Chapter 5

Ethel developed a really great liking for Adam Strong in the week she spent visiting them. He did not exactly remind her of her dead husband, Archy, but he had a lot of the same characteristics that she had loved in Archy. His main attraction, though, was that he let her be her. Adam did not try to change her to fit some sort of "ideal woman" in his eyes.

Ethel hated to leave at the end of her week's visit, but she knew that she had to if she was ever going to satisfy her vendetta against the Charley Wilson gang. Ethel headed back to Mayberry in hope of receiving some good news when she got there. It seemed to her, from all that she had been able to learn about them, that the gang was laying low. Could they be hiding from her?

There were four men left from the original six murderers and rapists, so they should not be afraid of her if they stuck together. Surely, those four thugs would believe that they could handle anything that a mere woman could dish out! Well, she hoped that they would not all come after her at once.

Ethel headed for the Double-Eagle Saloon and hunted up her friend Doris. Doris greeted Ethel warmly, but didn't have much to offer in the way of information. Neither woman was very surprised, since it had only been a week since Ethel had killed Sam Hunter. Ethel decided to head to Willow Springs, a town that she had not yet visited. Willow Springs was 31 miles away by the trail, but only about 27 miles in a straight line. Ethel dismissed the cross country trip as not being worth the effort—by the time she made her way there, she would have worked her horse a hell of a lot harder than the toll taken by the extra four miles. Besides, she could make the trip in one day if she pushed a little bit.

Ethel whiled away the time that evening by playing poker. It was extremely profitable—she made nearly $40 before the game broke up. She was really earning the sobriquet of The Poker Queen.

Ethel drank a last Mexican beer and headed for the hotel. She had gotten as far as the first alley entrance when a man stepped out in front of her and demanded her poker winnings. She couldn't make out his face because he wore his bandanna as a mask, so she had no idea who he was. That really wasn't important, the important thing was how she was going to live through the next 10 minutes.

Then she had the solution to her dilemma handed to her by the thief. The thief pointed to the gun on her thigh and said, "Hand me yer gun, butt first." She complied, and the thief said, "Give me all of yer poker winnin's, and hurry up about it." Apparently, the thief had never noticed the gun holstered at Ethel's waist on her left. She fumbled to take the gold coins from her pants pocket and dropped two half-eagles on the ground. The thief cursed and said, "Hand me what ya got in yer hand, then back up three steps."

Ethel stepped back the required three steps, and the thief bent over to pick up the coins. This was the break she needed! Quick as a flash, Ethel drew her crossdraw pistol and shot the thief in the head. Only one bullet from her .44 was enough to settle the issue. The heavy bullet plowed into the top of the thief's head and disappeared somewhere in his body where it lodged. He fell onto his face and never moved from there.

Ethel recovered her gun and her money before reloading her fired pistol. The noise brought several people running to see what interesting might have happened. To a man, they were disappointed that they had missed the action. Mayberry didn't have a marshal, so there were no formalities to worry with over the shooting. Ethel paid a swamper from one of the nearby saloons two bits to dispose of the body after she had looted it. Besides his gun and a knife, the thief had little to take. She got less than a dollar from his pockets, and he had no money belt. Shit! He was a useless piker! Ethel continued to the hotel where she spent the night.

The next morning, Ethel left early for Willow Springs and arrived before dark. Ethel hoped to have better luck here, since Willow Springs was the largest town for miles. There was actually more than one street, and the town had a marshal! The town also had five saloons, so she hoped that one of the gang of murderers had stopped in one and left a forwarding address.

The first saloon Ethel visited was really a Mexican cantina. As soon as she walked in, she knew that she was walking on the edge of trouble. There were no Anglos in there, except for her, and she could sense the resentment the moment she stepped through the door. Obviously, she was not going to learn anything useful here, so she left hurriedly, to the sound of raucous laughter.

The next place she visited was more like what she was looking for. She ordered a Mexican beer at the bar and found that the bartender had time for some conversation. She told her story about Charley Wilson owing her a poker debt, and she was looking for him to collect. The bartender was sympathetic, but said that he was a recent arrival, so he didn't know Wilson. He called over one of the saloon whores to ask if she knew anything about Wilson.

The whore didn't know Wilson, but she did know and hated Bill Apwell. He had once fucked her and refused to pay, and he beat her up when she nagged him for her two bits. The two left the bar for the chairs along the side of the barroom where they sat down to talk. Ethel told the whore who she was, and the whore was impressed that she had killed Sam Hunter, notoriously one mean Son of a Bitch. Ethel left the whore with the word of who she was hunting and that she would pay a reward for helping Ethel to find them.

The next saloon Ethel visited was also typical of the Anglo saloons in this section of Texas. Well, maybe this was a little higher class than most. Ethel talked to the bartender and to one of the whores before joining a poker game. As soon as she introduced herself as Ethel Harris, one of the players asked, "Aren't you the one called The Poker Queen?" When she admitted that she was, a place was made for her at the table. Soon there was an audience gathered to watch a woman play draw poker, normally a male only game.

That the audience was obviously there to see her, rattled her for the first three hands, but she buckled down and concentrated on the game. She started to win, and, by supper time, was the big winner. As had happened before, none of the other players wanted to break for supper, so the swamper delivered a meal to each of the players who ate during pauses in the game. There were some high rollers in this game, men who could afford to lose significant money. They kept running the pots up, and Ethel kept winning. When they finally quit, Ethel had won $258, and she had not won every pot, though she was the big winner.

Ethel was far and away the best poker player at the table, including the professional gambler who did the dealing. He was certainly impressed by her play and wanted to know if she would be back the next night. The other men also begged her to come back "to give them a chance to win their money back," though they all knew that their chances of doing that were very slim. The wheedling finally won, and Ethel agreed to return the next night, but she thought that would definitely be the last night for this trip to town.

This time, Ethel made it to the hotel without meeting a bandit, but it may have been her entourage of admiring poker players who discouraged him. For whatever reason, Ethel didn't have to shoot anybody that night, so she got to bed at a very reasonable hour.

The next morning, she enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. She went to the next saloon on her list to look for the gang of murderers. The swamper was still cleaning the place up from the business the night before, but there was also a poker game going on that had lasted through the night. There were no other customers in the saloon at that early hour, so Ethel had plenty of time to talk to the bartender and the whores. The whores had already heard about the reward that she was offering, and they were anxious to meet her. Nobody had seen any of the gang that she was hunting, but they all were lavish in their promises to tell her if they found out anything.

Ethel spent over an hour in that saloon, so things in the fifth and final saloon were a bit more active when she finally got there. Nevertheless, business was slow at this hour, so she had plenty of time to talk to the bartender and the one whore who was working the place that morning. The bartender reported a rumor that Charley Wilson had been in Mayberry two weeks ago, but Ethel already knew that was a false report, so she didn't get excited. The whore did promise to cooperate in the search and to tell the other whores what Ethel wanted.