by Evans, Tabor
“Otherwise the son of a bitch would punch the other eye, eh?”
“Yes,” Carrie said, “he would. And worse.”
Wallace nodded with understanding. “I’ll be back in about a week, and when I am, I’ll have found some honest work for you and a place for you to live.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Good-bye.”
John Wallace was a big man, and he knew that he was not handsome. But there was something inside of him saying that he didn’t want to say good-bye to Carrie again and that…even if he had to sell his business and pack up everything he owned to get away from the gossip…he would do it for Miss Blue and then he’d make her an honest woman.
And so, with a look of grim determination, John Wallace climbed up onto his stagecoach and turned it south toward Flagstaff. In one week his life was going to change forever, and he just knew in his heart that it would for the better. Better for him and better for Miss Blue. Neither of them was too old to have a family, and that was really all he had ever wanted in this world.
Al Hunter got a room, a bottle, and a bath, paying up most of his cash. He told the man at the registration desk that he wanted some food delivered to his room along with the drink and hot water.
“I will tell our cook,” he said. “Would you also like those clothes to be washed?”
“Hell, yes.”
“And what about your horse?”
“How much to feed the mangy son of a bitch for a couple of nights? And I mean feed him and grain him good.”
“Fifty cents a night.”
Al Hunt gave the man another dollar. “See that he’s taken good care of…rubbed down and watered before he’s fed.”
The man nodded and held out his hand. Al swore under his breath and gave him the extra dollar he knew was required if his wishes were to be granted.
An hour later, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bar of soap in the other, Al was enjoying his bath very much when there was a knock at his door. “Who the hell is it!”
“Frankie.”
“Come on in, Mr. Hotel Owner!”
Frankie Virden didn’t say hello, and he entered with Seth right behind. Frankie shut the door behind him while Seth leaned up against it with his arms folded across his chest. The hotel owner and gambler grabbed the only chair in the room and pulled it up beside the man in the bathtub. “Enjoying yourself, Al?”
Al Hunt splashed a little water across his whiskery, sunburned face. “Sure am!”
“Like my whiskey?”
“It’s a helluva lot better than the firewater I’m used to.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Virden said.
“Want a swig?” Al offered his bottle to the man. “I paid for it, but you can have a pull. You too, Seth.”
“No, thanks.” Virden was not a man to beat around the bush, and so he came right to the point. “Carrie said that you wanted work.”
“I damn sure do.” Al had decided that this was the only excuse he could use while he waited for the opportunity to finish off the wounded federal marshal and grab the rich woman for a ransom and rutting.
“I never knew you to be much of a worker,” Frankie drawled, glancing back at Seth. “Fact is, your cousin Carl claimed that you were the laziest man in his entire family…and also the most treacherous and cunning.”
“He did?”
“That’s right. Carl didn’t have much of anything good to say about you.”
“Huh.” Al Hunt took a swallow. “Well, Carl was the only one of us that ever amounted to anything, so I guess he’s got the right to say what he wants about me.”
“He also said you were a purely dangerous little bastard.”
Hunt blinked and tried to look offended. “Well I find that hard to believe, Mr. Virden. Was Carl drunk as a loon at the time he said those bad things about me?”
“He was cold sober.”
“Huh!”
The whiskey was already working in Al’s shrunken, starved belly, hitting him harder and faster than ever before, but this conversation was making him even more thirsty. He didn’t like the way it was going and tried to change the subject. “Sure a nice hotel you got here, Mr. Virden.”
“Yes it is, and I never thought I’d have the likes of you as a guest.”
“Aw, that’s a pretty awful thing to say!”
“You’re a pretty awful little man.” Virden took a cigar from his coat pocket and struck a match to it. “So why are you staying here?”
“What do you mean? I told you I was here looking for honest work.”
“No,” Virden countered. “You told Carrie that.”
“Same thing, I reckon.”
Frankie Virden blew a ring of smoke in Al Hunt’s pinched and burned face and smiled. “A man like you doesn’t spend money unless he’s sure he’s going to be getting more of it right back.”
Hunt frowned, feeling his heart start to beat a little faster. “Truth of the matter is that I won some money in a card game.”
“In Flagstaff?”
“No…uh, at the Cameron Trading Post. There were some fellas passin’ through and they invited me into a card game and I won all their money.”
But Virden shook his head. “I’ve seen you play cards, Al. You’re a lousy player. Reckless as hell.”
“Sometimes a man’s luck can overcome his inadequacy,” Al replied, pleased at his explanation.
He started to take another swallow, but then Frankie glanced around behind him at Seth and gave a short nod. And before Al even realized it, the gunman was striding across the room, slamming his hand down on Al’s head, and pushing it underwater.
Al struggled and fought, but the tub was slick and Seth was strong. Al gasped and choked and swallowed bathwater. Finally, Seth released the downward pressure and Al came up gagging.
“What’d you have him do that for, Mr. Virden!”
“I want the truth out of you,” the gambler and hotelman said. “And I want it right now.”
“But I told you the truth! I won my money at the Cameron Trading Post and…”
Frankie nodded to his man, and Seth jumped forward and pushed Al’s head back underwater. This time, he held Al under even longer, and when Al’s lungs were ready to explode, Seth finally let go.
“Holy shit!” Al cried, coughing and gagging. “What the hell is wrong here! I paid honest money for this room and everything! I don’t deserve this kinda shit!”
“The truth,” Frankie Virden said, smiling coldly.
Al’s bloodshot eyes darted back and forth between the two men. His gun was out of reach and he was helpless. He also knew that Frankie Virden would have his man drown him if he didn’t come up with something good and fast.
“All right!” he gasped. “I…I didn’t win the money at cards.”
“Where did you get your money and why are you infecting my hotel with your filth?” Virden asked quietly.
Al Hunt swallowed hard and decided that only the truth would save him from being drowned in his own bath like a rat. “Me and Carl ambushed that federal marshal.”
Virden’s eyebrows arched in a question. “To rob him?”
“No. As you know, Mr. Virden, that marshal beat the living hell out of Carl, and he wanted to get even.”
“So you shot and only wounded him, but Carl was killed?”
“Yes, sir. That’s just the way it happened. We shot the federal marshal right where you found him when you rode in with the stagecoach. The marshal’s horse bolted and he ran off, but I saw the blood fly outa his coat and knew he was a goner.”
“Oh, but he wasn’t. The federal marshal is very much alive.”
“I know that now.”
“What did you do with your cousin’s body?”
“Well, after the marshal killed him, I took old Carl’s body out in the desert and found me a deep gully. I buried poor Carl and shot his horse.”
“So there wouldn’t be any connection between you and your cousin and the ambush.”
�
��Yes, sir.”
Al wasn’t about to tell this man about his plan to acquire Carl’s livery with a fake deed, or about his plan to kill the marshal for good this time and take his wife hostage. “I…I know you don’t like lawmen either, Mr. Virden. I didn’t think you’d mind if we killed him.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that at all,” Virden said. “Only you and that jackass cousin of yours failed.”
“Could I have that bottle back, sir?”
“Certainly. After all, you paid for it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“With the money you took off your dead cousin’s body before you covered him up out in some ravine.”
“Carl would have done the same to me. And what would be the point of leavin’ money on a dead man who couldn’t spend it?”
“I see your logic, Al. But now we have a big problem.”
“I can take care of my problems,” Al blurted. “I won’t bring you any grief, and I won’t hold it against your man there for nearly drownin’ me. Honest I won’t.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, sir!”
Virden blew another smoke ring in Al’s face, and then he stood up and walked around the room a few times, head bowed in thought. Al’s heart was really hammering now, and when he looked into Seth’s eyes, he saw nothing. No pity, no understanding, no nothing—the same as when you looked into a varmint’s cold eyes.
The bath was warm, but Al suddenly shivered.
“Sir, I will do whatever you ask me for very little pay.”
“Oh, I know that,” Virden said. “Did you come here to kill the marshal out of revenge for the way he beat your cousin?”
“No, sir.”
“I’m very glad you said that, because I know that was an honest statement.”
“But I would kill the marshal, if you asked.”
“But you’ve already failed once.”
“It was Carl that messed things up back at that gap between the hills! Not me.”
Virden stopped his pacing. “I would like the marshal…finished off. It would take care of a big problem for me. Much better if you did it instead of Seth, but either way, I…”
“I’ll do it! I’ll even do it tonight if you want.”
“And exactly how would you kill the marshal?”
“I’d creep into his room and stab the big bastard to death in the dark.”
“And what about his wife?”
“I’d do her too, if you wanted.”
“No,” Virden said, “I definitely wouldn’t want the woman killed.”
“Then I’d cover my face with a mask, kill the marshal, hit the woman in the head but not hard enough to put her under, and I’d run out. In the morning, I’d sit at your breakfast table, and no one would know I’d been the one that stabbed the marshal to death. No one at all.”
Frankie Virden looked to Seth. “It’s a plan. Simple, but it would probably work. What do you think, Seth?”
“Why not?”
Virden turned back to Al Hunt. “All right. I’ll give you a second chance to kill the marshal. But if you fail…”
The words left unsaid were enough to suddenly sober Al up as right as rain.
“Give me that bottle,” Virden ordered.
“I ain’t had enough yet.”
“Yes, you have. Do the job right this night and I’ll see that you have enough whiskey money to last you until New Year’s Eve.”
Al swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Dinner is at eight, and I expect you to be there clean, sober, and acting as respectable as you possibly can. But just eat and keep your dirty mouth shut at my table.”
“I will do that. Yes, sir. I surely will do that.”
Business over, Virden and Seth headed for the door, but after his boss had stepped into the hallway, Seth stopped and said, “Just one more question.”
“Why sure!”
“You feel bad about your cousin Carl dyin’?”
Al rubbed his face and stared into those cold fish-eyes. “Seth, we all got to die sooner or later. Reckon it was just poor Carl’s time.”
“Yeah, reckon it was,” came the quiet reply as the door closed and Al sank to his chin in the bathwater.
Chapter 17
They were finishing dinner at the Rimrock Hotel, and it had not been a pleasant experience. The roasted sage grouse was tough and stringy and the potatoes only half-cooked. The only thing that had saved the meal was the large quantity of available wine, which was an outstanding Chablis.
Longarm had been trying to engage the new arrival in conversation, but without much luck. Still, as the dessert arrived, he tried once more. “So, Mr. Hunt, I understand that you have arrived here looking for work.”
Al Hunt nodded, remembering the warning that he should try to keep his mouth shut. Still, he couldn’t completely ignore a question for a United States marshal, could he?
“That’s right, Marshal. Looking for work.”
“On the river as a raftsman?”
Hunt glanced at Frankie, who was trying to hide a frown. “Well, Marshal, I’ll be an oarsman if that’s all that I can find. But I’m not real comfortable on the river. She’s a dangerous gal, she is. I’d much rather ride a horse…or a woman….no offense, ladies…but that’s the gawd’s truth…than a river raft.”
“Yes,” Longarm said, “I’m sure that is very dangerous work. Have you ever rafted through the entire canyon?”
“No, and I don’t expect I ever will.”
Hunt sure wished that the marshal would focus his attention on someone else. Frankie Virden stepped in to divert the conversation. “Al is kind of a jack-of-all-trades. He’s a good cowboy and mustanger. He’s also worked in mines and at logging mills. Isn’t that right?”
“Yep.”
Longarm turned to the one called Seth. “And you do what?”
“I help Mr. Virden however he needs to be helped.”
Longarm studied the man, who was only a couple of years younger than himself. “What’s your background?”
“Is this some kind of interrogation?” Seth asked. “What interest could my life be to you?”
“Oh, I think it could be very interesting to me,” Longarm said, feeling the tension at the table rising. “I just like to know something about the people that I eat with. That’s all.”
Seth glanced at his boss, who said, “Seth doesn’t like to talk about himself, but I don’t think he’d mind if I told you that he came from Virginia City, Nevada, where he was in the saloon business.”
“Is that right,” Longarm said, tasting his apple pie and finding it to be better than expected. “I’ve been on the Comstock Lode a few times. Where did you work?”
“Bucket of Blood Saloon and the Silver Dollar.”
“Ah, yes. What a view out the back window of the Bucket of Blood.”
“It is if you like to look at cemeteries” was Seth’s cryptic reply.
“Virginia City is a wild mining town, although the boom has already come and gone.”
“Not completely,” Seth countered. “They’re still finding bodies of pure silver down deep under the town. The Ophir Mine and the Consolidated are still in business.”
Longarm nodded, satisfied that Seth was at least telling the truth about where he’d come from. “Were you a bartender at those big saloons?”
“I did whatever was needed, but mostly I was a bouncer.”
Seth was of average size and well built but didn’t fit the mold of a large and very physical bouncer. Former bouncers Longarm had known had fist-busted noses, and their hands were generally flat-knuckled, but Seth’s hands were almost delicate and his nose was thin and straight.
“So,” Frankie Virden said before Longarm could ask another question, “I suppose you and your wife will be leaving tomorrow for Lees Ferry and that murder investigation?”
“That’s right. Do you know anything about it?”
Virden shook his head. “Miss Blue and I came in from Flags
taff on the same stage with you. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. But you’ve been up here at your hotel off and on for months. I just thought you might have had a guest passing through who had some information that I’d find helpful…or that you and Miss Blue had been to Lees Ferry yourselves and heard all about those prominent missing tourists or the murders.”
“No, afraid not, Marshal,” Virden said, reaching for a cigar. “But I’m sure you’ll find out everything you need to know when you get there tomorrow afternoon. Are you feeling stronger?”
“Strong enough,” Longarm replied. He looked across the table at Al Hunt. “But like you, Al, I sure don’t want to go down that mighty river and over all those rapids.”
Hunt managed a smile and concentrated on his dessert. There was a maid that worked part-time in the kitchen, and although she was older and quite heavy, with a big mole on her chin that sprouted black hairs, he’d charmed her into bringing him a little something to drink in his room after dinner, and he was sure he could mount her for an extra dollar. The thing of it was that it was hard to think of mounting Shirley when right at this table sat two much younger and more beautiful women. But he still had hopes of getting between the legs of the marshal’s wife, and there was always Carrie Blue to think about.
“Well,” Carrie said, standing with a yawn, “I’m going to turn in for the night. It’s been a long day.”
“So early, my dear?” Virden asked with surprise.
“Yes, I’m really tired.”
“Very well. I’ll be along later. I might be able to work up a poker game with Mr. Potter and Marshal Long this evening.”
“Not me,” Potter said quickly. “We’ll be joining the marshal and his wife on their way down to Lees Ferry tomorrow. Going to be quite the experience, and we’ll need to be at our best.”
“I understand,” Virden said. “And what about you, Marshal?”
“I’m not up to a game of cards tonight. Maybe on the way out of the canyon, when we make our return visit.”
“Very well. Seth?”
“Sure,” Seth told his boss. “I’m in.”
“I’ll play a hand or two,” Al Hunt offered.
