with her brass limbs what she could with the flesh ones. She had a crank on a belt that she would turn like she was winding a clock, and that would tighten the springs in her arm and leg. She could walk, even dance. With that hand, I saw her pick up an egg without breaking it and splinter a bannister."

"I think you're tellin' tall tales, Bert," said Bill at last. "Ain't nobody ever had a clockwork hand like that."

"Funny you should say that. They called her Clockwork Chloe at the brothel. Even with them brass bits hanging off her, she was still the most beautiful girl there by half. And t'wasn't a man there willin' to even speak to her, much less give her any business. They all said she was curst. That the Chinaman's work was unnatural. Well, I ain't ever been skeered off of that before. I gave her twenty dollars." Bert finished his drink and stared somberly into the empty glass. "She was worth two, mebbe three times that. And that, fellers, was for sure the strangest girl I ever bagged."

The ranch hand who'd been at the bar set a couple of coins on the bar, tipped his hat to Clancy, and headed for the swinging doors, leaving behind a puddle of drying ale.

Bert set the glass down on the table and put his hand over the mouth to indicate he was finished. "Think I'm done here for the night, gentlemen."

"Aw, it's still early," said Dave.

"You boys hush up and let the man go in peace," said Hank Jessup. Everyone stopped pestering Bert then, because when Hank said something in that stern baritone of his, people listened.

The crowd broke up. The Nackers followed Clancy back to the bar. Bill Huggins seemed anxious to get home to his wife. Ed Feingold and Jedediah Tetch broke out a deck of cards and their table filled up quickly.

Bert smiled at nobody in particular and headed out of the Rusty Bucket. Outside, he saw the ranch hand with one foot in a stirrup and about to swing his leg up and over his horse. Still smiling, Bert yanked his pistol from the cavalry holster he wore on his right hip and pointed it. "You best get away from that horse, mister."

"It's my horse, Bert."

"I never said it weren't. I ain't here for your horse. I'm here for you."

"What?"

"I ain't much for shootin' unarmed men, so if you got an iron, you better slap leather."

Hank Jessup strolled out of the Rusty Bucket and his eyes got as big as tea saucers in the darkness. "Bert? What's goin' on?"

The ranch hand by the horse whipped around, a six-shooter in his hand. He was quick, but Bert's finger was faster. His pistol barked and the man crumpled.

Faces appeared at the saloon windows and Clancy burst out of the doors, a bird rifle clutched in his hands.

"It's all right," said Hank. "That feller was gonna shoot Bert."

"Maybe he's a jealous husband," said Ed Feingold. "Or a brother."

Jedediah Tetch, the town doctor, bent down to check the man's throat. "He's a goner. Nice shot, Bert. You got 'im right in his eye."

At that, Dave Nacker ran to the end of the saloon's porch and heaved his guts out into the street. Sam shook his head. "Dave, you're an embarrassment to the profession."

"Guess somebody oughtta go wake the Sheriff," said Jedediah.

Ed looked at Bert and Hank. "Oh, I don't know. It's kind of late and this seems to be a pretty straight-up case of self defense."

"Praise be," said Peter McTavish. "I'll drink tae that!" And he headed back into the Rusty Bucket.

"Sam, you and Dave oughtta get this meat out of here pretty quick before the flies get too bad," said Jedediah.

"Figger we will. Come on, Dave. Let's go fetch this feller a pine box." The Nackers headed up the road toward the funeral home where they kept all their coffins.

The others went back into the Bucket where McTavish was loudly toasting Bert's marksmanship, Jedediah's medical knowledge, and anybody else he could get to buy him a drink.

Hank Jessup stayed outside with Bert. "You mighta fooled them other fellers," he said. "But you can't fool me. You was in love with her, wasn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I was. She was the kind of girl who could get the biggest crook to straighten hisself up. Or turn a stallion into a gelding."

"How come you didn't marry her, then?"

Bert looked sharply at Hank, but the black man's face showed nothing but honest curiosity.

"She died," he whispered.

"Lawsy me. I'm sorry to hear that, Bert. How'd she die? Infection?" It was a common way to go for those who were wounded in such modern times: fever, then pus and gangrene, and finally death.

"The feller who tied her down come back to finish the job while I was down at the General Store lookin' at a ring. I was purdy sure I was gonna buy it, but I figgered I'd go back to Chloe once more and see if it was what she wanted. When I got back to the house, all the girls was cryin' and carryin' on, and they said a man had come and shot Chloe three times."

"Christ Almighty," said Hank.

"He got her through the heart and the head, and I don't think she suffered much at all. There weren't even much blood. She was just layin' on the bed, lookin' like she did when she was asleep. I half expected her to wake up, but of course she never did." He sighed. "I used the money that I woulda spent on the ring to pay for her funeral. I made sure she got a proper burial, with a real headstone with her name on it and a preacher to do the business up right." Bert looked toward the last rays of sunlight as the brassy orb dropped behind the horizon. "I ain't never been back to Muddy Creek since."

"What about that feller who shot her?"

"Well, the girls there said he weren't much of a memorable feller, except for him only having one ear." Bert crouched down and pushed the dead ranch hand's hair away from the side of his head, showing the mangled scar tissue where his ear had once been.

"Christ Almight. That him?" A chill breeze blew down the main street, as if it were chasing away the vestiges of sunlight. Hank wrapped his arms around himself.

"I believe so," said Bert. "Guess I ain't lookin' for him anymore."

"Seems like Chloe's soul can rest easy at least. Mebbe you can too."

"Maybe so."

"Lemme ask you somethin', Bert. You say you loved Chloe. So how come you keep carryin' on with all them other womenfolk then?"

"Well, I been on a revenge trip. I ain't dead." Bert paused. "Say, don't you got a sister around these here parts?"

Hank Jessup broke into chuckles in his deep voice, which soon transformed into a full-on belly laugh. Bert joined in and people stared as the two men clutched at each other for support in their vast amusement.

At last, Bert stepped back and wiped his eyes. "Seriously, though."

 

###

 

Thanks for reading this story! Be sure to visit me at ianthealy.com to learn more about me and my work. Watch for announcements of new stories and/or novels available in ebook format!

If you enjoyed this story, please review it on Smashwords, GoodReads, and other online ebook retailers.

 

Connect with Me Online:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ianthealy

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ianthealy

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ianthealy

Author website: http://www.ianthealy.com