The next day Buell stood at the bar and waited for Quinn to appear. It was Sunday, usually the quietest day of the week for the saloon. Lori had opened only one dining room, and left the day’s business up to the other women. She still suffered from sore ribs, and lifting anything caused her pain. Twiggs had not opened the bar yet, so Buell stood behind it, having served himself a beer. He didn’t have to wait long. Quinn came down the stairs, peering anxiously around the room as he did.
“Mornin’, Mister Lacey.”
“That it is.”
“Quiet as a tomb.”
“Usual for Sunday. There’ll be more here this afternoon and tonight, but the morning is nice. I get tired of the noise.”
“I hear that.” Quinn glanced at the dining-room entrance. “They open?”
“Just did.”
“So, nobody in there yet?”
“Nope. Help yerself. They’ll find ya.” Buell nodded as one of the women hustled by, a small tray of dishes in her hand.
“Ya haven’t seen that youngster we played cards with have ya?”
“Ya mean Weston?”
“Yeah. Was that his name?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone!” Quinn said, surprise in his voice. “Hmm, I understood he was gonna be here for at least a week.” His tone now seemed to be carefully controlled.
“Nope. Saw him early this morning at the stable,” Buell lied. “Said he enjoyed the stay, but had to get back.”
“Oh. Too bad. I enjoyed playin’ with him. One lucky fella, I can say that.”
“Real lucky,” Buell said. “Real lucky.”
Simon woke Monday morning to Buell getting dressed, unusual for Buell, who rarely got up before nine or so. “Where you off to?” Simon swung his feet out of bed.
“I want to see if Quinn is still here.”
“I noticed he didn’t play last night. You let Spud out?”
“Yeah, he’s off chasin’.” Buell sat down on his bed and pulled a boot on.
“And that young fellow from Cheyenne. He was gone too.”
“I told him he wasn’t welcome.” Buell stood.
“You what? Told him? How . . . Buell?”
“I saw ’em cheatin’ again Saturday light. When he went out to take a leak, I followed and kinda encouraged him to tell me how they were doin’ it.”
“It was Weston?”
“This time, yeah. Last year Quinn had another partner. It’s Quinn that actually does the cheatin’. He doesn’t necessarily have to win. Him and Weston were gonna split what they stole.”
A sinking sensation settled in Simon’s stomach. “Were?”
“I made Weston give me what he had before he left.”
“He rode off, didn’t he?”
“He rode off, Simon. Damn! What’d ya think?”
“I’ve seen ya riled, Buell.”
“I want to catch Quinn. Weston kinda got dragged into it.”
“Like how?”
“Not important.” Buell stood and shook his pants cuff down. “He’s gone, and I don’t expect we’ll see him again.”
“So what are you going to do about Quinn? Ya can’t just accuse him based on what another cheat says.”
“I’m gonna catch him at it. But damn it, I still don’t know exactly how he does it. That’s why I want to see if he’s still here.”
“I don’t think he’s gonna tell you, Buell.”
“I know that.” Buell snorted in exasperation. “But if I can watch enough, I’ll figger it out. He doesn’t know I know.” Buell grabbed his hat off the dresser and left.
Twiggs glanced up as Buell came through the door. “Mornin’, Buell.”
“Max.” Buell nodded. “Have you seen Quinn?”
“About an hour ago. Didn’t even stop for breakfast.” Twiggs leaned on the bar.
“Stop? He was leavin’?”
“Yep. Said he needed to get to Cheyenne.”
“Did he say he was comin’ back?”
“Nope. But I didn’t ask either. Did you want to see him for something?”
“He’s a card cheat, and I’m gonna catch him at it.” Buell’s jaw muscles worked furiously.
Twiggs’s breath caught in his throat, his gaze fixed on Buell’s pistol.
CHAPTER 20
Wednesday morning, Simon saddled his horse and headed for the fort. He had written a short letter to his folks, and knew he had to get it mailed before he changed his mind. That had happened many times in the past, and today he needed to finish the job. Since Quinn had left, Buell’s mood had been stranger than usual. He’d been staying late at the saloon or leaving in the middle of the night and not returning until after Simon had gone to work. And he sensed a change in Lori as well. She didn’t seem as friendly and open as before, but the signs were so subtle, he thought he might be imagining them. Feeling a little isolated, Simon had responded to the urge to reach out to home again.
The letter mailed, he tied his horse at the store and went in.
“Hello, Simon,” T. P. greeted him from the back of the room.
“Good morning. Lori asked me to get this.” Simon sauntered over to counter, and handed him a slip of paper.
The sutler looked at it for a moment. “Yep, I keep that. She’s got a dozen women around here cookin’ with these strange ingredients, so I have ’em in stock. So, how’s things goin’ for ya?” He walked over to a cabinet and rummaged through several things inside.
“All right, I guess. Never thought I’d say it, but sometimes I feel—oh, never mind.”
T. P. stopped digging around and looked at him. “Feel what?”
“Useless.”
“Aw, hell.” T. P. chuckled out loud. “Thought it was something serious.” He reached deeper into the cabinet. “There they are.” He held up two small tins. “That it?”
Simon nodded and reached for his purse.
As Simon stepped out of the store, he nearly ran into Sergeant Barrschott. “Sorry,” he said automatically and without looking up.
The man stepped back to allow him past. “Hello, Simon.”
“Hello, Adolph. Head in the clouds I guess.”
“What brings you to the fort?”
“Matter of fact, you. And some spices for Lori. Got the spices.” He held up the fist-sized package.
“And you run into me.” The sergeant grinned at him. “What kin I do for ya?”
Simon dug a money pouch out of his pants pocket. “Give this to Private Blaise.”
“Ooookay.” Barrschott took the pouch, and weighed it in his hand. His eyebrows asked the question.
“Blaise got cheated the other night. Buell got this back for him.”
“Uh-ooh.”
“No. The guy gave it back, peaceably. We try to run an honest place out there.”
“Strange that you should say that.” The sergeant looked as his feet, a broad smile on his face.
“What?”
“Might get even more honest. I’m retirin’. My replacement is here, and I’ve kinda felt around the edges of his, how do I say it . . . tolerance for misplaced supplies.”
“And?”
“Appears he has none.”
A surge of panic gripped Simon for a second, and then another emotion surfaced that he couldn’t quite identify. “So we start payin’ full price?”
“Looks like it. I talked to the quartermaster, and he says if he can’t count on the new guy, he ain’t gonna risk it. I can see his point. That last episode nearly cost me my pension.”
“We’ll get along.” The odd feeling persisted, and so did its mystery. “What made you decide to leave? Thought you were going to stay on for another hitch.”
“I’ve saved the money I need to do what I want to do. Twiggs said he told you about my little problem back East. I want to go sort that out before I’m too old to enjoy it.”
The crooked smile on Barrschott’s face told Simon the giant looked forward to the fight. “Yeah, I understand. When’s your retiremen
t date?”
“Got a little over five weeks. Don’t worry. I’ll be seein’ ya plenty. Best way for a new man to learn the job is to do it, so I’m lettin’ ’im.”
“Good for you. Come on out anytime.”
“I will. I’ll give this to Blaise.” He shook the pouch. “It’s real good of you guys to do that. Most wouldn’t.”
The sergeant offered Simon a mock salute and went into the store.
It wasn’t even mid morning when Simon had finished his business at the fort, and almost automatically turned his horse into Tay’s canyon. He rounded the point and immediately felt better when he saw the telltale tinge of blue-gray smoke lingering in the treetops. He urged his horse forward.
“Been a spell, stranger.” Tay stood in the doorway, holding a cup.
“I know it. I keep meaning to come over, but—” Simon swung off his horse and whipped the reins around the post. He ducked under the horse’s neck and approached the old man. “Got a few minutes to talk?”
“Cow got tits?” Tay grinned at him and nodded at the wood bench.
“Thanks.” Simon sighed as he sat.
“So tell me, how ya been. Heard ’bout Lori. That coulda been bad.”
“Yeah. I’m really surprised the German bastard survived at all. Buell was madder’n hell.”
“For Buell’s sake, I’m glad he lived. The US Army ain’t somethin’ to fool with. They git it in fer ya, there ain’t no place ta hide.”
“I think they’re satisfied. T. P. helped a lot.”
“He’s a good sort. If’n ya don’t have ta buy stuff from ’im, that is.”
“Yeah, I was just over there. Got a package in my saddlebags that can’t have cost him over a dollar. Cost me four.”
“If ya need something bad, you’ll go where it is and pay what it costs. Life in gen’ral works like that.” Tay winked at him.
Simon shook his head. “How come it is that you seem to know when I’m chewin’ on something?”
“Well, ya sure as hell don’t come jist ta see me. Easy to figger ya must need somethin’.” Tay’s soft eyes soothed the sting. “And it ain’t my cookin’.”
Simon paused for a moment, the words he wanted eluding him. “I come ’cause when I leave here I feel better.”
“Man could take that either way, but damned if that ain’t one of the nicest things anybody ever told me. Still gonna make ya pay though.” Another easy smile softened the rough ground Simon was plowing.
“I felt like I knew where I was goin’ when I came back from my mountain trip. Everything seemed so clear. I had a goal.”
“And now it’s not so clear.”
“Exactly.”
“Let me tell ya sumpthin’. From a distance a mountaintop is clear as the dickens, but the closer ya git to it, the harder it is to keep it in sight. That don’t mean it ain’t still there.”
“I don’t think I’m any closer than I was last winter.”
“I think ya are.”
“But the hotel and the headaches that come with it keep getting bigger.”
“Last time I looked it was exactly the same size.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know what ya mean, son, and I ain’t tryin’ to make ya seem smaller. I’m jist sayin’ ya got ta keep yer perspective. And that’s all that’s changed. So what ya seein’ that I ain’t?”
“For one, Lori’s different.”
“Well, hell yes, she’s diff’rent. What’n tarnation did ya expect?”
The same sensation he’d felt when Barrschott had told him the cheap supplies were a thing of the past returned. This time he recognized it immediately—shame. Its weight pushed his head down. “Oh, damn, Tay.”
“Yeah, now ya see it. She’s dealin’ with her own devils ’bout what coulda been. She’s the kind of person that can usually put that second to her consideration fer others. Well, this time she can’t—too much to deal with.”
“And I’ve been mopin’ around ’cause she doesn’t want to hear about my problems. Right now I feel like a pile of horseshit.”
“Ya ought to.” Tay took a sip of coffee and waited.
“Buell’s got a burr under his saddle too.”
“I’m not sure I kin say much ’bout that. Buell is hard to figger.”
“Ya got that right. He caught a man cheatin’, and the feller even confessed to it. All he did was make the guy give the money back and leave the ranch. That ain’t Buell.”
“It is, and it ain’t. My guess is the feller didn’t challenge him, and Buell got what he wanted.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Buell told me about it. But, he’s been real—I don’t know—edgy since then. There’s another gambler involved, but he took off.”
Tay huffed and put his cup on the bench. “That’s the problem. For Buell, anyhow. He feels owed. Same as the Indian thing.”
“Ya mean he’s after the second man?”
“He’s after whoever pissed in the campfire. Buell feels real protective about some people, and some things. I saw right off that he sees that saloon as his home, and he feels real strong about pertectin’ it.” The old man nodded sagely. “Yep. That’s it.”
Simon thought about it for a few seconds, then recalled Rankin’s abuse of one of the girls. “Of course. Quinn took advantage of what Buell sees as his hospitality.”
“That’s the way I see it. I could be dead wrong.”
“No. I know Buell. He’s always been that way. You didn’t mess with where he lived, or with his pa. And the fight with Rankin and Barrschott right after we got here. Same thing. They were disrespecting his home. Damn, Tay, it makes so much more sense now.”
“If he didn’t have such a short fuse, that wouldn’t be no problem. But seems he goes off like a busted beaver trap.”
“I know he’s waitin’ for that gambler.” Simon bit the inside of his lip. “I just hope nobody else sets him off, and pays for not knowin’ that.”
“Not a damn thing ya kin do ’bout it. From what you’ve told me, he doesn’t exactly control what he does.”
“And that really scares me.”
Tay didn’t say anything for several seconds, then: “Have ya thought about leavin’?”
“Here?”
“Sure. Jist pack up a few things, and go som’ers else.”
“Well . . .” Simon paused as the thought sank in. “No. I haven’t.”
“Then ya ought’a. Ya don’t need much. A mule, a shovel and an ax. Plenty have started with exactly that.”
“Naw, I’ll work out what’s botherin’ me. I still like it here.”
A smile worked its way across Tay’s face. “That’s what I want to hear. Man shouldn’t be where he ain’t happy. They’s jist too many other places where he can be.”
“Ya got me to thinking, though. Where would you go if you decided to leave here?”
“That’s easy, Idaho Territory, or Sitka, Alaska.”
“Alaska?”
“Yep. Somethin’ about gold that gits me goin’. Never met a man that could look at a nugget in the bottom of a pan, and not want to touch it.”
“But you’ve done that, in the Black Hills.”
“Yeah, but I been there. Never been to Alaska.”
“And Idaho Territory?” A page from one of his school geography books came to mind. The territory covered a huge expanse, a lot of it mountainous.
“Ain’t nobody there yet. I’ve heard folks talk about the Oregon Trail from jist west of South Pass to Boise City. Plumb awful country. Folks take a look at that, and keep on goin’.”
“So why would you want to go there?”
“Cuz Walks Fast says if ya go jist a little north of the Snake River and them lava beds, it’s the most beautiful country ya kin imagine. He tells of a patch of mountains that the Indians call the White Clouds, cuz that’s what the tops look like. Sounds like my kinda country.”
“But I get the sense you’re gonna stay here.”
“Yep. Go
t too old, too quick.” Sadness flickered across his eyes. “Don’t let that happen to you. Now, I wanna hear ’bout what thet provost had to say to ya.”
Lori stepped through the office door and smiled at Simon when he looked up.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Let me go get a chair so you can sit beside me.” He went into the saloon. “Sit in mine,” he offered when he returned.
“Another lesson?” Lori moved around the desk and sat.
“Yep.” He lifted the chair over the desk and set it down on Lori’s left. “I want to go over this list of suppliers with you, and tell you what you need to know about them. Some you can trust completely, and some you have to watch a little. There aren’t any who are actually dishonest. They just won’t save you from yourself.” Reaching past her, he picked up a folder. The scent he caught made him falter, and he glanced at her to see if she had detected it. She had. “I’m sorry,” he muttered nervously. “Didn’t mean to reach.”
“Simon?” Her arched eyebrow left no options.
“Lavender. It brings back some strong memories.”
“Zahn bought it for me. Did your mother wear it?”
Simon didn’t answer, but could feel his old nemesis start to color his face.
“Your girlfriend? The one you won’t talk about.”
“The one I can’t talk about.”
“I guess that’s the same thing as far as you’re concerned.”
“It is.”
“Simon, I love you like a brother, and anytime you want to talk about her, I’d be a good listener. I’ve got my problem settled now, if that’s what’s stopping you.”
“No. I’m best when she’s gone, and most of the time she is. Thanks.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Okay,” Simon said and picked up the first sheet of paper. “Alstroms in Cheyenne. He supplies coal oil. He’s completely honest and appreciates our ordering regularly. I’ve never seen his price to be out of line.”
Simon reached for the next sheet.
The house he was in appeared huge, and had so many lamps it hurt his wide-open eyes. Sarah must have just been in the room, because her delicate lavender scent floated in the air. He looked around the room to see if she was there and saw that the parlor opened up onto the riverbank—no wall, just open air. There was Sarah, spreading a blanket on the grass. She smiled at him and sat down. Simon closed the book he’d been reading, got out of his chair and went to the shelf to put it away. For the life of him, he couldn’t find the place he had taken it from. The bookshelves were now filled with cans, boxes, bags and jars of every description, and it was his task to write all the names down. And Mr. Swartz was watching his every move, making notes on his little ciphering pad.
Laramie Page 26
