Ride With the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page B

the name, my friend,” Doc said. “I’m a doctor, so folks call me Doc. And who might you be?”
    “Hawke,” he said. “And I thank you for the drink.” Hawke walked over to the bar, where Paddy gave him another beer.
    “I don’t suppose you would like a job playing the piano, would you, Mr. Hawke?” Paddy asked.
    “I would love a job playing the piano,” Hawke replied.
    “Can’t pay much. Two dollars a week. But you can put a bowl on the piano and keep all the tips you get. Also there’s a room upstairs where you can stay, and you can eat free here, what food as we have.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Hawke said.
    “Only thing…” Paddy said.
    Hawke smiled. He knew what was coming.
    Paddy held his hand up and shook his finger admonishingly. “Don’t play no more music like that.”
    “Why not?” Hawke asked. “Your customers seemed to like it.”
    “Yeah, that’s just it,” Paddy said. “They liked it too much. Perhaps you didn’t take no notice, but there wasn’t a one of them ordered a drink for the whole time you was playin’.”
    “I noticed it,” Hawke admitted.
    “Uh-huh. Well, if you’re goin’ to play piano for me, I expect you to play songs like ‘Little Joe the Wrangler,’ or ‘Buffalo Gals,’ or something like that.”
    “Whatever you say,” Hawke said. “You’re the boss. By the way, where do you suggest I board my horse?”
    “Well, we got a livery just across the street, but he don’t do much boardin’. He mostly takes care of the teams for the stage line and he rents horses, buckboards, and the like. If I was you, I’d try Sarge’s Place,” Paddy suggested.
    “Sarge’s Place?”
    “The blacksmith shop down at the end of town.”
    “Yes, I saw it as I rode in,” Hawke said.
    “He does some boardin’ at his stable out back,” Paddy explained.
     
    The anvil was ringing as Hawke approached the blacksmith shop. The smithy had a red-hot, iron wheel band gripped with a pair of tongs he held in his left hand. With the hammer in his right, he was beating the iron band into shape. Sparks were flying from the repeated hammer blows.
    As Hawke dismounted, the blacksmith dipped the glowing band into a tub of water.
    “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?” the smithy asked.
    “Are you Sarge?”
    “I just call my place that ’cause I was a farrier sergeant in the Ninth Cavalry,” the smithy answered. His skin was relatively light for a black man; the color of creamed coffee. Hewore a well-trimmed moustache. “My given name is Ken Wright.”
    “Well, Mr. Wright, I’d like to board my horse with you, if you don’t mind.”
    “How long are you going to be here?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Reason I ask is, it’s cheaper if you board him by the week. I get ten cents a night, but fifty cents for a whole week.”
    “I’ll board him by the week. Will you feed him for that?”
    “Hay for free, but for another ten cents I’ll give him oats twice a week.”
    “All right,” Hawke said, handing the reins over, “give him the oats twice a week.”
    “You the one that brought in Mr. Delaney?” Ken asked.
    “I am.”
    “I’ll give your horse oats twice a week for no extra charge,” he said.
    “Really? I appreciate that. Was Delaney a friend?”
    “We sparred some,” Ken said.
    “Sparred? What is that?”
    “Mr. Delaney wanted to learn to box, so he come to me for lessons.”
    “You’re a boxer?”
    Wright pointed to a faded poster on the wall of his shed. The poster showed a picture of him in a fighter’s pose, his fists held up before him.
     
    BOXING MATCH
    BETWEEN
    YANKEE SULLIVAN
    CHAMPION OF ENGLAND
    AND
    KEN WRIGHT
    “THE BLACK TERROR”
     
    “That’s me,” Wright said.
    “How’d you do?”
    “I knocked him out in the eleventh round,” the blacksmith replied.
    “Well, good for you.”
    “Not too good,” Ken Wright said. “I was supposed to lose. Lots of folks had money bet saying I would lose. When I won, it upset the applecart some, so